conversations.from: human
conversations.value: What could be a title for a story about Christopher, Europe, Australia with the genre: Engineering & Transportation, Automotive?
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: A title for this story could be 'Right Beyond the Horizon'
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me the first five paragraphs for this story.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Right Beyond the Horizon
  All rights reserved. The work may neither be entirely nor partially reproduced, transmitted or copied without explicit permission of the publisher.
  After having survived on little more than rice for weeks, I came across a small restaurant overlooking the Mekong River near the town of Vang Vieng. Advertised outside on a blackboard menu, I deciphered "Hamburgers". For the culinary-challenged traveller spending years in remote parts of Asia, the mere mention of simple Western dishes can evoke unparalleled cravings... and so I ordered. The burger was delicious.
  Upon leaving the restaurant I glanced upward to the tin roof of the establishment. There, neatly laid out in orderly rows, were dozens of large rat skins drying in the warm sun. Overcome by curiosity, I returned inside to question the waiter about the meaning of his odd rooftop collection. He replied with a single word: "Hamburgers."
  I might have felt nauseous, had they not been so irresistibly good. The following week I visited the restaurant daily to order my minced rat-in-a-bun.
  The lesson learned is an important one: had I initially known the burger was rat, would I ever have ordered? Would you? Probably not. We are all severely conditioned by our upbringing and the media: Colombia is dangerous, America is the "Land of the Free", Muslims are terrorists, "Aid for Africa" is good and rat-burgers cannot possibly be tasty. But how much of this, if any, is true? Travel has the ability to challenge your most fundamental ethical values and beliefs.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me four more paragraphs.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Standing atop a hill near Kirkenes, I have my first glimpse of Russia over the border. Grey smoke pours from a dystopian industrial site. Polluted air wafts between the cubistic concrete slabs of a grey housing project. I imagine grey people coughing their way to work, tired of a Soviet five-year plan gone horribly wrong. I pivot 180 degrees and look down at Norway. The sky is blue, homely red-painted cabins dot the beautiful scenery. "Why am I going to Russia?" I ask myself.
  Russia is not merely big, but massive. Spanning 11 time zones,2 it is truly a country where the sun never sets. The UK, for example, would fit snugly 13 TIMES into the single Russian republic of Sakha, with room to squeeze Ireland in as well. Despite various former Soviet republics recently gaining independence, Mother Russia is still by far the largest country on the planet.
  The border customs officer offers no welcoming greeting; his expression is as dour as the framed Putin hanging on the wall behind him. A few dozen forms in Cyrillic are signed, no questions asked, not that I could decipher them anyhow. For all I know I could have just conscripted myself to 10 years hard labour in some proverbial Siberian gulag. The barbed gate opens and we are waved through.
  My first bleak impression of Murmansk had been from a viewpoint atop a Norwegian hill. My second impression is no better. All colours have drained from sight and greyness engulfs the entire city. A Murmansk documentary filmed in black and white would differ little from witnessed reality. Rob and I check in to the most central hotel, a drab megalith building seemingly constructed to confirm the notion that "size matters". Its 500-plus rooms are as cubical as the building itself, and offer little more than a well-worn mattress, a naked light bulb, a stained sink and a flickering television set. We wipe a circular area clean of grime on the pane and peer through. So this is it: Welcome to Russia.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me the last five paragraphs.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: The past months have humbled me to the point of humiliation. Wherever we travel, people shower us with presents, expecting nothing in return. A teenager knocks on our window at a non-functioning traffic light and hands us a cassette by the latest Russian rock band. "So you remember us," he smiles, before turning away; a fisherman presents us with his catch of the day; a businessman from St Petersburg passes us a Russian street map CD-Rom... T-shirts, stickers and postcards are piling up in our storage boxes. When visiting someone's home I have to be careful not to over-admire any household item as it might be offered later as a present. We give in return what we can, knowing the exchange is not in proportion. Many Russians have next to nothing. The T-shirt may be a week's wages, the egg is more precious than a dinner invitation to the Savoy in Paris. Rural Russia only functions nowadays because the people have adapted a lifestyle of bartering. Essentially, it's a moneyless society. Teachers are paid with farm produce from students' families, the village mechanic might have his leaking roof repaired by a former customer and the doctor may find a pile of firewood delivered to his banya. The odd ones out are the police, disliked by all. They may not have received a government salary for months. With nothing to barter, they rely on traffic-fines and corruption as a source of income for their families.
  We camp wild at roadsides behind bushes and eat our meals at "Stolovayas", the Russian canteen-equivalent. Only two dishes are ever available, making a menu choice easy. It's either a miniscule slab of dead cow with cabbage, or "borscht" surprise: a traditional stew with unidentifiable ingredients. Wash it down with a cup of watery Nescafé, and you are on your way again. Entering any shop, you will find three queues of equal length. The few wares are shelved behind counters, out of a customer's reach. At queue one, you point out the items you wish to purchase before queuing at queue two, where one is told the price and expected to pay. At queue three, you finally receive your goods. God forbid you forgot that tin of tuna; one would have to endure the whole procedure again.
  Just beyond Perm-36, a former Soviet gulag and one of the last to close down in the late 1980s, an almost imperceptible incline leads through the forested Ural Mountains. Without a detailed map, we might have missed them completely. Only the slight decrease in Matilda's speed indicates we are heading uphill. On the top stands a stone pillar: "ASIA" it reads, and on the far side "EUROPE". We switch off the engine for a moment of solemn celebration. It seems we have already come so far, yet the distances deceive: we are still seven time zones from Vladivostok. Better get moving... a turn of the key and we roll onward, always towards the rising sun.
  The sound of an approaching train breaks the evening silence. I watch as a long, regular row of passenger carriage lights briefly illuminates our campsite, a staccato flashing with glimpses of faces staring out from behind the windows. They too are going to Vladivostok, and in a week the passengers will be wetting their feet in the Pacific. For us, Vladivostok is still several months away.
  For days now we've been camping near the tracks laid over a century ago. It took 25 years for convicts and the military to complete the 9,441-kilometre line – their diaries reveal the suffering they endured:
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Add another sentence about Russia, running.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: The past months have humbled me to the point of humiliation. Wherever we travel, people shower us with presents, expecting nothing in return. A teenager knocks on our window at a non-functioning traffic light and hands us a cassette by the latest Russian rock band. "So you remember us," he smiles, before turning away; a fisherman presents us with his catch of the day; a businessman from St Petersburg passes us a Russian street map CD-Rom... T-shirts, stickers and postcards are piling up in our storage boxes. When visiting someone's home I have to be careful not to over-admire any household item as it might be offered later as a present. We give in return what we can, knowing the exchange is not in proportion. Many Russians have next to nothing. The T-shirt may be a week's wages, the egg is more precious than a dinner invitation to the Savoy in Paris. Rural Russia only functions nowadays because the people have adapted a lifestyle of bartering. Essentially, it's a moneyless society. Teachers are paid with farm produce from students' families, the village mechanic might have his leaking roof repaired by a former customer and the doctor may find a pile of firewood delivered to his banya. The odd ones out are the police, disliked by all. They may not have received a government salary for months. With nothing to barter, they rely on traffic-fines and corruption as a source of income for their families. 
  We camp wild at roadsides behind bushes and eat our meals at "Stolovayas", the Russian canteen-equivalent. Only two dishes are ever available, making a menu choice easy. It's either a miniscule slab of dead cow with cabbage, or "borscht" surprise: a traditional stew with unidentifiable ingredients. Wash it down with a cup of watery Nescafé, and you are on your way again. We refill our water tanks from wells in the villages we pass through – there is always one in every street, because few houses have the luxury of running water – then head to the local kiosk to restock on edibles, an experience in itself for a first-time visitor to Russia. Entering any shop, you will find three queues of equal length. The few wares are shelved behind counters, out of a customer's reach. At queue one, you point out the items you wish to purchase before queuing at queue two, where one is told the price and expected to pay. At queue three, you finally receive your goods. God forbid you forgot that tin of tuna; one would have to endure the whole procedure again. 
  Just beyond Perm-36, a former Soviet gulag and one of the last to close down in the late 1980s, an almost imperceptible incline leads through the forested Ural Mountains. Without a detailed map, we might have missed them completely. Only the slight decrease in Matilda's speed indicates we are heading uphill. On the top stands a stone pillar: "ASIA" it reads, and on the far side "EUROPE". We switch off the engine for a moment of solemn celebration. It seems we have already come so far, yet the distances deceive: we are still seven time zones from Vladivostok. Better get moving... a turn of the key and we roll onward, always towards the rising sun. 
  The sound of an approaching train breaks the evening silence. I watch as a long, regular row of passenger carriage lights briefly illuminates our campsite, a staccato flashing with glimpses of faces staring out from behind the windows. They too are going to Vladivostok, and in a week the passengers will be wetting their feet in the Pacific. For us, Vladivostok is still several months away. 
  For days now we've been camping near the tracks laid over a century ago. It took 25 years for convicts and the military to complete the 9,441-kilometre line – their diaries reveal the suffering they endured: