Heaven on Earth
Woah there everyone, sorry for the long delay in posting. As you know, I'm in Siberia and it may come as a shock to you that this isn't the most wired place on earth.
Before I go into the details of the past 5 days I'd like to thank everyone that has been putting comments up on here. I really appreciate that people read my posts and take the time to give me some feedback. I'd like to be able to e-mail you all back, but the way that blogspot has their system set up I can't respond privately. So, from now on I'd appreciate if you could include your e-mail accounts in your comments - that way I can send you a note.
I think my last post (way back there) was from Yekaterinburg which I have since found out was not actually in Siberia. Yekaterinburg is technically in the Ural Mountain region of Russian, which is only a political definition. Only once I got to Irkutsk (current location) did I arrive in Siberia proper.
After my last post I spent another long afternoon in Yekaterinburg before boarding the train again towards Irkutsk at around 11 pm Moscow Time. The entire time we were in Yekaterinburg our group was (unfortunately) working on Moscow Time, which is two hours behind local time. The reason is that the trains run on Moscow Time and we didnt want to miss it. I personally thought that our tour group would be intelligent enough to subtract, but others thought otherwise.
During the long afternoon I ran into a couple of Dutch guys who were travelling the trans-mongolian by themselves. They were really thrilled to meet someone who spoke a language that they also spoke (Dutch is obviously their first language, but their English was flawless). We spent about an hour talking about our travel plans before I ventured off to find some supplies for the train. More about them later in the post.
The train journey from Yekaterinbug to Irkutsk takes approximately 52 hours. Since we boarded late at night, this meant that we would arrive in Irkutsk after three nights and two whole days. Now stay with me while I explain this next bit - Yekaterinburg is 2 hours ahead of Moscow Time (MT), but we had been working on Moscow Time while there. Irkutsk is 5 hours ahead of MT (MT+5) and we are working on local time while here. This means that after two days on the train, we had to set our watches ahead by 5 hours, making the trans-siberian railway the only train on which you can get jetlagged. This was only compounded by the train journey itself. The general rules for 52 hours on the train is that you eat when you're hungry, sleep when you're tired, drink when you're bored (just kidding), and play more card games than you though imaginable.
The train journey itself was pretty enjoyable. For this leg of it my cabin consisted of myself, Steve (my british roommate for the trip) and the two Belgian guys on our tour. I think Laziz (our Uzbek tour leader) just puts all of the young guys together so that we won't keep up the other travellers. Probably a good strategy when we were yelled at by the train attendant for being noisy at 3 am (we were on Moscow Time, it was only 10 pm!).
Each morning we were given a boxed breakfast that had some instant coffee and a wafer type cookie that was pretty tasty in addition to some other stuff I didn't really fancy. A hot lunch was also given to us (usually about an hour after breakfast) which was pretty small. The rest of the time I lived on instant mashed potatoes that I made with boiling hot water available from the Samovar in our wagon. Into this I cut up sausage (un-refigerated. big mistake. put the details together yourself.) and chowed down. I also had some bread and chocolate which were nice accompaniaments to my gourmet meal. At the station we usually bought beer for around $0.60 a bottle!
Also in our wagon (different cabin) were the two Dutch guys that I met! They quickly befriended everyone in our group and pretty soon we had packed upwards of 8 people into our cabin (code-named the Blue Oyster Bar after a british comedy sketch about a gay bar). After a while we had to start putting people into the top bunk just to have space.
Needless to say we didn't sleep very much on the train with the constant lurching and noise. When we arrived in Irkutsk and had to adjust our watches ahead, we were all pretty much in shambles. Right from the train station we boarded a mini-bus bound for Listvyanaka, a small fishing village on Lake Baikal (the pearl of Siberia). Baikal is the deepest lake on earth and home to 1/5 of the worlds fresh water.
Tired and hungry we arrived in Listvyanka and were dropped off at our homestays. This is where the whole heaven on earth things starts. Imagine yourself in my state - tired, hungry, and unbathed for three days. Imagine you've been eating nothing but airline type food and instant mashed potatoes for a few days.
Now imagine yourself arriving at a house that has breakfast laid out for you (with home-made food), beds that don't shake, a shower, and a sauna, not to mention a Russian woman named Rita to take care of you. Steve and I agreed that given our groggy state this all seemed like more of a dream than anything. After breakfast, we all took a four hour nap before being awoken for a lunch of borscht (homemade, and delicious). That afternoon we walked into the village which was filled with fishing boats and locals suntanning on the rocky beaches (when winter is 9 months long you take what you can get). After dinner we all passed out again until morning when we were again woken for breakfast.
That day Steve, Pat and I decided to forgoe the guided hike and go off on our own with my guidebook. Rita packed us lunches and we set off. After a long walk down the road and a pretty tough 1 hour hike up one of the big hills around town we were rewarded with a spectacular view of the Angara river, the village of Listvyanka and the lake. At the top of the hill were a million little ribbons tied to tree branches. We learned this is a Russian tradition meant to bring good luck.
We ate our lunches and walked back to our house for a sauna and shower, followed by a nap until dinner time (rough life). We all agreed that we could have stayed in Listvyanka for approximately the rest of our lives. The food that Rita made was absolutely awesome. Everything was homemade (save for a few cookies) and very traditional including homemade jam from Siberian fruits. In addition, everything was absolutely laiden with calories which makes sense given the extreme environment.
Unfortunately, this morning we had to keep moving and get ourselves back to Irkutsk for the night before boarding the train for Mongolia tomorrow afternoon. While there'll be staying with some locals in a Ger Camp (yurt accomodation) in the Terelj national park, which I'm really looking forward to.
I'll probably be taking another hiatus from the we when I'm in Mongolia, but I promise another good post once I get back.
from Irkutsk,
Andrew
Before I go into the details of the past 5 days I'd like to thank everyone that has been putting comments up on here. I really appreciate that people read my posts and take the time to give me some feedback. I'd like to be able to e-mail you all back, but the way that blogspot has their system set up I can't respond privately. So, from now on I'd appreciate if you could include your e-mail accounts in your comments - that way I can send you a note.
I think my last post (way back there) was from Yekaterinburg which I have since found out was not actually in Siberia. Yekaterinburg is technically in the Ural Mountain region of Russian, which is only a political definition. Only once I got to Irkutsk (current location) did I arrive in Siberia proper.
After my last post I spent another long afternoon in Yekaterinburg before boarding the train again towards Irkutsk at around 11 pm Moscow Time. The entire time we were in Yekaterinburg our group was (unfortunately) working on Moscow Time, which is two hours behind local time. The reason is that the trains run on Moscow Time and we didnt want to miss it. I personally thought that our tour group would be intelligent enough to subtract, but others thought otherwise.
During the long afternoon I ran into a couple of Dutch guys who were travelling the trans-mongolian by themselves. They were really thrilled to meet someone who spoke a language that they also spoke (Dutch is obviously their first language, but their English was flawless). We spent about an hour talking about our travel plans before I ventured off to find some supplies for the train. More about them later in the post.
The train journey from Yekaterinbug to Irkutsk takes approximately 52 hours. Since we boarded late at night, this meant that we would arrive in Irkutsk after three nights and two whole days. Now stay with me while I explain this next bit - Yekaterinburg is 2 hours ahead of Moscow Time (MT), but we had been working on Moscow Time while there. Irkutsk is 5 hours ahead of MT (MT+5) and we are working on local time while here. This means that after two days on the train, we had to set our watches ahead by 5 hours, making the trans-siberian railway the only train on which you can get jetlagged. This was only compounded by the train journey itself. The general rules for 52 hours on the train is that you eat when you're hungry, sleep when you're tired, drink when you're bored (just kidding), and play more card games than you though imaginable.
The train journey itself was pretty enjoyable. For this leg of it my cabin consisted of myself, Steve (my british roommate for the trip) and the two Belgian guys on our tour. I think Laziz (our Uzbek tour leader) just puts all of the young guys together so that we won't keep up the other travellers. Probably a good strategy when we were yelled at by the train attendant for being noisy at 3 am (we were on Moscow Time, it was only 10 pm!).
Each morning we were given a boxed breakfast that had some instant coffee and a wafer type cookie that was pretty tasty in addition to some other stuff I didn't really fancy. A hot lunch was also given to us (usually about an hour after breakfast) which was pretty small. The rest of the time I lived on instant mashed potatoes that I made with boiling hot water available from the Samovar in our wagon. Into this I cut up sausage (un-refigerated. big mistake. put the details together yourself.) and chowed down. I also had some bread and chocolate which were nice accompaniaments to my gourmet meal. At the station we usually bought beer for around $0.60 a bottle!
Also in our wagon (different cabin) were the two Dutch guys that I met! They quickly befriended everyone in our group and pretty soon we had packed upwards of 8 people into our cabin (code-named the Blue Oyster Bar after a british comedy sketch about a gay bar). After a while we had to start putting people into the top bunk just to have space.
Needless to say we didn't sleep very much on the train with the constant lurching and noise. When we arrived in Irkutsk and had to adjust our watches ahead, we were all pretty much in shambles. Right from the train station we boarded a mini-bus bound for Listvyanaka, a small fishing village on Lake Baikal (the pearl of Siberia). Baikal is the deepest lake on earth and home to 1/5 of the worlds fresh water.
Tired and hungry we arrived in Listvyanka and were dropped off at our homestays. This is where the whole heaven on earth things starts. Imagine yourself in my state - tired, hungry, and unbathed for three days. Imagine you've been eating nothing but airline type food and instant mashed potatoes for a few days.
Now imagine yourself arriving at a house that has breakfast laid out for you (with home-made food), beds that don't shake, a shower, and a sauna, not to mention a Russian woman named Rita to take care of you. Steve and I agreed that given our groggy state this all seemed like more of a dream than anything. After breakfast, we all took a four hour nap before being awoken for a lunch of borscht (homemade, and delicious). That afternoon we walked into the village which was filled with fishing boats and locals suntanning on the rocky beaches (when winter is 9 months long you take what you can get). After dinner we all passed out again until morning when we were again woken for breakfast.
That day Steve, Pat and I decided to forgoe the guided hike and go off on our own with my guidebook. Rita packed us lunches and we set off. After a long walk down the road and a pretty tough 1 hour hike up one of the big hills around town we were rewarded with a spectacular view of the Angara river, the village of Listvyanka and the lake. At the top of the hill were a million little ribbons tied to tree branches. We learned this is a Russian tradition meant to bring good luck.
We ate our lunches and walked back to our house for a sauna and shower, followed by a nap until dinner time (rough life). We all agreed that we could have stayed in Listvyanka for approximately the rest of our lives. The food that Rita made was absolutely awesome. Everything was homemade (save for a few cookies) and very traditional including homemade jam from Siberian fruits. In addition, everything was absolutely laiden with calories which makes sense given the extreme environment.
Unfortunately, this morning we had to keep moving and get ourselves back to Irkutsk for the night before boarding the train for Mongolia tomorrow afternoon. While there'll be staying with some locals in a Ger Camp (yurt accomodation) in the Terelj national park, which I'm really looking forward to.
I'll probably be taking another hiatus from the we when I'm in Mongolia, but I promise another good post once I get back.
from Irkutsk,
Andrew
posted by Andrew at
1:18 AM
2 Comments:
What an experience you're having! One of the greatest joys of having children is seeing the world thru their eyes. And I've found that that doesn't end once they're (almost) grown up! I've been enjoying your posts so much. Can't wait to read more.
By
Mom, at 5:19 PM
Hey, Andrew,
Love the blogs, especially the food parts. I love borscht, even from a local deli, so the real thing must be great.
What's a "yurt accommodation"?
Can't wait to see your pictures!
By
ChristineP, at 10:23 PM
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