Ulan Ude III

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Today we visited Ivolgin Datsan, a budhist monastery some 30 km from Ulan Ude. There are few temples and budhist monks. Yes, budhist. It is some community of indigenous "buryats" who are leaving in this region, basically the mongol people. It was nice. First time we saw something like that.

We met also 3 people from Czech rep. . 2 ladies, 1 man. All of them about 70 years old and also travelling by trains through Russia ! And also by "marshrutkas", which are the minibuses. You just wave your hand, and if there is some place left, the driver will stop. (it is for some 10 people). Cheap, very fast, very frequent. No timetables needed.

We read about the war in Georgia. There is some higher police presence in the streets. Even in the restaurant, today we already saw one militia guy standing there, while yesterday there was none.

Yesterday when we arrive early morning to the hotel, we went to bed. A hard knocking on the door woke us up. A man and a woman, showing us some badge, were asking us for the passports and a paper that was issued to us on the border (and where we should collect stamps from every places where we spend some 3 business days). They checked it, asked some questions, we told them that we spent most of the time on Olchon island. All was fine, they left.

One curiosity that I forgot to mention earlier. We noticed in Irkutsk alreadt, that some cars have the steering wheel on the right side, and some of them on the left side (and driving is on the right side). It is most of the japanese cars that have the steering wheel on the right side (but not all of them). So it seems that they import them directly from Japan. And they make more than 50 % of the cars on the streets. The rest is the old LADAs, or the new version of Volgas etc.

In our "hotel california", actually Hotel Zolotoy Kolos, there is a sign in russian: Dear guests, please do not throw out the rubbish from the windows, there is a bin in every room.
😊)

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Comments

[Aleksandra]

;)
hey ahoy!!!! Finally we heard from us!!! I can see u enjoy yourselves! Glad to hear u r ok!! I don't want to say that I'm jealous... but I AM!!!! Anyway will follow your trip!!! Good luck with everything!! Stay in touch! x x x

[Dennis]

KGB
Roman, I had to pull some strings within KGB to make sure you don't get arrested. Apparently your name came up on their list of suspected Slovakian terrorists with ties to Al-Qaeda. I explained that it was a mistake and that the last 2 years you spent in Ireland and not in Taliban training camps near Kabul. Btw, you should not moderate the comments.