Hi there! I'm Alex. From mid-April 2016, I'm travelling from Singapore to Denmark overland to eat at Noma, the world's best restaurant. Find out more about me here, or check out my latest posts below!
We caught the marshrutka from Mestia to Zugdidi after a hurried breakfast at 8am. From there, we arrived in Batumi a couple of hours later, a seaside resort town on the Black Sea near the Turkish border. Called by some the ‘Las Vegas of Georgia’, Batumi is one of the strangest cities I’ve ever visited….
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Dropped at the border with Georgia some 30km from Vladikavkaz, I approached the crossing on foot. A long, snaking line of cars and trucks backed up a few kilometres through the valley. The crossing is placed at the base of the Caucasus mountains, nestled in a deep rocky valley. Bored looking families wandered around, waiting…
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I spent the next three days in Moscow investigating various parks and museums – along with figuring out where to go next. Gorky park is Moscow’s version of Central Park; a good way to spend an afternoon, doing some reading as you watch skaters and rollerbladers zooming about. The park is excellently maintained with pagodas,…
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I spent my first few hours in Moscow wandering around in awe. After a year of skyscrapers, small apartments, ramshackle alleys, ‘Various Asian Buildings’ (from hammocks to bamboo huts), and, most recently, wooden Russian houses, I was now surrounded by impressive European architecture: carved façades, soft colours, and wide, planned streets. A Muscovite would scoff…
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This was it. The big one. Three nights, 61 hours, in third class. I arrived at the station, in front of me sat my new home/prison. It shone majestically in all its Soviet glory: a clunking, rattling metal rectangle inhabited by very bored-looking Russians, all smoking cigarettes on the platform. As you walk in, the…
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The train ride from Irkutsk to Krasnoyarsk, my first leg in 3rd class, was uneventful. Platzkartny, as it’s known in Russian, is 4-berth open compartments with two beds above the opposite window. It’s comfortable enough, and exclusively Russians. The carriage is almost empty the whole time; I’m alone in my 6-bed ‘section’. Each carriage has…
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