Tonight I will catch my last Russian train, to St Petersburg, my last Russian city. I have spent enough time on trains to not be too devastated by this prospect, but I am a little reluctant to admit the marker for the end of my trip. My schizophrenic self is also pretty excited to get back to the UK; to see you and have a pretty epic sleep because I am tired! So tired! The last few days have seen me play at being a Muscovite (this is make believe because I am currently not my most elegant self) and swanning around an unexpectedly contemporary, elegant and edgy city. I fear I am less discerning than I would have previously given myself credit for, for I find myself, yet again, professing my love for yet another city. My evident lack of taste aside, Moscow is wonderful and I really like it here. Prior to my arrival in the kooky, classy capital, I spent a somewhat less classy 3 days and nights on a train, from Siberia, from where I last wrote (or more accurately, from where I last speed typed my thoughts on the one spare hour I had - see how dedicated I am).
My Siberia experience was of both a city, 70km or a 3hr electric train ride from the lake; and a minimally populated, remotely located village on an island actually in the lake. The latter, while being one of the more basic of the places I have stayed, was one of the more unique and exciting, perhaps only topped by my night in the Vietnamese jungle. The 'guesthouse' was more of a complex of guesthouses than a single hotel, and had a number of smallish wooden cabins, banya houses (oh, the banya!) and restaurants (which were all shut because it was the winter and no one is stupid enough to go to Siberia in the winter). In each of the wooden cabins were about 2-3 bedrooms, a toilet (with a primitave flushing system) and a really, really cool fire/chimney/heater thing. The heating system had something to do with fire and bricks and trapping heat inside the thing that looked like a chimney but wasn't. I have no idea how it worked but it was very effective and kept me toasty warm all night. The interior of the cabins were entirely wood, as you might expect, and were super-quaint. The best way to explore the island (in the November temperatures - which I think hit -18, 20 degrees warmer, can you believe it than the mid-winter temperatures) is by Jeep, so that's what we did. Our driver took us the length of the 80km island, stopping at various points of interest or outstanding beauty. Our other drive the day before, in the minibus, also stopped a few times, but that was so we could push the van up the snow covered hill. I say 'we'. That's what the Canadian forest fire-fighters were there for. And to look pretty. No pushing was required on the jeep, for what I ignorantly describe as a 'jeep', was a Russian made something, which was about 3ft off the ground and had a fully servicable engine (I was told) between the driver and front passenger seat. It was a beast - and invincible! So many times we were bouncing around in the back of the truck as the driver either carefully manouvered though snowy forests (there was no road, he was driving up against tree trunks - and HOW this is even possible I don't know) or speeding down one hill to gain enough momentum to get us up and over the next hill. Even if we weren't on a beautiful island in the middle of snowy Siberia, the truck/jeep/thing adventure was fun enough!
When we reached the peak of the island, the road was impassable even by super-truck and so we hopped out and went for a short 90 minute hike around. Lake Baikal is one of the 8 energy points of the Earth according to Shaman teachings. I would do a bad job of explianing Shamanism, and a lot of my friends have degrees in theology, and so I shall not even try - but I will say that this island and the peak in particular, is a 'holy' place. As we were walking around, we kept coming across Buddhist and Shamanist shrines. The Buddhist shrines were piles of rocks, to which you are invited to add your own stone - I'm not going to pretend I know why. The Shamanist alters were all made of wood, often trunks or branches of trees to which you tied a ribbon or other fabric and gave gifts of small change (and I saw a few cigarettes - what self respecting god/spirit doesn't enjoy a ciggy now and then?). The millions of colours of the fabrics, aside from all having a separate meaning, make quite a spectacle to behold. They're beautiful, especially contrasted to the grey of the snowy sky. I also noticed a string of Tibetan prayer flags draped around and through the branches of a tree which was growing on one of the further edges of the peak. We walked back to the truck, in the footsteps of what I really, really, really hope was a wolf (!), there were at least pretty big paw prints in the snow, and back at the truck our driver had made a fire, fish soup and a pot of tea for us! We had a picnic in the snow, which was surprisingly cosy thanks to the tea and delicious soup.
I would have liked to have stayed longer on the island, but that train timetable isn't so flexible, which meant I caught the minibus back to Irkutsk the next day. There is a system with Russian trains, of which you should probably be aware should you ever decide to do the Trans-Siberian, that is; the lower the number, the better and newer the train. Generally speaking, I am told, they come in groups. i.e. 1-10 = good. 11-100 = not bad 101+ = for drunk Russian soldiers only. I personally cannot testify to the accuracy of this grouping because all of my trains, thus far, have been below 10. That wasn't an accident. My options for getting to Moscow were the train #389 which left on 18th and took 4 days, or the #1 which left on 17th and took 3 days. I didn't know about the #1 until I got to the station to buy the ticket, and having braced myself for the #389 I instantly agreed to this faster, newer, nicer train at a marginally higher cost. Had I not been quite so excited I might have paused to consider that actually this meant I had time to stop in another city on the way - but I didn't and so off to Moscow on the #1 I went!
This time I knew what to expect and came prepared; both in spirit and in food. My spirit was more prepared that it needed to be because this was a NICE train. It was brand new, spotless and not only were there two nice toilets, there was running water and warm running water! Trust me, this is the Trans-Siberian dream! Whilst I really did enjoy the dream-train, it did lack quite a bit of the character that endeared me to the other, less nice train, which was kitted out in lace and patterned fabrics on any and every surface that could be decorated. But I wasn't complaining. The food this time was also a great success, and the 3 full shopping bags that I brought with me (intending to share) turned out not to be 'perhaps a little much' because all I did for 3 days was sleep, read and eat. There was nothing left by the time we arrived in Moscow. In actual fact I even bought another chocolate bar from the provodnitsa. I should be more ashamed of this, and you're about to find out why.
Travelling from Irkutsk to Moscow also meant I travelling west, across 5 different timezones. My watch had been set to Moscow time a day prior to my journey, officially so I could "start adjusting", unoffically because everytime I checked the time I freaked out thinking I was going to be 5 hours late for my train. For the duration of the journey, I was living in a strange, very strange and confusing almost timeless world, where everyone else in the carriage slept at different times,I woke up in the dark and the sun set at noon. I found that I was tired a lot, would nap a lot, and when I wasn't napping I was eating because I was always hungry. Actually that might not be the train. On my last journey, which was 60 hours, I got through the Communist Manifesto (text and commentary), Crime and Punishment and some Cormac McCarthy book. You have a lot of time on your hands. This time around I made it 2/3rds of the way through both 1984 (enough with the communism now) and The Brothers Karamazov, both of which I had started and abandoned earlier this year. The train is a relaxing time and I was very happy to have my head in alternate books for this length of time, although I did start to go a little crazy by day three. There was one confusing point when, having just woken up, I just couldn't comprehend why the telescreen hadn't seen Dmitri Karamazov do the deed? But hey, when I read Harry Potter I actually had Quidditch dreams. I get quite involved with stuff.
My travel companions this time were only actually with me for the first day and left, never to be replaced at Novosibirsk. So not only was I on the nicest train that runs from Vladivostok to Moscow, I had my little compartment #6 all to myself and 3 bags of food. Boy, was I happy! We arrived into Moscow around 6.30 on the evening of the third day and by 7.30 I had checked into my hostel and booked tickets for the Bolshoi. Backpacking is never this easy!
Most people I have met along the way that have been here, have said they disliked Moscow. Most commonly I have heard the complaint that it is too busy, too expensive and the people are very rude. Now, I must just be as steely-hearted as the rest of them, but the rudeness doesn't bother me, and I actually quite like that this is a city in which you don't have to be happy all the time. It is cold here, and busy and crowd/queuing etiquette borders on neanderthal, so why would you be happy 24/7? This ain't Beijing. You don't dance in the parks come nightfall. The city and it's inhabitants are arrogant, self-important and preoccupied with elegance and glamour. It is a beautiful, complicated and interesting city and I really, really love it. This has been the easiest city I've been to, by far, the one that I've felt most at home in and the one that has interested me the most. It's a lot like Paris, both in architecture and attitude, but infinitely more interesting, more gritty and is still so evidently changing and opening up.
When I start my Training Contract, I get to go abroad for a 6 month secondment to another W&C office. Moscow is a very serious contender, and the longer I am here the further it is creeping up the preference list. I could easily live here, and actually want to, and so it will turn on whether I choose easy or scary, the latter of which would be Tokyo! The other advantage about coming here on secondment is that W&C would put me up in a nice apartment. I hope at least that this apartment would be nicer than a sleeper train, which currently my hostel is not. It's fine, but pretty grotty, cramped and the staff are a little bit ditzy. My bed also has the worstest, oldest, dampest and brokenest mattress ever - seriously, I slept much better on the train. We've also reached a new level of snoring appreciation - but seeing how his feet remain on his own bed, there had been no midnight violence. Ear-plugs are an absolute godsend. Crappy living quarters aside - and I think I would probably be traveling with more patience if I hadn't been slumming it for 4 months now - I've met some great people, and there's so much to do in the city that I've literally slept and showered here.
The first day of sightseeing took me to Lenin's mausoleum in Red Square and the Kremlin. I saw Red Square for the first time in the snow. All of my tourist snaps are consequently pretty grey or of snowflakes in front of and blurring iconic buildings. But it was nice so see such a recognisable place when it was snowing. Having almost completed my inadvertent communism tour and thus far passed up on two other mausoleums, I figured I should see at least one pickled communist leader, and Lenin really was the original and the best. Having now been to one and being totally creeped out by it, I am not at all disappointed that I passed up Mao and Ho Chi Minh. It was a very strange and still atmosphere, despite the through-flow of spectators. The glass coffin was internally lit and the corpse looked much like a wax model, but for the hair on his head and his mustache, which was realistic enough to turn the veritable wax-work into the corpse of Lenin. The concept behind preserving leaders I do not really comprehend - and I thought the snow covered memorials in the wall of the Kremlin were far more dignified than poor old Lenin. I made a terrible mistake in visiting the Kremlin on a weekend and had a rather overwhelming induction into the Russian attitude towards queuing, but it didn't detract too much from the experience and the Kremlin itself was very beautiful, interesting and a far more conventional tourist attraction.
The other notable Moscow activity has, of course, been my visit to the Bolshoi Theater, which in case you didn't know, is world famous, especially for the ballet. The ballet isn't on at the moment, so I bought a ticket for whatever was showing, which turned out to be an opera that is running this week only. Now, there's such a thing here as door control. Essentially if you don't look the part, you can be turned away. This meant I absolutely had to go shopping - there was no way in hell I was getting through in my walking boots and trekking pants. Oh I had such fun, & for so long in Moscow's nicest mall, which has more fairy lights than shops, and nice shops at that. After trying on half of a number of shops, admittedly only half looking for an opera outfit and half because I enjoyed wearing all the nice clothes, I found a lovely little blue dress, which was very opera-appropriate. Then the shoes. Well, it's pretty cold here and I was too scared to bear my legs in just a pair of tights (rather than the 2 layers they've become accustomed to), so I went looking for boots, and boots I did find! I accidentally bought two pairs, which I do not regret, but will be foregoing the expensive fur hat in consequence.
The opera itself was very curious and contemporary. It was a production in which the director was certainly trying to say something about how we now live, and I think the struggles of identity and internal conflicts - but the director was trying to say that thing in Russian, and thus, the complexity and nuance of the message was partly lost on me. That said, I've never seen anything produced in the same format or using the same techniques, the musical score was sensational and I enjoyed myself (and dressing up) very much! It was a very glamorous affair and I am glad I went shopping beforehand. Luckily I am young enough to apply a coat of mascara and a bit of concealer and look "fresh faced" which I pretended was a legitimate make up look for an evening. After 4 months of not wearing only suncream on my face I felt made up at least - it's amazing what a coat-too-many of mascara and some nice shoes can do! I was somewhat intimidated and in awe of all the fur and silk that surrounded me - Russian women really are the most elegant in the world!
There's so much more I could saw about Moscow and all I have done here. St Petersburg, I am told, is a far superior city and so my hopes are high. I am now in the last week of my time away, and I cannot believe how quickly I will be home. It is going to be quite a shock to the system - but a nice one. For now, however; One City; One Week; One Hell of a Finale!
Wednesday, 24 November 2010
Tuesday, 16 November 2010
Baikal, Birch, Banya and Bogka
I am currently writing to you from an island, called Olkhon Island, along the west of Lake Baikal in the middle of Siberia! It is cold and beautiful, and this and the train has been exactly what I hoped and dreamed it would be when I was pouring over Lonely Planet guidebooks and gap year brochures in my flat in Muswell Hill all those months ago. I loved China and I also loved Vietnam, but I went there because I was curious, wanting to go everywhere and Vietnam seemed like as good as place as any to start, and it was close to, and plan-able distance from Russia. Visiting Russia was the one thing I have wanted to do for a really long time, and I am happy to report, it has not disappointed.
As is fitting for a Trans-Siberian adventure, my Russia experience began with a train. When my visa expiry date and the train timetable were taken into consideration, it transpired that I had two options to get me across the border and into the Motherland. Option #1 was to catch one single train, first class from Ha’erbin to Khabavosk and to deal with the border crossing, customs officials and any bribes that I might potentially have to cough up (I am worryingly unphased by all of this…) on this nice comfortable train. Option #2 was a bit trickier and involved getting a local train to a Chinese border town, staying overnight & catching a bus at dawn the next morning to reach the border crossing before it shut for lunch, then getting through the border crossing, catching another bus to another town and then getting the one daily train to Chita and then changing trains to get me to Irkutsk. I did decide to do a difficult thing (unwittingly) and I haven’t expected things to be easy or to go smoothly the whole time, but I felt a little intimidated by the latter option given my lack of Chinese or Russian customs control vocabulary and so I took the easy option. The easy option was actually pretty luxurious (the only tickets available for the only train that would get me across the border before my visa expired were 1st class – pity) and I had a very nice carriage compartment all to myself, but it was also not without its difficulties. The woman in charge on all Russian trains is called the Provodnitsa, and she runs a very tight, er, train. Lucky for me she either took a liking to, or pity on me and all official business was conducted slowly, patiently and exclusively through the phrasebook. This worked for most things, but we had a few minor issues when we reached border control. The ‘bolshi’ red-head poked her red-head through my door and indicated that I should put on my coat and my shoes. This was shortly after the train had stopped for a while and I had seen the same red-head strutting up and down the side of the train, in her coat, in the snow, spanner in oil-dirty gloved hand (she may be my new feminist icon). I followed my orders and dressed as instructed but then nothing really seemed to happen for a long time. The train was moving again, but where it had been stopped for a while it was a bit colder and I thought that maybe she had been concerned that I would be getting a bit cold and that’s why she told me to dress up. I sat pondering this for quite a while, and then we pulled into what looked like a station. I stayed put, not wanting to do anything wrong (she’s a scary lady) and then she came running and flailing up the corridor yelling my name, and ushering me off the train. She then stopped and looked at me as though I had done something wrong, she turned and went back into my compartment and started packing up my luggage and dragged it out onto the platform. I was ushered towards the big group of people at the door to a building, and stood quietly next to a policeman in a very nice furry hat. Once they discovered I was English I was, for some reason, given special treatment and ushered to the front of every queue! I have heard some horror stories about Russian bureaucracy, and I can well believe they are true, but thus far the system has certainly favored me, which I guess is karmic reward or something, given the nightmare I went through in Hanoi (pretty sure karma doesn’t work that way, but it’s nice to be on the good side of a bent system for once). At this border crossing there were lots of Chinese traders dragging bags and bags and bags of produce through the gates. I have since been told anecdotally, that should you ask one of these traders for help on the customs form you will be instructed to tick ‘nyet’ for every box and then hand over a couple hundred roubles to be pocketed by the officials. Bureaucracy at its best.
When you are travelling on your own, and especially when you are travelling alone on trains, you always have to be a little bit on guard and a little bit awake, in case something should happen or someone is speaking at you in Vietnamese/Chinese/Russian/”English”. I say especially on trains, because when the train hits your station, especially in China and Vietnam, you have to go and you have to go quick. For the duration of this journey, in addition to the requisite standby alertness that has become so habitual the last three months, I was pretty anxious because I didn’t know what time the train was going to arrive beyond some time Monday morning, which was as far as my Chinese could get me when I booked the ticket. I was crossing time-zones, I thought, and morning could mean any time from 2am-11am. Sunday night I had trouble sleeping and woke up every 30 minutes to check that my luggage was packed and I could dress and go quickly when I needed to. I am aware, and tried to convince myself as I tried to get to sleep that I would be better to just relax and get some proper sleep so I could actually do a competent job of organizing myself and getting to a hotel when I reached Russia, but all this effected was ironic appreciation.
We arrived in Khabavosk around 0530 Beijing time. I was woken gently by the provodnitsa, and while my well practiced reflexes are usually quick and border occasionally on impressive, that morning I had the reflexes of a brick wall and mumbled something along the lines of “nee how (Chinese for ‘hello), are we at Khabavostock (which I think was a combination of Khabavosk and Vladivostock)”. She stifled a smirk and nodded and pointed to some time on her watch that I couldn’t see without my lenses and I nodded, sat and stared glassy eyed out of the window for a while, and it took me a little while to realize that what I was staring at was my first bit of Russian snow! All strapped up into the coat, hat, gloves and backpacks I padded my way carefully down the snow covered station steps and actually managed to orientate myself on the map! Before I left England, my wonderful friend Rory spent a painfully patient 2 hours teaching me the Cyrillic alphabet and I had been practicing for the whole time I had just spent on the train from China. I was super proud of myself when I managed to translate the English street names in the guide book (why English – the street names aren’t in English?!) into what I should look out for in Cyrillic and to my surprise not only did I get the translation right, I actually managed to find the street and the hotel! I think that after doing this travel thing for nearly 3.5 months, I am finally learning how to read a map! I even found my way to the hotel, very slowly because it was very icy and downhill, and managed to remain on my feet, although at one point I did nearly get hit by a tram because I wasn’t looking. Oops. I had to check into a hotel rather than a hostel in Khabavosk because there aren’t any hostels and not many tourists go there. It’s very far east, very cold, and there’s not too much to do or see there. I checked into my very, very nice hotel, walked straight into a very, very fancy shower that had jets and things to massage your legs (!) and then crawled into bed to catch up on the sleep I didn’t manage to have the night before, and I lay there and realized that I had no idea what time it was, what time zone I was in and that I had to stop speaking Chinese and somehow start speaking Russian. The Russian speaking is still going quite badly.
I enjoyed my few days in Khabavosk, and spent a lot of time wandering around this city that I found myself able to navigate with ease, visiting the most beautiful churches I have ever seen in my whole life and strolling idyllically along the Amur River, which is very beautiful when you’re facing away from the industrial end. I wrapped up as warmly as I could, but found myself feeling very inelegant when compared to all these beautiful Russian women wrapped up in furs, in leather boots and oozing glamour. One thing that did take me by surprise was that people would just start talking to me in Russian. This hadn’t happened in China or Vietnam (with Chinese or Vietnamese), and I realized that for the first time I don’t stand out and could actually look Russian (bar the trampy travel clothes). It surprised me how much I had actually relied on looking obviously different when I had been travelling and that people would responsively, treat me differently, and either try to overcharge or help me. When I was in those countries where I stood out like a sore thumb, the one thing I found myself missing the most was bread! Russia is most certainly the place to come should you ever be deprived of good bread for an extended period of time, and as much as I loved Chinese food (and I really do LOVE it), coming to Russia is like coming to all-you-can-eat-day at ‘carb-world’. It’s amazing! There’s so much bread, and cake, and pastries and everything that my little carb-deprived heart could ever desire and I pretty much haven’t stopped eating since I got here. I think those suits that were measured for my skeletal-Vietnamese-self are going to need some adjustment when I get back to the UK, for sure.
From Khabavosk I decided to make my next stop in a Siberian city called Irkutsk. The original plan was to go first to Ulan-Ude, but it was difficult to arrange a train here. It is surprising, but the majority of the itinerary that you pull together is subject to, and will probably change depending on what trains you are able to get and at what times, and so to Irkutsk I was next headed. Russian trains, wherever you are in Russia, run by Moscow time. When I was in Khabavosk I was +7 hours from Moscow, and so it was nice to discover that my train would leave at 1132 local time, rather than 0432 local time because this was actually Moscow time. I am told that one of the greatest joys of travel by train is shopping for food before the journey. The morning of my journey I ventured out into the falling snow, found a supermarket, and trailed the shelves looking for snacks for the 60 hours or so, ahead of me. On the train from Ha’erbin the train was very well heated and I was very hot a lot of the time. What primarily informed my food decisions therefore, was how well food would survive in the heat. Whilst I met my perishability criteria, when it came to my selections, I got it very wrong. I had packed a lot of fruit, crisps, cookies, bread rolls, instant noodles and some cartons of choco-milk. What I was supposed to pack, and what my fellow travel-companions had packed for their journey was bread, cheese, sausage, tomatoes, cucumber, tea, fruit, chocolate – a whole indulgent picnic, as well as the requisite instant noodles. This train was much cooler and a more comfortable heat, and from what I saw, food was kept well and eaten often. Coming from China and Vietnam, which are countries where you are smiled at a lot on the street, I initially found Russia to be a very unfriendly and frosty place. You don’t smile on the street; you scowl. What I have learned however, that whilst the street may be one place where you are eyed with suspicion and reserve, once you start to communicate with a Russian, you will be utterly overwhelmed with hospitality and generosity. I found it particularly difficult to break the ice with the three Russians sharing the compartment I was in; no-one spoke any English and my Russian is still at a very, very basic level and is geared towards buying things. After a few hours of persistent attempts to try and endear myself to them, we had a breakthrough and for the rest of the trip they were overwhelmingly inclusive (even though I don’t speak the language), insisted on feeding me a lot of food a lot of the time, and when I wasn’t being fed I was being offered tea and being asked questions which I couldn’t understand or answer! They were very patient with me, which was good, because we had a long way to go, and one guy even corrected my pronunciation as I read a Russian newspaper trying to sharpen my Cyrillic. The atmosphere inside the train was warm and relaxed. I was warm, but less relaxed for the first half of the journey, not knowing how this Russian train thing worked and not wanting to make any cultural faux pas and offend my new friends. One of the things (of many) they constantly mocked me for was my keenness behind the camera lens. Every time we came to a different type of scenery, or the sun came out, they would shout “Tamara” and make a camera noise and motion out of the window. The scenery is quite spectacular, and this happened a lot.
The first night on the train I had a lot of trouble sleeping and lay awake until about 0300. This didn’t bother me at all, and was potentially the most relaxing sleepless night I’ve ever had because I lay across my top bunk, tiger-style, and stared out of the window at the beautiful taiga forest covered with snow. In the darkness the whiteness of the snow and the birch trees reaching up out of the snow seemed luminescent, and were clearly visible through the blackness of night in the middle of nowhere. There are three main types of landscape that I have viewed so far, coming from the east to Siberia. The main one is called ‘taiga’ and refers to forests of birch and fir trees which are dense and plenty. When you’re not gazing whimsically out of the window at a million snow-covered trees, you might find yourself passing through a desolate plain of nothingness, where all you can see is essentially the horizon peering out from the miles of browned grass, punctuated occasionally by a tree, or two. Towards the end of the first train ride and after we reached Ulan-Ude the train takes you across the edge of Lake Baikal, which is absolutely stunning, calm and massive. The deepest lake in the world, and at its widest point it is 80km across, to ride alongside one of the coasts can sometimes feel like you are riding next to the ocean, especially because I traveled on a misty day and the other side of the lake was rarely visible. An exciting occasion on the train, and something to look forward to when the smells that make it oh such a sensory experience start to fog you out, is when the train pulls into one of the larger stations and makes a prolonged stop for up to 30 minutes. When this happens, the entire carriage pours out onto the platform, in their train attire of shorts, shirts and sandals – and a coat, and clusters together in the snow smoking rather than taking in the fresh air. There’s something quite exciting about long distance train travel, I think, and getting out at these stations, as well as breathing in some icy air and stretching cramped limbs, it is nice to experience the station atmosphere and be reminded that you are actually doing the Trans-Siberian!
I chose to come to Irkutsk because it is a city close to Lake Baikal and one that is fairly well set up for tourists, with hostels and cafes with English menus etc. After nearly one whole week of not having a proper conversation with a person not on the other end of the phone to me because no-one spoke any English, I was so very excited to be greeted by an English tongue when I arrived at my hostel!!! I think I was actually picked up at the train station by an angel masquerading as a Russian taxi driver with a Lada, because when I arrived, I asked the driver to take me to an art gallery within walking distance to, and on the same street as my apartment hostel, which was pretty tricky to locate and only written in the guide book in English (again, thank you LP). I had asked the driver if he spoke ‘Angliski’, to which he vehemently shook his head, but seeing the backpack and hearing the faltering request he must have guessed where I actually wanted to go because he drove me past the art gallery to show me where it was and then took me to the door of the hostel behind some apartment block somewhere on Lenin St that I would have had difficulty finding, and waited with me until someone came to the door. I tipped, and I tipped big. Not only did a cool old Russian man with a cool vintage car and a fur hat drive me through the streets of Irkutsk, he took me to the place I wanted to go without even having to ask! Sure beats Hanoi Taxis. After a very long and hot shower to scrub the remains of the train off of me I made myself at home in the hostel. It felt really great to be back among other backpackers, to have access to the internet and a kettle and supply of tea on hand. The next day I went out for some breakfast, found the intended café with surprising ease, and fuelled up with some buckwheat porridge and tea. It was such a nice introduction to Siberia, because even though my nose nearly fell off due to the cold on the way to the café, I sat in a window seat with the sun shining through on to my seat and watched as the trams rumbled past Russia happened around me. I spent the day walking about a surprisingly pretty city, visited a museum about those persons politically exiled here, ate some ‘omul’ fish from Lake Baikal and accidentally attended a service at the Russian orthodox cathedral, which was quite spectacular and very interesting, coming from a Cof E background.
The next morning, I and a few others that I had met and enjoyed talking (in English) to, caught a local electric stop-at-ALL-stations train to a small village near to the lake. We had planned and intended to hike along the lake, and started off by hiking about 4km through a very Russian forest. It was very beautiful, and there were millions and millions of fir and birch trees, all standing to attention like stoic soldiers in the snow. It is actually Autumn here, Winter starts properly at the end of December and runs through to March, and the forest was a mix of colours with the autumn browns, the greens and because there was still quite a lot of snow, white also. About 1km in we came to a large river, which had already completely frozen over. We crossed over on a precarious little bridge, only to step onto the ice and slid about, giggling like crazy. The giggles promptly stopped, and my heart, when I heard a loud ‘crack’, but the ice was too thick to break fully, so I slowly maneuvered off the ice and stuck to the snow covered mud. We came through the forest and out into the open just before the lake, and then we were kidnapped by a lady who had opened a museum on the bank of Baikal and wanted visitors. She was one of these ladies who takes her subject very seriously, soberly and weightily and just cannot comprehend why someone else isn’t doing the same. Her subject was primarily one man who was an author, philosopher, linguist, traveler etc… she loved him. There were also lots of paintings, some good, that she had collected, and an extensive explanation about each exhibit that she droned though, and then was translated for my unenthusiastic ears. When I thought it was finally all over (I came to walk, not to be talked at in Russian and look at bad art) she gave us a rather long ‘sermon’ on the powers of water and how we should say thank you to water and stones and that they will give us good energy when we are in a bad mood or do not appreciate the world. At the end, the very end of our accidental tour she tried to make us buy our own personal stone to thank and give us good energy. I was hasten to get back out into the fresh air and continue my hike, but a nice, friendly Russian man followed me out of the museum and handed me a pretty pink stone on a key chain, and said in English, that he had chosen this for me as a souvenir to remind me of lake Baikal. I was very happy with my gift, and had a lovely chat with the Russian, who disappeared off down the railway tracks in the opposite direction to us shortly afterwards. We later saw him on the train home and we had a broken conversation about Russia.
It is said that every time you swim in Lake Baikal you add 25 years to your life. Well, we were hiking in about -6 and a quick swim was not high on my agenda. I did splash my hand around a little bit, and pose for some photographs, but it was pretty cold and so we set off and walked along the rail tracks of the circum-Baikal railway on our way to the next village. As we were walking, some very pretty Russians who were stood on top of one of the railway tunnels carved into the mountains called down to us to come and drink with them. We did. After climbing up the very steep mountainside, we saw that they had built a little camp fire and gotten through a fair amount of vodka (Bogka in Russian) already. We found out that they had just graduated from university and were camping and getting drunk by the lake – and why the hell not. We drank with them, my first Russian vodka and it was good, and then bum-shuffled down the steep hill and continued our hike. We walked for about 6-7km along the railway tracks, having to jump out of the way of a speedy oncoming train once, and reached the next village as it started to get dark. The views of the lake were beautiful, and it was so incredibly peaceful, that but for the sound of our walking it was perfectly silent. The ‘train station’ at this village was a wooden platform by the side of a rail track, with a sign erected to indicate the name of the village and another to indicate the times of the 6 trains that would pass that day on their way to Irkutsk. A lot of very large and loud freight trains passed us as we were waiting, and then finally our little electric train came and picked us up, and took us back to the hostel.
I decided to spend quite a bit of time out here at the expense of visiting lots of different cities along the way because I have discovered I really, really love being in the countryside and outdoors, certainly more than I enjoy visiting cities. My third day in Siberia therefore, I travelled up to Olkhon island, which is very deserted, has two villages on it, a population of less than 1500 and is in the middle of this very beautiful lake. It took pretty much the whole day to get out here, and we came by mini-bus and ferry. Driving through actual Siberia is something I will never be able, or want to forget. It was incredible, and would alternate between this feeling of being in absolute awe at the landscape and the feeling that you actually are in the middle of nowhere and there is actually nothing for miles and miles and miles and the only thing you can really see is the horizon. It was wonderful!! That evening (after 4 pm because it gets dark quickly here) we sat around waiting for dinner doing the only thing that you really can do on this island when it gets dark – we drank. I should elaborate on ‘we’: I am currently traveling with two Canadian forest firefighters, lovely, and a couple who have been living in Australia for the past two years and are moving back to the UK. He is from England, and she is Polish, very beautiful and can communicate with the Russians by speaking Polish – it’s amazing!! The vodka is good, the food is good, but what is amazing, actually amazing, is the banya! I am officially a banya convert. Now, if you live in Siberia you have a small problem regarding hot water. Actually you have a problem regarding running water, but the banya deals with the heating, not the running problem. The banya is like a sauna, and is used by the Russians for bathing. 2-3 times a week, you will banya. To banya, (I love the word even, can you tell!?) you sit for a while in a baking hot room, very hot, hot, hot, hot, then you go into another room and ladle freezing cold water over yourself and return to the hot, hot room. It sounds crazy, I know it sounds crazy, but it is amazing, and you feel so clear and clean and energized but also supremely relaxed and just happy. Tonight I intend to combine the vodka with the banya and I am expecting great things. Tomorrow I am travelling back to Irkutsk and then getting on a 74 hour train to Mocba. Siberia has been incredible, if a little chilly, and I am so very happy here, and that I decided to come here. It’s incredible.
As is fitting for a Trans-Siberian adventure, my Russia experience began with a train. When my visa expiry date and the train timetable were taken into consideration, it transpired that I had two options to get me across the border and into the Motherland. Option #1 was to catch one single train, first class from Ha’erbin to Khabavosk and to deal with the border crossing, customs officials and any bribes that I might potentially have to cough up (I am worryingly unphased by all of this…) on this nice comfortable train. Option #2 was a bit trickier and involved getting a local train to a Chinese border town, staying overnight & catching a bus at dawn the next morning to reach the border crossing before it shut for lunch, then getting through the border crossing, catching another bus to another town and then getting the one daily train to Chita and then changing trains to get me to Irkutsk. I did decide to do a difficult thing (unwittingly) and I haven’t expected things to be easy or to go smoothly the whole time, but I felt a little intimidated by the latter option given my lack of Chinese or Russian customs control vocabulary and so I took the easy option. The easy option was actually pretty luxurious (the only tickets available for the only train that would get me across the border before my visa expired were 1st class – pity) and I had a very nice carriage compartment all to myself, but it was also not without its difficulties. The woman in charge on all Russian trains is called the Provodnitsa, and she runs a very tight, er, train. Lucky for me she either took a liking to, or pity on me and all official business was conducted slowly, patiently and exclusively through the phrasebook. This worked for most things, but we had a few minor issues when we reached border control. The ‘bolshi’ red-head poked her red-head through my door and indicated that I should put on my coat and my shoes. This was shortly after the train had stopped for a while and I had seen the same red-head strutting up and down the side of the train, in her coat, in the snow, spanner in oil-dirty gloved hand (she may be my new feminist icon). I followed my orders and dressed as instructed but then nothing really seemed to happen for a long time. The train was moving again, but where it had been stopped for a while it was a bit colder and I thought that maybe she had been concerned that I would be getting a bit cold and that’s why she told me to dress up. I sat pondering this for quite a while, and then we pulled into what looked like a station. I stayed put, not wanting to do anything wrong (she’s a scary lady) and then she came running and flailing up the corridor yelling my name, and ushering me off the train. She then stopped and looked at me as though I had done something wrong, she turned and went back into my compartment and started packing up my luggage and dragged it out onto the platform. I was ushered towards the big group of people at the door to a building, and stood quietly next to a policeman in a very nice furry hat. Once they discovered I was English I was, for some reason, given special treatment and ushered to the front of every queue! I have heard some horror stories about Russian bureaucracy, and I can well believe they are true, but thus far the system has certainly favored me, which I guess is karmic reward or something, given the nightmare I went through in Hanoi (pretty sure karma doesn’t work that way, but it’s nice to be on the good side of a bent system for once). At this border crossing there were lots of Chinese traders dragging bags and bags and bags of produce through the gates. I have since been told anecdotally, that should you ask one of these traders for help on the customs form you will be instructed to tick ‘nyet’ for every box and then hand over a couple hundred roubles to be pocketed by the officials. Bureaucracy at its best.
When you are travelling on your own, and especially when you are travelling alone on trains, you always have to be a little bit on guard and a little bit awake, in case something should happen or someone is speaking at you in Vietnamese/Chinese/Russian/”English”. I say especially on trains, because when the train hits your station, especially in China and Vietnam, you have to go and you have to go quick. For the duration of this journey, in addition to the requisite standby alertness that has become so habitual the last three months, I was pretty anxious because I didn’t know what time the train was going to arrive beyond some time Monday morning, which was as far as my Chinese could get me when I booked the ticket. I was crossing time-zones, I thought, and morning could mean any time from 2am-11am. Sunday night I had trouble sleeping and woke up every 30 minutes to check that my luggage was packed and I could dress and go quickly when I needed to. I am aware, and tried to convince myself as I tried to get to sleep that I would be better to just relax and get some proper sleep so I could actually do a competent job of organizing myself and getting to a hotel when I reached Russia, but all this effected was ironic appreciation.
We arrived in Khabavosk around 0530 Beijing time. I was woken gently by the provodnitsa, and while my well practiced reflexes are usually quick and border occasionally on impressive, that morning I had the reflexes of a brick wall and mumbled something along the lines of “nee how (Chinese for ‘hello), are we at Khabavostock (which I think was a combination of Khabavosk and Vladivostock)”. She stifled a smirk and nodded and pointed to some time on her watch that I couldn’t see without my lenses and I nodded, sat and stared glassy eyed out of the window for a while, and it took me a little while to realize that what I was staring at was my first bit of Russian snow! All strapped up into the coat, hat, gloves and backpacks I padded my way carefully down the snow covered station steps and actually managed to orientate myself on the map! Before I left England, my wonderful friend Rory spent a painfully patient 2 hours teaching me the Cyrillic alphabet and I had been practicing for the whole time I had just spent on the train from China. I was super proud of myself when I managed to translate the English street names in the guide book (why English – the street names aren’t in English?!) into what I should look out for in Cyrillic and to my surprise not only did I get the translation right, I actually managed to find the street and the hotel! I think that after doing this travel thing for nearly 3.5 months, I am finally learning how to read a map! I even found my way to the hotel, very slowly because it was very icy and downhill, and managed to remain on my feet, although at one point I did nearly get hit by a tram because I wasn’t looking. Oops. I had to check into a hotel rather than a hostel in Khabavosk because there aren’t any hostels and not many tourists go there. It’s very far east, very cold, and there’s not too much to do or see there. I checked into my very, very nice hotel, walked straight into a very, very fancy shower that had jets and things to massage your legs (!) and then crawled into bed to catch up on the sleep I didn’t manage to have the night before, and I lay there and realized that I had no idea what time it was, what time zone I was in and that I had to stop speaking Chinese and somehow start speaking Russian. The Russian speaking is still going quite badly.
I enjoyed my few days in Khabavosk, and spent a lot of time wandering around this city that I found myself able to navigate with ease, visiting the most beautiful churches I have ever seen in my whole life and strolling idyllically along the Amur River, which is very beautiful when you’re facing away from the industrial end. I wrapped up as warmly as I could, but found myself feeling very inelegant when compared to all these beautiful Russian women wrapped up in furs, in leather boots and oozing glamour. One thing that did take me by surprise was that people would just start talking to me in Russian. This hadn’t happened in China or Vietnam (with Chinese or Vietnamese), and I realized that for the first time I don’t stand out and could actually look Russian (bar the trampy travel clothes). It surprised me how much I had actually relied on looking obviously different when I had been travelling and that people would responsively, treat me differently, and either try to overcharge or help me. When I was in those countries where I stood out like a sore thumb, the one thing I found myself missing the most was bread! Russia is most certainly the place to come should you ever be deprived of good bread for an extended period of time, and as much as I loved Chinese food (and I really do LOVE it), coming to Russia is like coming to all-you-can-eat-day at ‘carb-world’. It’s amazing! There’s so much bread, and cake, and pastries and everything that my little carb-deprived heart could ever desire and I pretty much haven’t stopped eating since I got here. I think those suits that were measured for my skeletal-Vietnamese-self are going to need some adjustment when I get back to the UK, for sure.
From Khabavosk I decided to make my next stop in a Siberian city called Irkutsk. The original plan was to go first to Ulan-Ude, but it was difficult to arrange a train here. It is surprising, but the majority of the itinerary that you pull together is subject to, and will probably change depending on what trains you are able to get and at what times, and so to Irkutsk I was next headed. Russian trains, wherever you are in Russia, run by Moscow time. When I was in Khabavosk I was +7 hours from Moscow, and so it was nice to discover that my train would leave at 1132 local time, rather than 0432 local time because this was actually Moscow time. I am told that one of the greatest joys of travel by train is shopping for food before the journey. The morning of my journey I ventured out into the falling snow, found a supermarket, and trailed the shelves looking for snacks for the 60 hours or so, ahead of me. On the train from Ha’erbin the train was very well heated and I was very hot a lot of the time. What primarily informed my food decisions therefore, was how well food would survive in the heat. Whilst I met my perishability criteria, when it came to my selections, I got it very wrong. I had packed a lot of fruit, crisps, cookies, bread rolls, instant noodles and some cartons of choco-milk. What I was supposed to pack, and what my fellow travel-companions had packed for their journey was bread, cheese, sausage, tomatoes, cucumber, tea, fruit, chocolate – a whole indulgent picnic, as well as the requisite instant noodles. This train was much cooler and a more comfortable heat, and from what I saw, food was kept well and eaten often. Coming from China and Vietnam, which are countries where you are smiled at a lot on the street, I initially found Russia to be a very unfriendly and frosty place. You don’t smile on the street; you scowl. What I have learned however, that whilst the street may be one place where you are eyed with suspicion and reserve, once you start to communicate with a Russian, you will be utterly overwhelmed with hospitality and generosity. I found it particularly difficult to break the ice with the three Russians sharing the compartment I was in; no-one spoke any English and my Russian is still at a very, very basic level and is geared towards buying things. After a few hours of persistent attempts to try and endear myself to them, we had a breakthrough and for the rest of the trip they were overwhelmingly inclusive (even though I don’t speak the language), insisted on feeding me a lot of food a lot of the time, and when I wasn’t being fed I was being offered tea and being asked questions which I couldn’t understand or answer! They were very patient with me, which was good, because we had a long way to go, and one guy even corrected my pronunciation as I read a Russian newspaper trying to sharpen my Cyrillic. The atmosphere inside the train was warm and relaxed. I was warm, but less relaxed for the first half of the journey, not knowing how this Russian train thing worked and not wanting to make any cultural faux pas and offend my new friends. One of the things (of many) they constantly mocked me for was my keenness behind the camera lens. Every time we came to a different type of scenery, or the sun came out, they would shout “Tamara” and make a camera noise and motion out of the window. The scenery is quite spectacular, and this happened a lot.
The first night on the train I had a lot of trouble sleeping and lay awake until about 0300. This didn’t bother me at all, and was potentially the most relaxing sleepless night I’ve ever had because I lay across my top bunk, tiger-style, and stared out of the window at the beautiful taiga forest covered with snow. In the darkness the whiteness of the snow and the birch trees reaching up out of the snow seemed luminescent, and were clearly visible through the blackness of night in the middle of nowhere. There are three main types of landscape that I have viewed so far, coming from the east to Siberia. The main one is called ‘taiga’ and refers to forests of birch and fir trees which are dense and plenty. When you’re not gazing whimsically out of the window at a million snow-covered trees, you might find yourself passing through a desolate plain of nothingness, where all you can see is essentially the horizon peering out from the miles of browned grass, punctuated occasionally by a tree, or two. Towards the end of the first train ride and after we reached Ulan-Ude the train takes you across the edge of Lake Baikal, which is absolutely stunning, calm and massive. The deepest lake in the world, and at its widest point it is 80km across, to ride alongside one of the coasts can sometimes feel like you are riding next to the ocean, especially because I traveled on a misty day and the other side of the lake was rarely visible. An exciting occasion on the train, and something to look forward to when the smells that make it oh such a sensory experience start to fog you out, is when the train pulls into one of the larger stations and makes a prolonged stop for up to 30 minutes. When this happens, the entire carriage pours out onto the platform, in their train attire of shorts, shirts and sandals – and a coat, and clusters together in the snow smoking rather than taking in the fresh air. There’s something quite exciting about long distance train travel, I think, and getting out at these stations, as well as breathing in some icy air and stretching cramped limbs, it is nice to experience the station atmosphere and be reminded that you are actually doing the Trans-Siberian!
I chose to come to Irkutsk because it is a city close to Lake Baikal and one that is fairly well set up for tourists, with hostels and cafes with English menus etc. After nearly one whole week of not having a proper conversation with a person not on the other end of the phone to me because no-one spoke any English, I was so very excited to be greeted by an English tongue when I arrived at my hostel!!! I think I was actually picked up at the train station by an angel masquerading as a Russian taxi driver with a Lada, because when I arrived, I asked the driver to take me to an art gallery within walking distance to, and on the same street as my apartment hostel, which was pretty tricky to locate and only written in the guide book in English (again, thank you LP). I had asked the driver if he spoke ‘Angliski’, to which he vehemently shook his head, but seeing the backpack and hearing the faltering request he must have guessed where I actually wanted to go because he drove me past the art gallery to show me where it was and then took me to the door of the hostel behind some apartment block somewhere on Lenin St that I would have had difficulty finding, and waited with me until someone came to the door. I tipped, and I tipped big. Not only did a cool old Russian man with a cool vintage car and a fur hat drive me through the streets of Irkutsk, he took me to the place I wanted to go without even having to ask! Sure beats Hanoi Taxis. After a very long and hot shower to scrub the remains of the train off of me I made myself at home in the hostel. It felt really great to be back among other backpackers, to have access to the internet and a kettle and supply of tea on hand. The next day I went out for some breakfast, found the intended café with surprising ease, and fuelled up with some buckwheat porridge and tea. It was such a nice introduction to Siberia, because even though my nose nearly fell off due to the cold on the way to the café, I sat in a window seat with the sun shining through on to my seat and watched as the trams rumbled past Russia happened around me. I spent the day walking about a surprisingly pretty city, visited a museum about those persons politically exiled here, ate some ‘omul’ fish from Lake Baikal and accidentally attended a service at the Russian orthodox cathedral, which was quite spectacular and very interesting, coming from a Cof E background.
The next morning, I and a few others that I had met and enjoyed talking (in English) to, caught a local electric stop-at-ALL-stations train to a small village near to the lake. We had planned and intended to hike along the lake, and started off by hiking about 4km through a very Russian forest. It was very beautiful, and there were millions and millions of fir and birch trees, all standing to attention like stoic soldiers in the snow. It is actually Autumn here, Winter starts properly at the end of December and runs through to March, and the forest was a mix of colours with the autumn browns, the greens and because there was still quite a lot of snow, white also. About 1km in we came to a large river, which had already completely frozen over. We crossed over on a precarious little bridge, only to step onto the ice and slid about, giggling like crazy. The giggles promptly stopped, and my heart, when I heard a loud ‘crack’, but the ice was too thick to break fully, so I slowly maneuvered off the ice and stuck to the snow covered mud. We came through the forest and out into the open just before the lake, and then we were kidnapped by a lady who had opened a museum on the bank of Baikal and wanted visitors. She was one of these ladies who takes her subject very seriously, soberly and weightily and just cannot comprehend why someone else isn’t doing the same. Her subject was primarily one man who was an author, philosopher, linguist, traveler etc… she loved him. There were also lots of paintings, some good, that she had collected, and an extensive explanation about each exhibit that she droned though, and then was translated for my unenthusiastic ears. When I thought it was finally all over (I came to walk, not to be talked at in Russian and look at bad art) she gave us a rather long ‘sermon’ on the powers of water and how we should say thank you to water and stones and that they will give us good energy when we are in a bad mood or do not appreciate the world. At the end, the very end of our accidental tour she tried to make us buy our own personal stone to thank and give us good energy. I was hasten to get back out into the fresh air and continue my hike, but a nice, friendly Russian man followed me out of the museum and handed me a pretty pink stone on a key chain, and said in English, that he had chosen this for me as a souvenir to remind me of lake Baikal. I was very happy with my gift, and had a lovely chat with the Russian, who disappeared off down the railway tracks in the opposite direction to us shortly afterwards. We later saw him on the train home and we had a broken conversation about Russia.
It is said that every time you swim in Lake Baikal you add 25 years to your life. Well, we were hiking in about -6 and a quick swim was not high on my agenda. I did splash my hand around a little bit, and pose for some photographs, but it was pretty cold and so we set off and walked along the rail tracks of the circum-Baikal railway on our way to the next village. As we were walking, some very pretty Russians who were stood on top of one of the railway tunnels carved into the mountains called down to us to come and drink with them. We did. After climbing up the very steep mountainside, we saw that they had built a little camp fire and gotten through a fair amount of vodka (Bogka in Russian) already. We found out that they had just graduated from university and were camping and getting drunk by the lake – and why the hell not. We drank with them, my first Russian vodka and it was good, and then bum-shuffled down the steep hill and continued our hike. We walked for about 6-7km along the railway tracks, having to jump out of the way of a speedy oncoming train once, and reached the next village as it started to get dark. The views of the lake were beautiful, and it was so incredibly peaceful, that but for the sound of our walking it was perfectly silent. The ‘train station’ at this village was a wooden platform by the side of a rail track, with a sign erected to indicate the name of the village and another to indicate the times of the 6 trains that would pass that day on their way to Irkutsk. A lot of very large and loud freight trains passed us as we were waiting, and then finally our little electric train came and picked us up, and took us back to the hostel.
I decided to spend quite a bit of time out here at the expense of visiting lots of different cities along the way because I have discovered I really, really love being in the countryside and outdoors, certainly more than I enjoy visiting cities. My third day in Siberia therefore, I travelled up to Olkhon island, which is very deserted, has two villages on it, a population of less than 1500 and is in the middle of this very beautiful lake. It took pretty much the whole day to get out here, and we came by mini-bus and ferry. Driving through actual Siberia is something I will never be able, or want to forget. It was incredible, and would alternate between this feeling of being in absolute awe at the landscape and the feeling that you actually are in the middle of nowhere and there is actually nothing for miles and miles and miles and the only thing you can really see is the horizon. It was wonderful!! That evening (after 4 pm because it gets dark quickly here) we sat around waiting for dinner doing the only thing that you really can do on this island when it gets dark – we drank. I should elaborate on ‘we’: I am currently traveling with two Canadian forest firefighters, lovely, and a couple who have been living in Australia for the past two years and are moving back to the UK. He is from England, and she is Polish, very beautiful and can communicate with the Russians by speaking Polish – it’s amazing!! The vodka is good, the food is good, but what is amazing, actually amazing, is the banya! I am officially a banya convert. Now, if you live in Siberia you have a small problem regarding hot water. Actually you have a problem regarding running water, but the banya deals with the heating, not the running problem. The banya is like a sauna, and is used by the Russians for bathing. 2-3 times a week, you will banya. To banya, (I love the word even, can you tell!?) you sit for a while in a baking hot room, very hot, hot, hot, hot, then you go into another room and ladle freezing cold water over yourself and return to the hot, hot room. It sounds crazy, I know it sounds crazy, but it is amazing, and you feel so clear and clean and energized but also supremely relaxed and just happy. Tonight I intend to combine the vodka with the banya and I am expecting great things. Tomorrow I am travelling back to Irkutsk and then getting on a 74 hour train to Mocba. Siberia has been incredible, if a little chilly, and I am so very happy here, and that I decided to come here. It’s incredible.
Tuesday, 9 November 2010
Beijing, Beer and that Big Beautiful Wall
I am writing to you now from a city called Khabarovsk in the far east of RUSSIA! I have finally made it and with zero days remaining on my Chinese visa. I was sad and clearly reluctant to leave China, somewhat mitigated by my excitement for Russia and knowing that I will have to come back to China (and probably also Russia seeing how I only have 3 weeks) because there is just so much I haven't seen and so much time I need to spend there without running off to the next city. When I was vaguely planning my trip, I wasn't attracted to the idea of going to China at all. I remember having conversations about how little time I could spend there before I left for Mongolia and I planned on 2 weeks maximum. I haven't been to Mongolia and I have also enjoyed and been constantly surprised and excited by this literally amazing future super-power. I'm not sure what, if any, preconceptions I had of the capital but I have found Beijing to be the most surprising of all the things I have been surprised about in China. Like with the rest of country (apart from Chengdu, which in retrospect, I didn't like much) I love it completely and it's complexities, contradictions and the whole communism thing intrigues me all the more.
I can't define or describe Beijing. It is vast (the size of Belgium, did you know?) but beyond this it is so multifaceted and seemingly contradictory that every adjective I think appropriate to describe it sends me into a dialectical spin - because on the other-hand it's just not, but it is; it's both - both polarities. You see my problem? Take Modernity. Beijing is a thoroughly modern city. It has outstanding infrastructure, a coherent and well signposted road network, a spotless and easily navigable metro system and everything appears to be clean, polished & confident. This of course presupposes a lot about what we think a 'modern' city is (the Shanghai Expo had a few ideas about that - if you caught any coverage). Economically, Beijingers are becoming wealthier and the rapid increase in car ownership, both in the capital and in the cities around the country, seems as good an indicator as any of financial trends. Socially and politically however, those attributes earmarked as signs of a developed society; welfare, "democracy", discursive debate, controversial new art and theatre, are nowhere to be seen. The focus of this debate, that I have seen at least, is always focused on the failing and inappropriateness of Western systems for China. I don't disagree - but in this sense, it doesn't feel as modern as it looks. Less abstractly, as you walk around Beijing (or drive, because you wouldn't walk across Belgium), on one street you could be on any street in any city in the world, and then the next turn takes you down the narrow and ancient alleys of a hidden 'hutong' district. Beijing is crammed full of history and in some areas you are breathing in the atmosphere of a thousand years. Beijing is ancient, historical, culture-rich, yet also cutting-edge, uniform and indistinguishable from city X. Because it is so big, spread out and people are busy running around making money, by day it can also feel quite impersonal. At the same time, walk on a little further and enter the park to your left and you will find an entire community (of the older generation mainly) working out on the exercise equipment, or playing cards, Chinese chess or singing karaoke! In the evenings the millions of dogs hit the streets and everywhere you can see neighbours stopping and chatting on street corners, while the dogs entertain themselves, as dogs do. In the evenings and parks again, music is blaring and there's an entire community outside doing aerobics and line dancing. The park is full - it's wonderful! (I joined in, twice!)
Essentially I can't tell you what Beijing is like except that it is a bunch of incongruous coherent opposites! It is however, awesome, exciting, unexpected and a place you should definitely consider for your next vacation!
If it's hard to communicate an overall impression of and feel for Beijing it's easier to pick out a few highlights of the time I spent there. Highlight #1 was definitely leaving the nasty hotel. I hailed a taxi to take me the whole one block to my hostel; had I left the hotel at all in the 3 days I spent there, I might have discovered just how central I actually was. As irony would have it, the hostel was one of the nicest I've stayed in and a private room here might have been a better all than 'splurging on some moderate luxury' while I recovered. I took day one pretty slowly, eating snickers bars (a rare treat) and watching DVDs curled up in the over-heated TV room. I was in China and so naturally, all the DVDs available for me to watch were fake. I was 1/2 way through 'The Blind Side' when everything froze and spluttered pitifully. I asked the man behind the desk to help me - his solution was to snap the disk in half and put on GI Joe. Erm - well, okay then! This really annoyed me, especially when the exact same thing happened with film #2 and I fixed it by turning the DVD player off for 15 minutes and starting again. The cheapo DVD player must have overheated, but now the cheapo DVD was in 2 pieces, in the trash. Unimpressed. I spent the next week with my head in racks upon racks of pirate movies trying to locate an un-snapped copy. I found it and also bough "Haatchi; A dog's tale" because neither Nicola nor Chloe would go and see it with me in the cinema, and I refuse to pay full price for it - that's what Wood Green Orange Wednesdays are for! Yes I am aware that in about 14 weeks I am going to start training as a solicitor, with potentially my first seat in the IP department. I can't defend myself - it's blatant hypocrisy.
There are about 3 million things to do in Beijing, and I had roughly 4 days. I spent day 1 with some lovely American girls and we hopped, skipped and jumped from the Temple of Heaven to Tiananmen, to the Forbidden City, Jingshen park & then to the night market to sample some tasty local delicacies. The Temple of Heaven is set in a massive open, green park, and before we even reached the sight seeing bit, we spent a good 40 minutes hanging out with the locals, somewhat in awe of the variety of talent and skill being displayed so casually on a Sunday morning. In lots of outdoor parks in China, you will find exercise equipment which resembles a colourful adult playground. There's equipment a lot like cross trainers, weight pulleys, a big disk you have to spin around with your arms and loads of parallel bars. On some bars the women collect, natter and loosen their hips by swinging their legs back and forth, while on other bars, men, clearly in their 60's & 70's swing around with the vivacity of an 18 year old gymnast. One of the Americans I was with was also a gymnast and she followed suit, equally as impressive, but for the 50 year age gap. My attempt was pitiful and I barely managed to swing my legs over and hang upside down. I always hated gym, and it's no more fun now because I still suck at it. Something else I also suck at is a Chinese game where you kick a disc, a bit like a badminton shuttlecock but with feathers, from one person to the next, arching it in the air. It must be the years of stereotyped sport coaching and my schools netball-only policy, but my reflex was to catch the damn thing, which is not in the rules. Something I was marginally better at, was waving a 10m ribbon attached to a stick around in the sunshine. Not as easy as you might think, so I was pretty chuffed I only mummified myself in it a few times. I should start a comic or something; "Adventures of Stupid While Girl".
The actual Temple itself was glorious, huge and very shiny. I must be reaching the 50+ marker of the number of pagodas I've visited, but this one did stand apart as something special. There was also a helpful exhibition detailing the historic worship rituals of the Emperor which contextualized it into being more than another beautiful pagoda.
After the Temple of Heaven and lunch, we took a taxi down to Tiananmen Square. I studied China and the '89 pro-democracy demonstrations a bit when I was 16. Being a bit of a geek, it felt exciting to visit a place that I had some detailed background knowledge on. This is something that has been lacking from my travel thus far. My history education has been narrowly British & WWII orientated (5 years of Hitler - re-visit that, won't you, Cameron?) & I have felt the absence of any knowledge of Asian history and even of the Vietnam War. I was in Vietnam long enough to fill in some of the gaps, but the beasty war book I did buy was Vietnamese published and hilariously biased and so this might require a bit of library time to level out. The only bits of Chinese history I know about are Maoism, Tiananmen and the Japanese occupation of Manchuria. Maybe this ignorance was a factor in my lack of desire to come to China and my unending surprise when I got here!
Tiananmen Square itself is vast! And the iconic Gate of Heavenly Peace with Mao's unflattering portrait (he was the least attractive of all the big-time communist leaders, don't you think?) is only one tiny end of it. Perhaps this is because of its size, but even though it's very busy, it didn't feel bustling or crowded. Wherever you look there's big open space, which for me at least, drew attention to the uniformed guards & militaristic undertone. It's a poignant place, and an honour to be there for all it represents and the questions that event still demands of China today. To get to the Forbidden City you go under Mao's portrait and through the gate. This enclosed space is teeming with people, to the extent that it was sometimes hard to move. I found my bag unzipped here - a failed attempt by a pickpocket, who rejected my old-looking phone and stole my supply of loo-roll. I was very grateful for the money belt and camera around the neck arrangement, but disproportionately upset about the good quality toilet paper - such things are precious in Asia! We didn't actually go into the Forbidden City - there are some kinds of tourism I abhor more than I am curious about, and audio-guides and cattle-herding are one of them. That evening, around dusk, we climbed to the top of the hill in Jingshn park and looked out over this glorious, vast city. Birds flew around in the fading sunlight, and this same sunlight reflected off the many lakes. Postcard-Picture-Perfect. The Summer Palace will easily require a full day of your visit, and it is worth these precious hours. Again, like most things in China, it is huge! It is also beautiful and absolutely spoils the visitor for pagodas and temples and royal buildings. The highlight of this day involved more climbing, this time to the top of the Temple of Incense. Of all the pagodas I have seen in the last 3 months, this is the one alone that made me stand back in reverence and see the magnitude and importance of this religion.
I spent Halloween in Beijing, and because it is a very quiet, if not non-existent affair here, my celebrations (I was with Americans and so we had to celebrate!) took a on slightly unconventional twist. We decided that it would be appropriate to celebrate by eating scorpions at the night market! I sampled, nervously, scorpion (the little, not the big kind, and minus the stinger) which were still alive until plunged into boiling fat, snake and seahorse. All of my experiments ended well, snake being my favorite and seahorse being a very crunchy, salty experience. I was also offered the chance to eat a tarantula and donkey-penis. I graciously declined.
Day three, which I think was a Monday (but could have been any day really), I climbed the Great Wall of China! I signed up for the 'hiking' trail, being warned by the kind lady at the desk that it was a lot harder than the other alternative. True to ridiculous form I signed up and paid my yuan and the next morning at 8am, found myself scrunched up on a mini-minibus on the way to Jinshanling. All of my hours of trekking and increasingly beasty calf muscles finally came good and I walked it, literally, struggling on only a few uber-steep bits. It was easier than I expected AND I didn't fall over once! What a victory! Even more so if we overlook that this 'hike' was essentially a million stone steps, not exactly what you'd all 'rough terrain'. In the words of that hapless president "it really is a great wall" and it snakes through some breathtaking, mountainous scenery. We stopped about half way along, on a sunny flat spot and had a picnic. I cracked open a beer (Cheers, Tammo!), and sat, on The Great Wall of China. What a feeling. This day was fantastic, and not only because of this mighty check on the 'to-do before I die' list, it was my ONE day of autumn! I've had a glorious, sweaty, extended summer, Beijing city was turning pretty cold, I was traveling further north, ending up in Siberia of all places, and I was starting to feel confused because I'd essentially jump from +30 to -something; from summer, straight into winter. My equilibrium was set right again by 'Great Wall Day' because I got to see hundreds of red orange, golden etc leaves on and falling from the trees, and I could even step on a few and feel that satisfying "crunch" underfoot. Autumn was made all the better this year by it’s brevity and I really relished my one day of it – especially because it was cold and sunny (my favorite weather) and not a drop of British-rain to be seen!
My last day in Beijing I spent running around trying to do everything I hadn’t had time to do yet. This failed epically, but I did dally on down to the silk market where I bartered as though my life depended on it, Vietnamese style, and still paid over the odds for a beautiful silk kimono. I was also accosted by a million marketers jumping out at me from behind pillars of “same same” Prada to offer me more pirated wares. I did buy a purse. It’s a bad fake, but it’s still really nice and I need a good purse (I think – I can’t really remember what I own in my other life). I also bought the most fantastic presents in the history of all travel presents for a few choice friends who might come close to appreciating it. They’re not fake, but about as genuinely “Chinese” as you can get!
I took the overnight train that evening to Ha’erbin. I’d been wanting to visit this city for a while, and a little research informed me that I’d have to get to Russia this way because I no longer had that Mongolian Visa. Annoying and yet, fortuitous. The train was fine, but I was harassed by a smelly drunk for a long time, who kept shouting at me in Chinese. No one would help me and no one spoke any English. I see this event as the turning point for when my traveling got a whole lot harder!
Ha’erbin is a really interesting, bohemian-esq and heavily Russian-influenced city. Because of my dual interest in both China and Russia, I found my stop here to be really fascinating and most enjoyable. It was great because it felt so European, and yet also, so Chinese and the incongruous mix of architectural and cultural influences gives the city an edge and intrigue that really fits together nicely. I spent a whole day in below-freezing cold, trying to organize my itinerary for getting to Russia. It was complicated by the date my visa expired and the coincidence of train timetables and the date on which this would mean I crossed the border. This is super boring and very logistical, so I shall summarize my day of broken communication into – I couldn’t go to Vladivostok (boo) or straight to Irkutsk because I would overstay my visa – by 4 hours, and so my one option, unless I wanted to sell a kidney to pay for the flight to Irkutsk, would be to get a train to Khabaravosk, which is big city #2 on the Train-Siberian route, and famously Russia’s coldest city of over 500,000 people. This is what was eventually booked and paid for (through my chilly red nose).
While I was in Ha’erbin I did manage to get to see the Siberian Tigers – which are magnificent. They are also huge – one paw, I think, is the size of my face! The busses and taxi combination to get to the reserve was complicated and it was cold and no on spoke any English, so I decided to get a taxi (which cost me an extravagant 3GBP). The taxi driver didn’t quite understand the guidebook, and so I sat in the front seat of a Ha’erbin taxi, growling like a tiger making clawing motions with my hands. He understood and roared back, so I roared back at him. We then drove off singing to the Elton John track on the radio (circle of life – appropriate, huh?), me in nasal English, he in something that’s not quite a language, I’m sure. When I got to the reserve I had to be driven around the different areas of the park in a minibus with cages over the windows. That was a bit of a disappointment, as I wanted to walk around, but this way I didn’t have to stare through cages (only the ones on the windows) and got a lot closer to these gorgeous animals, who came, quite unconcernedly, right up to the bus. There were also a few snow tigers, leopards cheetahs and lions, both African and white, at the reserve, and my favorite: black panthers! My black panther jumped up on a branch right in front of where I was standing on a raised, caged platform, and stared right through me with big, round amber eyes. Another ‘species’ that I previously didn’t know existed are called ‘Ligers’. I initially took this for a spelling error, but in actuality, when a male lion mates with a female tiger (or the other way around, I’m not sure) a baby liger is born. This funny looking animal looks much like a lion, with less of a mane and many faded stripes. It’s awfully funny, and cute – but cute in a ‘could eat me alive’ kind of way, which makes me less inclined to laugh at it.
That afternoon I went to the Japanese Germ Warfare Museum, known as unit ‘731’ (google it). It’s on the site of an old prison/research complex, and is where the occupying Japanese during WWII carried out a multitude of ‘germ warfare experiments’ i.e. biological attacks, on Chinese and Korean POWs. Such experiments included plague dissemination; infecting and recording the effects of syphilis; making naked POWs stand outside in the cold (in the winter it hits about -40) to time frostbite reactions; vivisection and the list continues. There’s a very eerie and empty feeling about this place, which is part reconstructed now because the Japanese bombed it (with bombs tested on their own inmates) on their departure to destroy the ‘evidence’. This was partially ineffective and it remains so little known about because the records, which were handed over to the US in exchange for immunity from war crimes prosecution, were covered up. That hollow feeling always shivers through me when I leave places like this. Not to trivialize what I had just experienced, but I’ve never been happier to see a KFC and sit, chicken burger in hand, and be in a normal social environment.
My train to Khabarovsk left the evening of the next day. With time to kill, I walked around all the less touristy parts of the city and along the bank of the river. There was a really great buzz on the streets and walking in the sunshine through all this made me really happy. I happened across a local market, and after the usual trinkets, home wares and unusual food, I came to what must have been the ‘pet market’. I first spotted two beautiful golden Labrador puppies sat on a cage looking timid. They were gorgeous and I cooed over and petted them for as long as I could before their fierce looking owner/retailer shooed me away. Further down the street though, there were, quite literally, hundreds of puppies for sale, some which couldn’t have been more than 2 weeks old, and others quite clearly terrified by the whole ordeal. This made me sad – I don’t think much of Chinese animal welfare. Around the corner, hundreds of goldfish were for sale either in jars or small transparent bags. I care less for goldfish, but it still wasn’t a pretty sight.
Ha’erbin is the first (and only) Chinese city that I’ve been able to orientate myself in. This surprised and pleased me. Along with its fascinating Russian/Jewish/Chinese mix of history, equally intriguing architecture and attitude, what I really loved about Ha’erbin, was sitting in toasty cafes drinking hot chocolate. This was the first time I’d had to spend any real time in below freezing temperatures. These invaluable few days spent adjusting saw me get it wrong quite a lot, with either too many or too few layers, but I think I’ve got it now. I’ve also got the least attractive, but most comfortable and warmest winter wardrobe I’ve ever owned. Lugging the heavy winter layers around Vietnam and China had finally started to pay off; I am here now, and Russia is cold!
I can't define or describe Beijing. It is vast (the size of Belgium, did you know?) but beyond this it is so multifaceted and seemingly contradictory that every adjective I think appropriate to describe it sends me into a dialectical spin - because on the other-hand it's just not, but it is; it's both - both polarities. You see my problem? Take Modernity. Beijing is a thoroughly modern city. It has outstanding infrastructure, a coherent and well signposted road network, a spotless and easily navigable metro system and everything appears to be clean, polished & confident. This of course presupposes a lot about what we think a 'modern' city is (the Shanghai Expo had a few ideas about that - if you caught any coverage). Economically, Beijingers are becoming wealthier and the rapid increase in car ownership, both in the capital and in the cities around the country, seems as good an indicator as any of financial trends. Socially and politically however, those attributes earmarked as signs of a developed society; welfare, "democracy", discursive debate, controversial new art and theatre, are nowhere to be seen. The focus of this debate, that I have seen at least, is always focused on the failing and inappropriateness of Western systems for China. I don't disagree - but in this sense, it doesn't feel as modern as it looks. Less abstractly, as you walk around Beijing (or drive, because you wouldn't walk across Belgium), on one street you could be on any street in any city in the world, and then the next turn takes you down the narrow and ancient alleys of a hidden 'hutong' district. Beijing is crammed full of history and in some areas you are breathing in the atmosphere of a thousand years. Beijing is ancient, historical, culture-rich, yet also cutting-edge, uniform and indistinguishable from city X. Because it is so big, spread out and people are busy running around making money, by day it can also feel quite impersonal. At the same time, walk on a little further and enter the park to your left and you will find an entire community (of the older generation mainly) working out on the exercise equipment, or playing cards, Chinese chess or singing karaoke! In the evenings the millions of dogs hit the streets and everywhere you can see neighbours stopping and chatting on street corners, while the dogs entertain themselves, as dogs do. In the evenings and parks again, music is blaring and there's an entire community outside doing aerobics and line dancing. The park is full - it's wonderful! (I joined in, twice!)
Essentially I can't tell you what Beijing is like except that it is a bunch of incongruous coherent opposites! It is however, awesome, exciting, unexpected and a place you should definitely consider for your next vacation!
If it's hard to communicate an overall impression of and feel for Beijing it's easier to pick out a few highlights of the time I spent there. Highlight #1 was definitely leaving the nasty hotel. I hailed a taxi to take me the whole one block to my hostel; had I left the hotel at all in the 3 days I spent there, I might have discovered just how central I actually was. As irony would have it, the hostel was one of the nicest I've stayed in and a private room here might have been a better all than 'splurging on some moderate luxury' while I recovered. I took day one pretty slowly, eating snickers bars (a rare treat) and watching DVDs curled up in the over-heated TV room. I was in China and so naturally, all the DVDs available for me to watch were fake. I was 1/2 way through 'The Blind Side' when everything froze and spluttered pitifully. I asked the man behind the desk to help me - his solution was to snap the disk in half and put on GI Joe. Erm - well, okay then! This really annoyed me, especially when the exact same thing happened with film #2 and I fixed it by turning the DVD player off for 15 minutes and starting again. The cheapo DVD player must have overheated, but now the cheapo DVD was in 2 pieces, in the trash. Unimpressed. I spent the next week with my head in racks upon racks of pirate movies trying to locate an un-snapped copy. I found it and also bough "Haatchi; A dog's tale" because neither Nicola nor Chloe would go and see it with me in the cinema, and I refuse to pay full price for it - that's what Wood Green Orange Wednesdays are for! Yes I am aware that in about 14 weeks I am going to start training as a solicitor, with potentially my first seat in the IP department. I can't defend myself - it's blatant hypocrisy.
There are about 3 million things to do in Beijing, and I had roughly 4 days. I spent day 1 with some lovely American girls and we hopped, skipped and jumped from the Temple of Heaven to Tiananmen, to the Forbidden City, Jingshen park & then to the night market to sample some tasty local delicacies. The Temple of Heaven is set in a massive open, green park, and before we even reached the sight seeing bit, we spent a good 40 minutes hanging out with the locals, somewhat in awe of the variety of talent and skill being displayed so casually on a Sunday morning. In lots of outdoor parks in China, you will find exercise equipment which resembles a colourful adult playground. There's equipment a lot like cross trainers, weight pulleys, a big disk you have to spin around with your arms and loads of parallel bars. On some bars the women collect, natter and loosen their hips by swinging their legs back and forth, while on other bars, men, clearly in their 60's & 70's swing around with the vivacity of an 18 year old gymnast. One of the Americans I was with was also a gymnast and she followed suit, equally as impressive, but for the 50 year age gap. My attempt was pitiful and I barely managed to swing my legs over and hang upside down. I always hated gym, and it's no more fun now because I still suck at it. Something else I also suck at is a Chinese game where you kick a disc, a bit like a badminton shuttlecock but with feathers, from one person to the next, arching it in the air. It must be the years of stereotyped sport coaching and my schools netball-only policy, but my reflex was to catch the damn thing, which is not in the rules. Something I was marginally better at, was waving a 10m ribbon attached to a stick around in the sunshine. Not as easy as you might think, so I was pretty chuffed I only mummified myself in it a few times. I should start a comic or something; "Adventures of Stupid While Girl".
The actual Temple itself was glorious, huge and very shiny. I must be reaching the 50+ marker of the number of pagodas I've visited, but this one did stand apart as something special. There was also a helpful exhibition detailing the historic worship rituals of the Emperor which contextualized it into being more than another beautiful pagoda.
After the Temple of Heaven and lunch, we took a taxi down to Tiananmen Square. I studied China and the '89 pro-democracy demonstrations a bit when I was 16. Being a bit of a geek, it felt exciting to visit a place that I had some detailed background knowledge on. This is something that has been lacking from my travel thus far. My history education has been narrowly British & WWII orientated (5 years of Hitler - re-visit that, won't you, Cameron?) & I have felt the absence of any knowledge of Asian history and even of the Vietnam War. I was in Vietnam long enough to fill in some of the gaps, but the beasty war book I did buy was Vietnamese published and hilariously biased and so this might require a bit of library time to level out. The only bits of Chinese history I know about are Maoism, Tiananmen and the Japanese occupation of Manchuria. Maybe this ignorance was a factor in my lack of desire to come to China and my unending surprise when I got here!
Tiananmen Square itself is vast! And the iconic Gate of Heavenly Peace with Mao's unflattering portrait (he was the least attractive of all the big-time communist leaders, don't you think?) is only one tiny end of it. Perhaps this is because of its size, but even though it's very busy, it didn't feel bustling or crowded. Wherever you look there's big open space, which for me at least, drew attention to the uniformed guards & militaristic undertone. It's a poignant place, and an honour to be there for all it represents and the questions that event still demands of China today. To get to the Forbidden City you go under Mao's portrait and through the gate. This enclosed space is teeming with people, to the extent that it was sometimes hard to move. I found my bag unzipped here - a failed attempt by a pickpocket, who rejected my old-looking phone and stole my supply of loo-roll. I was very grateful for the money belt and camera around the neck arrangement, but disproportionately upset about the good quality toilet paper - such things are precious in Asia! We didn't actually go into the Forbidden City - there are some kinds of tourism I abhor more than I am curious about, and audio-guides and cattle-herding are one of them. That evening, around dusk, we climbed to the top of the hill in Jingshn park and looked out over this glorious, vast city. Birds flew around in the fading sunlight, and this same sunlight reflected off the many lakes. Postcard-Picture-Perfect. The Summer Palace will easily require a full day of your visit, and it is worth these precious hours. Again, like most things in China, it is huge! It is also beautiful and absolutely spoils the visitor for pagodas and temples and royal buildings. The highlight of this day involved more climbing, this time to the top of the Temple of Incense. Of all the pagodas I have seen in the last 3 months, this is the one alone that made me stand back in reverence and see the magnitude and importance of this religion.
I spent Halloween in Beijing, and because it is a very quiet, if not non-existent affair here, my celebrations (I was with Americans and so we had to celebrate!) took a on slightly unconventional twist. We decided that it would be appropriate to celebrate by eating scorpions at the night market! I sampled, nervously, scorpion (the little, not the big kind, and minus the stinger) which were still alive until plunged into boiling fat, snake and seahorse. All of my experiments ended well, snake being my favorite and seahorse being a very crunchy, salty experience. I was also offered the chance to eat a tarantula and donkey-penis. I graciously declined.
Day three, which I think was a Monday (but could have been any day really), I climbed the Great Wall of China! I signed up for the 'hiking' trail, being warned by the kind lady at the desk that it was a lot harder than the other alternative. True to ridiculous form I signed up and paid my yuan and the next morning at 8am, found myself scrunched up on a mini-minibus on the way to Jinshanling. All of my hours of trekking and increasingly beasty calf muscles finally came good and I walked it, literally, struggling on only a few uber-steep bits. It was easier than I expected AND I didn't fall over once! What a victory! Even more so if we overlook that this 'hike' was essentially a million stone steps, not exactly what you'd all 'rough terrain'. In the words of that hapless president "it really is a great wall" and it snakes through some breathtaking, mountainous scenery. We stopped about half way along, on a sunny flat spot and had a picnic. I cracked open a beer (Cheers, Tammo!), and sat, on The Great Wall of China. What a feeling. This day was fantastic, and not only because of this mighty check on the 'to-do before I die' list, it was my ONE day of autumn! I've had a glorious, sweaty, extended summer, Beijing city was turning pretty cold, I was traveling further north, ending up in Siberia of all places, and I was starting to feel confused because I'd essentially jump from +30 to -something; from summer, straight into winter. My equilibrium was set right again by 'Great Wall Day' because I got to see hundreds of red orange, golden etc leaves on and falling from the trees, and I could even step on a few and feel that satisfying "crunch" underfoot. Autumn was made all the better this year by it’s brevity and I really relished my one day of it – especially because it was cold and sunny (my favorite weather) and not a drop of British-rain to be seen!
My last day in Beijing I spent running around trying to do everything I hadn’t had time to do yet. This failed epically, but I did dally on down to the silk market where I bartered as though my life depended on it, Vietnamese style, and still paid over the odds for a beautiful silk kimono. I was also accosted by a million marketers jumping out at me from behind pillars of “same same” Prada to offer me more pirated wares. I did buy a purse. It’s a bad fake, but it’s still really nice and I need a good purse (I think – I can’t really remember what I own in my other life). I also bought the most fantastic presents in the history of all travel presents for a few choice friends who might come close to appreciating it. They’re not fake, but about as genuinely “Chinese” as you can get!
I took the overnight train that evening to Ha’erbin. I’d been wanting to visit this city for a while, and a little research informed me that I’d have to get to Russia this way because I no longer had that Mongolian Visa. Annoying and yet, fortuitous. The train was fine, but I was harassed by a smelly drunk for a long time, who kept shouting at me in Chinese. No one would help me and no one spoke any English. I see this event as the turning point for when my traveling got a whole lot harder!
Ha’erbin is a really interesting, bohemian-esq and heavily Russian-influenced city. Because of my dual interest in both China and Russia, I found my stop here to be really fascinating and most enjoyable. It was great because it felt so European, and yet also, so Chinese and the incongruous mix of architectural and cultural influences gives the city an edge and intrigue that really fits together nicely. I spent a whole day in below-freezing cold, trying to organize my itinerary for getting to Russia. It was complicated by the date my visa expired and the coincidence of train timetables and the date on which this would mean I crossed the border. This is super boring and very logistical, so I shall summarize my day of broken communication into – I couldn’t go to Vladivostok (boo) or straight to Irkutsk because I would overstay my visa – by 4 hours, and so my one option, unless I wanted to sell a kidney to pay for the flight to Irkutsk, would be to get a train to Khabaravosk, which is big city #2 on the Train-Siberian route, and famously Russia’s coldest city of over 500,000 people. This is what was eventually booked and paid for (through my chilly red nose).
While I was in Ha’erbin I did manage to get to see the Siberian Tigers – which are magnificent. They are also huge – one paw, I think, is the size of my face! The busses and taxi combination to get to the reserve was complicated and it was cold and no on spoke any English, so I decided to get a taxi (which cost me an extravagant 3GBP). The taxi driver didn’t quite understand the guidebook, and so I sat in the front seat of a Ha’erbin taxi, growling like a tiger making clawing motions with my hands. He understood and roared back, so I roared back at him. We then drove off singing to the Elton John track on the radio (circle of life – appropriate, huh?), me in nasal English, he in something that’s not quite a language, I’m sure. When I got to the reserve I had to be driven around the different areas of the park in a minibus with cages over the windows. That was a bit of a disappointment, as I wanted to walk around, but this way I didn’t have to stare through cages (only the ones on the windows) and got a lot closer to these gorgeous animals, who came, quite unconcernedly, right up to the bus. There were also a few snow tigers, leopards cheetahs and lions, both African and white, at the reserve, and my favorite: black panthers! My black panther jumped up on a branch right in front of where I was standing on a raised, caged platform, and stared right through me with big, round amber eyes. Another ‘species’ that I previously didn’t know existed are called ‘Ligers’. I initially took this for a spelling error, but in actuality, when a male lion mates with a female tiger (or the other way around, I’m not sure) a baby liger is born. This funny looking animal looks much like a lion, with less of a mane and many faded stripes. It’s awfully funny, and cute – but cute in a ‘could eat me alive’ kind of way, which makes me less inclined to laugh at it.
That afternoon I went to the Japanese Germ Warfare Museum, known as unit ‘731’ (google it). It’s on the site of an old prison/research complex, and is where the occupying Japanese during WWII carried out a multitude of ‘germ warfare experiments’ i.e. biological attacks, on Chinese and Korean POWs. Such experiments included plague dissemination; infecting and recording the effects of syphilis; making naked POWs stand outside in the cold (in the winter it hits about -40) to time frostbite reactions; vivisection and the list continues. There’s a very eerie and empty feeling about this place, which is part reconstructed now because the Japanese bombed it (with bombs tested on their own inmates) on their departure to destroy the ‘evidence’. This was partially ineffective and it remains so little known about because the records, which were handed over to the US in exchange for immunity from war crimes prosecution, were covered up. That hollow feeling always shivers through me when I leave places like this. Not to trivialize what I had just experienced, but I’ve never been happier to see a KFC and sit, chicken burger in hand, and be in a normal social environment.
My train to Khabarovsk left the evening of the next day. With time to kill, I walked around all the less touristy parts of the city and along the bank of the river. There was a really great buzz on the streets and walking in the sunshine through all this made me really happy. I happened across a local market, and after the usual trinkets, home wares and unusual food, I came to what must have been the ‘pet market’. I first spotted two beautiful golden Labrador puppies sat on a cage looking timid. They were gorgeous and I cooed over and petted them for as long as I could before their fierce looking owner/retailer shooed me away. Further down the street though, there were, quite literally, hundreds of puppies for sale, some which couldn’t have been more than 2 weeks old, and others quite clearly terrified by the whole ordeal. This made me sad – I don’t think much of Chinese animal welfare. Around the corner, hundreds of goldfish were for sale either in jars or small transparent bags. I care less for goldfish, but it still wasn’t a pretty sight.
Ha’erbin is the first (and only) Chinese city that I’ve been able to orientate myself in. This surprised and pleased me. Along with its fascinating Russian/Jewish/Chinese mix of history, equally intriguing architecture and attitude, what I really loved about Ha’erbin, was sitting in toasty cafes drinking hot chocolate. This was the first time I’d had to spend any real time in below freezing temperatures. These invaluable few days spent adjusting saw me get it wrong quite a lot, with either too many or too few layers, but I think I’ve got it now. I’ve also got the least attractive, but most comfortable and warmest winter wardrobe I’ve ever owned. Lugging the heavy winter layers around Vietnam and China had finally started to pay off; I am here now, and Russia is cold!
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