Our ship docked in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, USA and we hightailed it to the closest Amtrak station. From there we bought tickets on the next north-bound train and then waited at the station for five hours until it left. What we thought might be a scary experience turned out to be a good time, people came up simply to chat with us and ask where we were from.

Amtrak is a special kind of transportation. It takes great patience to navigate the isles of any Amtrak train; you’ll saunter past drunks, felons, children, people so large their bodies cascade over the arm rests, and hill-billies. We encountered all of these on our 15 hour ride to South Carolina. The most noteworthy incident being the act of purchasing two $6 dollar sandwiches with rotten salad and fermented cheese and then listening to a group of hill-rods discuss politics as they stuffed handfuls of chips into their mouths.

We arrived in Columbia, South Carolina at 4am. Now, for people not from America, 4am is not the best time to be walking around near train tracks. Nevertheless, we forewent the ridiculous cab costs and decided to walk to a hotel. Little did we know, Hurricane Ida was swooping towards Columbia in full fury. We were about a mile from the train station, loaded down with our backpacks (which, funny enough, we had weighed in at over 60 lbs each) and additional bags for our carry-on luggage. In short, we were carrying about 80lbs each. It started to drizzle, so we got out our umbrellas and thought nothing of it. Then the rain came in harder. Then the rain came in sideways. Then the rain came up from the ground, and circled around us, whipping our hair into our eyes (well, mine, not Mike’s!) and drenching us. We ducked into a bus stop to wait it out. It was 4:30am.

We sat in the bus stop, frustrated, soaking wet, and shivering. I had just finished reading a Bill Bryson book that detailed how people die from hypothermia. This wasn’t looking good, and to top it off we were waiting in a bus stop in the middle of town with no hotels in sight.

At 5:00am a lone bus rushed past us and then slammed on its breaks and backed up to the bus stop. Two drowning rats looked back at him with saucer-like eyes. He urged us quickly in the bus and then navigated to a place in town where we could wait before jumping on a connecting bus at 5:30 to reach the hotel area. He was so friendly and chatty that we warmed up simply from being around him. The connecting stop came all too soon and we were back out in the rain (which was coming now, it seemed, from all directions as if targeting only us).

One umbrella was totaled, having been turned inside-out by a gust of wind. The other was being peeled from the frame by the sideways rain. As ridiculous as it was, it became funny. We waited under the overhang of a Exxon gas station until a rather unfriendly lady told us to leave, “we have a no loitering policy.”

The bus was late, but once it finally arrived we were so happy we didn’t care. We jumped on board only to discover we were the only people of European decent riding that early. The driver, a friendly and talkative lady, began to sing religious hymns, and the bus was her congregation, they followed along until the whole bus was singing. Each time the driver came to a new stop she said goodbye to everyone by name, and picking up new people she tried to learn as much about them as possible. I wont say she was an angel, but as ridiculous and drenched as we were she swooped in on her bus and saved the day, then cheered us up with a sing-along to boot.

She dropped us off at the front door of our hotel and even pointed out a few places we might want to shop or eat along the way. At the hotel, a friendly receptionist allowed us to check into our room, which we had reserved for later that day, at no charge. Not ONE other place we have traveled would have allowed us to do that!

So, what do you need to survive the East Coast alone, over burdened and drenched at 4:00am? Columbia City bus drivers and hotel staff so friendly and caring they bend the rules to help people in need. It is so good to be back in America, by far it is the best place we have traveled thanks to how much locals help out.

We decided to take the night train from Istanbul at 10:00pm across the western boards to Bulgaria. We planned to disembark before Sofia in Bulgaria’s most relaxed city, Plovdiv. The train pulled into the station in Istanbul an hour early and we began to panic a bit at the sight of the metal beast. It was covered from head to tail in graffiti and the conductor was hanging onto the outside of the train, with his right arm reaching into the train presumably to steer. We immediately had a flash back to the horror we experienced on the Kazakh trains that looked equally rusty.

Nevertheless, we loaded ourselves into our compartment. We had spent a bit extra for a sleeper cabin for the three of us, so we were thrilled about the train ride. We talked with the cabin attendant, who ended up being the nicest person we’d met in recent weeks, and he helped us get settled in. Our cabin had three bunks, a small table, and a door to block out all outside sounds. It was perfect, the cabin attendant wasn’t corrupt, and the train left exactly on time. What more could one ask for?

We played cribbage for a few hours and drank a bit of the Cpt. Morgan I had received for my birthday a few weeks earlier. When the tracks began to deteriorate and the clock struck midnight we decided to crash for the evening and I scampered up an unstable ladder to the top bunk.

I woke up at 5am with a start realizing we were not moving. The cabin attendant came into the room and told us we were at the Bulgarian border, and to leave all of our belongings and follow the crowd to customs and border check. This was the first time that we had been asked to disembark from the train for customs, and we were a bit hesitant to just leave our belongings in the cabin. Without other options, however, we grabbed our passports and stood in line to receive a big blue stamp in our passport. “You have now exited Turkey”

I fell back asleep in the top bunk almost as soon as my head hit the pillow. I knew we had to be awake in ten minutes to go through Bulgarian customs and border control, but it was impossible to stay awake. I woke up with my arm outstretched and a Bulgarian military man grabbing the passport that was still in my clutches as I slept. He smiled and stamped the page and put the passport back in my hand. I stuck it under my pillow and was asleep again before he got the cabin door shut.

We arrived in Plovdiv by 11am and since we had no Bulgarian Leva to walk to Old Town to find our hostel. We got lost a few times in the winding, cobblestone streets and I got to try out my Russian again after a month of hiatus to ask how to get to Old Town. We found it after a long, grueling walk with our packs and were overjoyed at the atmosphere at the hiker’s hostel. People were milling around, playing cards, reading and just chatting. We dropped our stuff and started chatting with people to hear their adventures. It turned out one of the guys in the hostel (who had also been on the night train) was in Cappadocia with us a few weeks prior. Small (traveler’s) world. We settled in to enjoy a relaxing day and see the town in the afternoon.

Step one:  Leave with too much stuff in your bags and pull every muscle in your back and neck.

Step two: Backpack to post office to mail a laptop and other stuff that is too heavy. Why did Mike pack a history textbook?

police

Step three:  Hail a cab during rush hour on the Chinese May 1st holiday.

Step four: Share a bottle of Jamison with friends.

Step five:  Forget to eat dinner while consuming Jamison.

Step six: Try to hail a cab again during rush hour and then bribe the driver to drive on the sidewalk to get us to the train station.

Step seven: After bribe attempt, realize that your train leaves at 6:25 not 6:45.

Step eight: Arrive at train station at 7:00 and sit on bag with beer until police blow whistles in your face for loitering.

Step nine:  Laugh when girlfriend gets in whistle blowing contest with the police using your emergency whistle.

Step ten: Convert to Buddhism after they exchange tickets for the train for the following day for free.

Step eleven:  Check into hostel in the city in which you have lived for the last year and a half.

Step twelve:  Get lost in that same city looking for friends who are still drinking from the Jamison incident, and find them at local all-you-can-drink brewery to discuss the tenants of libertarianism and wind energy.

Step thirteen:  End up at a classy bar in travel pants that zip off in three different places to have someone tell you that you really need to get your life together…after noticing aforementioned zip-off pants.

Step fourteen:  “I’m sure something else will happen so lets leave this one open.”

Travel tip:  You can exchange your train tickets!  I never knew you could do this.  You definitely could not do this in the states, at least for free.  Perhaps we just looked that pathetic.  Go to window 13 at the shanghai ticket office to exchange your tickets.

Top Four Places We May Consider Living

As the journey to Ashgabat approaches, careful planning is necessary.  We also need to plan for what we will do when we get return, and where we would like to go.  We will travel through some of our favorite places in China and will certainly discover more as we go.  With jobs scarce, careful consideration needs to be given to choose the next destination.  Also, just for fun I have listed the top 5 places I would consider moving to and living for the next year or two.

XinJiang

Easily a favorite of mine, the Taklamakan Desert is fabled for expeditions and discoveries; from Maro Polo to Sven Hedin and Aurel Stein, lost cities and ancient ruins are splattered across the desert.  Arguably the harshest desert in the world, surrounded on the west by the Himalayas and the Gobi Desert to the far East, crossing the Taklamakan Desert of XinJiang Provence, China has been a long lasting goal in my mind.  With some of the friendliest people I have ever encountered, Turpan, Urumqi, the capital, and Kashgar – the famous Silk Road trading outpost – would be great places to spend a portion of one’s life.

Uzbekistan

Easily a road less traveled for most westerners, Uzbekistan, a former Soviet Republic, is one of the most remote “Stans.”  With a wide variety of languages, cultures and ethnic groups, Uzbekistan would be a great place to discover something new.  Tashkent, the capital, would be a good place to start and find a job.  The famous shrinking Aral Sea is rapidly decreasing in size due to drastic misuses of water from the sea and Soviet cotton production.  Boats can be seen sitting in a sand dune where the harbor used to be 50 years ago.  Having a 50% Muslim population would also add to the illustrious and interesting nature of this possibly misunderstood and understudied country.

Thailand

Considered the vacation hot spot for Australians and many Europeans, much like the Caribbean is for North Americans, Thailand is a tropical paradise.  With several islands, forests, beaches and sunshine, Thailand would be a significant change from the smoggy air of Shanghai, China.  Although Thailand is currently suffering some political upheaval over their democratically unelected prime minister, it is still a safe and desirable place to live.  Famous for Muay Thai boxing, several areas in Thailand host Muay Thai training camps to give foreigners the change to learn this incredibly powerful art.  For $3500 USD, one can live and learn Muay Thai for one month.  Many foreign companies have set up branches or offices in Thailand because of labor costs and simply for the desire to live on the ocean.

Ecuador

Right smack dab on the equator, another warm beautiful country, perhaps not as frequented by travelers as Thailand, Ecuador bosts great culture and history on the otherside of the world.  With thousands of years of Incan hisotry, World National Heritage sites like the Galápagos Islands, and massive diversity in climate because of the different elevations, Ecuador would be a great place to live – and learn Spanish.  Also having friends from Ecuador, makes is a very desirable place to consider.  Teaching Enlgish while learning Spanish would be a phenominal way to ride out the recession or just live regardless.

An Invitation to My Elevator Speech

Always looking for a way to improve the site, Abandon the Cube Travel Journal will be participating in a 31 day free online “Blog Optimization” seminar.  The elevator speech is the first section of this seminar and as the organization of the posts & goals of the site have been blurry over the last few months, this will hopefully help ATC (Abandon the Cube) and its readers understand what exaclty can be found here on the site and what will be available over the next few months.

[clearing of  throat noise awkwardly heard] An internet reader and the Abandon the Cube author uncomfortably exchange glances as the elevator doors close.

“So……,” Says the Internet Reader.  “What exaclty are you trying to do here?”  [Annoying elevator music heard in background] The ATC author, taking a deep breath, says:

Have you ever sat at work and dreamed of  abandoning your cubical and traveling the world?  We are living that dream so come live vicariously as we perpetually abandon our cubes.  The Abandon the Cube Travel Journal tells the stories, experiences, histories, methods, and costs of the adventures of Lauren and Mike.  They are quitting their jobs, again, and traveling until they find the next place they would like to live.  Abandon the Cube will contain a brief history and summary  of each country they visit, as well as their travel recommendations, tips and guides to follow the same roads less traveled.

Please also see the newly updated About Us page – contains the same information.

In the future the seminar will not be mentioned, but hopefully over the next month, readers will begin to see significant improvement.  We would like to invite you to contribute to this as well by leaving comments or recommendations in the comment section below the post.  Please let us know if there is anything that we should add, which would make the site more beneficial you (our readers).

A quick plug as well – if you have a blog and are interested in participating in this free seminar to optimize your blog, please go to: www.problogger.net.

Travel

How much would it cost to travel in Asia for a year?  This thought crossed my mind today as I was sitting in my office.  Like being back in grade school, my teachers refused to let me sit by the window because I would just stare outside all day and they would have to say my name multiple times before my head would turn.  Not much has changed since then as I am sitting in my office looking out the window.  Just ask Lauren, she will tell you how many times she has to say my name before I hear or acknowledged her – partially because I didn’t hear, more because I was thinking about something else, and probably because my hearing has gotten selectively more selective over the years.

Pondering bamboo scaffolding, how suspension bridges work, and what plant I would masticate as an antidote for…oh I don’t know, being shot by a poisonous frog dart like in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom; I fixated on travel for a long time this morning.  Now, all the previous thoughts being completely rational and normal for most people to have on a Tuesday morning in the office, how much would it cost to travel in Asia for a year?

This is really quite simple to answer, especially if you are already living in Asia and would not need to purchase a plane ticket.  Any Lonely Planet, not that I would recommend using them, will tell you that it is quite possible to get by on $20.00 USD a day in most Asian countries.  Even this is an inflated figure, as in many Southeast Asian countries you can easily get by for under $10 USD each day.  Including train travel expenses and the occasional treat, I think $20 USD is very fair.

I estimate that if I were to save up about 7,500 USD, I could travel for exactly 375 days, non-stop, for a year.  This was a really exciting thing to become fixated upon.  Lauren and I have no departure plans set yet, but these numbers are really fun to throw around in our heads for when we plan the Exodus and will probably affect how we go about doing it.  So much more to see and do!

“Do not tell me how educated you are, tell me how much you traveled.”

-  Muhammad

Yellow Crane Tower

Again we were awoken at 5:00am as we passed through the final of three gorges. This last gorge was vastly different than the previous two, and we were happy that we had decided to go topside. The cliff sides were covered in lush greenery like a scene from Jurassic Park, and we took out our binoculars to watch for monkeys. After an hour the sun began to rise, and we joined the Swiss in the dining hall for boiled eggs and waterlogged rice. We continued our previous discussion of religion in Switzerland, noting that the Swiss pay taxes to the Church via the government. I pondered how un neutral this was, but decided not to point this out. We talked about neutrality for a long time, and though I had always admired the Swiss for being internally focused, I found neutrality to be a double edged sword. It protected the people, but it also meant they turned their backs on the world when it sometimes needed it. A truly confusion conundrum. After a leisurely meal the Swiss got off the boat to see a monument, we stayed on board and played cribbage overlooking the hillsides. The stop was the final day trip before the end of the cruise, but we had heard roomers that the stop was largely bullshit, another tourist trap selling plastic Olympic goods. The Swiss returned and sat with us in the windy sunshine and laughed at what a joke the last sight had been. It was a fake dragon boat race that lasted less than two minutes, but they had been forced to march at top speeds up a large hillside to see the race from afar. After a few warm beers and more discussion with the Swiss, we packed up our room and got off the boat. It had been an interesting four days, but I don’t think I would ever recommend the ‘cruise’ to anyone. At least not anyone I liked.

We boarded a bus for Yicheng, a nearby city where we would be able to buy train or bus tickets to Wuhan, and then back to Shanghai. We found Yicheng a beautifully modern and clean city that resembled, in many ways, the US mid-west. Our bus passed through a housing district of large brick mansions facing the river, and we watched, mouths agape, as the luxury passed behind us. Apparently black gold had made this village prosperous, that coupled with a constant stream of disembarking tourists had elevated the city. We rumbled towards the bus stop where we bid farewell to the Germans and the Swiss, and boarded another, more crowded bus that smelled of vomit and was full of flies. This bus would take us 5 hours to Wuhan.

Arriving in Wuhan near 21:00 we began walking aimlessly down a large street near where our bus had abandoned us. Curiously, we spotted the German couple down the road and hurried to catch up with them. They had arrived an hour earlier and had checked into a hostel down the street. We followed them to the hostel, checked in and then set about devouring a round of beers with the Germans. We took a cab to look for western food, but ended up in a Chinese buffet hall when we realized it was too late for most restaurants to be open. Returning to the hostel after a tasty meal- our first in five days- we slept soundly and awoke refreshed at 10:00, the latest we had slept since leaving Shanghai.

After a nice breakfast at the hostel we went to the Yellow Crane Pagoda where, for 50Rmb one can stroll along the gardens and climb the pagoda where Li Bai had been humbled by former masters and an amazing view of the river. We spent the afternoon talking about American politics and slowly walking through the shade of the bamboo. Resting often, we felt close to the Chinese of old who had had a lifestyle of learning and growing. After the pagoda, which is a beautiful spot in Wuhan I’d highly recommend, we returned to the hostel to spend the afternoon resting in the sunshine. Mike found an abandoned guitar and he strummed songs and sang all afternoon in a cove in the hostel. I read Empire of the Sun, a gift from a Shanghai friend I had recently received for my birthday, and we whiled away the hours sipping beers and relaxing. We ate a nice hostel meal that was the largest array of foods we had seen in ages, and dined until our bellies hurt. At 17:00 the Germans appeared and we decided to share a cab to the train station. Once we arrived the Germans bought another round of beers and we chugged them on the platform and shook hands and exchanged phone numbers and emails. Traveling in china always produced friends of necessity, but this trip had been very good to us, and we adored the Swiss and German couples we had met on the trip. We boarded the night train to Hangzhou, and were amazed at the modernity we were faced with. This was the cleanest and nicest train we had ever been on, and we stayed up playing cards and drinking cheap beer until the lights were turned off and we crawled up into our top bunks and slept.

-posted by Lauren.

Mountains rose up from the land like rude interferences to local farming as hills were chipped away into terraces in a massive attempt to convert the fertile soils of the hillsides into useful space. We gazed out the windows of the slow train, watching the landscape change from the water-logged and soggy Shanghai flatness to the mountains of South-Western China. The train ambled slowly and comfortably along under 50mph, a speedy pace for the relaxed passengers on board.

We watched small, gray and brown towns of under 20 houses pass by surrounded by fields of growing food and flooded rice fields. Suddenly, bright yellow and blue buildings with steeples on each rooftop rose out of the shrubbery to confuse us. The lavish colorful villages were mini Disney lands for the peasants on board used to stucco and mud buildings. We saw no people in these Disney-like towns, and no farmland surrounded the towered buildings. I wondered how they paid for their odd architecture, and where all the residents were, and how they had come to chose small church-like structures for their homes. Without a source for answers, we shrugged and resumed watching. The landscape quickly returned to the traditional gray and brown houses and fields, leaving us wondering if it had been an aberration.

Before leaving Shanghai, Mike and I both bought matching ridiculous pajamas. In the city, many people wander around at all times of day in full pajamas, we thought we would join this culture of relaxation, and donned the PJs before stepping onto the train. On board we purchased pomegranate, oranges, pistachios, grapes and noodles and, of course, a few bottles of beer. We sat playing cribbage on a small wooden peg board as we watched the scenery swoosh past. By 20:00 I had won three games to Mike’s zero, so he left the table to chat with a young Chinese man also traveling towards Chongqing. They dined on rabbit leg together as they chatted about women, jobs and China while I read in my bunk. Our six bed cabin was shared with a silent young woman in neon pink who said not a word for 31 hours, and a family of four (a couple, their 8 year old son, and a very limber 90 year old woman who bounded around the cabin grinning with her few remaining teeth). The small family shared three beds, and they spent their time entertaining the spoiled young boy, who spent his time irritating every breathing soul on board with screams, jeers and cries for candy.Throughout the train car, other children ran around quaintly playing with small paper toys while adults chatted with each other and socialized. It was a moving sewing circle, playground and men’s smoking card house all in one.

In the evening the lights were turned over at ten and we all climbed into our bunks for the night. Below Mike’s bunk a man snored louder than a chainsaw, and I worried for his health with such a strange and noisy condition. If he was asleep, then no one else in the cabin was. I lay awake all night, relaxed but tired, and listened to the helicopter-like noises of the fat man below Mike’s bunk. In the morning, noise and motion resumed at 6am when the lights promptly snapped on. The smell of instant noodles filled the cabin, as did the sounds of slurping and spitting. After trying to sleep for several more hours, we finally gave up and snacked on nuts and berries as we played a few more hand of cards. I won all but one game, leaving Mike quite dejected. Having tried train food the previous day, we were determined not to ever order it again, and listened to our stomachs growl as we traveled.

It was national day, Oct 1st, 2008. In 1949 on the same day the communists had officially come to power and announced the People’s Republic of China under Mao Zedong. To commemorate this occasion, all of China is given a week holiday each year in early October. For one week, all of China’s railways and highways are crowded with loud travelers eager to reach their families. It is known as the worst time to travel in China; an equivalent to Thanksgiving in the USA. We went anyways, eager to be a part of the hustle and noise. On the train, a more relaxed form of travel, we were surprised at how smoothly everything fell into place. We napped, gamed, read and blinked back the sun as we watched the scenery change. In all, it was a pleasant trip to Chongqing, and we arrived 31 hours later, a little tired and smelling of noodles, but quite relaxed and eager to start our tour of the city.

-posted by Lauren.