Ebony Bones rocks your hutong

West to East
Baltika to Tsingtao
Beef stroganoff to gong bao ji ding
Red square to Tiananmen square
Roubles to Rinminbi
Lenin to Mao
Moscow to Beijing
Na'zdrowje to Ganbei
Blini to Dim sum
Vodka Baikal to Vodka Chinggis Khan
Spasiba to Baialala
Kak dila to Ni hao

It was a wicked trip!

Arriving in Beijing, being greeted by a "vodka train" sign and right
off to a place where Ebony Bones rocks your Hutong. The whole place
was exploding. Imagine it's 1977, punk rock is born and you were right
there! That's what it felt like. Sweat dripping from the ceiling. The
crowd dancing and jumping like there was no tomorrow. Ebony Bones
cover "another brick in the wall" and the Chinese crowd goes mad. They
play Iggy's "now I wanna be your dog" and the place goes absolutely
ballistic. I am so happy that I start to cry. The best things are
happening in places where they are least expected. It was a wild
night. We head out into a warm Beijing night, laughing about
shanghai-wa vs. Beijing-wa in a cab with a chinese girl speaking with
an austrian accent, headed for the white rabbit, back to the hood
where Ben Sherman is always on sale and shots need to be tasted. A night to remember...

 Pet Conspiracy

 Pet Conspiracy

 Ebony Bones

 Ebony Bones

 Ebony Bones

 peeping tom

guidebooks

The trip requires a certain amount of research to be carried out before setting off.

You can download free cityguides in pdf format from in your pocket. Since they are for free, there are obviously lots of advertisements included but otherwise they are not bad at all, in particular if its a city you just pass through and don't want to spend money on a guide book. Also, when you left the place you can simply recycle them and don't need to carry them along. I always have a hard time letting go of real guidebooks. Inyourpocket guides are available for Minsk and Moscow (and many other cities).

For the Trans-Siberian Railway:
IMHO the two best guidebooks covering the railway are Bryan Thomas and the LP edition of the track.

City guides:
Moscow and Beijing mar the beginning and the end and deserve some more days and more extensive coverage.

For Shanghai I trust my personal city guide Shanghai-Sändi to lead me to the darkest alleyways and seediest etablissements.

The LP Mongolian country guide was purchased to do some pre-trip research but given the time I will get to spend there and the meetings with local vs. the weight to carry it, it will most likely stay home. sorry...

The small world atlas is a little book I tend to have in my bag which comes in handy if you meet someone and you want to show them which part of the world you're from, where you've been to, where you're going and to plan future trips.

There's an аппаратчик for that! Part II - getting around, getting by, getting what you want

Some more travelling аппаратчикs I installed on my iPhone before setting off:

Metro plans:
Metro Minsk (iTuneslink): Not the most sophisticated tube app, but it should do the job for a day. Also contains some POIs, restaurants and a map.

Moscow: Metropolitan (iTuneslink) and Moscow Metro (iTuneslink) are two apps I tried out to navigate the Russian capital.

Beijing: Beijing Metro (iTuneslink)

Currencies (iTuneslink) tells you how much your hotel room, bus ticket, souvenir, blini or beer is. Make sure to update exchange rates once in a while (done automatically when the app is started, but you're not always connected to wifi, are you?). Easy to use, good interface:

Mandarin phrasebook (iTuneslink): When I traveled China about 8 years ago the LP Mandarin phrasebook came in very handy, in particular when it comes to buying train tickets etc. It was also very well organized in sections and had some background information on all topics. Unfortunately I can't say the same about its electronic cousin. While it has the big advantage that you can quickly access the relevant topics and can actually play the matching mandarin voice, it lacks much of the background information the book comes with and seems to be less complete. Well, as long as it helps you finding the right party and a female doctor, I guess it does the job...

some food apps: On my first time in China I met some volunteers working for an NGO who gave me a "generic menu for Chinese restaurants". Basically a list of typical dishes written in Chinese with the corresponding English translation. The waiter had always great fun indicating what they could serve up from the list, called their colleagues and we all had a laugh until my gong bao jiding arrived. Now there are some apps that do the same, some better, some worse. I'll see how it works. I have not found one yet, that lets you take a picture of the Chinese writing on the menu and looks up the dish. That would be something, wouldn't it? Check these here out: China Menu (iTuneslink) easy to navigate lots of pics, cnMenu read (iTuneslink) reads the dishes in Chinese for you, but no pics, Chinese Food Menu (iTuneslink) good selection, but requires data connection.

some other useful аппаратчикs:

shazam (iTuneslink) works surprisingly well to identify music that is being played if there is not too much background noise. So if you plan to take the soundtrack home, play the song to the app and have it analyzed. Needs a data connection, so watch your roaming costs.

Ni Hao, my Chinese Visa!

The queues outside the Chinese embassy are impressive. It becomes apparent that this country is considered a destination by far more people than Belarus. You queue outside, get a ticket with a number and then you queue inside and wait your turn. Application for a tourist visa is pretty much straightforward: A filled in and signed visa application form, a pretty picture of yourself and a valid passport is all it takes. The visa was issued within 4 days (I applied on a Monday and could pick up the visa on Thursday). Express visas are possible at an additional fee (but those applications are according to a sign only accepted until 10 in the morning - which may be difficult if the queues are long and it's not your turn until after 10 am). Pick up is quicker, you do not have to queue but the guys let the people with a pink pick-up form in and straight to the counter where you pay (€33 in my case, but depending on your nationality this may vary) and get your passport back.

so here it is:

what a beauty, eh?

There's an аппаратчик for that! Part I - keeping in touch

Oh, iPhone, how did we manage to travel without you back in the days...?


Stay in touch and communication аппаратчикs:

Flickr: Take pics, upload pics, share the sights. Let them get jealous. Or worried.

(iTuneslink)













facebook:The facebook app, essential to keep up with the gossip from home. How could you survive without being in the know that Natasha is single now, Vladimir became a fan of "Vodka Putin" and - most important - what is happening on all those farms and in all these mafias out there? Never leave home without!!! (iTuneslink)

twitter: 140 characters.
A sign of life from the road or a shout out to the rest of the world. It probably won't become a trending topic, but at least it keeps you up to date with the headlines and keep your own journal of the road in a condensed fashion... (iTuneslink)











foodspotting: Food. Omnomnom. A major part of travelling. Remember that Blini in St.Petersburg? Or rather want to forget the Plov in Ashgabat? Food recommendations for the road and warnings for fellow travellers. Foodspotting is about dishes not restaurants. The application lets you picture, tag and place the food you had and upload it to the site. The site lets you search food by location. Sweet. Or Savoury. (iTuneslink)

skype: Get connected on WiFi and call other skype users for free of landlines (and in some countries mobiles as well) on the cheap. Need I say more?Many hostels and cafés offer free WiFi to their customers. The calling costs and rates can be found here.

You can charge your account online and have it topped up automatically once the remaining balance falls under a certain limit. You can also buy flat rate packages that allow you to call a certain country, continent or worldwide for a monthly subscription fee. The iPhone app allows you to access the numbers directly from the contacts list of your iPhone, so no awkward typing needed. Also, there's the possibility to set up a caller ID for free and to set it to e.g. your mobile number, so your friends and family can see who's calling and don't ignore the call because this weird number from Mongolia is showing up again. (iTuneslink)

audioboo: What I missed from previous trips was to take typical sounds home. Like the constant washing up of aluminium dishes at the Golden Temple in Amritsar where the pilgrims are fed 24 hours a day with free daal and rice. Or the shouting at Iranian Bus terminals. 
Or the haggling about a goat on Kashgar's livestock market. Or the debating of the buddhist monks in the courtyard of Sera monastery. Or the entrepreneur human telephonekiosks standing with a mobile phone chained to themselves on the streets of La Paz constantly calling "Llamada, llamada, llamada..." (which I first mistook for "Your mother, your mother, your mother..." and left me wondering why mum should be calling me here when she isn't even aware of my whereabouts). audioboo does just that (without telling your mum where you are hiding). Record a sound, name it and tag it and then upload it. audioboo also places a marker on a map where the recording was done. (iTuneslink)



Note: some of the аппаратчикs require an internet connection which may cost you an arm and a leg when abroad and roaming in a GPRS/3G network. Avoid costs by using the WiFi connection of your iPhone (where available) instead. You can disable data roaming in the settings of your iPhone.