Blogs from Ulan-Ude, Siberia, Russia, Europe
October 20th 2011
Siberia. It’s one of those places that wakes up long before the sun has broken the horizon. The hazard of dwelling at a parallel this far north, is how drastic the length of day shortens as winter encroaches. I’m used to it, but the Australians argue amongst themselves over what time of day it is. It is almost half eight, but still pitch dark. They grumble. Then without warning someone switches on the sun, and the day officially starts. Our tour leader is a woman from Israel who doesn't speak Russian or Mongolian, or Australian for that matter. She is strict and abrupt and highly offended by us most of the time. When excessively questioned by The Australians about her past, she progressively gets more evasive. I've determined she must be a secret agent hiding out ... read more
August 28th 2011
Proud of my decision to fare to Beijing all the way on bike I left the heavenly island of Olkhon. The way back did not seem so awful as going there. I did 135 kilometer and slept 40 km from Bayandai. In the morning I was woken up by chattering and dangling buckets. Camping in Russia in August brings along a great risk of colliding with mushroom and berry hunters. I made it to Bayandai fairly easy, and was kind of looking forward to the straight path back to Irkutsk. But a fierce face wind wanted it different. I could barely make it to Irkutsk as my bike would rather go backwards than forwards, but a text from beautiful Vaselina inviting me to sleep at her place certainly made my bones work as hard as they ... read more
August 6th 2010
6th August 2010 Russia- 1st Stop; Ulan Ude The train stopped at the Mongolian / Russian boarder at 7.45am and again we were asked to fill out copious amounts of paperwork. Our lovely Russian lady attendant gestured that the train would be at the station for the next 4 hours- so we got off for another adventure walk. We walked along the road for a while and checked out the supermarket. All of the buildings around were old Siberian wooden structures and were quaint in a run down sort of way. The supermarket had a long counter spanning the whole shop and everything was on the shelves behind, so you had to ask / point at what you needed. We stocked up on some interesting looking sausage meat and cheese for sandwiches….. and there is always ... read more
July 23rd 2010
My next destination was a place I'd never thought I'd visit on this trip _ Russia. Home to almost 150 million people, the largest country in the world, and arguably the coldest during the winter months. I left UB and took an international bus to the border, which was fairly easy to get across. Border security only asked me something along the lines of "Do you speak Russian?" (probably cuz of a my last name) to which I responded "nyet!" and then let me through. They did have drug sniffing dogs all over. I entered into southern Siberia, in a region known as Buryatia, not surprisingly green and sunny for this time of year, with similar scenery to that of Canada. The bus was driving along when suddenly one of the tires exploded, we lost control ... read more
Ulan Ude: getting to know the locals
Published: November 18th 2010Europe » Russia » Siberia » Ulan-Ude
July 18th 2010
Ulan Ude wasn't somewhere I'd always wanted to visit. In fact I probably wouldn't have chosen to stop here but all the guide books say its one of the 3 must-see place on the Trans-Siberian route so I thought I better stop and find out why. Good decision. From the train Ulan Ude seems like an enormous metropolis, its by far the biggest city we have seen since leaving Vladivostok and comes complete with tower blocks and industry – quite a shock after all the little wooden villages. But once we are down in the centre there's a really relaxed, friendly, small town feels to the place. Its a pleasant place to wander round with plenty to see: the old wooden houses in the back streets with wonderfully ornate fretwork windows, the grand mansions and Opera ... read more
July 16th 2010
The biggest challenge when catching a train in Russian is getting to the station on time!! Russia spans 9 time zones but irrespective of where you are the railway runs on Moscow time. So when our ticket says the train departs Vladivostok at 13:20 that means we need to be at the station at 20:20 local time. This is going to make it interesting as we go across the time zones on our way to Moscow - unlike planes there is no little screen telling us what the local time is. At least with 2 of us we can have one watch on Moscow time and the other on local time, although, there's nothing to tells us when we have crossed into a new time zone. Anyway we manage to get to the station on time ... read more
July 7th 2010
The nightmare began on 5th July when I caught the 11.30am train for Ulan-Ude. There were some things about this trip that were better than expected and some that were definately not. First of all, the toilet myth was not correct. Though they were tiny, at least you could go there without having to work yourself up to it. In fact, I think they must have been cleaned and bins emptied quite regularly. I only saw two westerners on the train; they did speak English but I don't think it was their first language and they didn't seem too interested in chatting. Even the Russians seemed very stand-offish amonst themselves. In my compartment were a young couple and a young lady with a little boy. They didn't even seem to speak amongst themselves. So I found ... read more
July 7th 2010
Ulan-Ude is hot! I think it must be about 30 degrees! I was so happy to get off that train and went straight to the place where I had to pick up my pre-booked bus tickets for UB. After a bit of stuffing around I found the correct office and OMG the tickets were there! That was a big stress off my mind as I had visions of people saying they knew nothing of my booking (wouldn't be the first time). Then the task of finding my homestay. This is not an easy feat when its stinking hot and you are lugging a backpack AND the directions are a bit off. Nevertheless I finally found it and the lady there was very kind though she didn't speak any English. After a couple of minutes of showing ... read more
October 10th 2009
Hello again, now from Beijing. Apparently this site is not blocked, but facebook is.... But ok, this posting should have been done in Ulaanbaatar (UB) - Mongolia, but this didn't happen due to a lack of time. So this posting is just a copy-paste from a e-mail draft that lingered in Agi's mail box for ~2 weeks.... Enjoy. Ulaan Ude - Ulaanbaatar After 13 hours on the bus we arrived to UB yesterday at local time 7.30 pm. The trip was OK except for the border crossing which took 3.5 hours. I love the European Union, just so easy. Here the procedure is the following: at Russian border exit customs guy enters the bus and checks all passports for Russian visas. After this the bus pulls to the customs building where everybody has to leave the ... read more
The Mammouth Task of Getting Out of Russia and into Mongolia
Published: August 7th 2009Europe » Russia » Siberia » Ulan-Ude
July 25th 2009
Well it had arrived the final few hours of being in Russia, or so we thought. It was the day of our journey to Mongolia. It was an early start after a late night and a very hot night. So at 8am we (us and the French dudes) headed off into the dust to catch the number 4 bus into town. With back packs on our laps and the driver insisting we can fit one more person in at each stop we finally made it to the bus station of Ulan Ude. The French guys wonderfully sorted out a bus to the boarder which took us 3 hours. Thinking we had paid to cross the border we were slightly confused when the driver started getting our bags off the bus when we got there. It turned ... read more
