A night out in Ho Chi Minh City

Posted on February 3, 2013 by Simo

I met my friend at her hotel. It was her first time in Vietnam and she had just arrived a few hours ago. Everything for her was new and exciting. It was hot, so different from the cold Scottish winter she had left behind. She held my hand tightly as we crossed Tran Hung Dao, she looked very scared as hundreds of motorbikes drove all around us. Even when we reached the pavement on the other side it seemed like we were not safe. It looked like it was used for everything but walking. Stalls were selling food and decorations for Tet and people were sitting eating and drinking from pavement cafes, with others riding bicycles and motorbikes in between.

Further down the road we reached Bien Duong restaurant and found a table. My friend looked at the tiny plastic tables and chairs, so different from the ones for the fat Scottish people back home. I managed to order beers for us in my very bad Vietnamese and then we took a look at the menu. Some of it was in English but the translation was so bad I didn’t know what the dishes were. After looking at the pictures I chose some Tom (prawns) and Heo (pork) with vegetables. Both were delicious and we had a great time drinking beer and talking about family and friends. It was great sitting on the pavement seeing the life of the city although the pollution from all the motorbikes and cars wasn’t very nice. My friend also looking at all the strange sights that you would never be able to see back in Scotland. 5 people on a motorbike, ice in the beer, even sitting on the street eating food. It was a fun night but the beer and long flight was making my friend feel sleepy so we said goodbye. She went to find her hotel and I to find a motorbike taxi to take me home.

New Year thoughts – The End of the World as we know it.

Posted on January 6, 2013 by Simo

Like many people at this time of the year I have been pondering new beginnings and resolutions, but being the lazy procrastinator that I am I haven’t actually got round to putting fingers to keyboard until now. And no doing something about my laziness is not one of my resolutions, actually I’ve resolved to make idleness more valued and appreciated instead. Although given that I’m in Vietnam and the New Year here (Tet) doesn’t happen until next month you could argue that I’m actually being very organised and early with these ramblings.

The other thing that I’ve been contemplating is all this bollocks about the impending Armageddon. I mean come on my calendar of picturesque Scottish castles runs out on December 31st, but its not the end of the world. I’ll just pop down the news agents and get another one, mind you it will probably be around March by the time I get round to doing so. So people have been getting their knickers in a twist about utter nonsense, stockpiling food and building bunkers and yet the actual threat to human civilisation – climate and ecological catastrophe – which is real and will start playing out in the next few decades, hardly merits a mention. Crazy or what.

So now that you’ve probably already broken most of your New Year resolutions you might consider making a new one and keeping it. Why not resolve to do something about the biggest challenge that humanity has ever faced. Perhaps you could resolve to arm yourself with the knowledge so you can have the conversation about climate change with the ones you love, or maybe join your local climate group. You could write to your MP or newspaper, chain yourself to a power station, support a green energy project in your community. Whatever floats your boat. Now normally would come the appeal to do it for your grandchildren or perhaps your children but the predictions are now becoming so dire that human civilisation will likely start to unravel within most of your lifetimes. The droughts, floods and fires that have ravished the globe this past year will soon become the new norm, food production will plummet and millions will likely starve and millions more will desperately try to escape the suffering. The world is so interconnected that no country will remain unaffected – and if you happen to be in Australia you will be particularly f*@&*^d, (or India or China or the US in fact the list is pretty big). If you don’t fancy an old age plagued by natural disasters, wars and civil unrest it’s time for all of us to get off our arses and sort this shit out.

Oh yer and have a great 2013.

China – again

Posted on December 26, 2012 by Simo

Last time I was in Beijing I loved the place, this time it left me feeling rather cold. I think it’s because all the bicycles have gone. In there place have come the killing machines. The metal boxes on wheels that kill the atmosphere, soul and liveability of a city if like in China and many other places they are allowed to take over. But they also kill people, nearly 2 million a year worldwide – many of them in China (more than 220,000 in 2007) – and another 15 million seriously injured. If that number of people were being slaughtered or maimed by any other preventable cause there would be outrage. Nearly as many people are killed in road traffic accidents each year as die of malaria or lung cancer. Cluster bombs kill around 1000 civilians per year and yet there is a (quite rightly) a concerted campaign to outlaw them , but there is no campaign to outlaw the motor car. Why? Because it has become so ingrained a part of our individualistic consumer capitalist society that people can’t even contemplate the alternatives. The car and oil lobbies are so powerful that alternatives are not even on the agenda. Nobody even questions the absurdity of using over 1000 kg of steel, plastic and rubber to move one 75 kg person and then leave it sitting idle for 99% of the time taking up valuable real estate. Then there’s the fact that the internal combustion engine is so inefficient, only about 40 -50% of the energy in the fuel actually goes into moving the vehicle. Which means that less than 5% of the energy is used to move the occupant. In fact cars are so inefficient that a single driver has the same carbon emissions as a passenger in a modern plane. So really if I was being consistent with the aims of this trip I would also avoid taxis. And driving myself, but then consistency is no fun.

Ironically motorbikes and scooters have been banned from parts of central Beijing because they are dangerous. But its not the two wheeled vehicles that are dangerous, it’s the cars that crash into them. Of course cars aren’t even an effective means of getting around. Huge swaths of Beijing have been given over to serve their insatiable demand for space. Everywhere you go you are confronted with huge roads filled with snarling traffic. Most of them have fences erected along them so you can’t even think about crossing them. Even the supposed peoples square Tiananmen is surrounded on all sides by 6 lanes of traffic and fences. The forbidden palace is very aptly named because you certainly can’t walk across the road to get there. Walking round Beijing is like being in a huge prison. Fenced in with your movements strictly controlled, constrained by the availability of a bridge or underpass in order to get to the other side. Our chicken who had a hard time in Russia would be severely fucked in China. If the traffic didn’t get him then a moments pause or hesitations and he would be plucked within seconds, and his various body parts swiftly transformed into delicious delicacies and his feet cooked, wrapped in plastic and sent to the station waiting room for some weary traveller to chew on during their journey. Yet despite all this space for cars the traffic in Beijing is appalling and it takes hours to get anywhere. In fact sometimes it can take days. Back in 2010 a 100 km traffic jam developed on the motorway outside the city that lasted for almost 2 weeks, trapping some drivers for 5 days. But they keep on building more roads and buying the cars to fill them up. Last Spring Festival the government in its wisdom decided to waive the tolls on the expressways. As a result they immediately filled with cars . My friend told me that many people spent much of the holiday stuck in traffic, spent a couple of hours at their destination then turned around and went through the whole frustrating exercise again to get home.

And not only is the traffic terrible so is the driving. It’s like everyone has just learned to drive. Which in a sense they have. Barely 20 years ago everyone got around on bicycles and bullock carts, even as recently as 2001 China only had 1/5 as many cars as the USA despite having almost 5 times the population. And people still drive as if they are on 2 wheels as opposed to 4 except at high speed with their hands never far from the horn. They conduct crazy manoeuvres across multiple lanes of traffic, never use their indicators and never let other drivers in or give way especially at pedestrian crossings where they usually speed up and scare off anyone foolhardy enough to attempt to use one. Parking doesn’t seem to be a skill that’s included in the driving test as people pretty much abandon their vehicles wherever they fancy and that rarely involves any attempt to pull off the road often causing chaos in the process. But its the junctions that the real mayhem occurs. The Chinese don’t do queues. In shops, at the supermarket, getting on the bus a scrum forms and those with the loudest voice and/or sharpest elbows go first. Even at the train station where metal barriers have been formed in an attempt to get people to stand one behind the other, someone, invariably a middle aged man will march up to the front and get served. The same is true on the roads. As soon as a line begins to form at the traffic lights, cars will begin to creep round into the right turn lane (which doesn’t have to stop for the lights) blocking it and if the left turn lane isn’t busy they will do the same there. Then when the lights change you have 5 lanes of traffic trying to squeeze into 2 all at once with nobody giving way so of course it takes much longer than if there were just 2 lines. Then once that has begun to disentangle itself the left turn queue jumpers sneak round and start blocking one of the straight ahead lanes. Finally just as the lights begins to change everyone surges forward even if the road ahead is jammed completely blocking the intersection. Often a traffic policeman has to be installed at every major intersection to prevent everything descending into gridlock.

So Beijing largely seems to consist of endless roads connecting a series of shopping malls and offices with endless apartment buildings. One of the consequences of creating a city so unfriendly to people that it forces them underground is that it creates lots of useable below ground. Of course what do you do with free space in China? Fill them with shops of course. So now you can go shopping whilst crossing the road to get between malls. Not that you’d particularly want to visit the malls anyway, by and large things are more expensive than you would find at home. Such is the fascination with brand and image and the status that it confers within Chinese society many people will happily pay 5 or 6 months salary for a bag. So of course the “premium” brands are more than happy to take advantage of this characteristic adding a hefty premium to the prices they charge in Europe.

After dodging the traffic and the malls the places I went to weren’t particularly impressive either. I had already been to the Forbidden Palace, Great Wall and Summer Palace last time I was here so didn’t particularly see the need to visit them again. I met up with a friend who took me to see a 2,000 year old street, but it had been rebuilt a few years ago and looked brand new with Starbucks and McDonalds built in to the shiny clean buildings and the shops were filled with tourist tat and expensive looking snacks. Everywhere in China I went it was the same, at least in the cities. All the history had been demolished to make way for offices, apartments and highway. If the Cultural Revolution didn’t get it then the steady march of capitalism did. Then as if an afterthought a small area is rebuilt as some sort of perverse Disney like facsimile of the past and filled with loudly attired and talking visitors from the provinces happily taking photos of “ancient” buildings that were actually only built a year or two ago.

Then we went to one of the old hutongs streets. This one had been done up too, but it seemed more tastefully with shops stuffed with the latest fashions and crazes. It was filled with young Beijingers as apposed to tourists from elsewhere in China and was a lot more fun. The latest craze was for young women to wear fluffy cats ears pinned into their hair, which I have to say made them look even cuter than they were already. We grabbed an unbelievable spicy soup and I tried to figure out ways of attaching fluffy cats ears to my hairless scalp, much to the disapproval of my companion.

If I felt cold about Beijing my first impressions of Shanghai were positively baltic. Glitzy, superficial, shiny and utterly soulless. It seemed like a temple to the accumulation of and conspicuous spending of shitloads of money. It didn’t help that I was staying in Pudong a brand new and rather wealthy area filled with apartment complexes and roads and utterly devoid of any character. My hosts were lovely, a young woman and her parents, and couldn’t have been more welcoming and went out of their way to make my stay a pleasant one. There house was very desirable , one whole floor of an apartment complex which had its own private gardens ringed with a high fence but I found the whole set up rather sterile. The gate to the complex could only be activated with a security card, which had to be used again to get access to the building and then to operate the lift which was programmed only to stop at the floor for that particular card. So no popping into the neighbours to borrow a cup of sugar, you can’t even get to their front door. My host proudly informed me that Shanghai had the lowest crime rate in the whole of China, which doesn’t have that much crime anyway. Which begs the question what were all those security arrangements there for? Largely symbolic I suppose rather than for any form of protection. “look at me plebs” they seem to be saying.

I arrived into Shanghai on the new high speed rail link. I must say it was very impressive, covering the 1300 km in a little over 4 and a half hours reaching speeds of up to 300 k/ph. Although if I was strictly following the rationale of this trip I would have taken the slow train. Actually as I have discussed in a previous post high speed rail is not particularly environmentally friendly. It uses huge amounts of energy to power it and the construction requires large amounts of concrete and energy both of which have high emissions. But of course that is of little concern to the Chinese government which is rolling out a high speed rail network across the country. Everywhere you go it seems like there is another project with the pillars for half constructed bridges running across the landscape like some sort of anthropocene Stonehenge. Except this time its not nature that is being worshiped. However I didn’t see much on this journey as I was in the first row of seats in the carriage which in typical Chinese utilitarian style had no windows so I spent the journey staring at the blank walls. For some reason they decided to build the new Shanghai railways station by the airport which defeats one of the main advantages high speed rail has over air travel, namely that it takes you into the heart of the city. So I then spent over an hour on the metro travelling to my destination. So on my 1340km journey almost a fifth of the time was spent travelling the last 30km or so. Crazy

My first port of call was the bund which features some lavish turn of the 19th century buildings built by some of Britain’s wealthiest and powerful companies to show off their wealth and power. It looks out over the “new Bund” across the river which features some lavish turn of the 20th century buildings built by some of China’s wealthiest and powerful companies to show off their wealth and power. I must say I was more impressed with the older buildings, they seemed just a bit more understated and classy and frankly a bit more stylish than big fuck off edifices of steel and glass. Although it was night when I visited and both sides were lit up so it did look rather attractive. The majesty of the neo-classical architecture bathed in a yellow halo on one side and the gaudy lights on the towers across the river. I joined the throngs on the river bank happily taking snaps of the vista.

Chinese people say that Shanghai is an international city, which is true but only in that homogenised internationalism of globalised capitalism. Yes it has stacks of foreign restaurants, but so does every major city anywhere in the world and frankly they all look the same, serve the same unimaginative food and are utterly devoid of any soul or character. And that’s about as far as Shanghai’s internationalism extends unlike say Singapore with its Chinatown and Little India which do actually feel Chinese or Indian. Shanghai does have lots of foreigners too but again it seemed to me that most were rather soulless money seekers working for western multinationals living in their gated communities and on the whole failing to engage with the local culture. Although I’m probably just being a judgemental snob.

But then as I delved a little deeper into the city my attitude to the city began to thaw a little mainly due to some interesting experiences and encounters I had. The first of these was a Halloween party that my host invited me to. It was held in an interesting space in an old office block in the city centre. Appropriately it was on the forth floor – the number in Chinese is very similar to the word for death which is why 4 is considered to be unlucky – and had been decked out with some ghoulish decorations. We looked the part as my host had managed to borrow some costumes from some of the American expats who’s apartments she managed. She was a witch and her friend and I were vampires for the evening. The DJ was spinning some appropriately themed music and there was a nice mix of locals and expats. I had a great evening getting to know some of them and pulling some suitably scary moves on the dance floor.

The evening had been organised by a friend my host had met at English class. He had introduced her to couchsurfing and we ran into him again at the Shanghai couchsurfing gathering a couple of evenings later. As is usual with such events it had attracted a number of nice and interesting seeming people. Unfortunately I didn’t get to meet many of them because I was stuck in a corner next to one of those older men who thinks they are very wise, but isn’t actually wise enough to listen to other people or engage them in conversation. He had certainly led an eventful life and was interesting up to a point, but there is only so much of someone prattling on about how wonderful they are that I can take. When they did manage to get a word in edgeways the others around me seemed like cool people. Earlier in the day my host had taken me on a bit of a tour of the city. My favourite part was the Longhua Temple which was like an oasis of calm within the bustle of the city. It was like a maze too, within a tardis. Every corner there was a little alley or path leading through to another temple, or little lake or stream. It was lovely and even though there were a fair number of visitors because of all the nooks and crannies it didn’t feel crowded.

In between these experiences I popped for a day trip to the city of Hangzhou and the famous West Lake. People kept banging on about it when I said I was going to visit, saying how famous it was throughout China. Clearly I must be spoilt when it comes to lakes having grown up in Scotland next to a very pretty loch and a couple of hours drive from the Lake District, because, well it was just a lake. I mean don’t get me wrong it was attractive enough. There were a couple of temples but not very impressive ones. There were some hills in the background, but not very impressive ones, certainly not when compared to those further west. On the opposite side to the hills the city had been constructed right up to the shore. It was rather attractive especially when you consider how badly other Chinese cities blend into the landscape. The rest of the city was pleasant enough too, the drivers were incredibly courteous when compared to those in Beijing and Shanghai – they actually gave way at zebra crossings and let other drivers in . We enjoyed some delicious dumplings and a bit of peace and quiet by the lake and after dinner I hopped on a high speed train for the hour long trip back to Shanghai. Of course it actually took me longer to get back to my hosts place from the station.

A couple of days later I popped over to visit the site of the Shanghai Expo from 2010. Its funny how your knowledge and understanding of things are coloured by the cultural lens you view them through. I had barely heard of the Shanghai expo, but the Chinese I met considered it almost on a par with the Beijing Olympics in terms of importance. The Chinese state is very adept at using national pride to deflect attention from the fact that that they are a bunch of corrupt, hypocritical, authoritarian bastard so they hype events like these hysterically. I found the site both very impressive and depressing. A huge part of the former industrial area on the banks of the Yangtze had been cleaned up and converted into parks, recreation areas and pavilions for the expo. A huge amount of effort and resources had been devoted into constructing some pretty impressive buildings which were only used for six months and were now mostly sitting abandoned. It seemed such a waste. Sure one of the huge pavilion areas was being converted into a shopping mall – just what Shanghai needs - but that’s not much of a legacy. The striking China pavilion had been converted into an art gallery, and very impressively for China was free. However as you would expect from such a bureaucratic country you still need a ticket to get in and enterprising individuals were trying to sell them at the exit from the subway station. Luckily my hosts mother had warned me about them so I didn’t fall for their trick. The space was amazing, the art less so, largely consisting of propaganda pieces. Although I have a soft spot for images of heroic workers and peasants, the style didn’t seem to have changed in 50 years. It seemed like the art had become as bureaucratic as the rest of the society, a kind of formulaic painting by numbers which was supposed to convey the might of the party and nation but ended up conveying how stultifying, drab and boring the party’s control of creativity had become. Nothing inspiring anyway, nothing like the art that is being created elsewhere in the country and attracting the attention of the government. Because creativity in any form is the enemy of authoritarianism. I made my way to the ground floor and left. The dudes were still outside trying to sell the free tickets as I went passed.

The Shanghai museum was much better though. Its free too and its the perfect size not too small and not too big. Some of the museums that I have visited on this trip seemed tried to try and fill themselves with as many exhibits as possible just for the sake of it. The Shanghai museum doesn’t, every object is worth admiring, seeming to reflect some aspect of Chinas long and fascinating history. The ceramic exhibition for example has a few choice pieces from each style and dynasty. The exhibits are thoughtfully labelled and in English that makes sense. I spent a very enjoyable couple of hours there and nobody tried to sell me a free ticket.

The final experience and perhaps most influential in my warming to Shanghai was also through couchsurfing. As I was staying in the city for a week I didn’t want to overstay my welcome at one place so I had arranged another host for the rest of my visit. I was sad to leave to leave my first hosts as they had looked after me so well. The mother is particular did what mothers everywhere are so proficient at doing and spoiled me rotten, making sure I was feed and watered and taken care of. Even though she couldn’t speak any English we managed to communicate through sign language whenever my host was out at work. The whole family drove me to the station to see me off. My next host was working so I explored the city during the day and then went to find him after he had finished, making the mistake of passing through Peoples Square metro station with my baggage at 6pm. It is the busiest subway station in Shanghai and must be one of the busiest in the world. At the busiest time of the day, the throngs of people were so great as I tried to change lines that I could hardly move. It was as if we were a viscous liquid rather than individual human entities as we flowed very slowly to the platform queuing down the stars. And yet it all seemed to work every minute a new train arrived and more of the crowd poured in and filled it. It didn’t take me long to get out of there, but I’d hate to have to do it every day. I guess sitting in your little metal box stuck on the expressway for hours is probably preferable to battling through that crush and standing on the train for an hour. Although of course there are much better solutions – building workplaces nearer to where people live, increasing working from home and reducing working hours so that start times can be varied which ensures not everyone is travelling at the same time.

My next couch was quite a contrast to the sterile poshness of Pudong. It was situated in the old French concession in an older apartment block which although much smaller had far more character. It also seemed to have more of a community – a group of locals had gathered outside the shop and were smoking, playing Chinese chess and chewing the fat in the way that older Chinese people seem so adept at. My host was also extremely interesting too. He was an urban designer and was full of interesting insights into the history and the form of the city. He took me on a fascinating tour of his local area, pointing out some of the architectural delights from the colonial era. A young colleague of his joined us for the day. She had only recently moved to Shanghai from Guangdong and so she was experiencing many of the sights for the first time too. We popped into a very cute cafe in an old sagging wooden house which had once been an annex to the German Consuls residence. It was full of fascinating memorabilia from its history with letters on the walls and interesting objects scattered round. It was nice to find a space like that, because it seems they are few and far between in Shanghai. We also visited one of the parks created along the Yangtze for the Expo. It was a lovely space, although it was a shame to see it so little used. I guess that will change as more people move into the apartment blocks that are springing up all around. It seems like the Expo did a good job at moving out some of the old polluting heavy industries from the centre of the city as whole factories were closed down and relocated to places where there noxious fumes will be less offensive to Shanghais wealthy citizens.

Our next port of call was one of the few remaining traditional Chinese areas. It was full of small older houses narrow streets and bustling with life. In short it was a typical Asian street scene and I loved it. More and more of these areas are being demolished and making way for boring but infinitely more comfortable apartment complexes and you can understand why. The streets are narrow and difficult to negotiate, the houses are old with tiny rooms and most have no toilets or water necessitating trips to the dunny and tap at the end of the alley. But its also a shame because the place has so much character. I’m sure it would be possible to renovate the area but its far more profitable to knock it all down and build bland apartment blocks instead. We wandered around, having a nosey into the homes and shops. There was a bewildering array of things for sale, unlike in many other places were shops selling the same kind of stuff tend to concentrate together. A pet shop was right next to a toy shop, then a hairdressers and next a grocers and a veggie shop, then just round the corner one of the most famous restaurants in Shanghai and not far from that a shop selling booze from large earthenware jars. Ever keen to try local specialities Our final destination was the market area of Tianzifang. My friends described it as an artists area but it was more art by numbers rather than anything particularly creative . It was filled with the same arty twee stuff you can find across China shops with communist propaganda art, and twee craft books and those cute little bars with lots of wood and a carefully prepared rustic look. There were a few original features such as the bar called more than toilet where the seats were toilets and the cocktails came served in miniature urinals, but there was something distinctly unappealing about sipping a drink from something so intimately associated with bodily fluids it so we didn’t go in. It was a fun place, full of local youngsters and tourists so we grabbed a couple of beers at a bar round the corner. We sheltered under canvas as rain began to fall and laughed at the poor souls scurrying past trying to get out of the rain. Then once it had stopped we made a break for the metro. Thinking I would appreciate the walk after a few beers I decided to get out at the station that was further from my hosts but avoided changing trains. Of course it was absolutely pissing it down when I emerged, and I mean pissing it down, waterfalls were pouring down the station walls and the streets were quickly turning into rivers. I quickly backtracked into the station and bought another ticket to travel to the closer station, only to discover that the train I had been on was the last one that day – of course only after I had already used my ticket to go through the barriers. I returned to the scene of the tempest and re-evaluated my options, every man and his dog seemed to be trying to flag down the few passing taxis which all seemed to be full anyway. I wasn’t wearing a jacket and didn’t have an umbrella so the only option was to leg it. Within a couple of minutes I was soaked, but it wasn’t to cold and I hadn’t run for ages so my exertions were warming me up. About halfway to my hosts I passed an inviting looking bar with the Premier league showing on a big screen. I was sorely tempted, but thought it wasn’t such a good idea in my soaked through state. I should have done because that was the only glimpse of a football match I was to get for over a month. And that was it for Shanghai. I was actually sad to go, but I don’t think I’d like to live there.

Next stop was Wuhan a large city on the banks of the Yangtze about 300km from Shanghai. Actually its really 3 separate cities which grew up through trade on the river and then grew so large they merged together. By this time I discovered that I didn’t really like Chinese cities. It’s not that they’re particularly unpleasant, its just that they’re not that pleasant either. As you may have gathered I don’t like cars and Chinese cities are full of them. I don’t like shopping malls either and there’s lots of them too. Of course they are all essentially the same shiny monuments to consumption so in Wuhan in a bid to try and differentiate itself one of the malls was built in “Spanish” style. It looked very weird but you can kind of imagine it as huge hacienda if haciendas where made from poured concrete and covered a few thousand square metres. There were even some plastic bulls a la Pamplona roaming the calles and some plastic Andalucía type people doing some kind of flamenco thing around the fountain. I do like history, but there’s not much of that left. Despite Wuhan being an ancient trading centre there’s actually only 2 streets with any historical buildings all the rest have been demolished. I also like culture, but that seemed to be in short supply too.

After reading this you may be under the impression that I hadn’t been enjoying China thus far, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. Those of you who know me will be all to aware that I like a good whinge and I’ve certainly been indulging that trait now. Actually I’d been having a great time. I’d met some wonderful people, eaten some amazing food, enjoyed some fabulous hospitality and enjoyed some great experiences. But it was definitely time to get out of the city and what better place to do that than the mountains of Hunan province.

Mongolia

Posted on November 29, 2012 by Simo

Apparently the train ride from Russia into Mongolia is very beautiful. I am unable to confirm that as I spent 9 of the day light hours of the 30 hour journey at be border. What little I did manage to see was indeed beautiful as was the small part of the country that I was able to explore afterwards

Its a pretty crazy journey. I had elected to take the local train because although there is a faster train which gets in about the same time and takes 7 hours less it leaves at 4 in morning. Thinking I would rather be fast asleep on the train at that time I chose the slower option. Although Irkutsk and Ulaanbaatar are only 521km apart the train takes a rather circuitous route around lake Baikal and through Undan Udee, travelling a total of 1113 km. Still 30 hours seems like a rather excessive time to travel 1000 km which works out at only 37 km/h – that’s not much faster than a bicycle. Although as I mentioned earlier much of the time was spent fannying around at the border. The actual border formalities were actually completed reasonably quickly and we seemed to spend much of the time sitting there not doing much. Although we set off with a number of carriages only the single coach that we were in actually crossed the border.

The coach was mainly filled with foreigners and I was sharing my compartment with some young Swedish guys which was actually quite nice as they were the first travellers I had spoken to since I said farewell to Michael in Estonia over 3 weeks previously. There were also some English people on the train, and it was a pleasant change not having to think about the linguistic and cultural minefield you have to negotiate when conversing with someone who isn’t a native speaker. The time passed pretty quickly I popped out at one of the stations and stocked up on beer and my compartment buddies taught me some Swedish card games and a Chinese one.

There’s always a point on a long train journey when you think it will never end but then suddenly you wake up and the two nights and a day have disappeared. We rolled into Ulaanbaatar just after 6am, bang on time. It seems like Russian trains, Mongolian trains are very punctual, but that seems to be a consequence of their slowness rather than any great efficiency. Still the trains always seem to get you in at a reasonably convenient time. They seem to be timed to arrive in major cities along the route at around 6 or 7 am so perhaps there is no point in speed if it means you’ll arrive at an inconvenient time. It was still a little early to be heading to my couchsurfing hosts so I hung around the station for a while then headed out into the frigid morning (it was around -6C) to try and find a mobile phone SIM card as my Russian one wasn’t working. But it appears that Mongolians seem to have a sensible attitude to mornings. Despite the waiting room being packed with waiting passengers none of the shops there was open wouldn’t be for another couple of hours according to the information desk. It turned out non in the surrounding area were open either. So I killed some more time and then caught a taxi. The cheeky bastard tried to drop me at the wrong place – but the GPS on my phone soon put him to rights – and then winged after I talked to long on his phone to alert my host to my arrival.

And what hosts they were. I know I’ve met some totally amazing people through couch surfing but these girls are up with the best. A couple of American Peace Corp volunteers, they had been in Mongolia for more than 2 years, and had array of knowledge of and contacts within the country. I stayed with them for a total of 6 nights on 3 different occasions and gained valuable insight and advice, had lots of laughs and great experiences. Cheers. You guys rock. The amazing hospitality started the moment I arrived. They were getting ready to head out to work but still gave me a warm welcome, gave me some suggestions of what to do. Gave me a set of keys and went to work.

Ulaanbaatar has a bit of a wild west feel to it. There’s a bit of a gold rush going on in Mongolia as foreigner companies and their workers pour into the country to take advantage of the abundant mineral resources. So the centre is filled with gleaming skyscrapers and equally gleaming cars, but as you move away from the centre the character begins to change. The roads are potholed and the pavements are cracked and away from the manicured areas in the centre often give way to dusty earth. On all sides the city is ringed with the dwellings of the many rural poor who have flooded into the city attracted by the bright lights and comparative wealth. Many still live in gers, the round felt tent things that have provided shelter for Mongolians on the steppes for hundreds of years. While they provide a cheap housing option they are heated with fires, usually by burning coal, which when combined with fumes from the horrendous traffic and the coal fired power stations situated within the city mean that the pollution is horrendous. The city is surrounded on all sides by mountains. In winter when the fires burn fiercest to combat bone chilling temperatures as low as -40 and the freezing still air collects in the hollow the city is blanketed in smog for weeks on end.

But when I was there, the sun was shinning and the air relatively clear. After over a week of pretty hectic travelling with only a minor interlude in Tomsk it was nice to be able to chill out and explore UB as it is ubiquitously known – well among expats and travellers and English speaking Mongolians anyway. I probably spent a bit long fannying around really and perhaps could have seen more of the countryside but what the heck I needed the relaxation time and anyway it was getting cold so the countryside was not so conducive to chilling out. Anyway I got to experience and learn about some of the history of Mongolia. My first port of call was to Zaigan a monument to the heroic soviet red army situated on a hill on the outskirts of town. On the steep steps up to the summit I encountered members of the Mongolian Rugby team training by carrying each other to the top. They looked pretty hard so I smiled politely and nodded. I would have said hello if I could have, but Mongolian is one of the craziest languages I’ve ever heard. It sounds like someone with a lisp who is trying to hack up an enormous lump of phlegm whilst speaking a combination of Chinese and Russian. I found even the simplest of phrases impossible to get my head around. I always try to learn at least how to say hello, thank you and please in the local language for every country I go to, but I have to say Mongolian defeated me. The sculpture at the top was pretty impressive a large obelisk surrounded by a huge ring decorated with carvings celebrating the achievements of the red army. There was also a fantastic view over the city from the brand new towers in the centre, to the posh serviced apartments being constructed below and then across the narrow sprawling city to the ger districts.

After descending I called into the winter palace a rather decaying residence for some king or other, and I’m not sure why it was the winter palace because it was bloody freezing. Still you could appreciate its former glory and there were some pretty nice artefacts and paintings. A few days later I visited the Mongolian History museum, and it seems like not much has happened in Mongolia since the 14th century when Chingis Khan set out an conquered much of Asia. His descendants carried on his conquests and at its height the Mongol empire stretched from Korea to what is now Bulgaria. The largest contiguous empire the world has ever known. A pretty impressive feat for a bunch of nomadic herders. Recent DNA research proposes that 8 % of males in a large part of Asia and some European regions are direct descendants of Chingis Khan!!! So it seems like he got about a bit in both senses of the phrase. It seems that the Mongolians ruled pretty fairly and relatively compassionately at least over those who did what they were told and didn’t resist being subjugated. With some pretty sensible laws. For example take the following “Whoever takes goods on credit and becomes bankrupt, then takes goods and becomes bankrupt, then takes goods and yet again becomes bankrupt, is to be put to death after the third time”. Which to my mind would be quite a useful rule today. It certainly might serve to focus the minds of the bankers who’s greed and stupidity has served to fuck up the world economy so successfully. The earlier inhabitants also had a significant impact on their neighbours with first the Turks and the Uyghurs creating their own kingdoms and then empires as they spread outwards. But it seems the glory days of the last Mongol empire have faded away long ago and there was barely a mention of the few hundred years up to the turn of the 20th century. I guess being occupied by the Chinese is nothing to crow about. But the second communist revolution ever certainly is. So the next big mention was the events of 1920 which saw the Mongolian Communist party with the help of the Russian Red Army see off the Chinese and introduce the Mongolian People’s republic. And for nearly a century Mongolia shared a very close relationship with their northern neighbour. Mongolian is written in Cyrillic – indeed the communist party had an impressive record on literacy, turning a largely illiterate society into a 95% literate one within a generation. Floods of Russian investment and knowhow poured into the country building factories, mines and power stations. To this day a significant Russian community exists within Mongolia. Other customs and habits followed, including a preladiction for vodka which still dominates many social events and activities. Alcohol is a significant problem within Mongolian society and my couch surfing hosts described the debauchery during the holiday season with inebriated bodies littering the streets and fights breaking out on the smallest pretext.

Just down the road I called in a the museum of art which clearly doesn’t see many visitors. I was followed round the exhibits by staff member who switched on and off the lights as I went passed. It was a shame that there was so few visitors because the collection was reasonably impressive and well displayed, but I guess people don’t come to Mongolia for the art. They come for the impressive scenery which can be found pretty much everywhere but Ulaanbaatar . It was time to get out there and see it for myself.

First stop was Gorkhi Terelj national park, which due to its proximity to UB is used as a getaway by city residents seeking some respite from the pollution and chaos. My friend wanted me to experience life in a ger but we certainly weren’t going to be roughing it. It was on the cusp of winter so many resorts had closed for the reason and the only one that answered my call was one of the most expensive. Oh what the heck, may as well do it in style. It was dark when we arrived so we missed all the scenery on the way in. But sometimes its nice to be surprised when you wake in the morning. We were welcomed by a roaring fire that had been burning in the stove for some time. So it was actually sweltering inside even though frost was already forming outside and I stripped down to my t-shirt. I was actually surprised by how spacious it was inside. It could have comfortably slept four. We were told to leave the door unlocked for the dude to come in an stoke our fire throughout the night. How good is that, but what a shit job he has spending the whole night building fires for lazy pricks who can’t even be bothered to move a few metres to put a log or two on the fire. It was also pretty hard to regulate the temperature in bed. As the fire died down the freezing air seeped in from outside causing you to snuggle deep into the thick duvet. Then the fire starter dude would come in and work his magic and you’d wake up covered in sweat and throw off the covers only to come to a few hours later shivering to repeat the all process all over again. God only knows what it must be like in the depths of winter when there’s no magic fireman and it’s -40C outside.

Next morning after a leisurely start to the day, with breakfast in bed courtesy of my very kind companion I summoned up the energy to poke my head out of the door. It’s a beautiful day with bright sunshine casting a delightful light over the scene. And it’s gorgeous. We are in a lovely valley, grassy for the most part except for the rocky peaks and larch trees on the steeper sections. Already the grass has faded to a drab brown first by the harsh sun of summer and then by the coming cold of winter. Right then it had a harsh beauty to it, but it must be magical when the new life of spring adds a vibrancy to it. We spent a lovely day wandering through the valley, seeking shapes among the weird and wonderful rock formations, exploring the empty resorts and taking lots of photo’s. We scaled one of the smaller peaks and admired the view across into a neighbouring valley.

The place we were staying at was pretty posh, at least by Mongolian standards. According to my friend some of the other guests worked for Mongolian TV and the car park was full of Mercedes SUVs. We were basically paying western prices for everything. I bought some crispy fried meaty pancakes for $20 which would cost less than $1 in a standard Mongolian restaurant. When you are back home and you pay a premium for something you expect to get something a bit extra even if that is only wanky pretentious shit. Like exquisite service, or a crisp napkin or truffle oil. Here there didn’t seem to be the case, you didn’t get anything extra it was just fucking expensive just because, well just because it was expensive. The surroundings were pretty ordinary. In the restaurant just a tiled floor and some wooden picnic style benches and the service was average at best. Yet they were charging $100 for a bottle of vodka. It seemed to me the ultimate illustration that fancy shit is exactly that, fancy and shit. Someone is playing on peoples snobbery and their desire to appear superior and laughing all the way to the bank. The ultimate in the emperors new clothes. There’s nothing really there. That’s why all this boutique shit pisses me off. A boutique is a small French clothing shop. A small hotel that charges shit loads because its got a bit of fancy decor and some soft sheets is not a fucking small French clothing shop it’s just a con. Then there’s boutique offices. There not boutique either they’re just small offices with a few fancy plants thrown in and maybe a sculpture of a sheep’s head – I kid you not actually seen. And don’t get me started on boutique breweries. It’s only fucking beer. Wankers.

That night it snowed and we awoke to an even more beautiful vista. I poked my head out of the ger to see the whole valley covered in a dusting of white. Misty clouds were pouring down into the valley from the mountains above, like dry ice swirly around the flares of a 70s glam rock band. Unlike the aforementioned band it was magical. After breakfast we scaled the nearest high point scrunching through the thin powder of snow to an even more beautiful view.

So my introduction to Mongolian living was nice but very sanitised. However my next stay in a ger was the real deal. Out in the middle of nowhere, with a herder family with horses and yaks and shit. My great hosts in UB had a peace corp. mate out in Tsetserleg about 7 hours west of the capital. I hopped on the only bus of the day at 8 am and was soon trundling through the gorgeous if rather bleak countryside with a bus full of assorted passengers. Young women, beautifully attired with perfect make up, gnarled old men with skin burnished a deep mahogany and ingrained with deep lines from a lifetime in the stark Mongolian sun. Round faced women cooing over bouncing babies. It was interesting to note that all the women had pictures of their children or grandchildren as wallpaper on their phones while the men had pictures of horses. We paused for lunch at a tiny dusty hamlet which was just a string of half a dozen restaurants arranged along one side of the road. The toilet seemed to be the verge on the other side of the highway. Surprisingly there was another foreigner in town who of course was from Sydney and was coincidently booked on the same train as me to Beijing – in fact the next compartment, and I even bumped into him in a park in Beijing a few days after we arrived. Small world an all that. Except having traversed half of it I can attest to the fact that it’s not actually that small at all.

The Lonely Planet describes Tsetserleg as the most attractive Aimeg (provincial capital) in Mongolia. I reflected on this as I stood waiting for Tim the Peace Corp dude on the rutted patch of dust where the buses stop. Clearly the other places must be extremely ugly because the town was just a collection of small and rather ramshackle buildings and a few more ugly apartment buildings from when the Russians were in town. The location was however rather more pleasing on the eye with rocky mountains surrounding the settlements on all sides. Tim arrived shortly and showed me to only hostel in town. At his suggestion the guest house managed to hook me up with a local family to stay for the night. They had recently moved to the winter grazing grounds which were a fair distance from town so it took a fair while for him to arrive. About an hour later a tall thin dude with a broad grin rocked up on a motorbike. He was dressed in traditional attire of a long blue jacket, fastened with a belt around the waist. He looked doubtfully at my thin travelling trousers and walking shoes and explained through the receptionist I should put some warm clothes on because it was going to be a cold ride. I put on all the layers I had, including two jackets and my newly purchased long johns. He was eager to head off so I jumped on the back, he gunned the engine and we sped off into the fading light of the evening.

What a ride it was. It was breathtaking. The scenery of course, but mainly the speed at which we were flying down the dirt road. Dusk was falling and he wanted to cover as much of the 30km plus journey in daylight as he could so he wasn’t hanging about. The track consisted mainly of loose gravel and larger stones, and we weren’t wearing helmets, so any slight misjudgement would have been very serious indeed and I’m pretty sure my insurance policy didn’t cover me for helmetless off road motor biking in Mongolia. It really was a white knuckle ride because I had to cling on pretty hard to stay on the bouncing bucking bike. The first part of the ride I spent staring at the road ahead, pointlessly watching out for any upcoming hazards because there was nothing I could do to avoid them. Eventually I was able to relax enough to take heed of the scenery we were passing through and it was stunning. The sun was setting off to one side so the sky was lit up all orange and pink, highlighting even further the desolate beauty of the landscape of hills. The slopes were carpeted with grass and the summits and steeper sections dotted with conifers. Occasionally we would pass through a herd of sheep and cattle gathered around a half a dozen gers, but for the most part the landscape was devoid of life. The road was like a deep scar through the hills. As it got more rutted and difficult to pass drivers would seek out a more comfortable route causing the scar to widen.

The light was falling fast and within half an hour of riding had faded altogether. Although he was now driving through complete darkness illuminated by the rather dim lights from his Chinese made motorbike my driver barely moderated his speed. I guess he was on familiar territory as we neared his home so he knew the road ahead. But it was still rather unnerving to be zooming into the unknown at a fair rate of knots. At last as the cold was beginning to bite deeply into my bones the sweet smell of wood wafted into my nostrils. Instead of speeding past the small collection of gers as we had on numerous previous occasions – much to my disappointment – we turned in and came to a halt at the home at the end. I eased my aching butt off the seat and was invited into the welcoming warmth of their ger.

The stove was burning fiercely so I began shedding my layers as soon as I arrived. And I was welcomed with warm smiles firstly by his wife and then by their young daughter who had the rosiest cheeks I’ve ever seen. I have to say she took a bit of a shine to me – well at least one Mongolian girl did even if she was only 3!!! A steaming mug of milk tea was thrust into my hand and then the wife grabbed a bowl, and began filling it with handfuls of cream which had been sitting festering away in bowls on a cabinet. There was a thick skin of congealed yellowness on the top and even the stuff at the bottom was thick and gloopy. The husband grabbed a loaf of bread and began cutting huge door stop sized slices. He grabbed one, took a huge spoonful of cream and slathered on a layer of cholesterol filled ooze that was so thick it might have proven daunting even for my brother in law – a noted lover of clotted cream. He was soon tucking into it with relish and motioned for me to do the same. I took a rather smaller spoon full and gingerly spread a thin layer and took a bite. It was actually surprisingly tasty, but unbelievably rich. I was starving though so helped myself to a second artery clogging piece.

If you’d been lactose intolerant you would have pretty shafted there because milk featured in all the meals I ate. That evening the wife prepared noodles. Kneading the dough, then rolling it out and cutting it into strips it was cooked with meat and the left over milk tea and was surprisingly delicious. Breakfast was sour cream again. I excitedly tucked into the rice I was served for lunch, thinking it would be a break from the dairy products. Alas no, it had been cooked in milk too, so that it tasted rather like rice pudding – with lamb. Even the booze was milky – fermented horse milk!!! The only food that I was offered that didn’t contain milk was the bowl of offal that was kept under the bed. It was passed around and the recipient poked around for a bit, picked up a choice morsel, a heart or spleen or whatever, hacked off some slices and passed it round. I politely declined when it was my turn given it was impossible to determine exactly how long it had been sitting under the bed.

Nobody in the family spoke a word of English, and I’ve already described my failed attempts at trying to get my tongue around Mongolian, so communication was interesting. We managed to convey our names and ages, but anything deeper was impossible. But there was a lot of smiles and laughter, lots of smiles in fact. The whole family always seemed to have broad grins on their faces. And I had some fun and games with their daughter, pretty much everything I did was accompanied by lots of giggles. It was a pretty comfortable set up. It was reasonably spacious and everything was arranged around the stove which took up the centre of the room with a metal chimney exiting through the centre of the roof. There was a fair bit of furniture, a couple of beds a kitchen cabinet with pots and pans and a row of jars with cream festering away in them. They even had a sink with a mirror which drained into a bucket in the cupboard below. In one corner was a brightly painted chest with a row of candles used for worshiping the ancestors. Next to the candles was a flat screen TV, perhaps the 21st century form of worship. Much of the woodwork was brightly painted in greens, blues and yellows which lent a cheery aspect to the surroundings and it was illuminated by battery powered lights which were charged by a solar panel outside. I guess their lifestyle had a pretty low environmental impact. They had few possessions, and there was just a couple of small bags of extra clothes under one of the beds. All their daughters toys seemed very well loved. Apart from some flour, vegetables and petrol they provided everything else for themselves. Although looking around the landscape it did seem to be suffering the ravages of overgrazing, so perhaps it wasn’t really an environmental idyll after all.

Later when it was time for sleep, I formed a bed in the corner from some carpet. I was grateful of the sleeping bag my host in UB had lent me because as soon as the fire burnt down the temperature inside began to drop. Wrapped up in my snug parcel with a couple of extra blankets for good measure I spent a very comfortable night.

I was expecting being woken at the crack of dawn as the family rose to milk their animals, but actually they got up around when I would get up normally anyway. Then when the task was over they returned back to the warm tent to chill out and have breakfast. Indeed it seemed like a remarkably laid back way of life. Nothing was too hurried. A task was completed and then they would return to the ger for some tea and a gossip, and maybe a snack. Perhaps a neighbour would pop by for a chat and a bit of offal. It seemed totally like my style of life, although perhaps I wouldn’t be thinking that when its -40 outside and there’s a dozen yak and horses to be milked.

After breakfast they put me to work. Firstly shovelling frozen shit from around the camp and animal pens. It was pretty easy going apart from the odd stubborn turd that had frozen to the ground which had to be prised off the repeated stabs of the shovel. We soon had the yard looking spotless and a big pile of shit in the back of his pickup. Then after a break for more tea and chats we went off to get some logs for the fire. We had to drive a fair old distance because it appeared that most of the suitable trees near the camp had already been plundered. He spent some time selecting a suitable place, driving off the track up the valley side until we reached a stand of trees at the top. It was high and north facing so the ground was covered in snow from an earlier fall that had melted elsewhere. We got out of the truck and he started tapping all the dead trees with the back of an axe to determine which ones were still sound in the centre. I think the dead ones were chosen because they were nice and dry for burning rather than any environmental concern to preserve those still living, but I could be wrong. Then the felling began, first one then another, and another went crashing to the snow covered ground. And they weren’t exactly small either . As the volume of felled would built up I was becoming concerned about the amount of energy I would be expending over the next short while, especially as the only activity even approaching hard labour I’d completed in the past 14 months was helping my parents in their garden. Given they’re both the other side of 75 such activities usually involve as much tea drinking as they do actually work so I was beginning to get a little worried. At last we finished felling and he deftly began sawing them up into sections. Sections which were just about able to be lifted by two people well by a flabby mollycoddled westerner who’d drunk too much beer and his accomplice. Not only was I required to lift large lumps of wood but I was also required to push the truck when it got bogged down in the snow. Even with snow chains fitted it was still sliding crazily around as the driver tried to squeeze it backwards through a narrow gap between the trees. One of the wing mirrors took a battering as did the side of the vehicle, but we made it in the end. By the time the flatbed was filled to the top with great bits of tree I was absolutely shattered and the muscles in my arms were screaming silently in protest. My smiling friend seemed to be smiling even more broadly than usual, as if to say ha well that’s another soft foreigner broken then. It seemed like a pretty good deal for him as well. Getting a days labour out of me and getting paid for my stay as well.

There was just in time for one last milky meal and then it was to head back to civilisation. Except it wasn’t even particularly civilised. Unfortunately the hostel was fully booked that night so I was stuck with the hotel next door. My guide book was certainly right when it said it had seen better days and that was written more than 5 years ago. Clearly things hadn’t got any better. The bed was hard and the walls stained. The drains stank, so the stench of shit wafted into the room whenever you opened the toilet door. Its the one and only time I’ve ever taken a dump and actually improved the aroma. One of the doors was missing from the shower cubicle so lukewarm water sprayed all over the floor and the toilet when ever you took a frigid shower. I consoled myself with the thought that I had arranged to meet up with Tim that night so at least I would enjoy a decent conversation after spending the last 24 hours using strange noises and sign language to communicate. But I missed his phone call and then due to the vagaries of the Mongolian phone network was unable to connect with him again that evening. So I sat in the pub on my own drinking beer. I couldn’t even bring myself to try and negotiate the Mongolian menu because the waitress didn’t speak English and I didn’t have a phrase book. Google doesn’t even bother with Mongolian so I couldn’t use that either. I contemplated ordering something at random but decided it was safer just to stick with beer. And so passed my second last night in Mongolia.

Luckily my final night in Mongolia was much more pleasant . I took my hosts out for lovely Mongolian meal and a couple of beers to wash it down. Then it was back to their place and a sleep before I was up at the crack of dawn to catch my train to Beijing. My carriage again was largely composed of western travellers and it was fun to share some of their stories. There was a couple heading to Singapore to start a new life, another couple heading to Australia and Aussie kid I’d bumped into in that tiny villages. I have to say compared to the rest of the country it wasn’t a particularly scenic ride. My hosts told me that over half the population lives in UB of the rest half live along the train line to China. So the journey seemed to consist of a series of dusty little settlement, and the odd coal mine surrounded by a sea of rather flat featureless semi desert. It wasn’t exactly ugly but I was glad I’d taken the time to explore some of the rest of the country.

Russia – bears a very long railway, but no vodka!!!

Posted on November 11, 2012 by Simo

It was with a mixture of excitement and a little trepidation that I boarded the bus to St Petersburg. Excitement because of everything that Russia evokes. The history, the culture, the architecture. The fact that I was going to cross much of the biggest country on earth on one of the worlds most romantic railways. Nervous because although I had been trying to learn it for a few weeks my Russian was very rudimentary and I knew that few people would speak English especially out east. But also well because it was Russia and that still conjures up images of Mafia and crime. It is very hard not to fall victim to cultural stereotypes even though it is something I'm very conscious to avoid.
However I nearly didn’t make it. The women at passport control didn’t think the 9 year old photo in my battered passport resembled me. She looked at me, she looked at the photo, she looked at me. I smiled. She stared stonily back. She looked again. I frowned. Nothing. Then she said something into her radio and asked me something is Russian. Luckily help was on hand from the beautiful stewardess from the bus. I’d fallen in love with her the moment she had opened her mouth. There is something incredibly sexy about a Russian accent and for the first time in my life I found myself listening attentively to the safety briefing. Now she explained that the photo didn’t look like me and she had called for her boss to check if I was legit. And so we waited and waited. By this time all the other passengers were back on the bus probably cursing me for holding them up. After about 20 minutes the senior officer arrived, asked through the stewardess if I had any other ID. He checked the driving licence I proffered him, which seemed to satisfy him and my a few minutes later after everything had been stamped I was allowed to go on my way. Much to my relief failure to get into Russia would have scuppered the whole of the rest of the trip. A few hours later and I was in St Petersburg.
St Petersburg is beautiful. Construction was commenced by Peter the Great in 1703 on swamp land on the banks of the river Neva captured from the Swedes. He attempted to emulate the grand capitals of the great European powers – Paris, London and Vienna so its stuffed with broad streets, lavish palaces, parks and gardens and in a nod to Venice the occasional canal. As is my want I spent a couple of days wandering around taking in the views. The architecture of course but also the jaw droopingly beautiful women. Although not really my type – they were heavily made up, enveloped in the latest fashions and tottered along on impossibly large heels. Nonetheless I could still appreciate their intrinsic beauty and was falling in love every couple of minutes, almost walking into lamp posts or straight into 8 lanes of snarling traffic on a number of occasions. A friend informed me that there were 8 women for every man in St Petersburg because all the blokes had gone to Moscow to work, but those odds still didn’t seem to improve matters. They all seemed haughtily indifferent to me. So I went on admiring the beautiful buildings instead.
There were quite a few of those too. I viewed most of those from afar too although I did make a point of visiting the Hermitage – one of the most renowned museums in the world. The Collection was established by Catherine the Great, but it was Nicholas I who first opened it to the public to rival the great European museums. Russians seem to have a bit of an inferiority complex when comparing themselves against Europe. Even today they go to great lengths to portray themselves as modern and sophisticated rather than vodka swilling savages. Then after the revolution the Bolsheviks extended the museum by expropriating the collections of all the rich bastards and using one of the Tsars palaces to house it.
It’s an amazing collection, some Russian prehistorical items and then room after room of great works of art. Picassos, Magritte’s, Cezanne’s, Gauguin’s it’s like a who’s who of 19th and early 20th century European art. The building is amazing two. Outrageously decorated dripping with ornate decorations, mirrors, gold. Simply an ostentatious display of wealth and power. Wandering around it and the nearby Russian Museum you can see why there was a revolution. It to is housed in a fabulous palace and showcases pre-revolution Russian art. Its stuffed with portraits of filthy rich fuckers with names like “The Most Serene Princess Yelizaveta Saltykova” all draped with the finest fashions and dripping with jewels. What few depictions of the ordinary people there are portray the abject conditions and squalor they were forced to inhabit. Little wonder they were soon revolting and executing all the rich fuckers. Could do with a bit of that today. Well the expropriating bit anyway. They don’t need to be executed – bit of forced labour would be fine.
I like Russia. At first sight it seems to stand for many of the things I find distasteful about the modern world. First off there’s the gangster capitalism which is the inevitable result of allowing the free market to let rip. A further consequence of this is a superficial fixation on material possessions. Your worth as a human being seems to be established by the car you drive – I’ve never seen so many hummers in my life – the clothes you wear, the handbag you carry. Some of the people I met would think nothing of going to Italy for a shopping trip. I guess this focus is understandable when such an expedition would have been impossible a generation ago. And it all seems so tacky as well. I looked into the window of an interior design shop in one of the most exclusive streets in Moscow and it was full of mirrors and gold and giant white leather sofas huge larger than life size sculptures of people holding lamps. But then again that’s maybe me just being a snob.
Russia is also very expensive, you pay European prices for average food and indifferent service not only in St Petersburg and Moscow but even in some of the smaller towns. In keeping with the fixation on everything new and glitzy everything is done out in that modern restaurant style which make it impossible to distinguish whether you are on the Gold Coast or Manchester or some chain restaurant in Seoul, Beijing or Italy. The same fake wooden floor and seats, the same chrome and plastic finishing and quite likely the same vaguely Mediterranean menu and same insipid Australian or Chilean wine.
But scrape away the shiny homogonous superficiality that is late capitalism and you get to the real heart and soul of Russia. Which is of course the people. And what hearts they have. I met some truly wonderful people in the short time I was there. Of course there were the couchsurfing hosts – the lovely couple from St Petersburg who were so welcoming that it felt like we were old friends. The quirky woman in Kazan who had shaved off all her hair a couple of months previously and took me to my first couchsurfing event and the Shamen who took me for a barbecue in the snow at Lake Baikal. But there were random acts too the taxi driver who took me for lunch, bonds made on the train although no language is shared.
Moscow was fun too, although not as pleasant as St Petersburg. There’s none of the beautiful architecture. It mostly seems to be functional gray buildings, although Red Square is delightful. And Muscovites seem to have totally surrendered their city to the automobile. The streets are broad, and generally choked with traffic. Pedestrians are confronted with 8 lanes of speeding traffic forcing them underground to complete the seemingly simple task of getting to the other side. The eponymous chicken would have been pretty shafted in Moscow. He would have to have taken a massive detour, gone through a dingy unfriendly underpass with numerous disorienting exits which would take him exactly where he didn’t want to go. Before doubling back, thinking he’d got it right , and emerging a few yards away from where he’s began. Then cursed asked for directions and been pointed in obviously the wrong direction by someone who had obviously been wandering this subterranean hell hole for days. So perhaps in Russia the joke needs to be re-written. Why didn’t the chicken cross Tverskaya Oritsa? Because its too much of a pain in the arse to get to the other side. Instead He bought a large flash shiny car that he probably couldn’t really afford and then spent much of the rest of his life stuck in traffic jams, cursing his fellow human beings, trying to get to work to earn enough money to pay of the loan he’d taken out to buy the thing in the first place.
Muscovites seem to take delight in moaning about the traffic. It can take 3 hours to complete a journey that should take 20 minutes. But they all own cars and insist on driving. Perhaps the rejection of the Driver Owned Driver Operated (DODO – as my old sustainability lecturer Frank Fisher described them. He recently passed away unfortunately and was a great inspiration to me and many others. You will be missed Frank.) model and instead investing in the fast efficient and free public transport system which would actually solve the problem and make their city a pleasant place to live smacks too much of the “bad old days” of shared collective transport. After all there is no status to be derived from sitting on the bus. Or perhaps there’s just less opportunity for people to make shit loads of money from it and therefore it wouldn’t be countenanced by those in power. The very people who are making the shitloads of money from the current way of doing things.
I did manage to find a few places that were pleasant to walk through in Moscow though. Gorky park, and along the river, and some viewpoint or other. I found my way to the first ever Marc Chagall exhibition to take place in Russia and took a trip up the river by boat. I was also lucky enough to meet up with a local who showed me her favourite metro station – and it really was worth the visit. Many of the early underground stations really are places of great beauty with soaring arches and elegant lights and decorated with art works, mosaics and sculptures depicting the heroic achievements of socialism. They make an interesting counterpart to their brash and rather tacky capitalist counterparts.
Then it was time to head off to the Golden Ring. Apparently Russians love their rings, the communist tourist board thing came up with name to describe a group of historic Russian towns which are loosely in the shape a ring. And have gold shit in them. Mostly churches. I didn’t explore the full ring, just dipped into part of it. I was late arriving into Vladimir because it took me a while to get my shit together and leave Moscow. My host was great he’d taught himself English and was really keen to practice with a native speaker so we talked all evening. His wife barely acknowledged me and spent the evening watching TV. I couldn’t work out if that was because she was shy, or maybe shy about speaking English or whether she was pissed off about me being there because he hadn’t asked her before accepting my request or something. I was inclined to think the later because he prepared dinner and clearly wasn’t much of a chef. Indeed he was the only Russian male that I saw lift so much as a finger in the kitchen during the 3 weeks I was there. Which makes me inclined to think that was due to his wife withdrawing her labour due to my presence. I could be wrong though.
Next morning he dropped me at the bus stop, armed with directions on how to find the bus station . I dumped my bag at the left luggage centre and jumped on the bus to Suzdal. It was a perfect autumn day. The sky was bright blue, and the dazzling sun illuminated the autumn colours. The trees were a riot of varying hues. Yellow and orange and red . Serving to highlight even more the beauty of the quiet country town with it’s ancient buildings. It seemed like there were more churches than people. Rather than the hummers and flash houses that today’s rich use to display their wealth back in the day wealthy merchants would build a church to show their social status. Clearly at some stage there was a lot more money in the town than today because the skyline is littered with gleaming domes and spires. I strolled through the quiet streets, enchanted by the sagging old wooden buildings and took a detour by the river admiring the walls of the monastery reflected in its placid waters. Suzdal was definitely the most picturesque town I visited in Russia and it was a bit of a contrast returning to Vladimir with its austere rows of communist flats. Vladimir was an ancient capital too and it has its fair fare share of churches. So I strolled around the old part while I waited for my train to Kazan.
First I caught the express train to Nizhny Novgorod and then my first overnight train in Russia. I was travelling third class which I had heard described as vodka fuelled dormitories, filled with food and the stench of stale sweat. Perhaps that was the case on the longer journeys, say the 10 day trip from Moscow to Vladivostok but it certainly wasn’t the case on any of the trips I took. Indeed I found them to be more comfortable than the equivalent Chinese trains where the bunks are arranged in threes whereas in Russia it’s only top or bottom. This time I was on top. After a refreshing nights sleep I awoke shortly before we arrived in Kazan.
Kazan is an ancient Tatar town on the Volga river at the meeting point between Europe and Asia. As you would expect it has a real melting pot feeling to it. Mosques and churches mingle together, the cuisine has strong eastern influences. Little is left of the ancient city, although the Kremlin complex is pretty impressive. Fittingly for the town where Lenin went to university there is a museum of soviet life which has an array of communist kitsch and uniquely for any museum I’ve ever been to you can actually try out the exhibits. Play the games, flick through the books, even try on the clothes and have your photo taken in them. I had fun. I also had a fun Saturday night out too. We went for dinner at a German style beer hall and then went silly on the dance floor to the strains of a Russian rock band. Judging by the audience participation they were obviously playing some classic Russian tunes. It took me back to thinking about the museum to a simpler time when everyone had a job and a house and foreign trips were possible as long as it was behind the Iron Curtain. Of course they had no choice over the government and any political protest was liable to earn them a one way trip to Siberia. But then again it seems those are true today. Of course I could have been listening to the hits of last week for all I knew, but I never let such inconveniences get in the way of my fevered imagination.
The next day the bus I took on the overnight trip to Perm certainly was from a time when everyone had a job and a house. It was ancient. My friend who had brought me to the bus station muttered apologetically as it groaned to a halt at the bus station. The seats sagged from the countless sausage and potato fed arses that had compressed them and were worn from the vodka fuelled sweat that had seeped into them. Mollycoddled by the super luxurious buses I’d become accustomed to in the Baltic states I wasn’t looking forward to the 12 hour trip. Actually it was surprisingly comfortable. Communist bus manufacturers are clearly less focused on bums on seats than their capitalist counterparts so there was plenty of leg room. I also had a double seat to myself so I spent a pretty comfortable night. My bag however didn’t. It had rained in the night and the luggage hold wasn’t watertight. So after having to pay an extra $10 just for the privilege of putting my bag in the hold my stuff got wet. Which would have been a pain in the arse at the best of times but it was Sunday morning and I wasn’t arriving at my next place to stay until Tuesday evening. Luckily most of the water had just soaked into one jumper so I just chucked that in a plastic bag and dumped my bag in the left luggage office hoping the stifling heat in there might dry it out and went to catch the bus to Chusovoy. It was leaving in 5 minutes and I was desperate for the toilet. After eventually locating the toilet I headed off in the direction that the woman at the ticket office had vaguely waived towards. Of course the bus was nowhere to be found in the early morning gloom. By the time I eventually established that there was another section of the bus station round the corner my bus had long gone. I went back to the ticket office to get a ticket for another bus but was directed to the woman who I had originally bought the ticket from who of course was now on a break. When she returned she refunded my money minus the 25% commission she had charged me when I bought it. Clearly Russia has embraced capitalism wholeheartedly. 25% just to buy a ticket at the bus station. Some travel agencies don’t even charge that much. Then she wanted to charge me another 25% to buy another ticket. I told her to do one and bought my ticket at another window. And then contrived to miss that one too. I mistook my seat number for the platform number!!! Third time lucky I eventually managed to board the bus.
Perm has been notorious as the site of numerous prison camps since the Tsarist day and it was to the notorious Perm 36 camp that I was headed. The camp housed political prisoners and it was only closed in 1989 after Gorbachev’s reforms saw a thawing of the political climate. Most of the camps that were closed where destroyed by the KGB shortly afterwards, but for some reason many of the buildings at Perm 36 were left intact and it has now been turned into a museum. I got out of the bus at Chusovoy a small industrial town centred around what appeared to be a steel works. It was whilst checked the pdf of the Lonely Planet on my phone to see how to get to the camp itself that I spotted a minor detail that I had missed when I read it last. “visits by appointment only”. Oh shit. This was why I had come to Perm in the first place and endured that bus ride. I guess that’s the price you pay for not meticulously planning your trip. Oh well I was there now I may as well attempt to find it and at least take a look at the outside. I enlisted the help of a taxi driver who was lovingly polishing his old Lada and agreed to take me. It was about 12 km outside of town, and on the way he called into his home village and picked up his wife and kids, it seems they wanted to take a family outing to a gulag!!!
After turning off the main road we bumped down a dirt road for around 3 kilometres and by a bend in the river next to the forest lay the camp. The camp authorities cut down all the native vegetation next to the camp so the prisoners wouldn’t be able to identify where they were, but one prisoner a biologist recognised a bird that sung nearby and knew that he must be in the Ural Mountains. Now however it was all growing back and it was really quite beautiful, in sharp contrast to the dark brutality of the place next door. We pull up next to a big black gate with a big silver padlock and I’m thinking “this doesn’t look promising”. But suddenly a security guard appears and points us towards a door with a buzzer on it. We ring the bell and are soon being warmly greeted by a huge Russian guy who speaks broken English. I refuse the guided tour but he accompanies me anyway. Showing me the solitary confinement cells, the dormitories with the bench like bunk beds (which look terribly uncomfortable) . Then we went to the workshops, this was a labour camp, so all prisoners were expected to work in the sawmill which processed timber from the surrounding forest. And I thought of all the thousands of people that had been incarcerated here just for expressing a thought much as I’m doing now, and other who simply got on the wrong side of a petty bureaucrat. Then I pondered the thousands of other camps many far worse than this stretching all the way to Magadan in the far east. Where at the height of Stalin’s purges millions (the exact figure is disputed but at least 1.6 million and some estimates suggest up to 10 milloion) were sent to their deaths in unimaginably desolate hell holes in the forest or tundra. Slaving to death in the mines and factories of Siberia, collapsing on the roads and railways they were building, starving on the meagre rations they were given or freezing to death in the flimsy shacks they were forced to inhabit. Many of the pioneer camps set up to establish new settlements had to endure at least their first harsh winter living only in tents. With temperatures plummeting as low as -50C and totally inadequate clothing, little wonder most of them died. But of course the movement of prisoners eastwards had been going on long before Stalin’s time. Significant portions of Siberia were populated with prisoners sent west by the Tsarist penal system. With the result that Siberia became a pretty wild and lawless place. It was said that the growing waves of political prisoners most of whom where intellectuals exerted a civilising influence on the region. The cultural lexicon of Russia was also broadened by the creative talents of these exiles. Of course all that is ancient history. One of the reasons for setting up the museum was to remind Russians of the unpleasant aspects of their countries recent past. Although with the news that one of the members of Pussy Riot has been sent to a prison camp at Perm, maybe the Gulag hasn’t quite disappeared after all. Although given the example being set by the UK where a man was recently jailed for 4 months for wearing a t-shirt and the dude that stopped the boat race was given a similar sentence (although apparently conspiring to fraudulently set the interbank loan rate is not a crime- go figure) maybe Russia feels it is the norm to jail someone in a “democratic” society for expressing their opinions. Then finally I visited the remaining sections of the fence. Three ranks of razor wire, with electrified sections and fences buried underground to prevent a tunnel being built all overseen with regularly spaced watch towers. Nobodyever escaped.
In the bright October sunshine there was already a chill in the air and I pondered what life must have been like in the depths of winter in the flimsy prison uniforms. Then I thought back west thousands of kilometres to the museum I’d visited in Vilnius which documented the Lithuanians that had been transported to similar camps. It had been hard work for me getting there in the comfort of a sleeper train. They had been herded onto wagons with no windows and no idea where they were going or how long it would take. Even today sometimes it can take months to be transported to prison in Russia with prisoners disappearing into the black hole of transit and unable to contact family and friends.
After pondering those dark thoughts of unimaginable cruelty I was touched by a moment of human kindness. My taxi driver despite not speaking a word of English invited me back to his home and gave me lunch. Again and again on this trip I have received such lovely gestures. I realise that kindness is the norm, but unfortunately the dickheads that are out there always seem to be the ones in positions of power. Usually shafting all the nice people. Time for revolution of the nice people if you ask me. Nice people of the world unite you have nothing to lose but the idiots in charge.
Then it was back to Perm. I wandered around but it seemed to consist of non descript concrete blocks and a crumbling park. I stocked up for the journey ahead and then found a pub in which to await my train over dinner and a few beers.
I was kind of tracing the route of the Trans Siberian railways but with a few stops and detours along the way. Well actually the Trans Mongolian to be precise. The journey from Moscow to Beijing takes 7 days to do the route in one go. It’s also very expensive because only the plushest trains go all the way. There is also a fair bit to see along the way and in any case 7 days on a train is a pretty long time. So I decided to break up the journey into more manageable chunks. This was the longest train journey I had taken so far 30 hours from Perm to Novosibirsk.
October is a beautiful time to travel across Russia. The trees are an amazing colour. And there are a lot of trees in Russia. The birches are predominantly yellow but there are also reds and oranges and browns. Every so often a small village would appear in the forest. Narrow wooden houses with steeply sloping roofs, surrounded by a vegetable plot and huge piles of wood to defend against the bitter cold. Less often a more substantial town would appear, rather shabby looking with twisted piles of metal and crumbling buildings testament to some bureaucrats dream of creating an industrial paradise in the middle of buttfuck nowhere. The dream turning to a nightmare once the harsh realities of the “market” took over. Here and there a factory chimney still smoked and the rusty wheel of industry still turned. However slowly. And then just as quickly as it appeared the grey city would disappear back into the forest and you would be left with yet more trees.
It was still dark when we arrived at Novosibirsk, self proclaimed capital of Siberia and the Geographical centre of Russia. It had already taken me over 60 hours of travelling to get there. It was then I began to appreciate just how big this country really was. Most Siberian cities are spacious but Novosibirsk takes the biscuit. A wide avenue stretches from the train station up to Lenin square which opens out to a vast expanse. Of course there is the obligatory statue of the man himself this time side by side with a couple of heroic warriors from the proletarian army surrounded by the massed ranks of snarling cars that are now the symbol of the new Russia. Behind that the dome of the huge theatre with the forms of dancers both traditional and ballet carved above the columns of the neo-classical entrance. Walking down to the bus station I passed the gold domes of the church said to mark the centre of Russia. That it appeared was it for the sights of Novosibirsk.
And so it was on to Tomsk a quaint university town about 5 hours drive away. The drive was pleasant enough through a fertile flood plain past freshly ploughed fields of black earth. Finally after over 3 days of travelling I reached Tomsk, but I wasn’t meeting my couchsurfing host until later that evening so I had to wait. It was raining when I arrived so I killed some time at the bus station until it stopped and then walked into the city centre.
Tomsk was a great little place. Even though it’s small there are six universities where people come from throughout Siberia to study so it’s full of young people and very lively. Of course there’s a big Lenin statue gesturing with a flourish across the ranks of cars to the very ugly drama theatre. There is also the usual war memorial commemorating the heroic defenders of communism against the German Fascist horde. It lists all the residents of Tomsk region who are known to have perished during the conflict. Each one a small inscription on a marble block and there are rows and rows and rows of blocks. Its sobering to think that up to 26 million Russian perished. Compare that to the combined losses of only around 700,000 for Britain and the USA. Tomsk also has lots of quant wooden buildings, many of which had seen better days. It reminded me somewhat of some of the towns in Latvia and Estonia. The city council is making some effort to preserve them and a friend showed me a street that had been renovated in partnership with the owners. She also showed me numerous ruined houses which had been burned down by unscrupulous developers who will demolish them and build new apartment blocks.
It was October so of course it was perfectly normal to be celebrating Oktoberfest in the middle of the Siberian forest. Actually Siberia has a large Russian/German population so it wasn’t so strange after all. After Germany invaded Russia in 1941 Stalin shipped the sizeable German population in western Russia to Siberia where many have lived ever since. My host had attended a German school and still remained friends with members of the Russian German association who had invited us to their Oktoberfest event. We gathered at the association office in town along with 3 German exchange students who were attending the university in Tomsk. Quite why you would chose to come to Siberia to study for a few months right through the depths of winter is beyond me. We jumped into the minibus the centre had laid on and headed out of the city, deeper and deeper into the forest. After about 20 km we turned off the deserted road down a narrow track eventually pulling up in front of some large iron gates. We parked up and went through the gates on foot through the dark night towards a large building. The lights were on but the place looked empty. Inside it appeared to be some kind of country activity centre set up for youth groups and the like. There were a couple of staff at reception but there still didn’t seem to be anyone about. We are ushered upstairs to another room, a couple of guys were playing table tennis and some old people were sitting around chatting quietly. This didn’t look promising. It certainly wasn’t party central. Then we were pointed down another hallway and opened the door to be assailed by a wall of noise.
A band decked out in Lederhosen and those funny pointy Bavarian hats was pumping out some German tunes with the enthusiastic participation of the audience. A table was laden with beer snacks and there was a full keg of the golden nectar behind it. The Germans made straight for the beer and I wasn’t far behind , but we were largely the only ones partaking. A few others would have the odd glass, but it seems that the stereotype of Russians as heaving drinkers is largely a myth. I couchsurfed and met with many Russians who either did not drink at all or were very restrained. During my three weeks and more in Russia I wasn’t offered vodka by anyone – much to my disappointment. I remarked on this to the Germans who had been there a month or so already and they agreed. It seems that Russians either drink excessively to the point of alcoholism or barely at all and I seemed to have found the barely at all cohort so it was nice to have some company to drink with even if they weren’t Russian!!! It was also amusing to watch a Russian take on German-ness. A young pair where compeering the evening both dressed in traditional German attire, but playing Russian participation games with apples and dancing and shit. The lead singer of the band took himself far too seriously. He was one of those performers condemned to play in mediocre bands but who feel they were meant for bigger things. His top lip glistened with a sheen of sweat and he pranced around the stage and flicked a bell with a strange hand flourish. His face assumed a strange intensity as he strained for the high notes. The whole scene was weird for me to watch, but it must have been even weirder to watch for the Germans as it seemed to me like a pastiche of a lost Germany. But what do I know. What wasn’t very German was closing time. All the frivolities ceased at around 11pm so we headed back to my hosts place to carry on the party.
And that was nearly it for Russia with just in time for another crazy journey to Mongolia via Irkutsk. The train journey was good fun. My carriage was half filled by a group of school students travelling to Vladivostok for a camp. Some of them spoke reasonably good English and spent much of the journey interrogating me. It started snowing part way through the journey and the landscape was soon coated with layer of white that served to enhance the natural beauty further. The 30 hour journey passed pretty quickly, and we arrived at my destination at around 7 am. I wondered again at the sheer scale of the country as I pondered the fact that my companions still had another 4 days on the train ahead of them.
I had intended to stay a couple of nights in Irkutsk but the train I wanted to take was fully booked and my visa was nearly expired so in the end I had barely 12 hours there. One of the couchsurfers that I had contacted when I originally wanted to stay overnight suggested that they’d like to meet up anyway. He picked me up from the station and I was grateful for his big 4×4 as we sliced through the snow and ice. The white stuff was still falling as indeed it would continue to do all day. We headed back to his place which was out of town in the forest and he told me about his story. He was a native Siberian one of the indigenous peoples and he was training to be a Shaman. He took me back to his place where his lovely partner had breakfast waiting on the table after I emerged from a refreshing shower.
On the journey from the station I was asked if I liked barbeques. Peering out into the gloomy morning, with flurries of snow sweeping into the windscreen I presumed he was either joking or talking more generally. I mumbled an affirmative of course I like barbecues I’m Australian. Turns out he wasn’t joking or talking generally and we all piled into his truck, picked up some supplies from the supermarket and then headed off into the forest. After driving for 40 minutes suddenly we round a corner and are confronted with a huge expanse of water – dark against the surrounding snow – Lake Baikal. Lake Baikal is the deepest lake in the world and is considered sacred by the indigenous people of the area forming part of their creation myth. Indeed such is the power of the lake to capture the imagination that it plays a part in the legends of people from comparatively far away. Situated on a fault it is over a mile deep 70km wide and nearly 700 km long with a surface area of 31722 km2. It contains a fifth of all the fresh unfrozen surface water on earth, equal to the volume of the Baltic Sea. If the lake was emptied and all the worlds rivers diverted to run into it it wouldn’t fill in a year. Its also a very old and unique ecosystem, of its’ 2,000 species 1,200 are endemic.
We pulled over and got out to take in the view. Emerging into the frigid air and icy blast flinging snow into our faces. We surveyed the spot were the lake enters the Angara river. Over 40 rivers flow into Baikal but this is the only one that flows out. Then stung by the cold we retreated back into the snug confines of the car. We paused in a small village to purchase some smoked omul- one of the unique fish species and then continued on to the end of the village. We parked up and took some steep and icy steps down to the shore below. There were a few sets of footprints in the snow ahead, but not many. Most of the couples of inches of pristine white was undisturbed. The dark lake stretched out into the distance. We found a suitable spot, cleared the snow from the circle of stones which someone had previously used for a similar exercise although on perhaps a slightly more pleasant day than this. My companion dumped the logs that he’s carried down, pulled out an axe and quickly had a roaring blaze going. We huddled around it to keep warm, a kettle was soon steaming over it and we gained further warmth from the scalding tea that it produced. By now the fish which had been balanced on a log at the side of the fire were hot and we were soon greedily tucking into them. They were absolutely delicious, a delicate flavour enhanced by the smoke and combined beautifully with dark Russian rye bread and crunchy pieces of capsicum and cherry tomatoes. And all the while the snow fell steadily. After finishing our feast we packed up and retreated to the warmth of the car and the trip back home. My incredibly generous hosts then fed me dinner, we watched a movie together and then they took me to the station to catch the train to Mongolia. What an amazing experience.
My only regret was I didn’t get to see Irkutsk, which at one time was called the Paris of Siberia where the families of exiled aristocrats rubbed shoulders with those grown rich from the fruits of Siberia’s abundant natural resources. It became so pretentious that it was the height of fashion to send your clothes to London to be washed, despite it taking the best part of a year to make the long journey there and back. Crazy I know but not too dissimilar to the modern practice that is so popular in Russia of paying thousands of dollars for a bag made in some Chinese sweatshop just because it has a name emblazoned across it. Or indeed paying $1000 for a telephone merely because it has a picture of a half eaten fruit on it.

Never Mind the Baltics:

Posted on October 27, 2012 by Simo

Lithuanian’s have to be the most miserable looking bunch of people I have ever met. Their faces are like masks. Not a flicker of emotion or acknowledgement registers on them when you smile at them on the street. And it doesn’t even get any better in a restaurant or shop. No warm and effusive welcome or expression of gratitude for your custom it almost seems like your imposing on them. The usual explanation for such reserve is the long dark winters, but Scandinavians have a similar climate and compared to Lithuanians Swedish people are like Spaniards on crack. I suspect several centuries of being occupied first by the Poles, then the Russians a few brief years of independence and then the Germans before the Russians came back again is not likely to make you too cheerful. And things do seem to be changing the younger generation especially those that have travelled do seem at least capable of breaking into a smile when you smile at them. But for now the majority are stony faced. Even accustomed as I am to Anglo Saxon reserve it came as a bit of a surprise. Michael who was used to Australian cheeriness seemed to take it as a personal affront every time he was met with an emotionless visage. Although his cheery demeanour and sense of fun did on occasions cause a pair of sternly set lips to lift ever so slightly at the corners.

Michael is a friend of a friend who I’d actually met the first weekend I went to Melbourne and then once a year or so at various parties after that. He was setting out on a trip of his own so I’d invited him to join me for a couple of weeks in the Baltic states. This would be the first time I’d travelled with anyone for nearly a year and I realised that the only times we’d met previously both of us had been very drunk. So whilst I wasn’t exactly apprehensive I was certainly interested to see how it would turn out. I needed have worried he’s actually more easy going than I am and we had a ball. At least I did anyway which is the main thing.

We met in Vilnius, which has to be one of the most chilled out capital cities in Europe. It has a compact and charming old city. The suburbs which are composed of Soviet era high rises are less charming, but even those areas have plenty of greenery with forests and parks interspersed with the housing. My first night I couchsurfed in one of the soviet high rises, which although crumbling on the outside was pretty spacious and well appointed on the inside. My host had taken me on mad dash of a bike ride through the gathering dusk to try and reach a view point over the city before it got dark. We just about made it and stood on the edge of an almost sheer drop looking down to the river below that bisects the city peering into the gloom to spot the city below.

Next day I met Michael at the rather institutional looking hostel I’d booked for us in a hurry the day before and we set off to explore the city. We hadn’t got far before it was beer o’clock and we settled down for some scran and a half litre in the sun. A situation which would be repeated on numerous occasions over the next couple of weeks. Well the beer anyway if not the sun. The next couple of days we spent exploring the old town, and the new town which was still a couple of hundred years old. We climbed the castle mound and went in search of the artist area of which the Lonely Planet makes out to be some vibrant bohemian hang out but in reality is just a couple of galleries and isn’t much different from the rest of sleepy little Vilnius.

We also received a very powerful lesson in the recent tragic history of Lithuania in the form of the Museum of Genocide Victims. This building was used by both the Germans and the Russians as the headquarters of their respective secret police and has now been converted into a museum which details the sordid history of the building and the wider events surrounding it. It records the deportation of hundreds of thousands of Lithuanians who were transported to the Gulag in Siberia by the Russians. Sometimes whole families were rounded up with very little notice and forced to endure appalling conditions in a strange and foreign land. Those deemed most dangerous by the authorities were kept in high security work camps and forced to complete hard labour. Others had more freedoms, although their movements where strictly controlled and were tasked with creating new towns and farms in Siberia. What struck me were the tiny mementoes on display that people used to remind them of home. There was a tiny cloth bag of Lithuanian soil that one person had carried with them on their exile and back again. And the intricate carvings that

Carvings from Toothbrushes

people had made from toothbrushes or the rosary that had been made from pieces of bread. The museum also described the fate of Lithuania’s Jews at the hands of the Nazis, with the collaboration of a significant section of the local population. We also visited the Parliament where they have preserved part of the barricades erected round the building by locals to prevent soviet troops from storming it after Lithuania declared independence in 1991. An event that played a crucial role in the break up of the Soviet Union.

If the capital city was like a chilled out village you can imagine what a small fishing village in the forest was like. That’s where we headed next, to Nida a long forested spit of sand which stretches all the way down to Kaliningrad – that island of Russian territory surrounded by Lithuania and Poland. We hopped on the bus, Michael bemoaning the length of the 4 hour trip and me thinking it was nice to have a short journey for a change. Then we hopped on a ferry for the few hundred meter trip across the lagoon and took a shared taxi to our destination. The drive was fast but nothing compared to some of the trips I’d taken over the past year so I enjoyed the journey through the forest whilst Michael held on tight and concentrated his attention on the road ahead and our imminent demise or otherwise.

Nida is supposedly a popular haunt in summer, but although it was only early September it was dead when we were there. It was rather like being in a zombie movie, a largely disserted town in the woods with the few people that were there wandering around staring vacantly ahead without a flicker of emotion on their faces. There were a couple of friendly folk however. One was the dude at a bar we visited. His sole role seemed to be to alert the women of the establishment whenever a customer required another drink. This was achieved with a grunt or two and he seemed a couple of sandwiches short of the full picnic, but he happily engaged Michael in a conversation about Australia and greeted us like long lost friends when we ran into him at the supermarket the next day. The other friendly character was our guesthouse owner who was extremely welcoming and hospitable despite not speaking a word of English. We returned one evening from dinner to find him animatedly describing the delights of Lithuania to another Aussie guy who was staying there using a book of pictures. A lot of meaning was being conveyed despite neither being able to understand a word the other was saying.

We hired bicycles and took the cycle path described as “ab fab” in the guidebook which turned out to be a pleasant enough ride through the woods but nothing to write home about or merit that description. Its a relatively new forest because most of the original woodland was felled to construct ships and houses. It was only when a number of villages had been swamped with sand did they realise it was probably not the best idea to remove the trees which were holding the dunes together and a massive reforestation programme was begun. We stopped off en route to climb up one of the remaining dunes. It was pretty impressive easily the highest point on the spit and you could already see the relentless action of the wind, inundating older areas of path. We arrived at the village of Juodkrante explored an unusual wood carving park had a beer and then commenced the return 30km in one go straight into a headwind.

And that was it for Lithuania, we caught the early morning bus to the ferry, surprising an elk crossing the road along the way and caught the bus to Latvia. Liepaja had clearly seen better days, but it had a certain faded charm to it. There was street after street of gorgeous old wooden buildings, many of them abandoned, slowly decaying away. With old cobbled streets and tram tracks it seems like some of the streets have hardly changed in 50 years. But is also does have a certain get up and go to it. Taking advantage of the number of illustrious musicians the it has produced the town has marketed itself as a bit of a rock and toll Mecca. The walking tour of the town is marked with musical notes and there’s a rock cafe complete with a giant guitar outside. There was biker meet going on so the place was filled with hairy dudes in leather. We didn’t linger to long and headed instead to a club by the river which had been recommended by our hostel.

Neither of us would have chosen the venue given the option but we certainly had a fun night. As soon as we arrived and ordered we were greeted by a fat guy at the bar. Who although extremely drunk turned out to be surprisingly funny, and with excellent English despite the fact he was shitfaced, he certainly kept us entertained for a while. After we mentioned how miserable Lithuanians were he informed us they were all cocksuckers and not to worry about it. He could sort us out with any drugs we required, but advised us they were expensive and not very good. This also seemed to be the case for the girls he could procure for us. I politely declined on all counts but suggested Michael might be keen although for some reason his interest had been more peaked by the description of the Lithuanian. The drinks flowed and later we found ourselves staggering round the dance floor to the strains of a surprisingly good jazz rock band.

Next day in our hangover state we missed the bus we had intended to catch, which was fortunate as it didn’t run on a Sunday . So we ended up staying in a Kuldiga when we had originally only planned to pass through. That was a stroke of luck too as it turned out to be one of the nicest places we visited. Our room was in a cute wooden building next to the widest waterfall in Europe and we spent the evening admiring the fine wooden buildings and marvelling at how deserted the place was on a Sunday evening.

Michael and I have slightly different travelling styles. He had a huge bag, almost as big as him, which contained as many pairs of shoes as I have items of clothing. Admittedly he does look far more stylish than me, although that’s not particularly hard and the effect is rather lost when he is red in the face struggling under the weight of it all. At least it kept him quiet for a while anyway. He kept remarking about having to lose some of his stuff, but the bag never seemed to get smaller. Budget wise we were also coming from rather different places, he would think nothing of a nice restaurant lunch washed down with a fine bottle of wine, a bit of a contrast to my usual fare of tired old salami that has been hanging around in my bag for a few weeks, some stale bread and a soggy tomato. But we did a bit of compromising and ate out a couple of times as well as picnicking, and I made sure the salami and bread was fresh!!!

Next day on route to Tulsi we called in on the most northerly vineyard in the world and a very strange sculpture park. Seemingly going with the maxim that more is…. well more they have filled field after field with pretty shit art. Michael who isn’t into modern art was suitable unimpressed and even I struggled with most of the pieces. Given some concrete and a few other bits and bobs I’m sure the two of us could have come up with something, far more impressive. There were a couple of decent works. A giant sphere made from old TV screens and a big chair made from barrels, but on the whole we left the place rather non-pulsed. Although it was a very pleasant walk through the gently rolling countryside.

It was rather the same for the vineyard. We were expecting a similar experience as you would find in Australia with tastings and maybe even a cafe, but the large wooden gate was locked when we got there. After enquiring at the tourist office we managed to procure a key, and returned to let ourselves in. Turns out it was just a hill with some grapes on and a view of the town, which wasn’t particularly pretty. On the way back down we called into a crazy display of what I can only describe as very lifelike scarecrows arranged around a yard. There was even one sitting in a rusty old car. Then it started moving and I shat myself. Turns out it was an old dude taking the weight off his feet for a while.

Then it was off to Talsi and Michael’s first couchsurfing experience. With a lovely young couple and their massive dog. It was an Eastern Shepherd or something. Which is like a German Shepherd on steroids and he pretty much filled their tiny little flat. We cooked them dinner and spent a pleasant evening chatting. There was even room enough for the 2 of us plus the massive dog on the floor. We were in Talsi to catch the bus to Kolka which is the most northerly point in western Latvia. From its description in the guide book it seems like some wild mystical place, but by now I was beginning to suspect the authors of the lonely planet for the Baltic states were on crack, or on the payroll of the local tourist authority or even being paid with crack by the tourist board. It was just a non descript town in the forest backing on to a narrow strip of sand. We did find a lovely campsite next to the beach which also had cabins and would have been totally perfect for 24 hours of solitude, but it was totally empty and they were only taking tents. The hotel in town was like the Marie Celeste. Completely deserted and closed, but with napkins and cutlery still on the tables as if they were expecting us. There was one other guesthouse in town, but a neighbour informed us they were away for the week in Riga. With little other option we decided to follow them there.

Riga was by far the most substantial place we had visited so far in the Baltic states. It has an attractive compact old town and wide bustling streets. There’s a pleasant park that flows around the sliver of river which forms the island on which the old town is situated. The first night we went to an alright backpacker bar for a few beers. Then the next night, Michael tired of hanging about with me for a couple of weeks decided he needed to be with some of his own kind. With nothing better to do I thought I might as well accompany him and check out the gay scene in Riga. I have to say its not much to write home about, at least not on the Wednesday night we were there. There is one gay bar in Riga. Down one of the side streets off the main drag. It’s presence announced by a glowing rainbow sign outside. We had to buzz to get in, clearly we passed the gayness test and were allowed in. Although they weren’t exactly fighting back the crowds that evening. There were a couple of fat Russians at the bar one of whom was chatting to a couple of Asian guys. There was a pretty young thing half heartedly dancing on a slightly raised platform, in between chatting to the door bitch. And the barman who very happily relieved us of fast sums of money in exchange for drinks. $20 for a gin and tonic and a beer. And so we waited for some excitement to happen. Or more to the point Michael was waiting for someone even vaguely attractive to turn up. But they never did, in fact nobody came and nothing much exciting happened either. A couple of the guys at the bar headed off to the darkened area around the back. Michael suggested to the barman that $20 wasn’t really a sensible price to pay for a couple of drinks. He disagreed. So we left. It seems like Riga is not the most exciting place to be gay.

Next day we had an early start to catch the bus to Tarnu a university town over the border in Estonia. The final destination of the bus was St Petersburg and very plush it was too. With huge amounts of leg room, comfortable seats and free WIFI on board. It even had electric sockets so you could plug in your phone or laptop.

Tarnu was a pleasant town too and the hostel we were staying at was great too.

Cheese slice soap holder

It was billed as being environmentally aware and unlike many so called eco-tourism places actually lived up to the name. Many of the fixtures and fittings were made from reclaimed or re-used objects. The locks for the showers were fashioned from ice skates, hooks were made from old screws and the soap holder was constructed from a cheese slice. In contrast to almost every other place I’d been to in eastern Europe they also took recycling very seriously with separate bins for everything including organic waste. It also had a really homely feel with a nice living room and friendly staff.

After exploring the old town the first day we caught a bus out to a small town not far away. I have to say it is one of the most uncomfortable bus rides I have ever been on. It was unbelievably hot. Although it took less than an hour I couldn’t wait to get off. It was so hot that I stripped down to my t-shirt and rolled up my trousers in an effort to cool down. All to no avail I was still dripping with sweat and gasping for air when we eventually arrived at our destination. As was Michael, but the other passengers were carrying on like it was all perfectly normal. We went for a very pleasant walk through the forest and then took a rather cooler bus home.

And then it was off to Tallinn for our last couple of days together. Fittingly it was the weekend so we could mark our parting in style. We’d booked a room in what was very attractively described on the website as a lovingly renovated hostel in a traditional Estonian wooden house. The reality was slightly different. It seemed to be a converted attic in a ramshackle old building. The ceilings in the rooms were sloping so you could only stand up at one end, their were chairs at the ends of the beds but it was impossible to sit in them because of the low roof. Intriguingly there was a sauna attached to the shower. It was almost as if it was a brothel but that the workers hadn’t been recruited yet. There was no one there when we arrived just a note on the door to call Sergei. When he arrived he had a bit of a gangster look about him, pale callow skin and inquisitive ferret eyes. But was friendly and welcoming enough after turning up half an hour later to let us in

Tallinn’s old city was the most attractive of the 3 major Baltic cities we’d visited. It was quite extensive, virtually traffic free and filled with interesting nooks and crannies. We found a soviet themed cafe, and a lovely restaurant with a guy playing amazing jazz guitar. Overlooking it all is the site of the old castle on an outcrop with great views of the city.

On Saturday night we hit the town, a meal and a few beers at a place recommended by a Georgian dude who was living at our place and then on to a shooters bar to try and meet up with him. He was nowhere to be seen but there was a bewildering array of shots to choose from which had to be order 5 at a time on a little wooden tray. We had 2.5 tequila themed concoctions and a couple more beers and Michael went off to find a gay bar he’d seen on the internet and I stayed chatting at the bar. Later I went to find Michael but there was no sign of a gay bar at the address he’s given me so I staggered back to our place which was just around the corner. I awoke at 4 am fully clothed, with the light blazing down on me and busting for the toilet. On my way back to the room I pushed at the door. It didn’t budge. I turned the handle and pushed harder. Nothing. My heart sank. I’d locked my self out. And of all the places to do it in, the only place we’d stayed in that didn’t have someone on site that could let me back in. To make matters worse Michael was still outside partying it up and my phone was locked in the room so he had no means of contacting me. The only thing to do was bed down for the night on the sofa in the common room and get a key in the morning. Luckily I’d fallen asleep in my clothes otherwise I would have been freezing.

After a fitful few hours sleep I was woken by the sound of my mobile ringing in the room. It must have been Michael. I went downstairs and waited by the door, but there was no sign of him. I tried to go back to sleep, but he kept calling. So I went back downstairs, still nothing to be seen. Eventually the plaintive ringing of my phone became too much, in my fevered imagination I pictured Michael huddled against the cold cursing me. Although it was barely 8 am I knocked on the room next door. The Georgian dude appeared from the room looking very dishevelled. I explained the situation and asked if he had a spare key. He didn’t but I can’t believe how nice he was. If I had been in his shoes and some idiot traveller woke me up early on a Sunday morning I would most likely have told them to fuck off and gone back to bed. Instead he made me breakfast and a cup of tea and let me use his phone to get onto Facebook to get Michael’s number, and then to message him. But there was no reply. Turns out by this stage he was fast asleep in all night pizza place. I needn’t have stressed out after all.

I also messaged Sergei to come and open the room. He didn’t turn up until midday, also looking very dishevelled himself. He explained he had a very late night himself. My vivid imagination pictured him engaging in Russian gansterish activities. Sorting out a cocaine deal, or checking out his extensive network of brothels, or maybe playing poker until dawn but no he’d been playing computer games. Although he had been playing Counter Strike so he could have been training for his next operation. And at last we could get back into the room. I won’t be making that mistake again.

And that was it. My interlude of travelling with a companion was over. It had been fun. It had been nice to share the journey for a while, get another perspective on things, share a laugh. I’d also learned more about gay sex over those two weeks than I had over the previous 38 years. On a purely theoretical basis just in case you were wondering.

Next it was Russia and all the romance, excitement and exoticism that evokes.

: Carvings from Toothbrushes

: Cheese slice soap holder

Poland

Posted on October 9, 2012 by Simo

This was my first time in Poland and I have to say it more than lived up to my expectations. I saw some pretty countryside and towns, met some lovely people, was deeply moved by the tragic history and also managed to have a lot of fun.

In Krakow I spent the day relaxing and soaking up the atmosphere of the old town. Its very pretty so as you would expect I wasn’t alone in taking in the sights, but it was towards the end of the season so it wasn’t so crowded. I had been doing a fair bit of travelling over the past few days so was quite content to wander without too much purpose and wasn’t too concerned about going on any excursions to the salt mines that I’d heard so much about. My host had told me about a fire breathing dragon which was located by the castle so when I spotted the sign to the dragons cave I eagerly paid the fee and went in. After climbing down a long long spiral staircase I finally entered the cave which was very boring and totally devoid of any dragon which I discovered was waiting outside on the pavement. True to description it unleashed a sheet of fiery breath into the sky just as I walked past. I could have avoided the stairs and saved my money after all. Then in the evening my hosts took me for a lovely dinner in the old Jewish quarter.

Next day is warm and sunny. The perfect day for hitching to Lublin. On route to my hitching spot the tram passes through Nowa Huta a model town built by the Communists in the 1950s. My hosts had told me about it the night before. When it was built Krakow was a city of intellectuals and the middle classes who largely opposed the new regime. In order to poroletarianise the city they decided to build a huge steel works and a new town to house the workers. So it was rather ironic that the town became a hotbed of support for the Solidarnosc trade union during the 1980s which was fighting to change the regime. My host who lived there at the time told me about the regular police raids and running street battles with the police.

I’m a bit of a sucker for social realist architecture so I enjoyed the grand façade of the buildings and the wide tree lined boulevards and good transport links still make it a desirable location to live.

My first lift only takes me 30km, but its a young student who’s just returned from a trip hitching round Romania so we have plenty to talk about. The next lift less so mainly because he doesn’t speak English and I don’t know a word of Polish, but we smiled a lot and muddled through. In any case it was a lovely day and I enjoyed the scenery as we passed. The countryside was gently rolling and the famers were busy getting in the harvest from the long narrow fields. As we passed through towns and villages stalls were piled high with produce, sacks of potatoes and orange pumpkins shining in the bright sunshine..

I was visiting Lublin because one of the first couchsurfers we hosted in Melbourne were a couple from there. They subsequently became good friends so I wanted to go and see where they were from. Fittingly I was couchsurfing there myself. My hosts lived next to a pasta factory in the factory owners old mansion which had been converted into apartments. It was just outside the city centre and surrounded by vegetable plots for the factory workers and unused land which had sprouted a trees and bushes so it was like being in a green little oasis apart from the city. They were also lovely too. He was a farrier and she worked from home as a translator which meant she was free too give me a little tour of the city. Lublin is an ancient town and it’s location on the route linking the Black and the Baltic seas meant that it was very multicultural with peoples from across Europe and further afield into Asia calling it home. It was also once a place of some importance. The union between Lithuania and Poland was signed there. The old town survived the war largely intact and there are some great crumbling old buildings on the narrow cobbled streets. However it has one of the ugliest castles I have ever seen. The original having been demolished in the 19th century with a squat brick prison being constructed in its place. We wandered round through the streets and poked our heads into some of the old buildings. A few were in the process of being gentrified but the vast majority were in a state of disrepair. Crumbling mortar and decaying timber stairs leading to the upper floors. My host explained that since the war only the very poorest had lived here and this was still largely the case today.

We took lunch in a vegetarian restaurant which was housed in a grotty old block of flats, but inside it was beautifully decorated with a thatched cottage built into the wall and some happy cows painted on the walls clearly very pleased that they weren’t going to be consumed on the premises. The food was delicious and the place was clearly organised along ethical lines, the only problem was that the food was served on plastic disposable plates with plastic knives and forks. I guess given that even re-cycling is practically non-existent in Poland I shouldn’t really have presumed that people would be aware of the environmental impact of disposable items. Lets face it even in countries where people are more aware it doesn’t make much of a difference. Australian’s alone throw away over 1,000,000,000 paper coffee cups each year, just in order to get their morning fix!!!

On the way home we visited the Jewish cemetery. It was surrounded by a high brick wall with a mound of earth rising above them. Mature trees formed a thick woodland. The first gate we came to was locked with a sturdy padlock, but we continued around the perimeter and eventually located a smaller gate which was secured with tightly twisted wire but looked eminently climbable. We hopped over it carefully avoiding the old engine oil which had been smeared liberally over the gate to deter intruders such as us. Inside it was peaceful, with dabbled sunlight falling through the trees on the undergrowth below. We walked through the trees following a rough path, there was no sign of the graves which must have once lined this place. It was some distance before we came across the first broken headstones scattered through the bushes. Then we spot a clearing in the trees and a small group of gravestones standing in the grass as the others must once have done so. They were decorated with Stars of David with inscriptions in Hebrew. Despite the peace and sunlight it was still eerie to contemplate the fate of those who must once have tended those graves.

Like most towns in Poland Lublin had a large Jewish population, before 1939 there were over 3.2 million Jews living in Poland accounting for more than 10% of the population. After the Nazi’s invaded they formed ghettos in most towns with a sizable Jewish population. Lublin was no exception. Jews from the city and surrounded area where confined to a small area within the old town. Walls were erected and movement in and out strictly controlled. In 1942 The ghettos across the Nazi empire were liquidated. Most of the inhabitants of the Lublin ghetto were transferred to Majdanek concentration camp which was were I headed next.

A huge concrete lump had been erected where the gate once stood. It seemed to me to perfectly encapsulate the enormity of what had happened at that place and this was only one of hundreds of such sites throughout Europe. The sun was setting across the broad expense of field lighting up the watchtowers and fences in the distance. What struck me was the size of the place, it was massive and must have housed thousands of people but also how close it was to the city. I had ridden a bike there in around 10 minutes, now it was surrounded by flats and houses. I wondered what the cities inhabitants must have thought about the place where after all any one of them could end up at a moments notice. Some where clearly moved by the plight of those inside because there is a plaque by the gate thanking those brave residents who provided material and emotional support to those inside.

The camp housed up to 16,000 prisoners at a time with over 300,000 people estimated to have spent time there not only Jews but also Roma, Communists and other political prisoners. As they arrived through the gates the prisoners where separated into those capable of useful work and the sick, elderly and young. This latter group were brought directly to the gas chambers. It was horrifically bleak standing at the doors looking inside to the place where so many had died. Seeing the bottles of gas, the huge steel doors which swung shut sealing those inside, the glass peep hole to check the deed had been accomplished. It was initially established as a forced labour camp but as the plan to exterminate the Jews of Poland (operation Rheinhart) was introduced Majdanek served as a centre for sorting and storage for the property taken from the killing camps of Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka. However Majdanek did also occasionally function as a killing centre. Of the more than 2 million Jews killed during operation Rheinhart 59,000 were killed at Majdanek

It was a harrowing experience wandering around the displays in the huts, but a powerful reminder of the horrors that can be inflicted if we aren’t vigilant about those that seek power. Indeed reflecting on the wave of anti-Semitism that swept across Europe in the early 20th century which assisted in the ability of the Nazis to gain power there are certain parallels to the growing demonization of Islam that is occurring across the planet. The cartoons portraying Mohammed published in a Danish Magazine a couple of years ago are eerily reminiscent of the hateful caricatures of Jews in cartoons published across Europe during the 1930s.

Poland’s tragic history, a consequence of being sandwiched between Germany and Russia is evident where ever you travel in the country. I got another taste of it in Warsaw when I visited the museum of the Warsaw uprising. In 1944 with the Russians closing in on the city, the Polish Free Army rose up against their German occupiers. They seized large areas of the centre of the city, but were largely abandoned by the Americans who refused to fly air drops to supply the lightly armed forces and the Russians who stopped their advance on the outskirts of the city for the duration of the uprising. Many believe this to have been a deliberate policy to assist in the achievement of post war political objectives. Without outside help the uprising was doomed to failure and after 63 days the Poles were forced to capitulate. Over that period up to 200,000 of the residents were killed, mostly in mass executions by the Germans and then after the surrender the Germans set about systematically destroying the city. By the time the Russians entered 85% of the city was in ruins.

The city was completely rebuilt after the war, and many people warned me that it was grey and ugly and uninspiring. Actually I was pleasantly surprised. I have a bit of a soft spot for communist social realism architecture which as you can imagine there is a lot of and the streets are broad, the transport links are good and there are plenty of parks and greenery.

It wasn’t all doom and gloom in Warsaw though I had a lot of fun too. My hosts from Lublin were DJing at a party there and they offered me a lift and an invite to the party. They invited my Warsaw host to come along too. I was the first couchsurfer she had hosted and I’m pretty sure it was a memorable experience. She was a little shy, and perhaps was a little straight laced, but she certainly had a sense of adventure. So later that evening we set off to find the party which was in an area of the city she had never even been to before. That’s what I love about couchsurfing it often leads you to experiences that you would never have otherwise have had. Firstly we get off at the wrong station and have to wait for another train after asking directions from someone on the platform. After exiting the next station we wander around an industrial area past hulking factories spewing steam and strange smells. A car stops to ask directions to the same party but we’re as lost as she is. She offers us a lift anyway and then we round the corner and spot a pair of tall towers which I establish later were once used to store concrete. There’s a fire burning beneath them and a crowd are drinking and eating. We’d found it.

My friend from Lublin was DJing in one of the towers and we were introduced to the host of the party. He asked us to sponsor him as he was taking part in a race to drive to Mount Olympus in a couple of weeks. The idea was to purchase a vehicle for a few hundred Euros and then drive it to Greece, raising money in the process. They had bought an old communist era fire truck which was parked next to the towers. He says that they were looking for people to go with them and would I like to join them. I was sorely tempted but Michael was coming out to meet me in Lithuania on the following Monday, so I reluctantly refused. Typical that an offer like that comes along when I had arranged to meet someone for the first time in my entire trip. Our host then offers to show us round the place and asks us if we want to jump off one of the towers.

Well the fire engine seemed like an eminently more sensible proposition to me, but intrigued I followed him into the base of the tower. We went past the DJ and into the second tower. Inside a group of party goers was climbing into harnesses and putting on helmets. Then we began the climb upwards firstly a few metres up the inside of the tower and then out through a hole and up some metal stairs which have been rigged between the two structures. It’s high, and there those kind of metal stairs you can see a lot of the far away ground through. I grip a little tighter, try and not look down and climb higher. When I arrive at the top there’s a magnificent view of the city out across the canal and factory roofs. Steam is spluttering out of a pipe nearby and the gleaming lights of the city stretch out into the distance.

After admiring the view I began to take closer stock of my immediate surroundings. A metal rope was rigged across the structure and stretched away into the inky darkness. Nearby a platform with steps and railings had been built. A guy was pulling a rope up from below, whilst another was checking the harnesses of the plucky jumpers and running through the procedure. After the ropes were double checked the first participant was clipped into their harness and the stepped up to the edge with their helper. He counted down and then they were falling. In complete silence for what seemed like an eternity and then a loud snap and a jerk as the rope kicked in. It had been set up to full them sharply sideways and they swung out in an arc over the canal. It was only after they swung back again that the scream came. Clearly the fear had been so great up until then that they were incapable of screaming. Bugger that for a game of soldiers, which was the response I gave to my host when she enquired if I wanted to have a go. Being petrified of heights she agreed with me. We watched another few hurl themselves off and then seeking some warmth from the fire I clambered down. I was just chatting to some people when a familiar looking body went flashing past above. I thought to myself “I recognise those shoes”. It was my host. She’d conquered her fears and jumped!!! Of course at this stage of the story I should be telling you that inspired by her exploits I charged back up the tower taking the steps two at a time to confront my own fears, but I didn’t. I helped myself to another shandy and concluded that I actually liked having two feet on the ground.

Although they couldn’t quite match my first evening in Warsaw I thoroughly enjoyed the rest of the time I spent there. I wandered through the old town, which was completely destroyed during the war and completely rebuilt as faithfully as possible during the 1950s. I visited one of the few remaining pre-war buildings in the city centre, replete with bullet holes and bomb damage. Across the river in Praha there are more extensive areas of older buildings and it was interesting to wander along the cobbled streets. My host also took me to a couple of beautiful parks, with huge areas of trees and lakes. We visited an art gallery and an open air concert and then in the evening joined a couple of her friends for dinner in one of the pubs in the park.

All too soon it was time to leave Poland. I’d had a ball and hope to be back soon. My hitch into Lithuania proved to be a breeze although it didn’t start off too promisingly. Hitchwiki had advised me that there was a small town about 30km outside Warsaw which the majority of the trucks which pass through Poland have to go through. Well they certainly weren’t on the Monday morning I had chosen. I’m not sure if the ban on heavy traffic entering Warsaw has changed but only about 5 trucks passed me in 45 minutes. I was feeling rather despondent and only hitching half heartedly when a local guy stopped who happened to be going to Bialstock, a large town not far from the border. I was there a matter of minutes when a Polish guy travelling to Kaunas for a business meeting picked me up. I’d read that Kaunas is terrible to try and hitch around so I elected to try and hitch cross country to Vilnius. I was dropped at the windswept and rather lonely looking junction just outside Marijampole. It seemed like an age before the first car came past. Amazingly it stopped. It was a guy who had lived and worked in the UK for a number of years so his English was excellent. He dropped me in town on the road to Vilnius and shortly after I got a ride all the way there with a young kid in an old Mercedes. To say he didn’t hang about would be an understatement. It was a twisty single carriageway with a fair bit of traffic but he was regularly hitting 140 kph, overtaking with not much room to spare. Disconcertingly the car would lose power in places and their were a couple of near misses. Once we reached the city limits he insisted on driving me right to the front door of my Couchsurfing host, at a rather more sedate pace than he had previously. What a lovely introduction to Lithuania.