Around the World in 50 days by Con Bach
Introduction
| As a young boy I was always intrigued
with the stories of Magellan who first circumnavigated the world in
1522. It took him just over 3 years to accomplish this. In 1580 Sir
Francis Drake circumnavigated the world in 2 years and 10 months. Now
the astronauts go round the world in just 90 minutes. I always wanted to
go round the world but I wanted to do it differently. I wanted to go
round the world using the existing railways as much as I could because
of my interest in railways as I had spent most of my business life
working for a major Canadian Railway. In this way I would go slower than
the astronauts and faster than Magellan and Drake but I would have an
opportunity to see the country, meet and talk to people along the way. On my trip I flew from Toronto to Saint Petersburg on the West Coast of Russia and traveled on Trans Siberian Railway over to Vladivostok on the East Coast of Russia. From there I flew to Vancouver on the West Coast of Canada and then traveled on the Transcontinental VIA Train back to my starting point of Toronto. I took a lot of photographs of the interesting and beautiful places that I visited on the way. I left Toronto on September 5, 1997 and flew to Frankfurt and then on another plane I flew to St. Petersburg. I left at this time so that I would be in time to see the fall colours in Russia. This time of year was immortalized in the famous poems by the revered Russian poet Puskin. While I was in Russia, there were celebrations commemorating Puskin and his famous poetry particularly about the fall. The Russian people quote Puskin a lot and I was fortunate to be able to appreciate his fine poetry as I can speak Russian. I was also fortunate to be able to speak to the Russian people and find out directly about their views on their current transition to a new market economy system. The Russian people were always willing to help me and were inquisitive about my life in Canada. I had a very good time with them during my month stay in Russia. My article on Round the World in 50 days has been divided into the following sections:
Click onto any of these sections to go to them directly. If you have any comments to e-mail please just click Con Bach. |
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World Map