Monks, warriors and imperial dynasties.

After the initial culture shock of arriving in Beijing, we now started our journey deeper into China. Our first step was to head 680 miles south-east of Beijing on (you've guessed it) another over-night train. Fortunately, after a stressful start (Beijing West Station is architecturally stunning, but pure bedlam inside), the train turned out to be very comfortable with much more space then it's Russian counterpart, with carpeted floor and clean toilets and wash basins and we spent a reasonabe night on board.

This is the last leg of our journey alone, before we start our 46 day marathon overland trip from Xi'an to Bangkok. The prospect of joining a group was very much on our minds as we arrived, but we had the whole day to ourselves before joining the group. We were delighted to find that our hotel for the next 2 nights, was a peaceful haven. Although very much a (Chinese) tourist hotel, it was built around a small lake with peacocks, swans and ducks all making this their home. We found ourselves a comfortable seat by the water and could easily have stayed there for the next 2 days.

Our haven at the Xi'an Garden Hotel - 8th October

We realised, however, that we were literally a stone's throw from one of the holiest Buddhist sites in China, the Big Goose Pagoda, and this was too much to miss out on. It dates from the 7th Century, and was used to house and translate sutras that had been brought back from India. The Pagoda itself is an iconic multi-tiered tower that continues to dominate the sky line for miles around, but we also enjoyed just wandering around the peaceful, monastery complex that surrounds it.

Peace for us, by the way, is already feeling like rain to the desert: Chinese streets are incredibly noisy places. Every shop seems to have someone standing outside shouting into a megaphone. Retail marketing seems to consist of shouting louder than your competitor and this has to compete with general hubbub of the streets and the constant sound of hawking and spitting, which I suspect we are never going to get used to!

The Big Goose Pagoda

But going back to the Pagoda, it was interesting that an old religious monument like this has been allowed to maintain so prominent a position in such a large and fast growing city. By most estimates, Xi'an is now home to more than 8 million people, making it a similar size to London. For such a large city, though, it retains a slightly calmer feel than Beijing. It is also very proud of its historical heritage. Our taxi driver from the station (who spoke excellent English, because he doubled as a tour guide), took great delight in telling us that Xi'an had been home to 13 imperial dynasties - compared to Beijing's paltry 2! We haven't been able to corroborate this, but Xi'an certainly has a grand history with the first unifier and emperor of China (Qin Shi Huang), basing his capital close to the current Xi'an.

Which brings us to the Terracotta Warriors, which were unearthed a few kilometres from the city and are the main tourist draw here. Qin Shi Huang demonstrated a jaw dropping spiritual arrogance, by commissioning the building of an army of several thousand life sized warriors (including horses, chariots and all the accoutrements of an army), to guard him and his position as Emperor in the afterlife. We visited the site on our second day in Xian. Whilst it is an amazing site, we had probably set our expectations too high and had already seen a small sample of the warriors at an exhibition in London in 2010. This, combined with the rather prosaic setting of the main archeological site in a huge aircraft-style hangar, left us slightly under-whelmed.

The main excavation site, with many more warriors still to be unearthed

 

 

Each warrior intricately carved and unique

By this time we had already met our group for the next few weeks and we seem to have an interesting mix of people. Our driver mechanic Jim hails all the way from Cranbrook in Kent and has been travelling on these trips with Gino our Spanish guide for the last 2 years with barely a break and they have taken the truck all over Africa and Asia in that time. For the first half of the trip, we also have Jason, a Chinese guide. The rest of the group comprises: Brandon and Travis, 2 young South African students taking a break before university; Shay and Til, 2Australian sisters taking a career break (one is a teacher, the other an IT contractor); Geoff and Michelle, an Australian couple taking a 5 week holiday (she works for a charity, he runs the IT support for a bank); Addy, a young Dutch law graduate, taking a year's break before starting a law career; Emma, an educational psychologist from Essex taking a career break; Sara, an accountant from Trinidad also taking a year's holiday; Kevin, another accountant, this time from Belgium who is just taking a 3 week holiday and is only with us for the first half of the trip; James an Aussie construction engineer, who has been travelling for some time in Europe and whose girlfriend is joining us for the second half of the trip and last but not least John, a semi-retired Canadian, who is very sensibly skipping a hard Canadian winter in more southern climes. So, we have 9 nationalities and ages ranging from 18 upwards, which is quite a melting pot.

On our next post, we will tell you something about our mode of transport for the next 46 days and our first steps with the group.

 

Arrival in the Middle Kingdom

Our journey into China started with an early rise: up at 4am for a 4.50 departure from our ger. The frosted grass scrunched under our feet, with a brilliant starry sky above as we carried our packs groggily to our car. We had a convoy of two vehicles heading for the train and with a small delay getting everyone together, we just leant back and looked up at the sky, the Milky Way seemingly in touching distance.

We drove for 20 minutes through pitch black along bumpy desert roads, hoping that our driver knew which way the road went, and then we were back on the outskirts of a sleeping Ulaan Baatar. We were early at the station and sat in the warmth of the car until we needed to go, watching people whom we recognised from our last train arriving.

On board we found ourself in the middle of the 'vodka train' group - a dozen young, boisterous, hard-drinking Aussie and British guys who had been doing the Trans-Siberian in rather different style to us! Somehow, our compartment ended up being the vodka train's card playing compartment. Poor Sue ended up taking refuge on the upper bunk and watched the scenery go by whilst plugged into her iPod, whilst the card school went on below. Fortunately, they turned out to be a decent bunch and the time on the train went by smoothly as we headed along to the Chinese border.

The border crossing turned out to be another extended affair, with multiple passport checks from both sides, with the added necessity of 'changing our bogies'. A little known fact, is that the Russians were so worried about being invaded in the late 19th century that they decided to make their railway gauge a few inches wider then the convention in Europe and the rest of the world and the Mongolians,wanting to improve relations with Russia, followed suit - clever at the time, but infuriating for future generations of travellers!

So, at the border, we pulled into a huge warehouse, populated by a uniformed work-force in bright red and yellow hard hats. Each carriage was detached, hoisted onto hydraulic jacks, bogies unbolted, rolled away and replaced with a new narrower version. All this and we never left the train!

We woke in the morning and immediately it felt different. From the sparsely populated Mongolia, we were now in much more industrial and populated landscapes. As we passed through stations, officials stood starchily to attention on pristine stations. The train was due due in Beijing mid afternoon and from late morning, we climbed into dramatic mountain scenery, passing through a series of tunnels for more than an hour, emerging each time onto track carved along a ledge on the rock, with peaks rising high above us and sparkling rivers and streams below us on the valley floors. At one point, we rounded a corner and caught our brief first glimpses of The Great Wall, majestically riding the contours of the hillside.

In Beijing, we waved goodbye to our 'vodka buddies' and everyone dispersed into the throng. Arriving in Beijing is daunting, with the big noisy crowds and the alien signs, which leave us with little clue as to their meaning (though for those interested, see a short lecture by Shao Lan: learn to read Chinese...with ease on www.ted.com - also very funny). Our hotel, was close to the station, which was a relief, but getting around was difficult - we had to abandon a dinner reservation on our first night, because we couldn't find the restaurant!

Beijing has been an interesting if sometimes stressful experience and we have emerged a little confused by the seemingly paradoxical nature of so many things here, uncertain if we have even scratched the service of understanding it. There seems to be a tug of war between ancient and modern, for example. We were probably most interested in the historical sites and the Forbidden City, Great Wall and the Summer Palace in particular were each awe inspiring in their different ways. But just as remarkable were the broad avenues and great modern buildings that dominate at least the centre of the city, many of which would not look out of place in Western cities, whilst others have touches of older, oriental influence, such as the towering Beijing West Station, which is crowned by ornate, traditional gilded roofing. These have clearly sprung up incredibly quickly, leaving only small pockets of the old 'hutongs' guiltily hidden away off side streets when least expected. These tend now to be preserved mainly for tourists, otherwise they would surely disappear altogether.

Oh and then there is the pollution! On the one hand, the streets are dotted with neatly manicured gardens, colourful flower displays and there is no graffiti in sight anywhere, on the other, the air is so dirty that it stings the back of the throat, choaks the lungs and casts everything in a murky shroud with the sun struggling to shine through, even on a sunny day.

The people have generally been very friendly here and with their industrious nature, it is easy to see why the economy is thriving: also helped by a voracious appetite for consuming and an intense brand awareness, which at least matches what we have in the UK. But under the surface, there is also a sense of restraint. It has been the National Day Holiday whilst we have been here and thousands of people have been on the street, particularly around Tiananmen Square. But the crowds were watched closely by hundreds of police and army officials, who seemed to be on every corner. It was also evident that internet usage is carefully restricted and we have had great difficulty continuing to post this blog: having to subscribe to a VPN to allow us to do so, as Google is generally blocked.

For much of the time here, we have been a source of much curiosity and amusement to the locals. On several occasions, we were approached at tourist sites with a polite request for someone to have their photograph taken with us. And how the Chinese love to have their photographs taken: in front of every monument and viewpoint there is a throng of locals posing theatrically for pictures, accompanied by a hubbub of instructions on how to optimise the shot.

Restaurants have been another place where we have attracted much attention. Basically because we have usually been clueless about what we have been ordering and sadly lacking in chopstick skills and etiquette (though thankfully, we have avoided the faux pas of leaving our chopsticks stuck into the rice, which can apparently confer severe misfortune on the restauranteur!). Even with this ordering in the dark, we have generally eaten well and cheaply in Beijing and have even succeeded on occasion in using said chopsticks to transport food from bowl to mouth!

In summary, it has felt like a great privilege to have been in Beijing in times of such great change. It is clear even from being here for just a few days, that China is destined to be the great power of the 21st century, but it will be most interesting to see how it's society continues to change in the coming years and how it will influence and be influenced by prevailing Western culture.

We now move onto Xi'an, the ancient capital of China and then on into more of the rural heartlands of China, which will no doubt give us a very different perspective. We hope that we will be able to maintain the blog whilst we are travelling these paths over the next few weeks, but it is possible that posts may become a little more sporadic.

In the meantime, here are some photos from our 3 days in Beijing.

Welcome to Beijing - our point of arrival at the Central Station

National Day crowds on Tiananmen Square (note how the air quality limits visibility)

A guard in front of the Forbidden City

A noisy throng in front of the Gate of Heavenly Peace in the Forbidden City

Us on the Great Wall (thanks Ken!)

The Great Wall at Mutiyanyu

Buddhist temples on Longevity Hill in the grounds of the Summer Palace

And finally, the obvious thing to put on a beautiful lake, dotted with ancient temples and pagodas, is a 20 foot high inflatable yellow duck!

And finally, finally...no comment required!

 

A Steppe into Mongolia

It was late night in Irkutsk, our last night in Russia, and we were girding ourselves for the worst that Russian railways could throw our way: 2 nights aboard and a border crossing thrown in for good measure. After weeks of moaning about the Trans Siberian trains, we are delighted to report that we found ourselves aboard a modern carriage, with comfortable seats, cleaner toilets and windows that were clean enough to see out of!

We were also surprised to find that we were sharing our compartment with another English couple and that our carriage was populated largely with other English speaking tourists. Speaking with some of our fellow passengers, we seem to have had an unusual experience in travelling on grotty, cramped trains with locals who spoke little English. Initially we felt rather puzzled and envious at the more comfortable, sociable experience that they seem to have had. But this was soon displaced by a satisfaction that we had done it the hard way, and were coming through the other end, having had a more genuine experience of Russian life.

We nevertheless gorged ourselves on conversation with our compatriots, like fast breakers at a banquet. Our companions Ricky and Lauren made us feel rather old (Ricky also works in the insurance industry, but I quickly realised he was still a twinkle in his parent's eyes when I started my career!), but they were good company nonetheless. They are also travelling overland from the UK towards Australia, though they had gone rather more quickly than us through Russia. As with many of the people in our carriage they were getting off at Ulaan Bataar for a few days before heading on to Beijing. It seems that we will be likely to see many of these people again in a few days on the next train.

In the morning at our first stop we bumped into Oliver and Iphy, our French Canadian friends from the previous train. They'd been camping at Lake Baikal and told an hilarious story of how Iffy'd had one of her shoes stolen by a dog - thankfully said shoe was eventually recovered with only minor bite marks! Oliver is writing a blog entitled www.synapticorgasm.com - check that one out if you dare!

The journey passed very sociably, though everyone was a little nervous about the border crossing. The train was scheduled to stop for 5 hours at the Russian border and a further 3 hours at the first stop in Mongolia, though everyone seemed to have heard stories of it taking even longer than this for no apparent reason.

One good thing we will say about Russian trains, is that they have been extremely punctual, nearly always leaving precisely on schedule. At the border crossing they were again true to their word, though there was some panic when we realised that the 3 Spanish guys in the next compartment hadn't returned to the train with departure imminent. It seems that their visas had expired the day before and the Russian police clearly decided to frighten them (with some success) by holding them in a room until the last minute.

So, we spent 5 hours in Naushki, the little border town, which comprised a few dirt roads, a few hundred houses and barely any facilities. Our passports were taken from us and we were all told to leave the train. We stood on the platform watching the train, together with most of our possessions, chugging off into the distance and contemplating what life would be like in a two-bit town like this. We spotted a barren hill at the southern end of town and scrambled up it. We were rewarded with great views over the area and unexpectedly found a beautiful grave-yard on the top, with many ornate gravestones and freshly laid flowers. Back in the town, we found a small shop and bought some beer, vodka and cakes, to help us through the next few hours, with some of the last of our roubles.

Main Street Naushki

The border town of Naushki - only 5 hours to kill here!

Eventually, in the last of the daylight, we left Russia (now we noticed with a Mongolian engine proudly pulling the train) and tentatively trundled onto Mongolian soil. We continued to follow the Selenga river, which had been our companion for most of the day. It was particularly beautiful at this point: fast flowing through lush meadows and woods, with the setting sun casting it with golden and pink hues. We raised our glasses to the Russia that we had left behind and to our Mongolian experience, which was about to unfold.

We can tell you straight away, that our time in Mongolia was hugely enjoyable, if too short to do it justice. Our time was made particularly memorable by our guide and driver for the 3 days, Tumen and Jaga - who felt like old friends by the end. They were waiting for us as we got off the train at 6.00 a.m. and we were whisked off in a comfortable Landcruiser, for one of our stranger experiences: an early morning whistle stop sightseeing tour of a largely deserted Ulaan Bataar (called UB by the locals). We climbed some steep steps (racing an old guy in a track suit who was using this as his morning exercise regime) to the Zaisan Monument, with panoramic views over the city; took in the main Sukhebaatar square overlooked by the newly rebuilt National Assembly and visited the Gaandaan Buddhist temple. UB felt calm and clean at this time of the morning, but we also saw the huge amount of building work going on, with modern, multi-storied offices and apartment blocks rising everywhere. Prominent amongst these is the newly-completed iconic glass curves of the 'sword' building which is the home of Rio Tinto with whom the Mongolian government has signed large-scale mining agreements.

We managed all this, before breakfast and were heading out of the city as the morning rush hour was getting started building up in the other direction.

Atop the Zaisan Monument in Ulaan Baatar

A lone worker pays homage to Genghis Khan at the National Assembly in UB

Pidgeon Worrying at the Gaandaan Buddhist temple in UB

As we headed out of UB, Tumen (who spoke faultless English) demonstrated his encyclopedic knowledge of Mongolia and UB, as well as a great interest about life in the UK. Mongolia has, we gather, the fastest growing economy in the world right now and is dominated by UB, whose population has grown very quickly in recent times from 300,000 to 1,000,000 and one third of all Mongolians now live here. How they manage this, we can't fathom: it is also the world's coldest capital city, with temperatures dropping to -40 C in the winter!

Tumen is studying for an Economics degree when he is not moonlighting as a tour guide and has already completed a year's service in the Mongolian army, so we believed him on these points. The conversation was very formal initially, until Jaga (who with very limited English was probably bored with the conversation), tuned into a local folk radio station and sang loudly along in a warbling baritone: this lightened the tone considerably and we were in good spirits as we drove along on a clear blue day.

The road alternated from smooth newly laid tarmac, to rutted dust track. Just when we least expected it, we veered off the road onto what looked like a farm track and 10 bumpy kilometres later we arrived in the Hustai National Park. Our 'Ger Camp' sat right at the outside and initially, we have to say, we were disappointed. We'd been expecting something very small scale, probably staying with a Mongolian family; what we found was 35 identical gers in 7 rows of 5 and an ugly brick outbuilding where food was served. But it grew on us, particularly as we started to appreciate the vast, rugged isolation of the Steppe. This is a harsh, unforgiving landscape, but with an other worldly peace and beauty.

On our second day, we drove around the park. For most of the time, there was not a single person or car in sight and the silence absorbed us. On first sight, it was hard to believe anything was living here, but we spotted lots of wildlife, including the Takhi horses (which are unique to this park and for which it is famous), deer, marmots, yak, eagles and vultures.

On our final day, we headed off to the other side of UB, to a different ger camp. There was less of interest to see here, but it had a relaxed atmosphere of its own. On all nights, with clear skies and being miles from the nearest habitation and at a 1500m altitude, we were treated to magnificent starry night skies. Temperatures dropped well below freezing as a result, but we lit the wood-burning stoves in our gers and were cozily warm provided we didn't make the mistake of letting it go out.

So, as we leave Mongolia for China, we wish that we could have spent a few more days here, in the countryside, but also in UB, which we haven't really experienced. It is clearly a proud country, which will continue to grow both in population and economic terms, particularly with its abundance of mineral resources. The traditional nomadic lifestyle can clearly be brutal, but also seems to be unique as far as we have seen and is accompanied by tremendous freedom and a life in harmony with an often pristine environment. We can't help but be worried that this will be discarded in favour of a seductive, saccharine western lifestyle and that what they lose won't become apparent until it is too late.

Sandwiched between Russia and China, it is not a surprise that they are fiercely independent. What surprised us a little more, is that they seem to identify more closely with Russia than China. Maybe that is because China casts a greater shadow over them, but it is clear that there is no love lost from the Mongolians to the Chinese.

So, we head south to China. The prospect is exciting and frightening in the same breath. By the time you are reading this, we will have arrived, but we will tell you more of that in our next post.

Please excuse the length of this post, but there seems so much to say. Below are some pictures from our time in the Mongolian Steppe.

Our ger camp for a couple of nights

Inside our ger - it felt like sleeping in a mini circus big top!

Out in the Hustai Park with our guide and driver Tumen and Jaga

Marmots in the Park

Wild Takhi horses in the Park (they were once thought extinct and now there are still only 300 of them left - all in the Hustai Park)

Wild deer in the Park

A horse herdsman - 15% of the population still live a nomadic lifestyle

A functioning traditional ger camp

Cattle herding in the Park

The Elstei ger camp - our home for the 3rd and final night of our time in Mongolia

 

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Eastwards to Baikal

Another day another train. In this leg we're heading to our easternmost point in Russia (Irkutsk and Lake Baikal), before we finally turn south for Mongolia, China and ultimately Australia. There is a scent in the air that the icy Siberian winter is snapping on our heels, so it's probably not a moment too soon.

We won't bore you with more details of another rocky night on the rails, but will just vent our spleens at our jobs worth provodnista who shook us awake at 5.30 (2 hours before reaching our destination) and then locked the toilet doors an hour before arrival, leaving a lot of angry and cross legged passengers! This apart, the journey was relatively un-eventful, though more scenic than the previous days, particularly the first few hours after Krasnoyarsk, as we wound our way through wooded hills, crossing lakes and rivers. We also met our first English speaking fellow passengers - a young French Canadian couple, who like us are heading down to Australia, albeit by a slightly different route.

At Irkutsk, we again stepped bleary eyed off the train and very quickly found our new guide, Lena. Just as quickly she incurred Sue's wrath, for her abrupt manner and lack of empathy, but within 5 minutes, we were onto a minibus and heading out of town for the 70 kilometre drive to Listvyanka, a pin-prick village on the south-western shore of Lake Baikal (for those interested, find Irkutsk on the atlas and follow the Angara river down into the lake - and that's where we've been!). The sun was only just rising, but straight away Irkutsk had a very different feel to any of the other Russian cities that we have been to: probably more European, but certainly more spacious and built in harmony with the broad curves and inlets of the river, which make it feel like a harbour city.

We struggled to stay awake as our bus headed out of the city, following the steep river valley sides, but a bumpy road that jolted us awake if our heads did nod put paid to any ideas of sleep. And it was just as well, because on a clear sunny morning there were some glorious views of the river as it wound its way towards Lake Baikal. These views seemed to get progressively better, until we rounded a bend and the river merged with the vast blue expanse of the lake and on the far side we could make out the snow-capped peaks of the Khamar Dhaban mountain range.

We have to bore you at this point with a couple of nerdy facts about Lake Baikal. Did you know that it is easily the largest lake in the world, containing one fifth of the world's fresh unfrozen water and more than the five Great Lakes of North America combined? Squeezed into the right shape, England would probably snugly fit inside it - not bad for a lake that we hadn't heard of a year ago!

But back to the moment. We arrived at our very pleasant looking guest house and for a moment were lulled into expecting a warm welcome: instead our landlady glared at us and barked 'take your shoes off!' before we were even across the portal. An hour later, we had forgiven her this lack of soft skills, as she served us up a hearty breakfast of cold meats, cheese, freshly baked bread and home-made blackcurrant jam.

This seems to be a recurrent theme in Russia, that people initially greet strangers very coldly and suspiciously (even with hostility) and combined with the lack of a recent tradition of customer service, has often left us with a bad impression of people. But with those few people that we have get to know, a much more warm hearted personality and jovial sense of humour has emerged. This has particularly been the case in Siberia and the people here seem to have a strong sense of a Siberian identity which is separate from being Russian. Back in Krasnoyarsk, we spoke with Anatoliy about national stereotypes and he felt that the Siberian stereotype was of 'the open-heart', meaning that they would, sometimes rather naively, do anything for people and could get taken advantage of as a result. We hadn't wanted to upset him by saying that this was a stereotype that hadn't occurred to us, but it was interesting nonetheless.

Our home for a couple of days on Lake Baikal, had a strong 'end of the line' feel about it, literally as well as metaphorically, as the road did actually run out here. This impression was exaggerated by the village largely being here for (mostly Russian) tourists - and the season was pretty much over. What was left was a small fleet of fishing and supply vessels on the jetty and lots of maintenance and building work hurriedly being carried out before the snows arrive. But, we were blessed with beautiful weather (apparently it is unusual to be able to see the mountains on the other side as clearly as we were able to, if at all) and we walked for miles along the lake and up onto the cliff paths at the end of the village, only stopping when the path became too perilous. The clear skies amplified the bright blue of the lake waters and the golden colours of the trees that covered the hillsides rising out of the lake.

On Thursday, we had the bonus of the small weekly fish market and the village air was permeated with the smell of omul and sig fish being smoked in makeshift metal boxes. It seemed like all of the locals were in on this act: with rows of women selling identical thin dried fish: but the result did not look tempting to these eyes. As we had some lovely fresh fish in a restaurant the night before, we went for a paella cooked in an industrial size wok and sat and ate it with lots of the locals on the small pebbly beach, washed down with a local beer. We were approached by a burly man in military uniform and held our breath tentatively, until his face broke into a big grin and he proudly announced that he was from Azerbaijan and that our food was cooked by his very good friend Mr Bob Spongepants! After a few more theatrical gestures and words that we didn't understand, he then left us to our food and puzzling over whether that was an Azerbaijani uniform and indeed whether Azerbaijani police had any jurisdiction in Russia.

On Friday morning we visited the Lake Baikal museum, which turned out to be rather dry (particularly as the information was nearly all in Russian) other than for a virtual submarine that sunk 1,600 metres to the bottom of the lake, with videos of the playing out on the portholes. Amazingly the submarine was yellow, but we somehow resisted the temptation to start singing 'We all live in a ...' - the stone-faced operative didn't look like she would appreciate our sense of humour and we didn't want to get slung out 1,600 metres below the surface! Outside they had created a 'dendarium', planted with several 100 species of local flora and this seemed to have attracted all sorts of birds to the area and also some red and black squirrels (none of your common greys here!).

After our peaceful couple of days by the lake, we are now back in Irkutsk for a day and a night. It's a cool, sunny Saturday and we are sat by the side of the river as I write this. We have been entertained by a series of wedding parties traipsing past with their retinues and some fishermen out in little boats on the river. Behind us, is the grand Cathedral with gilded domes, some of the original wooden houses that survived a catastrophic fire in the 19th century and a war memorial where we have seen the local cadets marching past and laying wreaths this morning. We've almost done our sight-seeing here in Irkutsk and will shortly be on the hunt for somewhere to get a last hearty goulash or stroganoff before heading for our evening train.

Russia has made for interesting, if sometimes mentally and physically tough, travelling. If we remain apprehensive about the 36 train journey ahead, we are equally excited about the prospect of Mongolia and getting out into the Gobi Desert and the Steppe. More on that to come, but in the meantime, here are some photos from the last few days.

Finally, we have heard that a number of you have had difficulties placing comments on our blog. I'm afraid that we don't have a solution for this right now. Perhaps anyone who has successfully placed comments (Sharon, Paul, Holly, Lisa?) can let us know how they did it! In the meantime, we have been reading our e-mails regularly up to now.

We don't know how much internet connectivity there will be on the Mongolian Steppe, so we may now be off-line for a little while.

A view across Lake Baikal towards the Khamar Daban mountain range

Sun-set over the mountains

The lakeside trail

The end of the road...

A typical Listvyanka home

A mountain stream feeds into the lake

Our Church of the Saviour in Irkutsk

Siberian workers unite...

Gone fishin' Irkutsk style

Love is in the air in Irkutsk...

And finally - how much is that moggy in the window?

 

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Siberian Salutations

We left Yekaterinburg on Friday, heading deeper into Siberia for the city of Krasnoyarsk (4,100 kilometres east of Moscow). We were apprehensive about another 2 nights on the Trans Siberian, so in this episode we will tell you how we got on with the 36 hour journey and about our time in Krasnoyarsk.

The journey, first off, turned out to be one of two halves. The first half was calm and relaxed and certainly helped by getting on at 6pm, whilst there was still some light. There was just one young Russian guy sharing with us, who got off at about 11 pm, so we had the compartment to ourself for the night. We got into the rhythm of the train and even managed to get some sleep. The next day we again mostly had the compartment to ourselves and we made serene progress across the Siberian taiga: reading, writing, playing cards and just watching the world go by our train window.

Our solitude was fairly abruptly halted in the early evening, when we got to the the city of Novosibirsk. We were joined by an old Russian women and a young Russian man and immediately we felt cramped again. As we tried to sleep, the train seemed to get more and more jerky: breaking heavily one minute, jolting and lurching as we rounded a tight corner the next, punctuated by a succession of freight trains which have seemed to get more numerous as we have headed east. These freight trains are huge (going on as far as the eye can see) carrying coal, stone and all manner of raw materials and finished goods up and down this line. All this, combined with the old lady below coughing, hawking and spluttering ensured that we got no sleep - oh boy, we hope not to repeat a night like that again too soon!

Our train arrived into Krasnoyarsk at 6.45 am and we stepped onto the platform shell-shocked and exhausted. The sun was still showing no signs of rising and it felt cold and bleak. Fortunately, our guide Anatoliy was waiting for us as we got off the train. After such a hellish journey, let us tell you straight away that relief was to come, as Krasnoyarsk has proved our most enjoyable stop so far.

All we could think of first, however, was some sleep and a shower. After a small mix up on our itinerary, fortunately that was just what we got and we managed to get a couple of hours of sleep before thinking of doing anything. In the afternoon, we decided to swop a tour of the city for a visit to the nearby Stolby Nature Reserve. We hadn't wanted this trip to be a succession of city breaks and we badly needed some nature therapy.

Krasnoyarsk itself is a city of 1 million people and the centre for the oil, gas and aluminium industries. The centre of the city, however, is very pleasant with lots of historic buildings and the usual statues and monuments that are a part of all the Russian cities that we have seen, but the main feature for us is the natural setting in the foothills of the Sayan Mountains and you can see hills and trees across the river from the city centre. So, after a few hours recuperation, we set off with our guides Aleksander and Pavel into the Stolby Reserve - a 30 minute drive from the city.

We drove out over a bridge across the Yenisey River: one of the biggest Siberian rivers apparently and nearly a kilometer wide at this point. Through what appeared to be a death-cracked windscreen (which we feared would implode at any moment) we saw rusting industrial works in the foreground to a backdrop of ski-runs, craggy outcrops of rock and the forest showing off its autumn colours like a strutting peacock. Two turns off the main road and suddenly we were cloaked in beautiful, peaceful countryside. Stolby is 17,000 hectares of mixed woodland and hills, with volcanic granite towers rising like cathedral spires out of the trees.

We hiked for 4 hours along trails that occasionally became very steep, reaching viewing points, where there always seemed to be the chance to get higher by scrambling to the top of one of the granite peaks. At the top of one (grandly named Takmak Stolby - I thought he played for Liverpool in the 1970s, but what do I know?), I over-ambitiously followed the guide to the top and almost got stuck - only getting down finally with an inelegant leap and forward-roll, ending in a Travolta-esque dance pose with a silver birch tree!

Our guide Pavel was an interesting character. It turned out he had a PhD in mathematics from the local university, but eventually decided he would have more fun as a mountain guide and spends much of his time in Nepal when he is not leading climbing and walking parties in the Rusian mountains. Our 2nd guide who we initially thought was just our driver, turned out to be the joint owner of the tour company and of a local restaurant. Clearly entrepreneurialism is clearly thriving in the new Russia!

This was probably the hardest walk that we have done for 3 years and Sue did incredibly well. I was worried how she would cope with some of the steep ascents. The answer was to leave me standing at most of them - she is truly back to her best mountain goat ways! Nevertheless, half a day was probably enough physically for both of us. We then spent a quiet evening at 'The English School Cafe' (the restaurant owned by our guide Aleksander), though we struggled to spot anything of the 'English School' theme, other than an imposing suit of armour looking sternly on from one corner and the blandness of the cooking!

The next day was also one of of our most enjoyable so far. We left our hostel in the morning with Anatoliy and Ludr for a 24 hour 'dacha experience'. We drove for an hour west of the city into remote open countryside, to Anatoliy's personal dacha, where we spent a day and night before being picked up again the next morning to head back for our train.

In between, Anatoliy and Ludr were most generous hosts and we had really interesting discussions on all manner of subjects. They had brought provisions for a 'dacha picnic / barbecue'. On arriving, Ludr busied herself with preparing food, whilst we went off for a 3 hour walk with Anatoliy.

The area we were in was, we were told, a 'dacha community'. It is very common for people in Russia to have an apartment in the city and a dacha in the countryside where they retreat for the fresh air and to be closer to nature. These 'dachas' are small plots of land that were given to people by the old Soviet authorities. Most people have built small, basic houses on them (typically of timber construction with sheet metal roofs and consisting of one or two roms with an outside toilet), but nearly all are turned over to cultivating vegetables, fruit and maybe some flowers. People come out to their dachas as often as they can, or even live here, during the summer months - and it is easy to see that people would very often have relied on the food produced. Interestingly, in the past, the land was usually given out by the organisation that they worked for (maybe therefore a reward for good workers?). So, we learned, we were in an area that was given to teachers and staff at the local university; part way through our walk, we crossed a small track and into the area that was given in the past to workers in the aluminium industry.

It seems that the people who come here are also great foragers and Sue particularly enjoyed speaking to Anatoliy about the local flora and fauna. We found many different types of mushrooms and berries on the trees which they eat or use to make wine. Anatoliy was disappointed that the crop of rowan berries seemed to be meagre this year, as he is apparently renowned in Krasnoyarsk for his rowan wine. The woodland was much more diverse than we had thought from our previous views from train windows, with all manner of different species of pine, larch, birch, aspen, rowan etc.

We felt a calm stillness as we walked and also that we had been given a great insight into the Russian way of life. People who often live in cramped grey areas of big industrial cities, have this rural idyll that they can retreat to, and one can sense the peace and camaraderie that they would get here, even though they have no great luxuries. I just wouldn't want to be here in the winter when they have several feet of snow for weeks at a time. Anatoliy told us that he comes here in the winter with his son and has to leave the car 2 miles away and make the rest on skis. Amazingly, he has just made a booking over Christmas to an Australian couple who want to see a White Christmas - they're going to see that alright!

We returned to the dacha ravenously hungry and found that Ludr had prepared a feast for us! With a little hindrance from me, Anatoly got a fire lit and we barbecued some sausages to go with the vegetables (all foraged locally or from the dacha garden). We had a wonderful vegetable broth, barbecued courgette and aubergine, home baked bead and a fresh salad - straight from the ground, the flavours were amazing.


Shamefully, we had thought that Ludr was one of Anatoliy's employees who had come to cook and clean, but in our after dinner conversation, we found that she was actually a maths lecturer at the local university and was here just for the fun of it and to practice her English.

Eventually Anatoliy and Ludr took their leave and we were left alone in the silence of the Siberian forest: a perfect antidote to the weeks we have spent on the road, moving from one city to another. The heaters kept our dacha just warm enough and we slept our best sleep of the trip so far.

In the morning, Anatoliy returned to pick us up and we headed back to the city for a shower at the hostel, before heading on for our train to Irkutst. More on that in our next posting, but in the meantime, here are some pictures from our sojourn in the forests of Krasnoyarsk.

The hell hole of a Trans Siberian compartment - plenty of room to sleep 4 in there!

 

Hiking in the Stolby Reserve

A view of Takmak Stolby with the city of Krasnoyarsk in the background

Don't go there - you won't get down!

Sue, Ludr and Anatoliy at our dacha for the night

Typical dachas in the area

A dacha picnic!

 

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