Epilogue

Home. I've been back close to a month now, spending my days with seeing friends and family, being amazed by how many things have stayed the same and how many little things have changed and frankly doing absolutely nothing.

That last thing is not completely true, I am busy with some things but I'll come back to that later. The last couple of weeks of traveling were quite hectic and I honestly didn't have enough time do update this website.

But, to leave the Great Escape without it's appropriate ending would be a shame. So, here you have it: my final update.

To give you an overview of my adventures: I went from the middle of China all the way north to Xi'an and Bejing. After arriving in the capital of China I waited a couple of days for two friends that were making their way from Vietnam. Together with Jo and Cath I took the train from Bejing to Ulanbantor, the capital of Mongolia.

After a couple of days of touring the countryside, sleeping in tents and freezing to death, we took another train, this time to Irkutsk, Russia. From this outpost deep in Siberia we took our finally, four-day train to Moscow. And there, after have been away for close to fourteen months I caught a flight home.

I added two more travel updates. Click on the links below to access them.

The End Has No End Part I
The End Has No End Part II

I've been away for to 412 days (thirteen-and-a-half months or over a year), been to eight different countries (not including Hong Kong), seen al their capitals, and according to my own rough caluclations travelled over 14021 kilometers.

A lot of people ask me: what are you going to do now? Well, I like to tell them a little story before answering the question.

Ever seen that 1963 movie set in World War 2 about the Allied prisoners of war trying to escape from a German camp? It's a classic with actors like Steve McQueen, James Garner and Richard Attenborough (nowadays famous for his voice-overs in animal documentaries).

The best part is the character Virgil Hilts, an American officer played by Steve McQueen, who upon arrival in the camp immediately tries to escape. He gets caught pretty soon after his attempt and has to spent a fair amount of time in the cooler, the isolation cell. He is visibly distraught and at one point you question his sanity.

Every time Hilts is released he tries to escape. And every time he escapes he gets caught. And every time he gets caught he has to spend long, lonely days in the cooler. Hence his nickname: the Cooler King. During the big escape attempt (the Great Escape) he manages to get far away – one of the furthest actually, undoubtedly aided by his skills on a stolen motorcycle – but eventually he gets caught.

The movie ends with him being thrown in the same cooler again. You think he will cry and collapse, but he doesn't. He just sits down and smiles. And you know he's planning the next Great Escape.

Thank you for reading this Great Escape. I will be taking a small break, but don't despair. Keep an eye out. Before you know it you'll read about my next Great Escape.

Stephan Meijerhof

The End Has No End Part II

Mongolia was the first country in almost fourteen months that started to feel “less” Asian and more Western, in this case Russian. The people are bigger and taller (and the ladies quite attractive) and their dress sense more fashionable.


The capital (the coldest in the world) Ulanbantor is a weird mix between Mongolian architecture – meaning tents or gers as they are called – , ugly Soviet style apartment blocks and new glass and concrete high rises. But the best part of Mongolia is not in it's city (there are only three), but the countryside.

We’re just stopping over for a couple of days and the only reasonable way for us to get into that magnificent countryside was to take a tour. In this case it constituted of two old Minsk-vans, four-by-for and ten guys, including us three (me, Jo and Cath) and two fellow travelers we met in Beijing (Jack and Sherren). The other van was occupied by a couple of cool guys, mostly from Canada but including a Brazilian.


For four days we slept in gers (tents), ate with local families, didn’t shower and take camel and horse rides. The landscape in Mongolia is absolutely amazing. Wide open plains, mountains, deserts. We used to quip that Mongolia had the widest highway in the world, we would often just drive off the asphalt onto the steppes.

But we had a train to catch. This one from Ulanbantor to Irkutsk, a city in the middle of Siberia, Russia. It took us two days – the same amount of time from Beijing to Ulanbantor, but half the distance. Why? Well, I never had a border crossing take this long – twelve frikking hours being stranded in a desolate border station with absolutely nothing to do.


First thing I noticed was how European Siberia felt. I never experienced such a distinct boundary between two cultures. he moment we crossed the border everybody was white and when we got into the city it felt we were in some dingy little Eastern-European town.

Even though we were in middle of Siberia it was a bit warmer than Mongolia where the temperatures could drop to minus twenty. Two days of recuperating in Irkutsk gave us the opportunity to check out the deepest lake in the world: lake Baikal.


Bakail is quite a sight. The lake was still frozen and the ice was at least a meter thick. Frozen stiff after frolicking in Irkutsk we made our way back to the last leg of our journey. The four day train ride to Moscow.


It’s quite relaxing being in a train for that long. You don’t have to do anything. You sleep, talk to people, listen to music and smoke. Come evening you eat your instant-noodles and play drinking games with Russian military officers. Though I do have to say that after four days on that train, I was longing to get off.

And there she was: Moscow. An amazing city. Quite expensive, but the girls were beautiful and the beer was good. Too bad I slept in probably the worst hostel that I encountered during my whole trip. Four days on the train and four days in that hostel really made me wish I was back home.


But a little volcano in Iceland was messing things up. I was supposed to fly via Copenhagen, but because of the ash cloud the airspace above Scandinavia and later the Netherlands was closed. My brother had the same problem, but he was flying from Vienna together with his girlfriend.


Not wanting to get stuck in Moscow for any longer I quickly changed gears and booked a flight a couple of hours before I was suppose to leave to my new destination: Vienna. I was damn lucky. A hour and half before the airport in Vienna closed, I manage to arrive. Halfway home. The last twelve hours of my trip were spent in a rental car cruising along the highways in Germany. Dog tired and little bit trippy I finally arrived home around six in the morning.

An interesting way to end a very interesting journey.

The End Has No End Part I

In the last installment I was in Taiwan. That feels like a world away – which, technically is true. I've spent an extraordinary amount of time traveling in the last two weeks, just to get to that particular place at the right time. Hours and hours on end in the train, or the bus, a lot of boredom, but also a lot of laughs and drinks with fellow travelers and friends.


To give you short overview of my travels since then: I got back to Hong Kong, crossed the border into China and made my way to Guilin, famous for it's karst mountains and spectacular views. From there I got a bus to Changsha, a non-descript Chinese city which only claim to fame is being close to the small village where Chairman Mao was born.


The reason I went there was because I wanted to meet up with a very good French friend from Vietnam, Cedric, who was staying in this city with his American-Vietnamese girlfriend Kim. It was a great deal of fun seeing my former housemate and to celebrate my birthday with him. Fortunately, we were taken out for traditional dinners (which in China involves a lot of drinking) by the host family of Kim. They even bought me a birthday cake; I can't remember the last time I had one.



After spending a good amount of time in Changsha, I spent close to twenty hours in the train to check one of the “must-see places” in China: The Terracotta Army in Xi'an. Thousands upon thousands of clay soldiers buried by the emperor that first unified China two millennium back.


Tasked with guarding the his royal highness in the afterlife, they still form a spectacular sight lined up row on row in battle formation. It took the emperor close to thirty years to build this unusual tomb, and thirty years after it's discovery new pits with broken and toppled over warriors are still being found.



The big prize was in sight. After another night train, I finally found myself in Beijing, the capitals of capitals and what a lovely place it was. My time there was defiantly too short for the great amount of sights in and around the big city. In no particularer: Tianemen Square (in Dutch, Plein van de Hemelse Vrede), the Forbidden City, the Temple of Heaven and a ten kilometer hike on top of a ruined but authentic stretch of the Great Wall.



Beijing was another meeting point. This time two Brits, Cath and Joe, both former colleagues of mine from my time teaching English in Hanoi. We've been together ever since, because all three of us were planning to do the same route back home.

The great Trans-Siberian railway. In general, it's more popular to do it in the eastern direction, from Moscow to Beijing, rather than the other way around. I guess it has to do with logistics, it's quite difficult to obtain Russian tourist visa's, though I got lucky when I managed to get mine in Hong Kong.



From Beijing to Moscow, the train takes seven long, ardenous days. But we were quite interested in Mongolia, so we decided to have some downtime in country best known for it's retarded kids (I know, bad joke) and that great military leader and “barbariannn” Chingis Khan (pronounced as Jingis Ghaan).

For even more adventurous adventures go the second installement!

The End Has No End Part II