08.19.08

UB or not UB

Posted in General at 5:21 pm by Suraj

So we left Irkutsk - did I mention that the house was reeking of dried fish that morning?  We all decided to “enjoy the sunshine” and sat in the little park across the road until our transfer turned up.  Yet again it was Dmitri/Sasha/Alex/Vladimir/Boris  that met us and following the dictates of “the system” took us to the train. Nothing exciting on the way but let me tell you about the stinkin’ train.  Actually it didn’t stink it was pretty much the same as all the others.  This time as before we had two female provodnitsas one younger and one older.  It all seemed pretty normal until we got underway.  Did I mention that the girls were all struggling with a mystery stomach virus? One thing I noticed was that there was no paper in the toilet .. not a big deal when you just need to pee.  When you’re trying to expel food from any available outlet however … so in the middle of the night I’m woken to “Suraaaaaj? Do you have any toilet paper?”  Clearly one roll wasn’t enough for three bottoms.  So I got up and retrieved my toilet paper, in pristine condition, from its highly convenient location - In my pack which was in the luggage compartment beneath my bunk, sounds ok until account for the fact that my bunk is the lid of the compartment. I’m not sure that I was fully awake during the whole process but I did have enough presence of mind to tell them to keep it because I wasn’t getting up again.
Apparently they had gone to the provodnitsa and indicated the lack of paper but met with a look of dismissal.  It wouldn’t be so bad if you couldn’t see the pack of toilet paper in their cabin under the able while they told you there was none.  Clearly they were waiting to be paid.  I’d have used the money instead of the paper but their notes are about as clean as chinese small notes which in turn are about as clean as used toilet paper in a public toilet.  I suggested, in the morning .. because I had zero interest in the night, that perhaps they should have just used the provodnitsas cabin instead.  Sort of like mooning them but with extras.  Probably not a good idea though since we could have found ourselves ejected from the train in the middle of the Siberia.   Although that would have been a good story - if we had survived.
 
Eventually we made it to the Russia-Mongolia border and made it through without any great difficulty.  No difficulty but not without another sting.  At some point over night the provodnitsas had removed the tap from the samovar.  It’s been a while so I’ll refresh your memories - The Samovar is the big kettle that dispenses hot water used by all on board for tea/coffee/meals/washing out cups etc.  They then walked through the cabin holding a sign up saying that they required US$1 from each person for hot water.  A nice hand written sign done in blue felt-tip on rumpled paper - I’m sure it was very official and legitimate since the words were all spelled correctly although some were in the wrong spots.  At first we thought it was a joke and though of not paying up but it was soon clear that if everyone didn’t cough up nobody would be getting water.  US$1 = RUB25 = MGT1000 (at the time) but our payment options were US$1 or MGT1000 (Mongolian Tugrik) or RUB50 …. I’m sure it had nothing to do with the fact that we’d just left Russia and would be looking to get rid of rubles.  One of the other passengers asked if he could convert some of his dollars to rubles at that rate … strangely they said no.  So this little bit of highway robbery took place at the border while we were waiting for our passports.  Once we had all paid up they put the tap back on the samovar, clearly they needed US$48 to buy the tap.  One of the more enterprising travellers, a Brit, came around about 15 minutes later carrying a sign saying “Please pay US$10 for the safe return of your passports”.  We all had a laugh which helped to ease the pain or moreso the indignation.  Fortunately for all concerned we had our passports returned without any further requests for “fees” and we were into Mongolia.  The scenery is a lot of nothing … no really I mean nothing.  When people say rolling plains that’s what I think of. except minus most of the grass.  The journey into UB (Ulaan Bataar) was a bit tedious as we didn’t have any significant stops, they all seemed to be 5 minutes at most.  When we were supposedly about 20 mins out I was a little concerned because it looked like we were still travelling through the set of Mad Max.  It didn’t look like we were near a town let alone a Capital City.  I did see something quite strange though.  So most of you know what pick-a-part is.  For those of you that don’t - It’s like a massive junkyard that you pay a small fee to enter and then you wander around find whatever bits you need from various cars etc and then pay on exit for what you’ve extracted.  Ok so now you have a picture.  Imagine that with buildings .. yes you read that correctly - Buildings!
It looked like every pre-fab concrete building ever torn down was then neatly, sometimes not so neatly, dissected and then arranged by category in the desert.  There were window slabs, door slabs and just plain old wall slabs.  I would love to see how the put humpty back together again because I was under the impression that those structures gained their integrity from the steel reinforcements running through.  Just slapping bits back together again didn’t seem viable but then I’m not an engineer nor am I a Mongolian.
 
Now we were just five minutes out form the UB station and it still looked like we were in the middle of nowhere.  By now most of the passengers were out of their cabins and in the aisle hoping for a glimpse of this city that just didn’t seem to be there.  Five minutes later we were in UB station and you could have told me we’d broken down in the Gobi and I’d have believed you.
 
Ulaan Baator - Skip it if you can.
We spent two nights there on either side of our stay at the National Park.  On the first day our “guide” took us for a “City Tour”.  She didn’t really seem to know the city which helped a great deal.  She did know where the Parliament building was - Bonus! and she vaguely knew where there was a department store.  The Department Store is actually state run. Just a word of advice to anyone planning to go there …. take cash.  ATMs are about as common as people born in Sri Lanka that have lived in Australia and currently work in Macau - that’s right … there was ONE.  Ok maybe I exaggerate a little bit, there seemed to be a lot of ATMS by “a lot” I mean more than one but less than a dozen.  The only problem was that they were all Visa Electron and wouldn’t accept any of our cards.  We tried Citibank, Citibank Visa, BNU, ANZ and a few other all to no avail.  The only one that seemed to work was the one in the department store. Anyway back to the wonders of UB.  So we wondered through what appeared to be a post-apocalyptic town - no it’s not a spelling mistake I mean wondered because everywhere we went we’d be wondering if we were in some sort of alternate reality where Internet Cafes outnumbered ATMs.  The guidebook said Internet cafes were plentiful but clearly the author never actually walked into any of them.  If they had ventured inside they would have realised that it was just a sign, the buildings themselves were more often than not a burned out shell.  We didn’t really do much this day other than try and see what was about, we did visit a little temple where the highlight for me was a little chapel decorated with scenes from the tale “journey to the west” which is probably better known to you as the plot of Monkey Magic!
One other oddity was that there seemed to be a disproportionate number of Irish pubs and western styled restaurants for what looked like an extremely poor country/city.  Later on it was obvious where the money was - expat aid workers.  UN jeeps were scooting around all over the place and Mongolia receives a fair amount of aid from foreign nations and as a result there are a lot of expat workers in the city helping with the rebuilding.
 
The next day we headed out to the Terelj National Park where we were to stay in Yurts for a couple of nights.  We stayed at a place called Magic Rock - I’ll explain later.  It’s funny how you get somewhere and you think whooptidoo and then once you been there a while you wish you had longer.  I’ve attached a photo to give you an idea of what the scenery was.  It’s not even a special shot, it’s one I took on horseback at random.  It was very relaxing we even tried a bit of morning horse riding but it was short lived as Kelly is a bit nervous on a horse and Cara was terrified to start with and I’m surprised we were able to convince her to go along in the first place.  My horse seemed more interested in eating anything that didn’t move, and a few things that did, than following the rest of the pack.  This was also the place where we were introduced to Buuz.  Buuz is a steamed dumpling, sort of like gyoza, except each dumpling is about the size of lime.  It’s basically mutton tightly packed into a dumpling skin and steamed.  For those of you that haven’t tried mutton, it’s quite rich.  Trying having about 300g of that for dinner after you’ve had your pasta starter.  Soon we (ok the girls) came to dread dinner time as it meant we were going to be treated to more Buuz.  Even I could barely finish mine plus half of Kelly’s and some of Lisa’s.  Cara was lucky in that she had already said she was a vegetarian and funnily enough probably had the best Vegetarian meals of the trip while out in the Mongolian Desert.  That night we also made a trip out to visit one of the families in the nearby ger camp.  As usual I was the favourite tourist - because I’ll eat and drink anything and lots of it.  I think the lady of the house was surprised when I said I’d have more tea, it was boiled in a big vat and I was gulping while the others were sipping so I was feeling a bit deprived.  That night it was an interesting walk back to our yurts in the dark with only a torch and the Auto Focus Assist beams of our cameras to guide us.  More buuz for dinner, yay!  Most nights were spent swilling beer and playing Canasta.  Cara was an avid Canasta player and her aunt had given her a pack to take on the trip.  Many of the longer train rides were spent alternating between reading, sleeping, eating, playing canasta or playing 500.  I think Kelly and Cara are more the polite and gentle types whereas Lisa and I have mercenary inclinations.  This came through quite clearly when in the first few hands of Canasta, which is supposedly a longer term game of strategy, Lisa and I were always looking for the quick kill ..ahem I mean win.
One thing I love about being out in the middle of nowhere is that there are no streetlights to create that nasty glow which hides all but the brightest stars.  In the Mongolian desert with nothing but the moon in the sky it was quite easy to do a bit of star gazing.  Unfortunately Lisa decided to wear the rain skirt on the last day so our last night was spent under a cloudy sky, it did make for some interesting photos though. If you look closely at the moon photo you can see the yurts.  It was actually quite relaxing and I’d recommend it to anyone especially those of you who are more outdoorsy since it’s a great landscape to explore.  Soon the yurt adventure was over and we headed back to UB for what would be our final night in a city of our journey.
 
Our last day in UB was quite eventful.  We headed out to see The Monastery, I’d say the one and only tourist attraction in town after which it was time to catch up on emails and reconvene for dinner.  While waiting to meet the others Kelly and came across quite the spectacle in the middle of town.  It was the Mongol Rally.  It’s a charity event and basically involves getting from London to Mongolia in a car with engine displacement no more that 1.0L  As you can see from the photos it’s not limited to recent models.  It seems the standard supplies are water, beer and spare tyres.  We sat at a outdoor bar watching the various cars roll in, it looked like a great deal of fun … so…. who’s up for the challenge? I think it takes about two weeks ;)  I’m serious … so if anyone feels like doing this in the next 3-4 years let me know.  So after having watched this roll into town for an hour or two it was a fairly sedate beer or two before dinner and then back to bed.  I should mention though that during our sedate beer, Lisa who had been wanting to get beer glasses for her BF and father asked he waiter if glasses were for sale.  He consulted someone and came back saying yes.  All seemed normal until he turned up with four glasses in a plastic bag and asked her to keep them out of sight.  Clearly some money was being made on the side.  In the end, making the most of the situation she bargained the price down, after all he WAS stealing them and they weren’t brand new.  Not sure how much she paid for them but they were definitely a steal.
 
The next day it was back on the train again for our last leg of the Trans-Mongolian and as luck would have it we were on one of the actual Trans-Mongolian trains.
The carriage attendants were now both male and spoke Mandarin so now we were really lost, they seemed friendly enough though and didn’t charge us for hot water. They seemed thrilled at our ability to say Thank You, No Problem and numbers in Mandarin … until the dutch guy two cabins down started speaking to them in what, to us, appeared to be fluent Mandarin  - Show-off!  This was also a highly anticipated leg of the journey, by some of us anyway, as it was going to be when we did the big bogey switch.  The tracks in Russia and Mongolia are a different width to that of China so at the border they hoist the carriages up and the wheels really do come off the train. Once we were in the change shed most of our time was spent gawking out the window.  Regrettably I was forced to share my window with a tall, blond, attractive, single, dutch girl who decided to introduce herself to me and tell me she was travelling alone so was always happy to meet up with other people travelling alone in case they were going to the same places - seriously .. couldn’t she see I was watching the bogeys being changed?  Luckily for me she popped back into her carriage to get her notebook and before she got back Kelly came out of our cabin and took her spot.  Thanks Kelly, Thanks a Lot.
So it went from being a cheery hello every time we stopped to a nonchalant glance in my direction.  Anyway no time to be bitter now.
 
We finally made it into Beijing and this is going to be the shortest paragraph of all.  The girls were met by their transfer person.  I said goodbye to them walked to the nearest information booth, asked where the met station was, hopped on and was at the airport within the hour. Oh I forgot to tell you … I didn’t have a flight out of Beijing.  I thought I’d book it online at some point but you can’t book one way flights out of China without an approved credit card.  So I got to the Dragon’s Back - Beijing Airport the largest building in the world, walked upto the DragonAir counter, asked when the next flight to HK was and bought a ticket.  So easy, why they wouldn’t let me do that online I’ll never know.  So that’s all there is to tell really ….caught my flight back to HK with no problems.  Actually I was originally going to stay over in HK and have lunch with Tin the next day but when I got to HK I was soo tired and smelly - remember I hadn’t had a shower since the morning I boarded the train in Mongolia so it had been 36 hours or so - I just caught a ferry back to Macau.  The next morning I came back to have lunch with tin and also catch up with Jen, a couchsurfer, who was due to stay with me for a couple of days.  Lucky for her I hadn’t stayed over in HK else she would have been regretting the decision as soon as she got a whiff of  Eau de TransMongolia.
 
So there it is, the end of my Trans-Siberian/Trans-Mongolian adventure.  Like I’ve said in many an email prior I’d definitely recommend it to any and all of you.  If you need company let me know as I’m more than happy to do it again.  I’d still like to do the full TransSib from Vladivostok but then I need to fit the Mongol Rally in too….so much to do so little time.  No big trips planned until later this year when I finish work and possibly head across to Africa.  This is of course assuming that we open this casino at a reasonable time.  I’ll send a Macau update later this week since I’ve been back four months now .. not that much has happened but I have moved apartments, for those of you that have been here - I’m on Macau side now.

08.11.08

Das Vidanya!

Posted in General at 5:27 pm by Suraj

So we arrived in Listvyanka after the “walk”.  Listvyanka is a very touristy town on the shores of Lake Baikal.  There were little chalets and motel complexes everywhere you looked.  Add to this the large hotel that stands in the middle of town and also the equally prominent Hotel Baikal that stands on the edge of town and you have a rather dull and uninspiring location.  I’m sure that at one stage it had all the charm of Bolshie Koty but no longer.  I shouldn’t run it down too much though since it did have a nice bar by the lake shore where Kelly and I snuck in a quick dinner or Pelmeni and Baltika.  I say snuck because this was right after we had arrived.  The other two had gone off to their room to sulk so Kely and I headed into to town for supplies when we came across this place.  The walk back, with full bellies and bags full of drinks etc was so much longer than the walk into town.  It didn’t help that it was uphill either.  We didn’t really do much in Listvyanka .. the next day we wandered the length of town, about 8km, and ended up at Hotel Baikal where we stopped for a late lunch.  Prior to this we had walked, uphill again!, to the funicular and taken the chair lift up the hillside to a viewpoint which was apparently famous.
Admittedly the view was quite spectacular from there and it was worth the walk … although I liked the chair ride better…. especially when I looked down to see a big sign warning against ticks.  Right now as I right this .. thinking of that sign gives me goosebumps.  Hotel Baikal was yet another Baltika break.  It was also a chance for me to try the local freshwater salmon known as Omul.  You generally see Omul by the truckload in and around the lake.  The standard fare seems to be smoked Omul and beer.  I went for the seafood extravaganza and had Omul stuffed with prawns and then baked.. it had the added bonus of coming with Chips!  It didn’t fail to live up to the hype.  After such a heavy meal we thought we should walk it off … actually I was the only one that had a big meal … the girls ordered Pelmeni and were disappointed.  It looked like they had used frozen Pelmeni and just dropped them in hot dishwater to cook.  Pelmeni, by the way .. in case I haven’t described them before, are little dumplings shaped a bit like ravioli.  As we wandered back towards our guest house we stopped for a drink at the bar from the night before.  Kelly and I did our best to steer the girls in there and suggest ordering Pelmeni without giving away the fact that we’d already had some the day before that were really good.  The hints were ignored and we ended up just having a beer and then heading across into the hotel and up to their bar which was located on the roof.  The view was good but they had trouble understanding that we wanted food as well.  Eventually we left and ended up a a dodgy looking restaurant attached to a supermarket.  To add to the fun there was a guy with a crossbow in the field next door.  In a display of brilliance he placed his target a little to close to our restaurant for comfort.
Now usually little dodgy restaurants have the best food … and this one possibly did but given that we couldn’t read the menu and the wait staff couldn’t speak English we struggled … a LOT.  We ended up having a few barbequeued chickens and some vegetable salad.  Cara was having trouble explaining that she was Vegetarian so I had to come to the rescue with my vast Russian vocabulary. All this time Cara had been pointing at herself and saying “I’m Vegetarian … no meat”.  I pointed at Cara and said “Vegetarianski”.  Yup that’s it …. you just need to add a ’ski’ to the end and suddenly you’re speaking Russian!
The next morning we were picked up by Boris/Damien/Vladimir .. we never quite worked out what his name was.  Mr “This is the System” from Irkutsk originally.  Our bags were loaded into a van which was to meet us later that evening.  We, on the other hand hopped on to a ferry which was to take us to the Port of Listvyanka.  This was the start of the Circum-Baikal Railway, a scenic railway which as the name suggests circum-navigates Lake Baikal.  We were going to be travelling on a small portion of it … known as the Golden Buckle.  Work commenced on the Trans-Siberian simultaneously in Vladivostok and Moscow.  The two tracks met at Lake Baikal.  Here they encountered problems due to the mountainous nature of the region.  For a little while the gap was bridged by ship, Ice-Breakers were used during the winter.  Eventually a path was carved out of the rocky cliffs that form the South Western shores of Baikal.  This stretch of rail was called the Golden Buckle.  Golden because it cost an absolute fortune to construct and Buckle because it finally joined the two sections of the Tran-Sib.  The tourist train was quite fun and we had Damien translating the information for us at the various stops.  Lunch was taken at a little town by the shores of the lake which also had a small bay.  The shore are was soon packed as everyone on the train got off to have a paddle in the water.  At least that was their intention.  Clearly not many of them had experienced the refreshing water of Lake Baikal before.  I think there may have been no more than ten of us that actually went for a swim.  Since it was a sheltered bay and relatively shallow, the water here was actually warm by comparison to Bolshie Koty.  I made friends with a walrus of a man and his wife who were also swimming around … they were Irkutsk locals and came down here relatively often.  As usual, pictures were taken with the exotic foreigner, the man actually spoke a fair amount of English, he said he was a railway worker and had classes through work.  Over here working for the Railway is a big deal, I think I’ve mentioned it before .. they have their own Universities, holiday resorts, schools and even day care.
It was quite late in the evening when we finally made it back to Irkutsk where we were met by our van and bags.  They drove us to the guest house where we were to spend the night.  It was run by a little old German lady who was clearly not happy to see us.  The house itself was built in the 19th century and funnily enough looked it too!  From the outside you’d think it was likely to collapse at any moment.  The inside, however was done up to cater to the turistas.
The next morning we experienced the joys of sharing one bathroom amongst 12 people.  Breakfast was in shifts, Galina made us Blini by the truckload.  I’m sure I had about two kilos of Blini, not that I was complaining .. they were quite tasty.  I think at this stage Cara was feeling unwell as well so I had to eat for two since I didn’t want to offend our hostess.  We were due to catch our train to Mongolia that evening so we spent the day wandering through Irkutsk, emailing, writing postcards and doing other general stuff .. I was actually trying to book a flight back to Macau at this stage … never one to leave things to the last minute.  Nothing much more exciting happened here .. the house didn’t collapse and nobody was killed, mugged or arrested.  We were quite excited at the prospect of being able to leave Russia with only one arrest.  Boarding the train that evening was actually quite sad,  I’d loved Russia and all of it’s quirks.  Now I just need to plan the next trip … so anyone else planning on doing a Trans-Sib .. let me know.  The journey across to Mongolia was relatively uneventful, we had the usual customs/immigration stop that took hours - on each side!, but no trouble getting out of Russia or into Mongolia.  We even met a pair of sydney siders travelling down to Beijing.
 
All about the Mongolian train and the nasty Provodnitsas in the next email!  Railway bandits I tell you!

08.08.08

The “Walk”

Posted in General at 11:41 pm by Suraj

So our next couple of nights were to be spent in Listvyanka.  Our guide, Vasily, arrived that morning to pick us up.  Our bags were being taken by ferry back to Irkutsk so we were told to pack enough clothes and essentials for the two nights in Listvyanka.  I think our guide was a little bit shocked at how much luggage was left to be taken.  Apparently another guy was coming by later to pick up the luggage and transport it back, I hoped he was bringing a team of sherpas or at least one of those russian cargo planes (An-225).  More on that later.  So we headed off, excited at the prospect of a walk through the countryside…and mushrooms. I think I mentioned this previously, but most of you have forgotten by now, that the other group at Bolshie Koty were so proud of the mushrooms they collected on their walk.
Things were going well as we gambolled along, although the mushroom hunt did slow us down a fair bit.  Lisa had a knack for finding toadstools and otherwise inedible fungi so we would immediately discount anything she discovered.  I was happy to let Vasily pick mushrooms for me since we always had to clear our own finding with him anyway.  Soon we had quite the collection.  Along the way we even stopped at a beach for some time to skip rocks.  We continued in this manner for about three hours at which point we stopped for some lunch.  I should mention at this point - The girls were still suffering a little from the “mysterious” onset of motor-bum.  I always think the simplest explanation is the best … and to me it seemed a HUGE coincidence that all this started after they ate platform food but as I was told repeatedly “it can takes days for symptoms of food poisoning to surface”… didn’t really matter to me since I was not having the same problem.  The advantage of eating pretty much anything - other than brussel sprouts of course. So back to lunch….
At this point we found that all this time Vasily had been carrying lunch in his pack … he was a regular Mary Poppins… out of the backpack appeared sausages, cucumbers, tomatoes, cheese, bread and Alcohol! It was some form of flavoured clear spirit.  It was quite tasty and just what we needed.
After lunch we headed off again, stopping only every 15 minutes or so, Lisa loved nature so much she needed to be alone to commune with the earth at regular intervals…..tissues were in short supply.  Now here is where it started to get a little interesting.  We made it to the top of a relatively high “hill” all the while walking along what appeared to be a cliff face.  At this point the path led down to a stream, on the other side of which was another quite lofty peak.  Vasily turned to me and said “we must go down to go up”.  Needless to say I was a little bit disappointed but I shrugged and followed him down, girls in tow.
When we got to the bottom Vasily said “we will rest here before the climb”.  Now I don’t know about you but after having walked comment free for four and a bit hours to have the guide actually suggest resting seemed a little bit worrying to me.  AND he said “climb”.  Apparently I was the only one concerned by this.  Lisa had gone off to do her toilet thing, Cara and Kelly were having a rest while she did and I went to the beach to skip a few rocks.  When Lisa returned .. a few minutes later it was all “off we go then!”  I wasn’t so sure that rest time was quite over yet but I figured well if they’re that keen….I think Vasily obviously thought so too.  I still had those words ringing in my head though so I quickly dropped a Berocca into my water … I had the feeling I was going to need it.
And boy was I glad I did.  The next ninety minutes were … you know what? I don’t have words to describe it.  Let’s just say that lugging my “svelte” frame up that bloody mountain was one of the most rigorous workouts I’ve ever had.  Lisa, lightened by her frequent nature stops, was now skipping happily along…more on this later.  Anyway after a gruelling trek up the side of this mountain….it was so steep that the path was cut as a series of hairpins, ten in fact.  We finally made it to the “top” at which point I had ended up right behind Vasily somehow and I called back that it was only a bit further…the reply that came back was “It’s about f*&%ing time”.  And yes .. it was time for a rest break.   After which we headed off again .. strangely uphill … Vasily conveniently forgot to mention that by top he meant the ridgeline and we then needed to walk up along the ridge.  Like little troopers we soldiered on .. by this stage Lisa and Cara were starting to fall behind … this didn’t worry me since they tend to yak anyway….the first time we lost sight of them we stopped and I went back to see if they were coming and yes sure enough they came strolling along.  The next stretch of track was all downhill and Vasily was setting a bit of a cracking pace …. I could have sworn he was just walking but I had to almost run to keep up with him.  A bit of background here.  We were hoping to make it back to Listvyanka in time to intercept the ferry which had our bags so that Cara could get some medicine out of her pack for Lisa.  You may think that’s a random comment but wait.  So like I said … Vasily was setting a cracking pace.  We got to a point where the patch led down along a rivulet branching off the stream we had been following.  Kelly said she would wait at the branch for Cara and Lisa, who we had lost sight of.  Vasily said we’d all wait … so we waited .. and waited .. and waited…starting to worry a little since Kelly had done a cooee and had no response I started heading back up the track to see if I could spot them.  Vasily followed me up.  We made it about 25m up the track when the girls came into view…..Lisa was in tears.  Apparently Cara had an asthma attack.
From this point you’re going to hear my opinion only since i’m the one writing this email.  There was a lot of “Why didn’t you guys wait for us?  what if we got lost” etc… me being the ultra-sympathetic person I am ..ok so I’m not.  As far as I was concerned there was only one path .. unless you had a machete and decided to cut your own.  And on top of this I’m a great believer in calling for rest breaks when you need them.  Apparently they had been tired, remember when I said skipping along earlier? yes exactly ..anyway they were looking to blame someone and possibly hoping I would feel guilty and remorseful.  Right about now 90% are laughing at the thought of a guilt-ridden remorseful Suraj, the other 10% are thinking “well I never would have thought…”.  Anyway, moving along … they then followed Vasily and I back down the path to where Kelly was waiting.  Vasily was clearly worried at the display of hysterics but I signalled to him not to worry about it.  There was a repeat performance when we got to Kelly which actually annoyed me since I knew it was being done because they could make her feel guilty.  We soon made it into Listvyanka at which point there were more recriminations.  At this point my patience gave out and I gave a little lecture about how there was never a need to try and be heroes and if people are tired or struggling they need to tell the guide so he can give us a rest break and how it wasn’t a competition etc etc.  I may have gone a little bit overboard but I wanted to make a point … after this people disappeared to their respective rooms for a bit of sulk time.
Kelly and I decided we hadn’t had enough walking and headed down into town to buy some supplies.  Vasily bid us goodbye …. I swear he’s some sort of mountain man.  After all the “walking”, carrying our lunch .. running downhill … wearing three layers of clothing .. he didn’t even break a sweat.  Not only that .. he wasn’t even red in the face ….it’s unnatural I tell you!  I felt quite sad that we parted on “bad” terms … he obviously, unneccessarily, felt responsible for the events that brought on the little tantrums.  Hopefully I see him again someday .. probably on TV in a documentary about people that scale Mt. Everest blindfolded with one arm tied behind their back carrying a 40kg pack.

08.06.08

By the Lake Baikal - Bolshie Koty

Posted in General at 11:46 pm by Suraj

Back to the train .. or in this case the ferry.  So after having left Irkutsk behind us on a very packed ferry we headed south along the Angara River. The Angara, known as the daughter of Baikal, is the only river that drains the lake.  There are over 300 rivers that feed into Lake Baikal and it contains about 20% of the world’s unfrozen fresh water.  It’s also the deepest lake in the world and, obviously, the largest by volume.  So that’s enough of the informational account.
 
Soon, because much napping was done in that hour, we arrived at Bolshie Koty.  We were met at the ferry by Sergei, a quiet young man and I think somewhat foolish.  Foolish because he made the mistake of offering to carry some bags for the girls - Big Mistake! Within seconds he was carrying a bag in each hand as we headed off to find our place.  For such a small village, Sergei said there were no more than 50 people there and I believe him, it’s quite spread out.  I guess that’s what happens when you build on the shore of a lake that is surrounded by mountains.  I’d encourage everyone to find photos of this place because words are not going to do it justice.
 
BK, as I will refer to it from now on, was very much a village and the kind of place you always think of going to when you really need a break from everything.  After dark actually meant something here as there are no street lights etc.  Our homestay was more of a bed and breakfast arrangement.  The guesthouse was newly built, apparently by the tourist company and they had also hired the family to run the place during the summer.  Once we had ditched our luggage, Sergei’s arms were a few inches longer by this stage, we headed out for a bit of a wander.  It really did feel like living in a national park as you could be walking through light forest about five minutes after you left your front door.  As it was late afternoon, and drizzling, we didn’t wander about for too long.  We did wander down to the shore, tested the water temperature - this resulted in frost bite!, and then just pottered about the village killing time until dinner.
 
There was another group staying at the same place.  They were on an organised tour with Sundowners Overland.  While we had been pottering they had gone down to the lake shore for a dip followed by a stint in the Banya (Russian Sauna - one with steam not like the ones in Macau which are just steamy).  Over dinner they regaled us with tales of icy cold water, boiling hot steam and being whipped with Birch branches.  All seemed well and everyone was content … for now.
 
Remember how I said people were having a bit of an upset stomach after eating hawker food?  Yes, well…. so the next day we noticed that the power appeared to be out. Didn’t think much of it … we spent the day eating and walking about.  We had now, inspired by the other group, booked ourselves in for a session in the Banya before dinner.  The plan was to go for a ’swim’ in the lake and then rush into the Banya and spend an hour there warming up for dinner.  All of this happened .. to a degree.  The swim wasn’t so much of a swim as a dip because it was REALLY cold.  So cold that my feet started go numb after about a minute, the first time i went in and after about thirty seconds the second time I went in.  Some of you are probably thinking … “Well if it was so cold why go back in?”.  I had to be sure it wasn’t just the shock value you see? .. and no it really was that cold.  After the freezing cold water of the lake .. it felt like a hot summer day out of the water.  It was probably about 16 degrees but it felt like 30.  We wandered back to the Banya where we found that just as the Lake was a lot colder than expected, the Banya was a lot hotter too.  The girls sat, for the most part, in the change room where it was still quite hot.  I sat in the actual steam room partly because I’m used to constant heat, partly because I wanted to see what it felt like and partly because my brain was numb after having dunked it in the icy lake water.  We lasted about half an hour before the girls called it quits and headed back in.
 
This was when then fun began.  So we knew that there was no power but what people didn’t realise was that this also meant no toilet.  The guesthouse pumps underground water into a holding tank in the roof and then relies on gravity to provide water pressure.  Since the power was gone we only had a single tank of water for all, by this time, eleven guests.  This in turn meant that water could only be used for washing faces etc but any toilet breaks had to be taken in the outside toilet.  It was putrid as any camp toilet is.  It did have four walls a roof and also a big tank under it which held the waste.  The only problem with the arrangement was that there was no U-bend so you could smell the raw sewage quite clearly.  Having no choice but to use this .. the girls went sparingly, limiting the consumption of anything that may force an increase in frequency.  That night was spent playing cards and drinking Baltika, chilled in a tub Lake water we had carried up earlier.  The next day we were expecting a guide to turn up and take us on a seven hour walk to our next destination - without our packs thankfully.
 
I know it doesn’t sound like we did much .. and that would be true :) But it was one of the most relaxing weekends I’ve ever had.  Between no Internet, no phone reception and no traffic (there’s one motorbike in the village) it was so peaceful that you felt you could easily spend a week or two here.  We made plans to return in winter so that we could see the lake frozen over and also see the frozen waves.  I’d definitely spend at least 3-4 days there when I’m next in Russia and maybe even just do the Eastern half and end the trip in Yekaterinburg or Irkutsk.
 
Our “walk” the next is a whole other story so I will send that through next

08.04.08

Taiga! Taiga! burning bright ..

Posted in General at 11:48 pm by Suraj

So the next section of our journey started with a thirty seven hour train ride, that’s right 37! The reason for this being that we had to come down from Tomsk to join the main TransSib line.  Seven hours were spent waiting at a station in a town called Taiga, The Moscow-Irkutsk train was to come by at 1am and our carriages were to be joined up to it.  At first it all seemed good .. but then it slowly dawned on us that we had SEVEN hours to go.  Fortunately there was a little corner store nearby selling food and drink.  Some of us ventured into the town to have a look despite the warnings of Yuri, a Russian guy from the next carriage, he was a frequent traveller on this line as he studied in Tomsk but his family were in a city close to Irkutsk.
 
He was right! It was like been in an American wild west town, there were hoons driving around in their cars taking corners at high speed making walking in town a bit of an extreme sport.  There seemed to be a few restaurants in town but they were all shut, I’d have thought they’d stay open to cash in on all the passengers that are stuck in town for so long.  So after having a quick look around we wandered back to the station to kill a little more time.  There was a bar at the station that was open until 10 so we settled in for a couple of hours playing cards and drinking Baltikas! One discovery had been made by the girls - The station toilet block had stalls without doors.  And to make it even funnier it had large windows that opened out on to the platform so everyone could see in.  I shouldn’t have been so quick to laugh because I soon discovered that the male toilets were being repaired and so unavailable.  Luckily there were toilets inside the station that were nice and more importantly .. usable.
 
Once the bar closed we bought some more beer to carry with us and headed back out to our carriage (Note I don’t say train because the engine was long gone .. it was just a set of three carriages sitting by themselves at the platform).  By this time a small group of travellers had gathered on the platform to have a bit of a impromptu party.  There were a few French, a few Austrian, one girl from Luxembourg and of course four Australians.  We spent the next couple of hours swapping travel stories, drinking beer and Pastis.  Pastis is basically Absinthe without the wormwood. So as you would expect we all had a good time with random bouts of dancing and singing.  Every now and then we had to set our bottles down and pretend to be just having a chat as station police would wander past hoping to catch someone in the act of drinking on the platform - illegal.  Luckily for us there were no fines issued that night. Apparently we had such a good time that Kelly, Cara and I were snoring like freight trains … Lisa wasn’t impressed but couldn’t do anything about it. I almost felt guilty :)
 
The next day was the beginning of the end.  Yuri had come earlier to have chat to us and the discussion moved on to food as Cara was asking if vegetarian Pelmeni existed.  In case I haven’t mentioned the before Pelmeni are dumplings in a soup/broth.  They’re shaped a little like tortellini.  Anyway .. at one of our stops, around lunch time, we noticed a wide variety of food being sold by the vendors.  At most stations we would have people selling various goods to the travellers on the train.  At this station we found far more edible looking items than at any of our previous stops.  While browsing I found a lady selling large pelmeni and also the vegetarian variety.  Excited by this discovery the girls swooped in to buy all forms of goodies. I bought some mystery meat patties and some large dumplings while the girls bought the vegetarian ones and also some of the large ones.  There has been much speculation as to the cause of our next adventure but I’m fairly sure that this is where it began.
 
So… you know how, normally, if you saw a person selling food on the street and it was sitting in liquid and out in the sun you’d probably walk right past? Hmm yes .. well this didn’t happen .. we all made purchases and took them back on to the train all excited about the feast we were about to have.  Needless to say, by that evening one by one the girls were, to steal an expression, having an intimate relationship with the toilet.  You’ll hear mention of this over the next couple of emails because it took weeks for them to recover.  This actually led to a few other interesting epsiodes along he way as well.  Let me just say, a train is the last place you want to have stomach problems!  We finally made it into Irkutsk relatively well and we met there by Damien our transfer guide.  We picked up a new phrase from him “This is the system.”.  At all of our other stops the guide had known which carriage we were on etc and we were always met on the platform.  Damien had been waiting elsewhere and as a result was a little late to meet us.  He started the introductions by telling us that we should have been on the lookout for him at one of the exits because this is the system here.  So a bit of a bad start to the relationship there…actually calling him Damien at this point is probably not quite accurate since we had no idea what his name was.  I overheard the drive say “Vladimir” so I assumed this was his name and proceeded to call him Vladimir for the remainder of the day.
 
We had a few hours to kill so we went on a bit of a city tour visiting various churches and monuments and then were dropped off at the wharf a few hours early.  We sat around for a little while but were soon bored.  Kelly and I headed out to explore the surrounding area leaving Cara and Lisa in the “terminal” reading.  Soon we had exhausted the exploration possibilities as well.  Luckily for us there was a Mexican restaurant across the path from the ferry terminal so we spent the next hour having lunch there.  We were soon joined by everyone else that had been waiting at the terminal.  The ferry turned up on time and we all piled on and headed to Bolshie Koty, a little village on the banks of Lake Baikal.  We were to spend two nights there .. more on that in the next update.

08.03.08

Off the laid track - Tomsk

Posted in General at 11:50 pm by Suraj

Our first deviation from the Trans-Siberian proper was in the direction of Tomsk.  You may be thinking that I meant to say Omsk .. but no.  Tomsk is beside the river Tom, just as Omsk is by the river Om.
So we veered north to Tomsk and were met there by “Kate”. I asked Kate what her real name was and she said Katya .. which in turn is short for Ekaterina.  Apparently non-Russians have trouble with her name … seriously .. one extra syllable? Back to the story … since the lady that usually hosts home stay people only had room for two, we were to be staying at Katya’s house.  Katya, by the way, is also the representative for travel agency.  Someone should really have a talk to her about taking work home!  We were driven back to her place, it seemed that they were expecting two midgets going by the size of the car, by a driver and another random person.  Seven people plus luggage only barely made it into the vehicle and when we finally arrived at our destination we pretty much burst out of the car.
Katya lives a little out of Tomsk, in an area called Dosaf, with her mother Lusa - short for Ludmilla.  They were sleeping on a sofa-bed while the rest of us took up the three bedrooms in the house.  As if this wasn’t bad enough, Lisa managed to lock the toilet door.  This may not seem to be an issue but it really is when they can’t find the key.  To add to this little comedy Cara was also in dire need of a toilet at the time.  So while Cara was praying to whatever gods would listen, Katya and Lusa were frantically looking for a key to the toilet, Lisa was apologizing profusely and I was laughing my head off and taking photos. Katya and Lusa turned out to be great hosts, Lusa kept trying to feed us at every turn and she seemed to think we were a group of ten based on the amount of food she put out.
 
Our sightseeing in Tomsk was a one day affair .. Kelly and I headed down to the “Oppression Museum” housed in an ex-KGB holding facility while Cara and Lisa went off in search of more churches.  We met later in the afternoon to stock up on supplies for our next train journey which was to be our longest at 36 hours.  There’s not much to tell of Tomsk really.  There are a lot of ice-cream stands, look for the little penguin!  It was also one of the few places I managed to find a decent Internet cafe … although given that it’s a University town that’s hardly surprising I suppose.  There are at least five major universities in Tomsk and if you do visit then make a trip down to the State University which covers a large area and quite nice for a wander or a nap on the grass.  A walk down Lenina Prospekt (Lenin St) will take you to their war memorial which is set up on a hill side which affords a great view of the river Tom winding its way past the city.
 
By the way we did manage to locate a key for the toilet.  We were Katya and Lusa’s first home stay guests and quite possibly their last.  Next stop Irkutsk for Lake Baikal, part of the train ride there involves a seven hour wait while our carriages are unhooked from one train and then latched onto another.