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Published: October 12th 2007
(P) Arrived in Irkutsk (Siberia), having been transported across 5 time zones on our 3-day train journey from Moscow. Said our farewells to Anya & Tatiana, our trusty Russian carriage ‘mothers’ who made us feel very much at homewith their smiles, kind words (well, they sounded kind anyway), vacuuming our cabins 3 times a day (!) and ushering us to bed in the early hours…
On solid ground, the temperature gauge showing 0 degrees gave us a clue that this really was
Siberia, but fortunately after a bus ride to our chalet on the shores of
Lake Baikal the sun was shining over the glistening waters and we hiked (long needed after our sedentary journey) to a viewpoint and boated across a tiny bit of this vast lake, learning what really was so special about this place, anyway.
* It’s bigger than Belgium
* World’s deepest lake (1.6km deep in parts)
* 636km long, 60km wide
* Formed by rifting tectonic plates, it will eventually become the earth’s fifth ocean, splitting the Asian continent in two.
* Contains nearly one fifth of the world’s fresh, unfrozen water, enough to supply the planet’s needs for 40 years on
Soviet shop
Lake Baikalits own.
* Freezes over in winter (well, this is Siberia!) and cars can drive across!
The scenery reminded us of our holiday in Slovenia in 2005 (Lake Bohinj, with tall trees hugging the shores) and also Bolivia (snow capped mountains on the far side of the lake, like the view from Isla del Sol (Island of the Sun) on Lake Titicaca).
The town was pretty quiet, with one road skirting the lake, which we walked along for a long while without seeming to get anywhere. Eventually reached a walking path into the hills, but I opted to get the ski lift with Nick in the end, due to having a stinking cold and generally feeling sorry for myself! Later on, I acted as camerawoman for the fit and healthy of our group who jumped alternately into the sauna then the lake just outside its door. An invigorating experience by all accounts - the water is 15 degrees at best.
See Mr. Rowlands’ video “Nick reporting from Lake Baikal”…
Another “amusement” was a huge grizzly bear (well, it certainly looked like one to me) in a cage, which one could pay to have their photo taken with.
We’ve noticed in Russia that unfortunately animals are often treated as a kind of toy and sometimes chained or caged up unnecessarily. When in St. Petersburg and Moscow, we saw men charging people for photos of themselves with their chained up baby bears and a monkey dressed in baby clothes - a bit uncomfortable to witness…
The Soviet-style shop that is pictured is at the bottom of a block of flats and one which we visited to buy some water. When we got there, it said "back in 15 mins". We waited, and when the owner showed up, they pointed out that it was now lunch time and the shop would be closed for a further hour before anyone could buy anything!
We dined on fresh. local
omul fish, a species found nowhere else. Delish!
Just about to join the group for a drink in the evening when we had a bit of an incident with our room key...okay, we shut it in the room. No trouble you say, but the owner’s policy of holding spares was to put every key she had (minus labels) together in a big box. We must have had to choose from a
Our attendant stokes up the samovar
The big kettle that provided boiling water on tap hundred keys, and it had everyone in fits while we tried to find the right one. Perhaps you had to be there…
Back to Irkutsk, before an evening train to Outer Mongolia. Irkutsk has been Siberia's trading centre, sending furs to Mongolia, Tibet and China and receiving silk and tea. A peaceful coup against Tsar Nicolas I in December 1825 was staged by a group of 'gentlemen' rebels but failed - and their punishment was to be sent into exile here. Their loyal families followed them and settled.
As we took a stroll along the riverside to
Boglavyensky Cathedral (Russian Orthodox) and where I lit a pretty honeycomb-like candle (the candle of choice in most Eastern Orthodox churches), our guide told us that Siberia covers the majority of Russia east from the Ural Mountains (about 1000km east of Moscow). So from West to East, Russia is interestingly referred to as: 1. European Russia; 2. Central Siberia; 3. Eastern Siberia and 4. Far-Eastern Siberia!
We hopped back onto the train, having stocked up for a further 2-nighter which saw us cross the border from Russia to Mongolia. This border crossing is notoriously laborious, ours taking a staggering 8
hours. Our train cabins were slightly more aged than the last, however in compensation they were decked out with matching gold tassled bed covers, curtains and tablecloth (see photo)! Tasteful.
WE'RE IN OUTER MONGOLIA! A bit of geography: Outer Mongolia is the Mongolia of today, and Inner Mongolia is originally the Southern section of Mongolia but it was annexed by the Manchus in 1635, then became an integral part of China in 1911.
We had expected not much at all of Ulaanbaatar (UB), Mongolia's capital, but we were pleasantly surprised, not least because many people smiled on a regular basis (a pleasant contract to Russia where incidentally, in its "Tips for Blending in on the Train", our guide book states "Don't smile at strangers - only smile if something amuses you or if you see someone you know"!). We also encountered more English speakers in the 3 days in UB than during our whole time in Russia!
UB is centred along 'Peace Street' which we got to know quite well. We headed to the hilly outskirts of the city to see the
Zaisan Memorial, a circular mural built by the Russians and depicting prominent events in
Mongolia's history of friendship with Russia, including Mongolia's declaration of independence in 1921 and the joint space expedition in 1981 of a Mongolian and Russian cosmonaut.
In the main
Suukbaatar Square, the Congress building was guarded by a very wide statue of the enthroned Chinggis (more commonly known to us as Ghengis) Khan, Mongolia's greatest hero. There is a big Russian influence here, not least the use of Cyrillic alphabet, but I also noticed a lot of Chinese characters on signs, and the old temple buildings had ornately curved roofs with big bells outside like in Japanese temples, making me feel like we'd truly 'hit' Asia!
In a temple complex, many visitors spun the prayer wheels for protection and we saw young Buddhist monks chanting in their classrooms, their tones regularly punctuated by a rolling cymbal and a clash of the drums (I couldn't help but think it may partly be to wake those who had inadvertently nodded off).
A cultural show gave us a taster of Mongolian performing arts, most notably renditions by the horse-head fiddle (not made with a horse's head, it's sound is poetically described as 'a wild horse neighing') and throat singing (singing
Paula and the engine
At the Russian-Mongolian border one high note and one low note at the same time). Definitely not to be missed!
The Ger Camp We headed for one night out to the countryside to stay in a traditional
ger (felt tent). These are still inhabited by about 30%!o(MISSING)f the population, who dismantle them as the seasons change to move on to a new area that will give the best weather conditions for gathering crops and housing the family's cattle and horses (these same animals are used to transport the
ger materials across land).
We expected the
ger night to be the most basic and cold night of our trip and were stocked up to the nines with warm layers in trepidation. However, we were surprised that the tent camp had many mod cons such as clean bathrooms, bedside tables and a coffee table, and a fire which would be topped up during the night should we have wished it! On our journey there, one tent had two huge satellite dishes outside! The setting was stunning, a vast landscape of green hills and nothing more.
I opted for horse riding on the afternoon, a group of us headed deeper into the
unknown and were welcomed by a local family who furnished us with traditional delicacies such as home-made yoghurt from their cows' milk, fried bread (yum) and a tipple of
airag - fermented mare's milk (not so yum) before we got in the saddle. Having only been on a horse once before I was a tad nervous but the leisurely pace of the horses strolling together through the woods and across streams was very soothing, so much so that us in the slow group felt like we wanted to get a bit of speed up. When our horses eventually got the message, my trot then turned into a gallop - wo-hoah! Not that fast!! I really enjoyed it. After dinner and a swig of Chinggis beer, our guide taught us some table games using not dice but...yes, you've guessed it, sheeps' anklebones!
Back to the big smoke the following day, we said our goodbyes and headed south now for the final Trans-Mongolian stint southwards to Beijing.
(N) Also in UB we visited a large golden Buddha, next to which was a large prayer bell. I gave it a big
DONG!, but then felt I'd overstepped the mark when a
Mural detail
The Soviets built the memorial and appear to glorify their role family came in next and only gave it a gentle dong. My feelings improved, however, when the next Mongolian came and also gave it a right good tonking.
Drivers in the city are definitely the worst I have seen anywhere. They are impatient, constantly tooting, ignore the traffic lights, nobody has right-of-way, and they don't hesitate to forge a third lane when they is clearly only enough room for two, screeching to a halt when the road runs out!
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