The Astana Travelogue: Chapter One: Lastonia

I have decided to make a new series cataloging my travels. This will be the first chapter.

While sitting at a desk in the modern cabin of my forest estate in Oregon, I was browsing the Internet. I came across a country I had never noticed before: Lastonia. It was a post-Soviet state, on the Baltic Sea, and one of the least-visited countries in the world. Along with some close friends, I packed my bags and headed to Portland International Airport.

After we made it through security at PDX, we would ride the plane toward France. The ride was relatively uneventful, except for the wonderful baguettes, but once we made it to Paris, things got interesting. In Charles de Gaule, we had a few hours before we needed to get on the other plane, so we went souvenir shopping. I bought a baguette, as well as a one-of-a-kind Hercule Poirot bobblehead made by a local craftsman to make Baptistegorce jealous. Thinking back on it, the $200 American dollars I spent on it was a waste of my money. My friends and I ate some more baguettes in the airport before boarding the next plane. This ride was also uneventful. We landed in Krakow, Poland, and boarded a rental car, where we drove up the highway to a small village in northeastern Poland. We negotiated with one of the locals to take us in his plane, and he agreed, until he found out where we were going. When one of us said the word Lastonia, his face paled. My friend jingled a bag of money in his face, which led him to eventually agree to fly us there. The plane was in poor condition, but that did not cause any major problems. The first 99% of the ride went fine, but at the very end, once we were in Lastonian airspace, the plane abruptly plummeted to the ground. That was the last thing I remembered.

After the plane crash, I awoke on something that was somehow hard and soft at the same time-it later turned out to be a bed filled with rocks, but that is irrelevant. I was in some sort of village hospital, and my friends were lying on other beds. Two doctors were treating us. Everybody else had bruises from the plane crash, and I assumed that the same was true for me. I asked what had happened, and one of the doctors shrugged it off.

"Oh, it was just our anti-aircraft mechanism malfunctioning," she said, as if this were an everyday thing.

I nodded. "Are we not supposed to be here?" I asked.

She sighed. "You were supposed to land in the actual airport a few kilometers away to go through customs, but we kinda shot you down on accident, so you can do that in a few hours once you are feeling better."

"Um...thanks," I said. "I am really interested to see this country."

She smiled. "You're welcome."

Once we were mostly healed by the doctors, the 5 of us boarded a car and travelled along a gravel road away from the village. The car was old and malfunctioning, so it took about 20 minutes to travel a mile or so through the foothills toward the airport. I could see many other small villages from the high vantage point in the road, some close by, others not. They were all connected by gravel roads with occasional cars. I also noticed something else. We were ringed by mountains. Occasional passes in the mid-sized peaks allowed a way out by foot, but other than that, airplanes were the only way out-and they seem pretty dangerous, judging by the bruises all of us had gotten-and I had a feeling we were pretty lucky.

Once we came to the airport, the car stopped and we all climbed out. The airport had two runways, a small hangar, and four outbuildings. One was labeled either "Customs" or "Giraffes" in Lastonian. I was pretty sure it was the first, as we were walking toward it, but my Lastonian was so bad, it could have been any number of things. (Although they were pretty good about animal rights, so I do not think they would lock giraffes in a building that size.) We walked inside, and I found out that it was, in fact, a customs office.

Inside the office, two customs officials checked our passports and listened to our story. They promised to fix the anti-aircraft system someday and welcomed us to the country. We were given pamphlets of Lastonia, and they wished us good luck. We climbed back into the car to return it to the village.

After we were back in the village, it was nearing nighttime. The locals offered us a place to stay in the town center, and we took it. The accommodations were relatively nice, considering the lack of money in the country. From what I could see, in the other homes it was about the same. Most villages had running water, some electricity, and indoor plumbing. It did not work perfectly, but it still benefited the country.

After we had slept through the night, we got a good look at the pamphlets. There were lots of sites to see, and we picked the most interesting and unique ones. Here are the two sites that we picked.

The cat cafe was closer to us, so we decided to hit it that day and the desert the following day. The cafe was 3 hours from the village, so we went to a bus stop to wait.

At the bus stop, we checked the schedule. According to our watches, it would arrive in 2 minutes. It was a few minutes late, but it stopped for us. We boarded and filled the front seats. It could fit about 20 people, and there were no others, so we had plenty of room. The driver drove down a road toward a highway, with occasional cars zooming down it. After a 1-hour ride on the highway, he turned the bus onto another road toward a forest. We rode down the bumpy path for 5 minutes until we heard gunfire. We all jumped under our seats and the driver drove faster, turning onto another path next to a sign labeled "Fallout Shelter".

"Sorry," he said. "It is just the rebels again."

"Isn't this cause for concern?" I asked. "You know, a revolution going on!"

He just laughed and drove us down the road toward a bunker. It was labeled with a symbol I did not recognize, but seemed to resemble the radiation symbol somewhat. It might have been the radiation symbol worn off and painted over badly.

We entered the shelter and sat down on the couches. There were two of them, along with a stock of food. I locked the door and we waited as gunfire sounded outside.

"How long has there been a revolution going on here?" I asked the bus driver.

"About 3 years," he said. "The guerrilla fighters don't do much, mostly just shoot at soldiers and blow things up randomly. Only about 20 people have died in the 3 years of fighting."

"That is still a lot," I said. "Why do you not try to take them all out?"

He snorted. "Does that look easy? They make up at least 10% of the population, and could be anyone. And we don't exactly have a good military. 5% or so of our soldiers are with the rebels."

"What do they even want?" my friend asked, his face puzzled.

"They want to overthrow our president," someone said. I noticed it was a small child sitting in the bunker. He was about 6 years old.

"Have you been here this whole time?" I asked.

He nodded. "The rebels hate our government. They want a new one. And they will stop at nothing."

At that very moment, something exploded.

The explosion was a mile or so away, but we knew we had to get out. I unlocked the shelter and the 7 of us rushed outside. And that was when the driver pulled a gun on us.

"You are not going anywhere," he said.

I really wanted to go somewhere, so I did not listen to him. I had a weapon. I knew some martial arts. At the time, I had only done a week of lessons, but that seemed to be enough. I kicked the bus driver in the groin and he fell down. I grabbed the gun and we ran to the bus.

One member of our group, my friend's father, drove it to a rural road. As we drove along the gravel and into the grassy foothills, we saw the sites of war. Occasional bodies of soldiers lined the road. Weapons lay on the shoulders. Burned cars sat in the middle of the road ahead of us. In the distance, in a small village, buildings burned and guns were fired.

"This is bad," I said. My friends nodded. The child agreed. "It has not been like this in years," he said.

After 20 minutes, we came to another highway. This time, it was more covered with cars. Some were burned or exploded, but most of them were driving in one direction-toward a mountain pass. In the other direction was a small city-a burning city. Among the cars was a convoy of tanks, with the seal of Lastonia's army on them. We joined the cars and drove for 20 minutes.

We finally made it to the mountain pass, where traffic was mostly stopped. About 20 soldiers stood at a checkpoint, guns out. A few walked over to us and raised their eyebrows. "What happened to the bus driver?" one asked.

"He pulled a gun on us and I beat him up," I said.

The soldier laughed. "Fair enough. Are you tourists?"

I nodded. "Yes. From the United States and Greece."

He nodded. "Okay. Now is not really the best time to visit, but welcome to Lastonia! We are all pretty friendly here, even some of the people who are trying to kill you!"

I laughed concernedly.

"Anyways," he said, "you are free to go. Have a nice trip."

The mountain pass did not lead out of the mountains, but into them. We were in a new range with many lakes. Roads crisscrossed the mountains, and the cars were driving down each of them. We picked one randomly and headed off toward a village. It was a 40-minute ride, and would have been a scenic trip had it not been during a war.

We eventually found a village in the remote mountains, and booked a room in a hotel. There were no other refugees there, and I did not think about why. But I would soon find out.

That concludes Chapter One of my travelogue! In the next installment, you can find out what happened to my friends and I, as well as the rest of the country.