Heard some more reports coming back from moscow that lots of people were on respirators. Over 120 people had died from the smoke and pollution and heat and one guy said at his hostel, two tourists collapsed.
8/13 Leon and I went out for some pizza and pasta. Even western food is really cheap here and this is basically the last stop for western food until Denver at the end of january. Hadn't really thought about this but the mongolian's running the guesthouse were telling everyone this, so we decided we must go get some. We then went for some Chenggis (how his name is spelled here) beer at a place with good life music that was like the mongolian version of the strokes.
8/14 Started my 6 day desert tour to the Gobi. I would be travelling in a russian jeep (think commi van except souped up with big tires, high clearance, 4WD) with a driver, a translator (Ahmra, a math teacher during the winter) and a couple from Belgium. Elise who is from France but actually works at a university in maastricht (holland) (near where jenn's aunt lives so I have actually been there) teaching EU law and Pavlo from Poland but working for the EU in Brussels. They were really cool, and I had actually met them on the train from Irkutsk to Ulan Ude and they were impressed to see that I survived the vodka barage on that train. We had a lot of fun together and for some reason they really enjoyed my humour and were always laughing. We did a good job of playing off each other. And we had an especially fun time with our jokes at the lonely planet's expense. And we had a funny joke going around about the different nationalities and their picture taking preferences. For example, the Japanese always making sure they are in the picture, never smiling, and if under a certain age, throwing the peace sign. Koreans, snapping at everything in a hurried rush. But the russians, the girls especially would have their pictures taken in strange and often sort of sexy poses at these gorgeous sights and buildings. Of course the buildings were never in the picture and in fact the background was usually an ugly wall or something. I said I found this strange. Pavlo said that "it was bc in russia, the women are the object. Perhaps this is why you are travelling alone without a lady friend young man" I also really appreciated them bc although they normally spoke french, they always spoke english, even to each other, for my sake. They have been living together for 7 years, but just got engaged on top of a mountain in patagonia last year. They get 6 week paid vacation every year so they try to do an active vacation for 6 weeks every year (trekking in egypt, trekking in morrocco, mtn climbing in argentina, trekking in china). We were also for the first 3 days going with a group of 3 french guys and french gal who were on a year long trip around the world trip.
So one of the first things you hear about mongolia is the food. Basically they are nomadic herders, so they don't have vegetables. They subsist on mainly mutton with some cheese products from horse milk. There normal food is mutton stew which is a broth with some fatty mutton and bones. Where does all the good meat go? Sometimes they eat something called buuz which is a dumpling, but only in the city. In the end though Ahmra went shopping and got some vegetables and pasta and rice while we were in Ulaan Baatar (UB) to supplement the meager meat soups. One of the best lines of the trip was from one of the french guys, as they too of course had heard about the mongolian food. [spoken in thick french accent] "For the french, cuisine and taste is everything. When we heard mongolian food is just about survival, we were like oh F*ck." For Pavlo, who grew up in Poland, he said there meals consisted of 90% meat and 10% bread. Nothing else (he would get along great with dad). But of course our meals had tiny tiny portions of meat, if anything and lots of vegetables that Ahmra brought. So the poor guy hardly ate anything and Elise and I got fat eating off his food so that Ahmra wouldn't feel bad. Meals were interesting though. Breakfast usually consisted of some sort of vegetable soup and a hot salad. The french couldn't understand why they just wouldn't give them some jam and bread! Pavlo had gotten an ameoba while trekking in morocco, which actually reared itself while he was in New York 6 months later. It took Columbia med a while to figure out what it was b/c they hadn't asked about exotic travel 6 months earlier, so he spent 2 weeks in the hospital of columbia and reported on a very good medical experience unlike what the europeans are led to believe occurs in America. And for all the surgery (on his liver) and days inthe ER and hospital he only had to pay 35 euros bc of his good insurance. Anyways, bc of this bad illness from eating foreign food, he now takes a shot of vodka after every meal to kill whatever is in it. I didn't hesitate to join in on this thing for my health and am thinking about taking up his tradition while in India.
The trip would be a lot of driving, which I didn't mind bc it was always through amazing scenery, and the driving in itself was fun b/c it was a mix of 4wd and dirt road rallying. The guy driving crazy fast on these wild dirt roads. The reason for the long rides was two fold. Mongolia is a large country, bigger than two texas' but mainly bc there roads are so bad. The country has less than 300 miles of paved road (pot holed) and over 100 of that is the one the russians made to go from UB to the russian border. So on our whole trip of 1000+ km's, we were on paved roads for about 35kms. The roads in the steppe are terrible. Muddy, big holes, ditches, etc. OFten it was better to just go off the road and into the grass. In the desert there were really no roads and the driving was faster bc you just drive across desert.
Something that was so amazing about mongolia was its vastness. So much empty space. Europeans I had met before were just so overwhelmed with the landscape and open space. I took these claims lightly bc europeans exaggerate a lot when it comes to nature things bc europe is so crowded and devoid of wildlands. But even me, who has driven multiple times from Colorado to Idaho via Wyoming and Utah and between Colorado and Tucson going through New Mexico and Zona was simply amazed. The open space is just unreal. I-80 or I-25 through wyoming appears crowded compared to mongolia. Mongolia has the lowest population density in the world at 1 person per 3 sq km's. Now consider that over half the population (1 mil) live in UB and another large portion living in the province capitals and you can see how it would be empty. No buildings ever, no trees (for 6 days), and on occassion a few gers (yurts). It was cool to drive by herds of horses, flocks of sheep and goats, and the occassional herd of cows. What is cool is that there are no fences here either, so the animals appear to be in the wild. Very healthy looking and happy. It is great to drive by them as they run around in the green green grass. In the mongolian lonely planet guide book, they actually give locations of ger camps (for sleeping) and sights in GPS coordinates. Just bc there aren't really roads or signs or people. You just have to have a good driver or a GPS.
The first day was pouring still in UB, but as we went south the sun gradually came out and we soon saw why they call mongolia blue sky country. The first day we drove 200km's (125 miles) in 6 hours including rest stops to arrive at Baga Gazryn Chulu a thriving metropolis of 4 gers, and about 6 people. The whole drive was through the mongolian steppe. It's the wet season so the roads were muddy and the grass very green and the horses healthy (they had a major drought last year and the US sent in hay by air to keep the animals in mongolia from dieing bc it would have basically been a catastrophe for them if all their animals died. As I mentioned the US and mongolia have great relations. They consider us to be their third neighbor and there are American aid groups and peace corps all over). The scenery was actually a lot like driving I-80 in Wyoming except with greener grass and no trees and of course no paved roads or service stations. We carried extra fuel with us. Once at camp we climbed to the top of 1780m Baga Gazryu Uul to watch the sunset. We slept in a ger that night (just like every night). It was freezing that night, but the gers were quite good at insulating. The whole time I have been in mongolia it has been really cold. Even the desert was rarely above 60 degrees and always windy. This boggles my mind bc although the elevation is high (4200 to 5000 ft) 60 degrees is still really cold for a high temperature. We were always wearing jackets. And this is August, the hottest month, I can only imagine january.
8/15Drive to Tsaggan Suvraga ger camp. Along the way we stopped at an abandoned monastery where the monks were killed after the atheist communists took over. We also stopped at a random ger along the way where we were invited in to drink Airag and alcoholic drink (3-5%) made from fermented horse milk. The drink was not too bad and the people gave us copious amounts and showed us mongolian drinking games. We also had some very sour tasting horse milk cheese. We also stopped at some place called white mountain that looked a bit badland like. As we got further south the grass became less green and thinner and we started to see some camels here and there. Also along the drives we saw lots of hawks and eagles and the occassional fox.
8/16 Drive to Dalzmagad, which is a province capital "city" and the gateway to the main gobi desert attractions. The driver was in a big rush to get us to leave in the morning so we thought we had some sight to get to before it got dark, but we got to the city by noon. Turns out his fiance lived there. We were staying in a homestay, which of course even in a mongolian city means a ger. We were quite dusty so we head to the public shower. The only place in the province where you can get a shower actually. Then we explored the town a bit, but mainly just chilled and read in the ger.
8/17 So I don't have a mongolian lonely planet, but Elise and Pavlo did. So at this point i can't remember all the names so I will put in ???? and hopefully find out at some point. Drove to ???? national park, home to snow leapards, bears, and many other cool animals. We took a hike through something called the ice valley (has ice in it all year except july-sept, which is impressive for being in the desert). There was actually a stream running through it (first running water we had seen, but still no trees). The desert here was gorgeous and quite mountainous and full of canyons. After the hike, on which we saw some yaks, we got back in the jeep for a really cool 4wd road that is only open in the summer. Went over some cool passes and through some really narrow (side mirror scraping narrow) gorges. Eventually we arrived out on super flat desert. No roads, just fast desert driving with mountain views to the back. Soon we saw some sand dunes glimmering in the distance. We drove in pretty close and then followed the dunes for some 80kms (the dunes stretch 180kms and range in width from 3-12kms and in height up to 300m (1000ft). We arrived at a small ger camp along a portion of the dunes. Here there were a few gers, some goats, lots of camels, and a post office! Strangest thing way out there in the desert. Only building around for miles and miles. That evening we took a camel ride up and into the dunes to watch the sun set. The camel guide took elise's camel's reigns and we were laughing it was because mongols viewed women as having low status (this, sadly is true), but then he grabbed Pavlo's reigns as well, while I got to travel free. Pavlo figured it was b/c they loved americans so much. Of course they decided to give me the American version of the camel. It was high powered and fast, but was always stopping at plants to refuel, while the energy efficeint europeans just plodded along. When we got back to camp, one of the women cooking stepped out of the ger and threw water. This made a sharp noise and freaked out the camels. My camel reared and bucked. Camel saddles are attached onto the camel, so it quickly fell. I was able to grab onto one of the humps (these are bactrian camels and have two humps) and hold on. The mongols watching gave me a round of applause. That night there was a fierce sandstorm, but we were safe and snug in our little ger.
8/18 Pavlo and I woke up early to climb some of the bigger sand dunes and watch the sunrise. The sand dunes were really incredible and impressive. I have seen dunes at the great sand dune np in colorado, at bruno in Idaho and white sands in New Mexico as well as the n. sahara in morocco, but these put all those to shame in pure size and breadth and length. From there we drove to Bayanzag (flaming cliffs) where famous american archealogisit name ????? discovered hunderds and even thousands of dinosaur fossils in the 20's i think. He apparently was a crazy adventurer and the guy that indiana jones (a hero of mine) may have been modeled after. This is the place where veloceraptors were discovered. And at some point there was a giant sandstorm that apparently froze several dinosaurs in action so they have full fossils of dinosaurs frozen in the middle of a fight and a dinosaur protecting its eggs. Of course the bones and fossils are no longer here but at the New York museum of natural history. But the scenery was cool...had a bryce canyon type look. That night we drove again to the middle of nowhere where there happened to be a ger camp that we stayed at. It was freezing cold that night and luckily the women in charge of the family there brought us over some camel and cow dung to burn in the stove. Then it was quite toasty and nice.
8/19 Drive back to UB along the of course beautiful mongolian steppe with all the horses, cows, goats, and green grass amongst funky rock formations.
I LOVED mongolia and would have liked to stay longer, but I didn't realize how cool it would be so didn't allow enough time. I sort of had a choice between two trips. To do a trip to the gobi to the south or to the big mountains, alpine lakes and glaciers to the west. I think the gobi was a good choice considering my time bc the gobi is famous for mongolia, I got to see the grasslands and mongolian steppe and the weather was nice. I will see lots of mountains and glaciers I am assuming while in Tibet (if I can get there) and nepal and india. But I definitely feel like I got a great taste of mongolia and it's just amazing wilderness and openness. Basically the whole country is one big camping ground so it would be great to just rent a jeep and explore or better yet take a mountain bike and do a cycle tour. But I was just really impressed with the vastness of the country and just how back in time it feels. I mean UB is a modern enough city for a 3rd world country (though it's suburbs are still yurts), but the rest of the country is still living like it did back in the days of ghengis khaan. Living as nomads, eating mutton and horse milk products and burning dung for warmth. Though some gers do have a solar panel that give them some tv time.
8/20 Since I had a couple of days to wait until the train from moscow going to beijing arrived I did a trip to Terlj national park. A park a bit s. east of UB and in some mountains that actually have trees. So strange to see trees again. The mountains in this national park are cool looking. Very similar to lumpy ridge except many many more and with verdant green grasslands in between. The funny thing is that although this is a national park, it would be hard to believe. It was actually crowded by mongolian standards (being 70km from the city it is where most foreigners on the their 3 day stay in mongolia while on the trans siberia visit) with several tourists camps. There was also a golf course (though I guess RMNP at one point had a golf course in moraine park). But once I got hiking a bit into the mountains it was the same old empty mongolia. I was on the trip with 4 Koreans. 2 of them knew each other from work, but the rest had just met up. Their names were Qu, Li, and Salang, though I don't remember the older gentlemen's name. He used to be a shaman in the mountains of korea though and could apparently tell you when you would die. I was glad it was only the young koreans who spoke english bc I didn't want to know. Also, in korea, your age is based on when you were conceived, not when you were born. I took the younger koreans on the hike with me and they were so impressed at how crazy we were being. It was a steep hike with a bit of rock scrambling, but nothing crazy. Koreans, like japanese, tend to be tour bus tourists. They also love taking photos and were arranging me in poses on top of a mountain for photos. Salang, the lady in the group, said I should be a model for a outdoor company like north face. I got a kick out of that and had to laugh. After the hike we took a horse ride on those famous steeds ridden by ghenggis khaan. They are much smaller than the horses we have back at home, but can apparently go much longer distances. The riding was nice bc it wasn't like those horse rides in estes where you follow the leader and just plod along. Here you were on your own and in control of your horse while going across the grassland.
The koreans also weren't fans of the mongol food and they had brough korean instant noodles. So that night we boiled water on the stove in the ger (cold again of course) and made korean noodles around midnight and drank grapefruit vodka cocktails.
8/21 Happy birthday Bro!!! In the morning we went out on the horses again. The horses were a bit fiesty this morning and they were bucking. I managed to stay on all the time that my horse bucked (could this be from watching all the bull riding at dirty little roddies back in boise? haha) But the shaman got bucked off at one point. Drove back to UB and arrived in the afternoon. Did a tiny bit of exploring in UB including seeing their central square and the big ghengis khaan statue, then just catching up in internet stuff
I will surely miss the wide open spaces and sheer beauty of mongolia as well as the friendly and smiley people. I have so many places I want to go in my life, but mongolia would be great to come back to for a month with a russian jeep and really explore it. It is true wilderness here, like nothing i have really seen before.
If you want to see a bit of what I have been seeing, the foreign film entitled "the mongol" with English subtitles was pretty good, especially in scenery. K-dizzle, morganic, pickles, and I saw it when we had roommate movie night. We thought it was good and funny when they were describing how the Khaan should fine the perfect wife: the thicker the legs, the better the woman. Kendra and Morgan (my very skinny roomates) said they were not cut out toe be a mongol wife.
Apparently there is a movie called "trans siberian" which the lonely planet says is good except for the ending. This may be possibly good if wanting to see what the train is like.
Saturday, August 21, 2010
Friday, August 13, 2010
Mother Russia
RANDOM MUMBLINGS
I read in the once weekly english version of the moscow post that there had been some rioting with molotov cocktails and other explosive devices. They may seem normal to you for Russia, but what was interesting is that instead of revolutionaries like the decembrists or the bolshaveks, these were environmentalists. Apparently Russia had just sold a huge piece of land (nearly the size of Colorado) including a nature preserve to China to be used for clear cut logging. I guess it is interesting because it goes to show how far russia has come, to see that it is environmentalists starting these riots. However, russia still does not recycle even glass bottles!
Doro was telling me how she always likes meeting american backpackers, but hardly ever does. And this is true. In one month I am yet to meet another fellow american and in my year in SE asia, I hardly met any. Doro wanted to know why there are not so many backpackers out there...young americans. She said (and I concur) that travelling as a young person is so important. You learn a lot about yourself, about life, about others, about other cultures and countries and just develop a more worldly view. Plus you have lots of fun. The simple response is that it is just not in a culture. But that is a lame response. Why is it not in our culture?
I think a huge region is that for some reason we have the american dream engrained in our brains: graduate highschool go to college, then get a good career and/or go to grad school and then start the career. Work hard, save up, buy a house with a picket fence in the suburbs and a dog and kids, buy a nice car, etc. I am not sure why this is engrained in our culture, but it seems to be. Money is obviously not the issue b/c backpacking is fairly cheap, and a lot of my friends already have bought houses and fancy cars. In europe, they take what is called the gap year. This is a year after graduating from highschool (well it's more complicated bc in europe they finish public school around age 16 and then go two more years to what they call college (equivalent of us finishing highschool and then taking a year of commmunity college perhaps)) in which they backpack around before going to Uni. They also often do this after graduating from Uni before going for their careers. We hardly ever do these gap years, but it is very common in Europe. In addition, in many european countries, school is paid for by the country or it is relatively cheap, so they do not have as big of loans to pay off.
Another reason is that once europeans do get a career, they seem to start off with 4 to 5 week paid vacations and it is not uncommon to run into people with 9 to 10 week vacations. So this is plenty of time to take good backpacking trips every year. Whereas americans seem to get a measely 2 weeks in which they are often discouraged from taking anyways. And they spend these two weeks perhaps visiting friends and family since it is a lot to buy an expensive flight for just a 12 day vacation.
Perhaps another reason is that in America we tend to have more fear and caution. Outside of europe and australia we often see the world as full of terrorists, drug lords and other dangers. Even though an earthquake is just as likely in san fran, china seems more dangerous in that front, etc etc. You have no idea how many americans back home tell me as the first thing how dangerous my travels must be. Europeans live in small countries and are thus more exposed to other cultures and I think are then more adventurous on the cultural front and less afraid.
And lastly, I believe a lot of it has to do with how amazing and gorgeous our country is. The west of our country alone has some of the best scenery in the world and unlimited options for adventure. So a lot of my friends who have not been abroad (I actually have quite a few that have been abroad) have spend a considerable amount of time backpacking, camping, and adventuring throughout our country (which is a very good thing and I myself love it, though cultural differences are not to be found so much. So instead of going abroad they do a ski trip in colorado or a canyoneering trip in Utah or a backpacking trip on the sierra trail. In europe, again, their countries are small so they want to leave more, and you would be surprised at how many europeans haven't explored their own country too much. I still have yet to meet a swiss (besides David from ACI) who has been to the matterhorn!
The three gals from moscow (Xenia, Doro, and Mahey) also were eager to tell me about what I would find out with the russian women as I travelled about. They had met one other american and as soon as he said he was Amerikansky, the russian girls instantly batted their eyes and were swooning over him. After going through russia, this is definitely quite true. I guees there is no need for a russian mail order bride, I can just come here. I think the russian girls like the idea of america and would like to go there as well. But this isn't unusual. In many places I have been from the Philippines to vietnam to thailand, the girls would often get very excited when I would say I was american and say "oh american boy, so handsome". And their mom's and dad's would even be so bold as to say take her to america, marry her, even though I had just met. We always found it so funny, especially in the philippines. Something interesting is that I met about 30 russians on my journey (including employees of hostels) who spoke english. Of the 30, only 3 were men. I don't know if this is because the men are expected to do more of the physical labor jobs and don't go to school or what, but it is the women that all know english.
One other thing that the moscow trio were laughing hard about was lonely planet's phrase book which is supposed to help you with phrases to travel and/or live in Russia. B/c it is heavy, they cut out a bunch of sections before travelling such as buying things for a house, airport talk, business talk, fashion, etc. One they were going to cut out until they read it and found it so funny was the sex/romance section. They couldn't wait to show it to me when we got back to the hostel. 4 pages were devoted to it and it had phrases like: "harder, faster, slower, softer, kiss me here" But the ones that were their favorites and were quite funny were: "so this is why you are not married?" "when does your husband/wife get home" "this is my first time, how many times is it for you" "I am only in this for the sex, not bc I like you"
I have started to get the hang of reading cyrillic and even understanding some now as I leave russia..ha
AHH..PEACE AND QUIET
8/4 At the train station in moscow, the temperature read 42 degrees (nearly 108F). Thankfully, the train was airconditioned even though I was in plantskart (3rd class). The train I was on was going all the way to vladisvostok (7 days away), but I was only going for 3 hours. Thus, most of the Russians were on there for a long journey. It was quite cool to see how prepared they were. They brought out all this fancy stuff and food for their long travel. I guess it is like camping, but just on a train. Since I was only going for 3 hours, I did not have anything other than water. I soon found the little table in front of me filled with cookies, crackers, bread, and tea from all the russians wanting to share. In my area there was an older russian woman, a russian woman and her teenage daughter (of buryat...asian descent) and another russian teenager all from different areas in mongolia. We chatted for a while. Them speaking to me in Russian, me speaking to them in English...and sometimes spanish when I felt like changing things up. But we had a good time, laughed a lot, and really had no idea what each was saying. But eventually the two teenaged girls lost their english shyness. The Buryat gal could speak about as much english as I could speak spanish after 3 years. So we could have some basic conversation asking things like name, age, brothers, sisters, where I was from, where I was going, etc. She would then translate to everyone. The other gal spoke much less english, but she made me a nice card with her array of colored pencils that said, "hello to Travis from Russia" I have the new US passport that has pictures on the pages of beautiful american places such as alaska, hawaii, the tetons, the statue of liberty, etc. So they had a lot of fun looking at them and asking where they were.
After 3 hours, I arrived in Vladimir where I took the bus to Suzdal, a tiny town of about 4000 people. I checked into my tiny wooden cabin hostel along the river and then went out to explore the town a bit. It was so nice to be in the peace and quiet of a small village. My whole travel so far has mainly been through cities...from Denver to Toronto to Frankfurt to Prague to Budapest back to Prague to Stockholm to Sundsvall to Stockholm to Helsinki to St. Peter'sburg to Moscow. Traffic and people and lights and noise everywhere and all the time. So it was so peaceful. It was like going from Manhattan to Wendell or Fairfield Idaho. Just tiny little farming type villages. One of the cool things about Suzdal though was that it had tons of churches. One on everycorner. So you could always see a skyline full of onion domed churches. That evening I met a british couple. We were discussing the difficulties of getting a russian visa and the invitation and registration. THey had applied for theirs two months in advance and received theirs in the mail the day they flew. They were so thankful they had chosen the late afternoon flight instead of the morning flight!
8/5 I spent the morning exploring suzdal. Checking out views of the churches (it was really smokey there too from the fires, but the smoke seemed to add to the charisma of the views of the churches). I climbed a steeple and checked out a couple monasteries and a convent. Instead of the soviet style concrete apartments, the people here lived in nicely painted wooden houses. I checked out the market where the babushkas (grannies) were selling things from their gardens. Life was so very slow here. A complete turn around from moscow. No more fancy sports cars, just soviet junkers. No more rushing around or fashion. As I had explored all the village by the afternoon, I bought some pickles from the babushkas and a honey beer (famous in this region and brewed by monks I think) and went down to the river to cool off with a swim. That evening I took the bus back to vladamir and boarded the 12:50am train bound for Irkutsk. On this train I was Kupe (2nd class) which meant I was in a little cabin of 4 people.
CHUGGING ALONG ON THE TRANS SIBERIAN RAILROAD
"And if evil exists its a pair of train tracks
And the devil is a railroad car" Josh Ritter (evil must not exist...)
8/6 I woke up in the morning to someone putting a blanket on me. It was Isolda, a german woman from Dresden who was a bit older and like to travel to difficult places (Burma, Antartica, Bhutan, India). Also in my cabin was Kristina (german) and Vasily (russian) The two germans were on a tour with 6 other germans. Kristina knew good english, but didn't talk much. Isolda didn't know very good english, but she talked all the time, switching between russian, german, and english. She was funny and nice (she made my bed the first morning), but I didn't always know what she was saying. She spoke Russian though bc in east germany they had to learn Russian in school while they were communists. It was nice that she knew russian though bc she could translate some stuff for us and help us buy things at the train stops along the way when the babushkas were out selling things from raspberries to beer to fish to kolbasa (sausage).
Travelling in the train is quite relaxing. I have always liked travel by train and boat bc you can just sit there and relax with no worries of anything and watch the world go buy. The scenery the first day was lots and lots of taiga (pine trees mainly) with little villages full of cute log homes and then the occassional big ugly soviet looking cities where we would stop for 20 minutes. We'd get out and stretch and walk in the sun and see what the people were selling. We spent a lot of time on the train talking and reading and just watching the scenery, and of course eating instant noodles. Isolda was worried that I wasn't eating healthy enough on the train so she was always ready to share the german sausages (best in the world she claimed) and cheese she brought as well as her powdered milk. Isolda was always calling me the sportman and was convinced I must play american football for the university of colorado (bc of my hat) and she was proud to tell all her german friends she was keeping me strong for my sports. I had some blueberry soup and hot chocolate along to share with them, but they were not too interested in my instant noodles...this was a russian thing to do, not german they said! Although I had brought plenty of food for the whole train ride, Kristina and Isolda often bought me little treats from the sellers and even took me to breakfast once in the expensive dinner car.
8/7 Another day on the train. This time through flatter areas and more fields. More fun talk on the train. Vasily got off at olmsk and we took on a new cabin mate...Marina. She was russian and from way up in the country (according to Isolda). They are quite conserative there and she was also very scared of being in a cabin with a male tourist. She eventually warmed up more to me. But when she ate, I could not be in the cabin as men and women do not eat together in traditional russia and when I ate she was always nowhere to be found. By now we had crossed into asia as we went through the city of Yekantinburg. More reading and resting and the occasional nap on the train.
8/8 The scenery was now much more lush. Lots of pine trees again and wet meadows. It reminded me a lot of the areas on the west side of rocky mtn np where you expect to fine moose. We crossed lots of rivers and the scenery was just really quite nice. Siberia is so massive and expansive and hardly anyone lives there.
THE FROSTY WATERS OF LAKE BAIKAL AND THE PARTYING SWISS
8/9 We were awoken at 4am and told that the train would be arriving in Irkutsk in half an hour. When it arrived, I said goodbye to Isolda, Kristina and the rest of the germans. I think my bunk mates were sad to say goodbye. I saw 4 guys haggling with taxi drivers to presumably get to the bus station. I walked up to them and they said they were all asking too much. I had mapped out using my guidebook how to walk the 3km to the station, so they said they'd happily join me. The funny thing about travelling across siberia is that you lose track of time. You are on the train for 74 hours to get to irkutsk from moscow (71 for me bc I started in vladimir) and go through 5 time zones. I tried to keep my watch updated with each new time zone, but these 4 guys students in switzerland (3 swiss: rafael, andy, alex and one french gigi) had stayed on moscow time (which is what the trains clocks stay on) so it was midnight for them and 5 am for me. A couple of them were quite drunk still from the vodka they had had and there were a couple stops for puking along the way. They were a fun group and they loved to hasle the poor french guy. Apparently he had never travelled before and they kept saying how he would be lost (if not dead in moscow) if not for them. But he took it all with a smile. He didn't know much english (typical french they said). There were all engineering students that had a 6 week class in hong kong starting in february. Most of the class was flying straight there, but they were taking a more adventurous route to get to hong kong, all by rail. The walk was freezing (it was about 38 degrees, a sharp drop from the 108 in moscow)
We took the bus to Listvyanka which is a tiny little town on the shores of Lake Baikal, the world's deepest lake. When we got there, my guesthouse that I had booked would not answer the bell. We were all freezing, so Alex hopped the fence and let us in. We then went into the hang out area of the hostel and a couple of them fell asleep under the table. When the manager walked in, two of them were sleeping under the table and gigi was peeing with the door open. I think she was quite shocked and the more sensible Andy said it was a good thing I quickly and calmly produced my reservation or she might have called the russian police, something you don't want. But she eventually smiled, showed us our room, told us how cold it was and turned on the russian banya (sauna) for us. Alex, Rafael, and Gigi then slept until 2pm while Alex and I explored around a bit. We also went to have some olmud, the famous fish from the baikal that is smoked and SO TASTY. Best freshwater fish I have ever had. And only a buck 25 for a fish! After waking up the crowd, we went for a swim in the freezing lake baikal. That evening we had more fish and some vodka and beer on the shores of the lake as the sun set.
That night I was ready to curl up under the blankets and read my book, but they convinced me to come to the disco with them, especially after they said that since there parents were helping to finance their trips, the drinks were on them. So we headed out to the disco, which had a total of about 7 people. Us and two women. But we made the best of the dance party. Gigi was quite funny and crazy. He was running around taking of his shirt doing funny dance moves and by the end of the night was in only his briefs and leading the two women in dance moves. He should probably meet special ted.
8/10 They were all feeling quite tired and sick the next day, so I headed out for a hike along lake baikal and then exploring some of the tiny villages along its shores. I came back in time for the suana and some fish with them. They hadn't moved much all day and were just sitting on the deck of our guesthouse that had a nice view of lake baikal.
IT'S A SMALL SMALL WORLD AFTER ALL
That evening I boarded the bus and headed back to Irkutsk. That night in Irkutsk I was staying at Tatiana's house. I met Tatiana through the couchsurfing website. www.couchsurfing.com if you want to try. She lived in one of those drab looking soviet apartment complexes, but the inside was quite nice. When I arrived, she actually wasn't there bc she had unexpectantly be repaid a visit by some former couch surfers. So when I got to her place, Gize and Christian (Germans) opened the door for me. They had been on a motorbike tour through the "stans" (kyrgistan, tajikistan, azerbaijan, pakistan, uzbekistan) and russia and mongolia. They had met up with an irishman (Simon) who had couch surfed with Tatiana before. WHen they were about 70km's out of irkutsk, Simon's clutch failed so they had been at tatiana's for a week waiting for the clutch to be shipped in from the UK. In the meantime, Simon had fallen for Tatiana and when I arrived they were out at tatiana's parent's house having a banya. I had been invited, but I would be arriving too late and the german's were too tired to go so they would wait for me. The german's had bought lots of food at the super market before leaving irkutsk so now they needed to get rid of it and they made me a big thing of spaghetti and tasty sauce. Tatiana and simon arrived later with fresh fruits and vegetables from her parent's garden. We did the typical hellos and where are you froms. Colorado I said. Oh, Denver? said Simon. No.. Boulder (I always say this to europeans bc perhaps they have heard of it) Oh yes, I love boulder, said simon. Oh really, I said and was about to ask him if he knew of estes park when he said, I worked for Ravencrest for a winter! Wow! Small world. He worked there the year I was a freshman in high school and of course knew Frank (blanking on the last name but our soccer ref) and Jake Hess and company and Luke Thomas. He told me to say hi to everyone back there in Estes (he would be known as Si Johnston back in EP). He told me Luke Thomas had actually done some service work in Mongolia shortly after he left estes. So we had a fun swapping stories an me listening to their crazy motorbike adventures.
VODKA...THE TRUE TRANS SIBERIAN EXPERIENCE
8/11 Tatiana took me to the train station before work. I had 1.5 hours before my train left and I had not had internet since moscow (siberia is still in soviet times in terms of the internet) but i knew a hostel in downtown (2.5 km's away) had internet. The reason I really needed it was bc I had another couch surfing that night and I had not received darima's phone or address and Ulan Ude has NO budget options so I didn't want to be stranded there with an expensive hotel. I rushed as fast as I could (carrying my big backpack) got to where the hostel was supposed to be, finally found it and had about 10 minutes I figured. I checked my email, but no email from darima which worried me a bit. I rushed back to the train, but had time still to buy a water for the train.
Once on the train, on platskart again, the russian women who I was in the bunk above was very much trying to talk to me and explain things to me, but of course I had no idea. She wouldn't let me make my bed and instead made it for me. Then set up my books and water and noodles in all the compartments. She was so sweet and funny. In the next cart over the providnista (carriage attendant, almost always female) spoke english and she came to practice. She was quite good and was on her summer vacation doing this job and studying to be an english and french teacher. She invited me into her special carriage area that had better views so I could out. This was a particularly beautiful part of the trip as it followed the lake baikal for 200km's. She also said she would put my backpack in a special spot to keep it safe so I could wonder around the train. A lot of russians would stop by to talk to her and she was telling me that they were all asking about me and excited to hear I was american. One had heard of colorado and it's famous huge canyon (a common mistake even amongst europeans). She said she would look it up on the internet. Eventually I got the call from a russian man to come to the small dining carriage. He brought out the vodka and me and him and two women began shooting vodka. It is impolite to refuse, but I was a bit worried I would get really drunk. They were all staying on until vladistvostock, but I was getting off in 4 hours to a place that I didn't know and had no accomadation bc I hadn't heard from darima. But soon after 6 or 7 shots I was no longer worrying. Of course they chase the vodka with this sweet stuff they call champagne (17% alcohol according to the bottle). They kept bringing me food (cow tongue with spicy mustard, borsch (with vodka poured in) and more. I usually don't like to eat too much of what people bring, but I ate copious amount to try to counteract the vodka. After one big bottle was finished I thought we were done, but then another was brought out! Eventually after this was finished I went back to the providnista's place to talk more with her. Her name was olga and she was very sweet and cute...reminded me of my little freshman swimming mentee Christine Mabile while at ACI. Really, just like her. We practiced some more english, written this time. I was quite drunk, but holding my composure. We exchanged emails so she could practice writing and if she got a job in canada teaching russian to the french there maybe she would be allowed to get an american visa and I could show her this famous canyon in colorado. But soon the russian guy was back with more vodka and I was back in the dining cart shooting with him. They knew no english of course. Olga told me to be careful with them bc they drink so much but there is nothing you can really do bc once you've had one it is impolite to say no. Finally the train arrived in ulan ude (7.5 hours). I was quite drunk but managed to get my stuff (though not all of it, sadly I left my journal in olga's room...when I found this out later at night I was quite sad! I had lots of contacts and memories in it)
As I got off the train was greeted with the wonderful sound of "Travis?" Darima had recognized me in my last ditch email describing what my backpack looked like and that I would have an american baseball cap on. I was now of course very drunk, but i was able to stay quite normal. Later on that night after we became closer friends and I told Darima about the ride she said she had no idea I was drunk. Ulan Ude is the 1st distinctively asian city along the way. Probably 3/4 of the people, including darima, are Buryats (similar looking to Mongols). Darima knew great english and she had actuall studied at college in north dakota (similar to ulan ude in terms of temperature she said). She toured me around her city showing me things such as the largest lenin head in the world, the new opera house and a nice view of the city. She took me to a buryat place for buuz (a type of dumplings) and then out for icecream. She lived in an old soviet building, of course. She is a teacher at the university and lives in her flat with an italian, a czech, and two koreans studying russian at the university. They were all gone on summer vacation except for one korean, but the czech had been there a week earlier and heard I was coming so she left me a 2 liter (!) bottle of beer in the fridge and somthing they call martini (sweeter and less potent vodka) especially for me. Leave it to the Czechs! That night Darima made me a typical meal of potaotes and mushrooms and she showed me pictures of her university.
TRAVISIO...THE NEW ITALIAN
8/12
I caught the train from Ulan Ude heading to Ulan Bataar early in the morning (6:30am) and found out that I had been placed in a bunk room with two italian gals (Ambera and Franceska). We were in a plush fancy chinese car! I love italians. For some reason they are always so fun and I love how they speak english, always with an A on the end "I lova the viewa from the traina it isa soa beautifula" (kiss of the fingers to go with this!). Italians just have something about them that I love and makes me smile and of course they are always smiling...even when they were complaining about how the fatty and greasy and heavy russian food was bad for their stomachs and how they dreamed of pasta and oil and real cheese. They were tons of fun to talk with and we had fun running up and down the train exploring the different compartments and meeting the providnistas. Most of the people on the train at this point were tourists (and mostly french and swiss) bc the russians don't go to mongolia. At one point they went on to the dining car and asked if I wanted anything to drink. No i said, I had tea. They came back with two beers for me. Oh geeze, not more drinking on the train. But we kept this more civil.
Not long before the border and while we were at the caboose watching the desolate landscape (similar to the dry mountains and high plains of wyoming) roll by someone had place a big black bag under our seats. We had heard about mongolians smuggling things from russia into mongolia. We wondered if that's what this was, but we quickly disposed of it to the providnista bc we did not want to get caught in customs with something illegal (they rarely check tourist bags though. they are much harder on the mongols). At the border we had to wait about 6 hours for customs and all that. We walked the border town, but it was tiny and there was nothing. So we were content to read. We eventually crossed the border and it became quite lush again (it had been raining the whole time). Really incredibly lush and green. The mongolian border stuff was easier, but still took about 3 hours. We are really good friends with mongolia (it is the only true democratic country in asia and sits between two big rivals of ours) so it is free for me to come in and I can stay for 90 days. Eruos pay about 100 bucks for a visa and can stay 30 days. The only place I have been so far where it is not the americans getting screwed on the visa.
On the mongolian side of the border we picked up a very crazy swiss guy. He had missed the train in Ulan Ude. Had been there on time but couldn't figure out which one to get on. (I have to admit the station there was quite confusing i was glad I was there 40 minutes early as I had trouble figuing it out as well). We were kind of turned off by him. Italians can understand spanish and speak it kind of too, so franceska said in spanish we should play a joke on him and that I should pretend to be italian and ambrera's cousin. We managed to pull of this joke the entire time without him knowing even though I speak no italian, my accent is as american as it gets (explained away to him by saying I had a ski scholarship to the university of colorado so I studied there...didn't he see the hat ambrera asked). But it was quite funny and we laughed and laughed about it. We even held it as we finished off the last of my vodka I had bought a long time ago but hardly used.
8/13 Friday the 13th. We were awoke about 5:30 to prepare to disembark in Ulan Baatar. As the sun rose we saw the rolling steppe and grasslands. Huge expanse of emptiness except with a couple gers (yurts) scattered about. As we approached the suburbs of UB (really the only city in mongolia) we couldn't help but laugh that the suburbs were yurts. When we got off the train I had to say a sad goodbye to my italian cousin and her friend and promise that I would soon visit again bc I couldn't wait to have her famous gnocci again.
I had arranged a hostel in town that did free train station pick up and I was glad as it was pooring (and flooding in the roads). I soon met a britsh guy (Leon) and we explored the city a tiny bit, but were working on mainly figuring out our tours for mongolia and making atm visits to pay for them and train tickets to mongolia. For some reason UB is really, really known for its pick pocketing so you don't even carry a wallet (as its a temptation) and hold the money in your hand. When you take out 1.3 million(that equals about 130 bucks) of mongol money at the atm and rush back to the hostel you are careful not to bump anyone and grasp the money tightly in your pockets. We went out for some tasty mongolian food and had some milk tea (gross) I rarealy find foreign food gross, but this was nasty. I couldn't finish it. It's like salty and tastes a bit like hotsprings and really quite wretched.
Tomorrow I leave for a 6 day tour to the mongolian step, ger camping and the mongolian desert. As its mainly nomads and tents, there is unlikely to be interne, except at maybe one outpost, so don't be surprised if you don't hear from me in 6 days. I was not taken prisoner by ghengis kahn...just eating mutton and choking on milk tea in a ger =)
I read in the once weekly english version of the moscow post that there had been some rioting with molotov cocktails and other explosive devices. They may seem normal to you for Russia, but what was interesting is that instead of revolutionaries like the decembrists or the bolshaveks, these were environmentalists. Apparently Russia had just sold a huge piece of land (nearly the size of Colorado) including a nature preserve to China to be used for clear cut logging. I guess it is interesting because it goes to show how far russia has come, to see that it is environmentalists starting these riots. However, russia still does not recycle even glass bottles!
Doro was telling me how she always likes meeting american backpackers, but hardly ever does. And this is true. In one month I am yet to meet another fellow american and in my year in SE asia, I hardly met any. Doro wanted to know why there are not so many backpackers out there...young americans. She said (and I concur) that travelling as a young person is so important. You learn a lot about yourself, about life, about others, about other cultures and countries and just develop a more worldly view. Plus you have lots of fun. The simple response is that it is just not in a culture. But that is a lame response. Why is it not in our culture?
I think a huge region is that for some reason we have the american dream engrained in our brains: graduate highschool go to college, then get a good career and/or go to grad school and then start the career. Work hard, save up, buy a house with a picket fence in the suburbs and a dog and kids, buy a nice car, etc. I am not sure why this is engrained in our culture, but it seems to be. Money is obviously not the issue b/c backpacking is fairly cheap, and a lot of my friends already have bought houses and fancy cars. In europe, they take what is called the gap year. This is a year after graduating from highschool (well it's more complicated bc in europe they finish public school around age 16 and then go two more years to what they call college (equivalent of us finishing highschool and then taking a year of commmunity college perhaps)) in which they backpack around before going to Uni. They also often do this after graduating from Uni before going for their careers. We hardly ever do these gap years, but it is very common in Europe. In addition, in many european countries, school is paid for by the country or it is relatively cheap, so they do not have as big of loans to pay off.
Another reason is that once europeans do get a career, they seem to start off with 4 to 5 week paid vacations and it is not uncommon to run into people with 9 to 10 week vacations. So this is plenty of time to take good backpacking trips every year. Whereas americans seem to get a measely 2 weeks in which they are often discouraged from taking anyways. And they spend these two weeks perhaps visiting friends and family since it is a lot to buy an expensive flight for just a 12 day vacation.
Perhaps another reason is that in America we tend to have more fear and caution. Outside of europe and australia we often see the world as full of terrorists, drug lords and other dangers. Even though an earthquake is just as likely in san fran, china seems more dangerous in that front, etc etc. You have no idea how many americans back home tell me as the first thing how dangerous my travels must be. Europeans live in small countries and are thus more exposed to other cultures and I think are then more adventurous on the cultural front and less afraid.
And lastly, I believe a lot of it has to do with how amazing and gorgeous our country is. The west of our country alone has some of the best scenery in the world and unlimited options for adventure. So a lot of my friends who have not been abroad (I actually have quite a few that have been abroad) have spend a considerable amount of time backpacking, camping, and adventuring throughout our country (which is a very good thing and I myself love it, though cultural differences are not to be found so much. So instead of going abroad they do a ski trip in colorado or a canyoneering trip in Utah or a backpacking trip on the sierra trail. In europe, again, their countries are small so they want to leave more, and you would be surprised at how many europeans haven't explored their own country too much. I still have yet to meet a swiss (besides David from ACI) who has been to the matterhorn!
The three gals from moscow (Xenia, Doro, and Mahey) also were eager to tell me about what I would find out with the russian women as I travelled about. They had met one other american and as soon as he said he was Amerikansky, the russian girls instantly batted their eyes and were swooning over him. After going through russia, this is definitely quite true. I guees there is no need for a russian mail order bride, I can just come here. I think the russian girls like the idea of america and would like to go there as well. But this isn't unusual. In many places I have been from the Philippines to vietnam to thailand, the girls would often get very excited when I would say I was american and say "oh american boy, so handsome". And their mom's and dad's would even be so bold as to say take her to america, marry her, even though I had just met. We always found it so funny, especially in the philippines. Something interesting is that I met about 30 russians on my journey (including employees of hostels) who spoke english. Of the 30, only 3 were men. I don't know if this is because the men are expected to do more of the physical labor jobs and don't go to school or what, but it is the women that all know english.
One other thing that the moscow trio were laughing hard about was lonely planet's phrase book which is supposed to help you with phrases to travel and/or live in Russia. B/c it is heavy, they cut out a bunch of sections before travelling such as buying things for a house, airport talk, business talk, fashion, etc. One they were going to cut out until they read it and found it so funny was the sex/romance section. They couldn't wait to show it to me when we got back to the hostel. 4 pages were devoted to it and it had phrases like: "harder, faster, slower, softer, kiss me here" But the ones that were their favorites and were quite funny were: "so this is why you are not married?" "when does your husband/wife get home" "this is my first time, how many times is it for you" "I am only in this for the sex, not bc I like you"
I have started to get the hang of reading cyrillic and even understanding some now as I leave russia..ha
AHH..PEACE AND QUIET
8/4 At the train station in moscow, the temperature read 42 degrees (nearly 108F). Thankfully, the train was airconditioned even though I was in plantskart (3rd class). The train I was on was going all the way to vladisvostok (7 days away), but I was only going for 3 hours. Thus, most of the Russians were on there for a long journey. It was quite cool to see how prepared they were. They brought out all this fancy stuff and food for their long travel. I guess it is like camping, but just on a train. Since I was only going for 3 hours, I did not have anything other than water. I soon found the little table in front of me filled with cookies, crackers, bread, and tea from all the russians wanting to share. In my area there was an older russian woman, a russian woman and her teenage daughter (of buryat...asian descent) and another russian teenager all from different areas in mongolia. We chatted for a while. Them speaking to me in Russian, me speaking to them in English...and sometimes spanish when I felt like changing things up. But we had a good time, laughed a lot, and really had no idea what each was saying. But eventually the two teenaged girls lost their english shyness. The Buryat gal could speak about as much english as I could speak spanish after 3 years. So we could have some basic conversation asking things like name, age, brothers, sisters, where I was from, where I was going, etc. She would then translate to everyone. The other gal spoke much less english, but she made me a nice card with her array of colored pencils that said, "hello to Travis from Russia" I have the new US passport that has pictures on the pages of beautiful american places such as alaska, hawaii, the tetons, the statue of liberty, etc. So they had a lot of fun looking at them and asking where they were.
After 3 hours, I arrived in Vladimir where I took the bus to Suzdal, a tiny town of about 4000 people. I checked into my tiny wooden cabin hostel along the river and then went out to explore the town a bit. It was so nice to be in the peace and quiet of a small village. My whole travel so far has mainly been through cities...from Denver to Toronto to Frankfurt to Prague to Budapest back to Prague to Stockholm to Sundsvall to Stockholm to Helsinki to St. Peter'sburg to Moscow. Traffic and people and lights and noise everywhere and all the time. So it was so peaceful. It was like going from Manhattan to Wendell or Fairfield Idaho. Just tiny little farming type villages. One of the cool things about Suzdal though was that it had tons of churches. One on everycorner. So you could always see a skyline full of onion domed churches. That evening I met a british couple. We were discussing the difficulties of getting a russian visa and the invitation and registration. THey had applied for theirs two months in advance and received theirs in the mail the day they flew. They were so thankful they had chosen the late afternoon flight instead of the morning flight!
8/5 I spent the morning exploring suzdal. Checking out views of the churches (it was really smokey there too from the fires, but the smoke seemed to add to the charisma of the views of the churches). I climbed a steeple and checked out a couple monasteries and a convent. Instead of the soviet style concrete apartments, the people here lived in nicely painted wooden houses. I checked out the market where the babushkas (grannies) were selling things from their gardens. Life was so very slow here. A complete turn around from moscow. No more fancy sports cars, just soviet junkers. No more rushing around or fashion. As I had explored all the village by the afternoon, I bought some pickles from the babushkas and a honey beer (famous in this region and brewed by monks I think) and went down to the river to cool off with a swim. That evening I took the bus back to vladamir and boarded the 12:50am train bound for Irkutsk. On this train I was Kupe (2nd class) which meant I was in a little cabin of 4 people.
CHUGGING ALONG ON THE TRANS SIBERIAN RAILROAD
"And if evil exists its a pair of train tracks
And the devil is a railroad car" Josh Ritter (evil must not exist...)
8/6 I woke up in the morning to someone putting a blanket on me. It was Isolda, a german woman from Dresden who was a bit older and like to travel to difficult places (Burma, Antartica, Bhutan, India). Also in my cabin was Kristina (german) and Vasily (russian) The two germans were on a tour with 6 other germans. Kristina knew good english, but didn't talk much. Isolda didn't know very good english, but she talked all the time, switching between russian, german, and english. She was funny and nice (she made my bed the first morning), but I didn't always know what she was saying. She spoke Russian though bc in east germany they had to learn Russian in school while they were communists. It was nice that she knew russian though bc she could translate some stuff for us and help us buy things at the train stops along the way when the babushkas were out selling things from raspberries to beer to fish to kolbasa (sausage).
Travelling in the train is quite relaxing. I have always liked travel by train and boat bc you can just sit there and relax with no worries of anything and watch the world go buy. The scenery the first day was lots and lots of taiga (pine trees mainly) with little villages full of cute log homes and then the occassional big ugly soviet looking cities where we would stop for 20 minutes. We'd get out and stretch and walk in the sun and see what the people were selling. We spent a lot of time on the train talking and reading and just watching the scenery, and of course eating instant noodles. Isolda was worried that I wasn't eating healthy enough on the train so she was always ready to share the german sausages (best in the world she claimed) and cheese she brought as well as her powdered milk. Isolda was always calling me the sportman and was convinced I must play american football for the university of colorado (bc of my hat) and she was proud to tell all her german friends she was keeping me strong for my sports. I had some blueberry soup and hot chocolate along to share with them, but they were not too interested in my instant noodles...this was a russian thing to do, not german they said! Although I had brought plenty of food for the whole train ride, Kristina and Isolda often bought me little treats from the sellers and even took me to breakfast once in the expensive dinner car.
8/7 Another day on the train. This time through flatter areas and more fields. More fun talk on the train. Vasily got off at olmsk and we took on a new cabin mate...Marina. She was russian and from way up in the country (according to Isolda). They are quite conserative there and she was also very scared of being in a cabin with a male tourist. She eventually warmed up more to me. But when she ate, I could not be in the cabin as men and women do not eat together in traditional russia and when I ate she was always nowhere to be found. By now we had crossed into asia as we went through the city of Yekantinburg. More reading and resting and the occasional nap on the train.
8/8 The scenery was now much more lush. Lots of pine trees again and wet meadows. It reminded me a lot of the areas on the west side of rocky mtn np where you expect to fine moose. We crossed lots of rivers and the scenery was just really quite nice. Siberia is so massive and expansive and hardly anyone lives there.
THE FROSTY WATERS OF LAKE BAIKAL AND THE PARTYING SWISS
8/9 We were awoken at 4am and told that the train would be arriving in Irkutsk in half an hour. When it arrived, I said goodbye to Isolda, Kristina and the rest of the germans. I think my bunk mates were sad to say goodbye. I saw 4 guys haggling with taxi drivers to presumably get to the bus station. I walked up to them and they said they were all asking too much. I had mapped out using my guidebook how to walk the 3km to the station, so they said they'd happily join me. The funny thing about travelling across siberia is that you lose track of time. You are on the train for 74 hours to get to irkutsk from moscow (71 for me bc I started in vladimir) and go through 5 time zones. I tried to keep my watch updated with each new time zone, but these 4 guys students in switzerland (3 swiss: rafael, andy, alex and one french gigi) had stayed on moscow time (which is what the trains clocks stay on) so it was midnight for them and 5 am for me. A couple of them were quite drunk still from the vodka they had had and there were a couple stops for puking along the way. They were a fun group and they loved to hasle the poor french guy. Apparently he had never travelled before and they kept saying how he would be lost (if not dead in moscow) if not for them. But he took it all with a smile. He didn't know much english (typical french they said). There were all engineering students that had a 6 week class in hong kong starting in february. Most of the class was flying straight there, but they were taking a more adventurous route to get to hong kong, all by rail. The walk was freezing (it was about 38 degrees, a sharp drop from the 108 in moscow)
We took the bus to Listvyanka which is a tiny little town on the shores of Lake Baikal, the world's deepest lake. When we got there, my guesthouse that I had booked would not answer the bell. We were all freezing, so Alex hopped the fence and let us in. We then went into the hang out area of the hostel and a couple of them fell asleep under the table. When the manager walked in, two of them were sleeping under the table and gigi was peeing with the door open. I think she was quite shocked and the more sensible Andy said it was a good thing I quickly and calmly produced my reservation or she might have called the russian police, something you don't want. But she eventually smiled, showed us our room, told us how cold it was and turned on the russian banya (sauna) for us. Alex, Rafael, and Gigi then slept until 2pm while Alex and I explored around a bit. We also went to have some olmud, the famous fish from the baikal that is smoked and SO TASTY. Best freshwater fish I have ever had. And only a buck 25 for a fish! After waking up the crowd, we went for a swim in the freezing lake baikal. That evening we had more fish and some vodka and beer on the shores of the lake as the sun set.
That night I was ready to curl up under the blankets and read my book, but they convinced me to come to the disco with them, especially after they said that since there parents were helping to finance their trips, the drinks were on them. So we headed out to the disco, which had a total of about 7 people. Us and two women. But we made the best of the dance party. Gigi was quite funny and crazy. He was running around taking of his shirt doing funny dance moves and by the end of the night was in only his briefs and leading the two women in dance moves. He should probably meet special ted.
8/10 They were all feeling quite tired and sick the next day, so I headed out for a hike along lake baikal and then exploring some of the tiny villages along its shores. I came back in time for the suana and some fish with them. They hadn't moved much all day and were just sitting on the deck of our guesthouse that had a nice view of lake baikal.
IT'S A SMALL SMALL WORLD AFTER ALL
That evening I boarded the bus and headed back to Irkutsk. That night in Irkutsk I was staying at Tatiana's house. I met Tatiana through the couchsurfing website. www.couchsurfing.com if you want to try. She lived in one of those drab looking soviet apartment complexes, but the inside was quite nice. When I arrived, she actually wasn't there bc she had unexpectantly be repaid a visit by some former couch surfers. So when I got to her place, Gize and Christian (Germans) opened the door for me. They had been on a motorbike tour through the "stans" (kyrgistan, tajikistan, azerbaijan, pakistan, uzbekistan) and russia and mongolia. They had met up with an irishman (Simon) who had couch surfed with Tatiana before. WHen they were about 70km's out of irkutsk, Simon's clutch failed so they had been at tatiana's for a week waiting for the clutch to be shipped in from the UK. In the meantime, Simon had fallen for Tatiana and when I arrived they were out at tatiana's parent's house having a banya. I had been invited, but I would be arriving too late and the german's were too tired to go so they would wait for me. The german's had bought lots of food at the super market before leaving irkutsk so now they needed to get rid of it and they made me a big thing of spaghetti and tasty sauce. Tatiana and simon arrived later with fresh fruits and vegetables from her parent's garden. We did the typical hellos and where are you froms. Colorado I said. Oh, Denver? said Simon. No.. Boulder (I always say this to europeans bc perhaps they have heard of it) Oh yes, I love boulder, said simon. Oh really, I said and was about to ask him if he knew of estes park when he said, I worked for Ravencrest for a winter! Wow! Small world. He worked there the year I was a freshman in high school and of course knew Frank (blanking on the last name but our soccer ref) and Jake Hess and company and Luke Thomas. He told me to say hi to everyone back there in Estes (he would be known as Si Johnston back in EP). He told me Luke Thomas had actually done some service work in Mongolia shortly after he left estes. So we had a fun swapping stories an me listening to their crazy motorbike adventures.
VODKA...THE TRUE TRANS SIBERIAN EXPERIENCE
8/11 Tatiana took me to the train station before work. I had 1.5 hours before my train left and I had not had internet since moscow (siberia is still in soviet times in terms of the internet) but i knew a hostel in downtown (2.5 km's away) had internet. The reason I really needed it was bc I had another couch surfing that night and I had not received darima's phone or address and Ulan Ude has NO budget options so I didn't want to be stranded there with an expensive hotel. I rushed as fast as I could (carrying my big backpack) got to where the hostel was supposed to be, finally found it and had about 10 minutes I figured. I checked my email, but no email from darima which worried me a bit. I rushed back to the train, but had time still to buy a water for the train.
Once on the train, on platskart again, the russian women who I was in the bunk above was very much trying to talk to me and explain things to me, but of course I had no idea. She wouldn't let me make my bed and instead made it for me. Then set up my books and water and noodles in all the compartments. She was so sweet and funny. In the next cart over the providnista (carriage attendant, almost always female) spoke english and she came to practice. She was quite good and was on her summer vacation doing this job and studying to be an english and french teacher. She invited me into her special carriage area that had better views so I could out. This was a particularly beautiful part of the trip as it followed the lake baikal for 200km's. She also said she would put my backpack in a special spot to keep it safe so I could wonder around the train. A lot of russians would stop by to talk to her and she was telling me that they were all asking about me and excited to hear I was american. One had heard of colorado and it's famous huge canyon (a common mistake even amongst europeans). She said she would look it up on the internet. Eventually I got the call from a russian man to come to the small dining carriage. He brought out the vodka and me and him and two women began shooting vodka. It is impolite to refuse, but I was a bit worried I would get really drunk. They were all staying on until vladistvostock, but I was getting off in 4 hours to a place that I didn't know and had no accomadation bc I hadn't heard from darima. But soon after 6 or 7 shots I was no longer worrying. Of course they chase the vodka with this sweet stuff they call champagne (17% alcohol according to the bottle). They kept bringing me food (cow tongue with spicy mustard, borsch (with vodka poured in) and more. I usually don't like to eat too much of what people bring, but I ate copious amount to try to counteract the vodka. After one big bottle was finished I thought we were done, but then another was brought out! Eventually after this was finished I went back to the providnista's place to talk more with her. Her name was olga and she was very sweet and cute...reminded me of my little freshman swimming mentee Christine Mabile while at ACI. Really, just like her. We practiced some more english, written this time. I was quite drunk, but holding my composure. We exchanged emails so she could practice writing and if she got a job in canada teaching russian to the french there maybe she would be allowed to get an american visa and I could show her this famous canyon in colorado. But soon the russian guy was back with more vodka and I was back in the dining cart shooting with him. They knew no english of course. Olga told me to be careful with them bc they drink so much but there is nothing you can really do bc once you've had one it is impolite to say no. Finally the train arrived in ulan ude (7.5 hours). I was quite drunk but managed to get my stuff (though not all of it, sadly I left my journal in olga's room...when I found this out later at night I was quite sad! I had lots of contacts and memories in it)
As I got off the train was greeted with the wonderful sound of "Travis?" Darima had recognized me in my last ditch email describing what my backpack looked like and that I would have an american baseball cap on. I was now of course very drunk, but i was able to stay quite normal. Later on that night after we became closer friends and I told Darima about the ride she said she had no idea I was drunk. Ulan Ude is the 1st distinctively asian city along the way. Probably 3/4 of the people, including darima, are Buryats (similar looking to Mongols). Darima knew great english and she had actuall studied at college in north dakota (similar to ulan ude in terms of temperature she said). She toured me around her city showing me things such as the largest lenin head in the world, the new opera house and a nice view of the city. She took me to a buryat place for buuz (a type of dumplings) and then out for icecream. She lived in an old soviet building, of course. She is a teacher at the university and lives in her flat with an italian, a czech, and two koreans studying russian at the university. They were all gone on summer vacation except for one korean, but the czech had been there a week earlier and heard I was coming so she left me a 2 liter (!) bottle of beer in the fridge and somthing they call martini (sweeter and less potent vodka) especially for me. Leave it to the Czechs! That night Darima made me a typical meal of potaotes and mushrooms and she showed me pictures of her university.
TRAVISIO...THE NEW ITALIAN
8/12
I caught the train from Ulan Ude heading to Ulan Bataar early in the morning (6:30am) and found out that I had been placed in a bunk room with two italian gals (Ambera and Franceska). We were in a plush fancy chinese car! I love italians. For some reason they are always so fun and I love how they speak english, always with an A on the end "I lova the viewa from the traina it isa soa beautifula" (kiss of the fingers to go with this!). Italians just have something about them that I love and makes me smile and of course they are always smiling...even when they were complaining about how the fatty and greasy and heavy russian food was bad for their stomachs and how they dreamed of pasta and oil and real cheese. They were tons of fun to talk with and we had fun running up and down the train exploring the different compartments and meeting the providnistas. Most of the people on the train at this point were tourists (and mostly french and swiss) bc the russians don't go to mongolia. At one point they went on to the dining car and asked if I wanted anything to drink. No i said, I had tea. They came back with two beers for me. Oh geeze, not more drinking on the train. But we kept this more civil.
Not long before the border and while we were at the caboose watching the desolate landscape (similar to the dry mountains and high plains of wyoming) roll by someone had place a big black bag under our seats. We had heard about mongolians smuggling things from russia into mongolia. We wondered if that's what this was, but we quickly disposed of it to the providnista bc we did not want to get caught in customs with something illegal (they rarely check tourist bags though. they are much harder on the mongols). At the border we had to wait about 6 hours for customs and all that. We walked the border town, but it was tiny and there was nothing. So we were content to read. We eventually crossed the border and it became quite lush again (it had been raining the whole time). Really incredibly lush and green. The mongolian border stuff was easier, but still took about 3 hours. We are really good friends with mongolia (it is the only true democratic country in asia and sits between two big rivals of ours) so it is free for me to come in and I can stay for 90 days. Eruos pay about 100 bucks for a visa and can stay 30 days. The only place I have been so far where it is not the americans getting screwed on the visa.
On the mongolian side of the border we picked up a very crazy swiss guy. He had missed the train in Ulan Ude. Had been there on time but couldn't figure out which one to get on. (I have to admit the station there was quite confusing i was glad I was there 40 minutes early as I had trouble figuing it out as well). We were kind of turned off by him. Italians can understand spanish and speak it kind of too, so franceska said in spanish we should play a joke on him and that I should pretend to be italian and ambrera's cousin. We managed to pull of this joke the entire time without him knowing even though I speak no italian, my accent is as american as it gets (explained away to him by saying I had a ski scholarship to the university of colorado so I studied there...didn't he see the hat ambrera asked). But it was quite funny and we laughed and laughed about it. We even held it as we finished off the last of my vodka I had bought a long time ago but hardly used.
8/13 Friday the 13th. We were awoke about 5:30 to prepare to disembark in Ulan Baatar. As the sun rose we saw the rolling steppe and grasslands. Huge expanse of emptiness except with a couple gers (yurts) scattered about. As we approached the suburbs of UB (really the only city in mongolia) we couldn't help but laugh that the suburbs were yurts. When we got off the train I had to say a sad goodbye to my italian cousin and her friend and promise that I would soon visit again bc I couldn't wait to have her famous gnocci again.
I had arranged a hostel in town that did free train station pick up and I was glad as it was pooring (and flooding in the roads). I soon met a britsh guy (Leon) and we explored the city a tiny bit, but were working on mainly figuring out our tours for mongolia and making atm visits to pay for them and train tickets to mongolia. For some reason UB is really, really known for its pick pocketing so you don't even carry a wallet (as its a temptation) and hold the money in your hand. When you take out 1.3 million(that equals about 130 bucks) of mongol money at the atm and rush back to the hostel you are careful not to bump anyone and grasp the money tightly in your pockets. We went out for some tasty mongolian food and had some milk tea (gross) I rarealy find foreign food gross, but this was nasty. I couldn't finish it. It's like salty and tastes a bit like hotsprings and really quite wretched.
Tomorrow I leave for a 6 day tour to the mongolian step, ger camping and the mongolian desert. As its mainly nomads and tents, there is unlikely to be interne, except at maybe one outpost, so don't be surprised if you don't hear from me in 6 days. I was not taken prisoner by ghengis kahn...just eating mutton and choking on milk tea in a ger =)
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
Lenin face to face with a shopping mall
8.3 I got up early in order to avoid too much of the line to visit Lenin's mausoleum. This was quite the interesting visit. Lots of soldiers everywhere. High security. Then you walk down into the very cold (ahh!) tomb area and you can see him. He looks as though he probably did the day he died. Quite erie really. I've now seen ho chi minh and lenin embalmed and I guess the next is Mao in Beijing. The funny and ironic thing to me is that Lenin sits there in his mausoleum facing a huge fancy and expensive shopping mall. Some of captitalist at it's best and then old Lenin right there. After visiting the tomb, I went into the Kremlin, which is now the major government area, but used to house the tsars and princes and all that. The Kremlin is surrounded by a huge red wall with turrets and there are some palaces and government buildings inside as well as some very fancy churches, many holding the remaisn of past tsars and leaders.
In the late afternoon at the hostel I met a very international group of 3 nice girls who had just arrived on the trans siberia doing the trip in reverse to me. Xena (who had a mainly american accent) is Swiss (and attending med school in zurich), but spent many years in the New York with her parents, but grew up in Luxembourg. Doro, who is Polish, but is a med student and germany and lives in England. And Mafee who is irish, but grew up in Luxembrourg next door to Xena and met Doro in India about 3 years ago. So they were all travelling together and all somehow knew each other. They were quite fun and we decided to go out to some outdoor bar on the other side of moscow. They were quite happy to have me along showing them the sights and leading them there as they had just arrived, but I have come to know moscow quite well.
They made a comment while walking if russian girls jsut have long legs or if it is the fact that they have huge high heels and the shortest shorts and skirts. So then we were all laughing about russian city fashion. I am glad I wasn't the only one who had noticed. The girls here really dress so fancy, like they are always ready for a night club, even if they are just touring around. And they wear such tiny and revealing clothes. Often fairly see through, and sometimes thy are just walking aruond basically with only a bra on and no shirt. Quite crazy, but yet it is all very stylish and fancy here.
We eventually found the cool bar we were looking for and met up with a czech/french couple they had met up on the train. We also met two finnish guys at the bar who nearly ruined our night by telling us that they had an aircon hostel for the same price as ours! I just had a couple of beers at the place, but the girls all ordered steaks and salmon bc they had just been on the train for 4 straight days and were missing real food as well as being in china and mongolia where it is mainly rice.
After saying goodbye to everyone, me and the 3 girls went out to see some of the city at night. Last night was by far the worst for pollution and you could really smell the smoke and it was just nasty to breathe. It was so thick you couldn't see much in front of you and almost felt like a boise inversion, except it was also hot. I showed them where the market was to buy the big 5L water bottles and they were playing Lady Gaga in the store, so I was dancing around. They kept saying they liked me more and more (bc throughout the night I had been singing michael jackson and other such things and telling them stories about the american wilds) (Doro had actually travelled through the cali, az, and ut wildnerness for a bit, and she had a funny story of how she made the mistake of being at yosemite on the 4th of july and looking for a campsite...competely impossible, but some firefighters on a fire there invited her to their camp, so she stayed the weekend with a bunch of firefighters...couldn't help but wonder if lucas was among the mix), and wished I could keep travelling with them. I too was thinking the same thing, that I wished they were going the other way. Bc it was just one of those groups that really meshed. They were really funny and quite adventurous (they told me lots of cool stories and gave me ideas about mongolia, so I am getting quite excited about the wildnerness of kublai khan). That night we played the "vegetable" game and finished of their last bit of vodka from their train trip.
8.4 The 3 girls laughed at my little breakfast of toast and yoghurt, so they made me pancakes and some swiss cheese thing, which was quite tasty! But I had to say goodbye to them shortly after as they were heading off to see the kremlin and I needed to get ready for my train and then head off. Oh well, they gave me some great recommendations and I will hope to meet some more enthusiastic and adventurous travelers along the way.
Today I take the train to vladamir and then the bus to suzdal, a little town in the golden ring)
In the late afternoon at the hostel I met a very international group of 3 nice girls who had just arrived on the trans siberia doing the trip in reverse to me. Xena (who had a mainly american accent) is Swiss (and attending med school in zurich), but spent many years in the New York with her parents, but grew up in Luxembourg. Doro, who is Polish, but is a med student and germany and lives in England. And Mafee who is irish, but grew up in Luxembrourg next door to Xena and met Doro in India about 3 years ago. So they were all travelling together and all somehow knew each other. They were quite fun and we decided to go out to some outdoor bar on the other side of moscow. They were quite happy to have me along showing them the sights and leading them there as they had just arrived, but I have come to know moscow quite well.
They made a comment while walking if russian girls jsut have long legs or if it is the fact that they have huge high heels and the shortest shorts and skirts. So then we were all laughing about russian city fashion. I am glad I wasn't the only one who had noticed. The girls here really dress so fancy, like they are always ready for a night club, even if they are just touring around. And they wear such tiny and revealing clothes. Often fairly see through, and sometimes thy are just walking aruond basically with only a bra on and no shirt. Quite crazy, but yet it is all very stylish and fancy here.
We eventually found the cool bar we were looking for and met up with a czech/french couple they had met up on the train. We also met two finnish guys at the bar who nearly ruined our night by telling us that they had an aircon hostel for the same price as ours! I just had a couple of beers at the place, but the girls all ordered steaks and salmon bc they had just been on the train for 4 straight days and were missing real food as well as being in china and mongolia where it is mainly rice.
After saying goodbye to everyone, me and the 3 girls went out to see some of the city at night. Last night was by far the worst for pollution and you could really smell the smoke and it was just nasty to breathe. It was so thick you couldn't see much in front of you and almost felt like a boise inversion, except it was also hot. I showed them where the market was to buy the big 5L water bottles and they were playing Lady Gaga in the store, so I was dancing around. They kept saying they liked me more and more (bc throughout the night I had been singing michael jackson and other such things and telling them stories about the american wilds) (Doro had actually travelled through the cali, az, and ut wildnerness for a bit, and she had a funny story of how she made the mistake of being at yosemite on the 4th of july and looking for a campsite...competely impossible, but some firefighters on a fire there invited her to their camp, so she stayed the weekend with a bunch of firefighters...couldn't help but wonder if lucas was among the mix), and wished I could keep travelling with them. I too was thinking the same thing, that I wished they were going the other way. Bc it was just one of those groups that really meshed. They were really funny and quite adventurous (they told me lots of cool stories and gave me ideas about mongolia, so I am getting quite excited about the wildnerness of kublai khan). That night we played the "vegetable" game and finished of their last bit of vodka from their train trip.
8.4 The 3 girls laughed at my little breakfast of toast and yoghurt, so they made me pancakes and some swiss cheese thing, which was quite tasty! But I had to say goodbye to them shortly after as they were heading off to see the kremlin and I needed to get ready for my train and then head off. Oh well, they gave me some great recommendations and I will hope to meet some more enthusiastic and adventurous travelers along the way.
Today I take the train to vladamir and then the bus to suzdal, a little town in the golden ring)
Sunday, August 1, 2010
Moscow, Potatoes, and Vodka
No, this is not a U of I frat party, though it may seem like one. This is the real moscow. And potatoes are apparently a huge thing here. The difference though between idaho potatoes and russian potatoes is that in Idaho, at least at ACI, they seemed to figure out how to prepare potatoes in such a way that you never had the same potatoe dish twice in one month, yet there was potatoes everyday at the cafeteria. Here it is either baked potato...or potato made vodka.
8.1 Arrived at the hostel in the morning and kind of chilled out bc I knew that I had 4 days in moscow which would be plenty to see it all. After I got moving I went out and explored a bit of moscow. Away from the touristy areas. Just the city. Nothing too exciting, just kind of a normal city. But I was looking for a supermarket in which to buy things for my train journey like instant noodles since they have the hot water on the train. Then I went and did some of the touristy things like the arabat pedestrian mall full of artists and people selling their wares. Eventually I made it to the infamous red square to watch the sun lighting up the gorgeous and unique st. basil's cathedral with his multicolored domes that look like candy along with all the other impressive areas surrounding the square and the outside of the Kremlin. After that I took a stroll around the Kremlin and watched some of the locals, or at least russians, playing in the fountains. It was over 100 degrees today. Moscow has been having a heat wave for the past month. Over 20 degrees warmer everyday than it normally is.
When I arrived back at the hostel, the guy in charge was awaiting me with a beer...not cold, but hey, how can you complain. I kind of hung out for a while and did some internet stuff that needed to be done as far as my train travel goes.
Then I ended up meeting a very nice russian girl named gylan and two czech guys named martin and radek. The czech guys had brought a bunch of alcohol from home, so we were all sharing that and sweating and having a grand time. The czechs and the russian gal had all lived in the US, so there was much in common to talk about. Definitely a fun time and we stayed up late into the night.
8/2 Set out to explore more of Moscow. Visited the Red square and St. Basil's again. St. Basil's is just sooo cool. You remember the palace in the candyland game? That is what this church looks like. Like a big church with a bunch of candy turrets. Took a stroll along the Moscow river to Christ the Saviour Cathedral, the huge giant, gold domed cathedral in moscow. I also visited the Bolshoi theatre, famous for it's opera and ballet. I had thought about going to an opera bc my book had said that the cheap tickets could be had for 4 bucks, but now they are 15 and I just figured it wasn't worth it, even though it is a "thing to do" in Moscow, bc I don't really like either one of those. Also visited the tomb of the uknown soldier which is in honor of the soldier who died in the farthest nazi advance. It was incredibly hot today. Over 1oo degrees for sure. The moscowians, take to the city fountains for swims in this weather, and eventually I joined them. It was definitely quite refreshing. At one of the fountains I met two stanford students here for a conference on space science. They were interesting bc they had both been to antarctia too bc Stanford has a reseaerch base at the south pole.
After touring I went to the supermarket to get a 5L jug of water just bc it was so hot. I was spending a lot of time trying to figure out which jug was sprakling (soda) and which was still water. In eastern europe they drink a lot of sparkling water and there is nothing worse than buying a water, opening it and having it fizz. Bubbly water just doesn't quench the thirst like still water. I asked a guy if he spoke english, and indeed he did, but he was israeli and couldn't read russian. However he was travelling with someone who could...a russian immigrant to Israel. He was a very nice guy and just couldn't believe I could be travelling in russia without speaking the language or being with someone that did.
That night I took a tour around the kremlin and st. basils at night. As I was walking home around 1am, the temperature still read 92 degrees at the bank.
So the Moscow post has an english paper a couple times a week. I was reading it and apparently this is the hottest summer they have ever had. Before this summer the highest temperature that had ever recorded was 96 degrees. Since I have been here it has been over 100 degrees everyday, and the lows are only like 88 degrees. So you can imagine in the hostel it is insanely warm even at night. Definitely in the high 90's I would say. It doesn't help that they have these huge hot water heaters warming up the whole place. I am sure quite nice during the freezing winter...but not now! I take a couple cold showers per day and go to bed in my wet swimsuit. You sweat a ton and wake up in the morning drenched in sweat. But amazingly i have actually slept quite well. The paper also said that there are like 35 major fires (a lot of them peat fires) outside of moscow which is causing terrible polution (this is true) and is quite bad for the health. As one doctor said, a day in moscow is the equivlant of smoking 40 cigarettes in one day...but one can you do. You just carry on through the heat. Actually the heat during the day doesn't bother me too much as long as I have water, it's more at night when you just sit there sweating. But everyone is... It's funny bc when I was in bali and some of the tourist places in thailand, they have special russian hotels for the russians that cater to them since they can't speak english. On occassion backpackers would get stuck at these, but they always noted how open and free the russians are, with the girls walking around naked all the time in the hotel. Well at this hostel there are quite a lot of russians, and it is true...the guys walk around in their little bikini briefs and a lot of the girls in tiny shorts and no top. It is quite awkward, but all the rest of us westerners laugh at it. The poor buddhist korean here just can't get over it.
8.1 Arrived at the hostel in the morning and kind of chilled out bc I knew that I had 4 days in moscow which would be plenty to see it all. After I got moving I went out and explored a bit of moscow. Away from the touristy areas. Just the city. Nothing too exciting, just kind of a normal city. But I was looking for a supermarket in which to buy things for my train journey like instant noodles since they have the hot water on the train. Then I went and did some of the touristy things like the arabat pedestrian mall full of artists and people selling their wares. Eventually I made it to the infamous red square to watch the sun lighting up the gorgeous and unique st. basil's cathedral with his multicolored domes that look like candy along with all the other impressive areas surrounding the square and the outside of the Kremlin. After that I took a stroll around the Kremlin and watched some of the locals, or at least russians, playing in the fountains. It was over 100 degrees today. Moscow has been having a heat wave for the past month. Over 20 degrees warmer everyday than it normally is.
When I arrived back at the hostel, the guy in charge was awaiting me with a beer...not cold, but hey, how can you complain. I kind of hung out for a while and did some internet stuff that needed to be done as far as my train travel goes.
Then I ended up meeting a very nice russian girl named gylan and two czech guys named martin and radek. The czech guys had brought a bunch of alcohol from home, so we were all sharing that and sweating and having a grand time. The czechs and the russian gal had all lived in the US, so there was much in common to talk about. Definitely a fun time and we stayed up late into the night.
8/2 Set out to explore more of Moscow. Visited the Red square and St. Basil's again. St. Basil's is just sooo cool. You remember the palace in the candyland game? That is what this church looks like. Like a big church with a bunch of candy turrets. Took a stroll along the Moscow river to Christ the Saviour Cathedral, the huge giant, gold domed cathedral in moscow. I also visited the Bolshoi theatre, famous for it's opera and ballet. I had thought about going to an opera bc my book had said that the cheap tickets could be had for 4 bucks, but now they are 15 and I just figured it wasn't worth it, even though it is a "thing to do" in Moscow, bc I don't really like either one of those. Also visited the tomb of the uknown soldier which is in honor of the soldier who died in the farthest nazi advance. It was incredibly hot today. Over 1oo degrees for sure. The moscowians, take to the city fountains for swims in this weather, and eventually I joined them. It was definitely quite refreshing. At one of the fountains I met two stanford students here for a conference on space science. They were interesting bc they had both been to antarctia too bc Stanford has a reseaerch base at the south pole.
After touring I went to the supermarket to get a 5L jug of water just bc it was so hot. I was spending a lot of time trying to figure out which jug was sprakling (soda) and which was still water. In eastern europe they drink a lot of sparkling water and there is nothing worse than buying a water, opening it and having it fizz. Bubbly water just doesn't quench the thirst like still water. I asked a guy if he spoke english, and indeed he did, but he was israeli and couldn't read russian. However he was travelling with someone who could...a russian immigrant to Israel. He was a very nice guy and just couldn't believe I could be travelling in russia without speaking the language or being with someone that did.
That night I took a tour around the kremlin and st. basils at night. As I was walking home around 1am, the temperature still read 92 degrees at the bank.
So the Moscow post has an english paper a couple times a week. I was reading it and apparently this is the hottest summer they have ever had. Before this summer the highest temperature that had ever recorded was 96 degrees. Since I have been here it has been over 100 degrees everyday, and the lows are only like 88 degrees. So you can imagine in the hostel it is insanely warm even at night. Definitely in the high 90's I would say. It doesn't help that they have these huge hot water heaters warming up the whole place. I am sure quite nice during the freezing winter...but not now! I take a couple cold showers per day and go to bed in my wet swimsuit. You sweat a ton and wake up in the morning drenched in sweat. But amazingly i have actually slept quite well. The paper also said that there are like 35 major fires (a lot of them peat fires) outside of moscow which is causing terrible polution (this is true) and is quite bad for the health. As one doctor said, a day in moscow is the equivlant of smoking 40 cigarettes in one day...but one can you do. You just carry on through the heat. Actually the heat during the day doesn't bother me too much as long as I have water, it's more at night when you just sit there sweating. But everyone is... It's funny bc when I was in bali and some of the tourist places in thailand, they have special russian hotels for the russians that cater to them since they can't speak english. On occassion backpackers would get stuck at these, but they always noted how open and free the russians are, with the girls walking around naked all the time in the hotel. Well at this hostel there are quite a lot of russians, and it is true...the guys walk around in their little bikini briefs and a lot of the girls in tiny shorts and no top. It is quite awkward, but all the rest of us westerners laugh at it. The poor buddhist korean here just can't get over it.
Grand St. Petersburg
7-30 After I had finished writing in my blog on this day, around midnight and was getting ready for bed, somehow my new Korean friend, Min, convinced me to go watch the draw bridges raise. I wasn't too thrilled about going seeing as they raised at 1:30 am and it was a 3km walk to get there, but he convinced me, so I went. As I had suspected, the raising of the 3 draw bridges was not that spectacular. Draw bridges seem to be common back home and were not a tourist site as opposed to more of an annoyance when you are trying to get to the dock to catch your ferry going for your internship for the summer on island off of maine and you run into 2 draw bridges up in a row. But what was nice was walking down the main blvd at night, seeing all the fancy people out for clubs and then the huge armada of tourist boats full of russian tourists on the river there to watch the bridges rise. The river was chalk full of boats, and they would race from one bridge to the next as they raised. That was pretty entertaining to watch.
7-31. Today was a day of walking and exploring st. petersburg. I woke up early around 7am and walked around until about 9pm with just a quick break to grab a pancake snack and one to try this unusual russian beverage. You could buy it in funky glass containers, or in a plastic cup for 1 dollar that came from a keg. I thought it would be beer, but it most definitely wasn't. Not really sure what it tasted like, nor whether I liked the taste or not. It was strange tasting.
So I walked around st. pete's grand avenues along its canals and through its big parks. The buildings in the main center of st. petersburg are all quite fancy. I visited such sights as the Hermitage, church of the spilled blood (a crazy multi colored domed church), st. Isaac's cathedral, catherine square, aleksandriinsky theatre, mikhaylovskiy palace, holy trinity cathedral, engineer's castle, birzhevaya plaza, peter and paul's fortress, and of course several spots along the Neva river. I visited inside the Hermitage which was a fancy residence of some of the old tsars and now houses some famous art. I don't really like museums, but this one is supposedly quite famous and I guess when you are in Europe you must visit at least one museum. It is free to visit for students, but 16 bucks for adults. I wasn't going to go if I had to pay the full price as I figured there would be cooler things (like rafting in nepal) to spend that money on later, but the old trusty no date albertson college ID got me in for free. The museum was quite nice with how fancy all the russian tsar rooms were decorated. It wasn't quite as nice or comprehensive as the Louvre, but it did have have artwork from the typical suspects: Matice, Monet, Picasso, Pissaro, Van Gogh, Rembrandt, Degas, Rousseau, Raael, Michaelangelo, Leonardo, and Renoir. Monet is always my favorite.
An interesting thing is that when I was out in the morning, many russians were out drinking beer. Min told me that maybe russians drink so much beer and at all times of the day is bc it is cheaper than water.
In the evening I went to board my first Russian train. Min went with me bc he knows pretty good russian (he is studying abroad here and is on summer holiday now). I am glad he went bc since it was late, one of the ticket offices was closed, so we had to ask to find another and then exchanging my internet voucher for the ticket was quite complex. Then of course finding the right platform (when everything is in russian) was also difficult. But we managed to do it all and I got on the train. I was booked in 3rd class, the lowest class, but they still have little bunks. They manage to squeeze 6 bunks, 2 small tables, and an aisle in an area that is about 5.5ft by 9 ft. The beds are funny bc they are quite short and narrow. They are about 5.5 ft, so my feet dangle off into the aisle. Since the train only comes equipped with heat and not ac it was quite warm, but I was tired so it was quite easy to fall asleep. The guy on the bunk below me was Russian and actually spoke very good english. When I asked him what he does for a living, he said two things: his job is as a programmer and his hobby is a zoologist. He got a degree in zoology, but he said that in russia there is no funding for the sciences and science is looked down upon (except for perhaps nuclear physics!) Each car also has a spot to get boiling water, which I didn't use, but will take advantage of on my 3 day trips when I will want to make blueberry soup I brought from sweden and instant noodles. They also have little toilets that, after you figure out how to flush them (it took me several minutes as everything was in russian, but eventually found a hidden spot to step on), releases the contents onto the track. Arrived into moscow early this morning with no issues and found my hostel and figured out the metro quite easily thanks to all the help from the mathemtician that was the father of the gal i met on the ship.
7-31. Today was a day of walking and exploring st. petersburg. I woke up early around 7am and walked around until about 9pm with just a quick break to grab a pancake snack and one to try this unusual russian beverage. You could buy it in funky glass containers, or in a plastic cup for 1 dollar that came from a keg. I thought it would be beer, but it most definitely wasn't. Not really sure what it tasted like, nor whether I liked the taste or not. It was strange tasting.
So I walked around st. pete's grand avenues along its canals and through its big parks. The buildings in the main center of st. petersburg are all quite fancy. I visited such sights as the Hermitage, church of the spilled blood (a crazy multi colored domed church), st. Isaac's cathedral, catherine square, aleksandriinsky theatre, mikhaylovskiy palace, holy trinity cathedral, engineer's castle, birzhevaya plaza, peter and paul's fortress, and of course several spots along the Neva river. I visited inside the Hermitage which was a fancy residence of some of the old tsars and now houses some famous art. I don't really like museums, but this one is supposedly quite famous and I guess when you are in Europe you must visit at least one museum. It is free to visit for students, but 16 bucks for adults. I wasn't going to go if I had to pay the full price as I figured there would be cooler things (like rafting in nepal) to spend that money on later, but the old trusty no date albertson college ID got me in for free. The museum was quite nice with how fancy all the russian tsar rooms were decorated. It wasn't quite as nice or comprehensive as the Louvre, but it did have have artwork from the typical suspects: Matice, Monet, Picasso, Pissaro, Van Gogh, Rembrandt, Degas, Rousseau, Raael, Michaelangelo, Leonardo, and Renoir. Monet is always my favorite.
An interesting thing is that when I was out in the morning, many russians were out drinking beer. Min told me that maybe russians drink so much beer and at all times of the day is bc it is cheaper than water.
In the evening I went to board my first Russian train. Min went with me bc he knows pretty good russian (he is studying abroad here and is on summer holiday now). I am glad he went bc since it was late, one of the ticket offices was closed, so we had to ask to find another and then exchanging my internet voucher for the ticket was quite complex. Then of course finding the right platform (when everything is in russian) was also difficult. But we managed to do it all and I got on the train. I was booked in 3rd class, the lowest class, but they still have little bunks. They manage to squeeze 6 bunks, 2 small tables, and an aisle in an area that is about 5.5ft by 9 ft. The beds are funny bc they are quite short and narrow. They are about 5.5 ft, so my feet dangle off into the aisle. Since the train only comes equipped with heat and not ac it was quite warm, but I was tired so it was quite easy to fall asleep. The guy on the bunk below me was Russian and actually spoke very good english. When I asked him what he does for a living, he said two things: his job is as a programmer and his hobby is a zoologist. He got a degree in zoology, but he said that in russia there is no funding for the sciences and science is looked down upon (except for perhaps nuclear physics!) Each car also has a spot to get boiling water, which I didn't use, but will take advantage of on my 3 day trips when I will want to make blueberry soup I brought from sweden and instant noodles. They also have little toilets that, after you figure out how to flush them (it took me several minutes as everything was in russian, but eventually found a hidden spot to step on), releases the contents onto the track. Arrived into moscow early this morning with no issues and found my hostel and figured out the metro quite easily thanks to all the help from the mathemtician that was the father of the gal i met on the ship.
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