We're now in Ulan Bator, capital of Mongolia, where guess what, it's raining. So far 4/5 capital cities have been rainy (Amsterdam, Warsaw, Moscow and Ulan Bator) - it is particularly bad luck in UB as it is supposed to be sunny for 258 days a year....
The Trans-siberian was an experience all right. We arrived and in our four berth carriage was Slavko, a Russian fireman returning to Kirov after a conference. His first action was to offer us a beer, his second to suggest we buy some vodka. Being new to this lark we thought it would be a friendly gesture so went down to the buffet car to buy some - cost was 750 roubles (about GBP 18 which is pretty costly in the land of vodka). He poured, we drank. Russian vodka is drunk in measures of 100ml and so it took less than three rounds to finish the bottle. Then he bought another one. The results were not pretty and took an entire pot of wet wipes to clear up. By lunch time the next day fortunately the carriage smelt more of disinfectant than anything else. It did however have the unfortunate impact of both alienating the guards to us (they kept making some strange clenched fist gesticulation for the next four days! Also when we left the guard insisted on me first giving back the bedding and second counting all of our bedding back whereas the Russian lady we were sharing with had her bedding collected by him!)
Fortunately Slavko left us the next morning - the first thing I saw in the morning was him drinking beer! He even offered us some, believe it or not. After a day lying still we felt a bit better and were able to enjoy the scenery a bit - lots of birch trees.
I wandered off at one stop saying I was going for a bit of air, but happened to meet some australians on the train before I got off it. The train goes without warning and people are often left behind. I stood chatting with the Ozzies for about half an hour during which time the train left and Steve thought I'd been left behind, but at this point he was so ill after the vodka incident that he could only lie there and hope I was still on the train...
The main problem with the train was the lack of ventilation. None of the windows open (air conditioning supposedly) but it means very stale air with smokers in the train. After four days on board we reached Irkutsk. I had acquired a cold, probably from the "air con" and was also finding the ground was moving around under my feet - apparently this phenomenon is usually experienced when you get off boats, but I guess not many people stay on trains for over 4 days non stop! By the end we also couldn't sleep since we were gaining an hour time a day so on the last night on the train we were 5 hours behind Moscow and bedtime felt like 6pm for us. We lay awake for 5 hours.
We had a very pleasant break at Listvyanka on Lake Baikal, it is beautiful with the blue lake surrounded by snow capped mountains. The water is exceptionally clean and can be drunk from the lake directly. It was icy though, only 2 centigrade so no chance of a dip, and out of season very quiet. On one day the weather was about 8 degrees and blowing a gale - very much like english winter weather though the russians laughed when I told them that...!
Must go, we're about to get a city tour of UB.... Any comments / criticisms welcome!
I discovered russian teachers are paid only 10000 roubles a month. This amounts to about 500 pounds sterling - or around 3000 pounds a year.... and this in a country where prices are almost like the UK. An apartment in Moscow costs around 500 pounds sterling minimum per month....
A guide told me the biggest problem in Russia is corruption, no wonder if that's the way the economics pans out.
I hope I have uploaded some photos here... - Steve and I drinking Bavarian beer with Carolyn and Frank, us at the Berlin Wall on our bike tour, St Basil's cathedral, Lenin's tomb, the train ride, and Lake Baikal.
No comments:
Post a Comment