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Published: July 30th 2011
So it's been about a week since I wrote the first one of these blogs. At that time it was early am, and the rather clinical surroundings of Heathrows Terminal 1 were being numbed by the post-performance high of the flight over. What a contrast to this?! Its noon and I'm sitting in the picnic area of our hotel in Listvyanka, sun gently warming my back and the frigid lake waters of Siberia's Lake Baikal hugging its pebbled shore no more than 10metres to my left. How do you like them apples ?! We have travelled a huge expanse of land in under a week, currently it's 12:27 here, 07:27 in Moscow and 04:27 in Dublin. Corkionian time ? Who knows?
On arrival in Moscow in late afternoon ( does anyone know who the wolf is in that recently realised film with ex-mean girl Amanda Siegfried ? The plane landed before it was revealed), We were met by our driver holding our names on a board. So cool , first time that's happened to me. Transferred to our (rather) plush hotel, plush as in air conditioned and ensuite twin room.
Immediate concerns were shower & toilet. At that time sleeping rough for a night and 2 days without a shower was considered categorical need for one. New baselines would yet be adopted by all. Next motivating instinct would be food.
At this point I should elaborate I had one other motivation to 6 weeks travelling. In additional to the usual meet new people, see new places & have new experiences of different cultures yada yada yada, I wanted to lose weight. A year of intensive MRCP study and unprecedented economic growth for Uncle Petes pizzeria ( cheers guys , please don't tell the landlord I gave you guys the building codes ) hadn't been kind to my previous washboard core. Everyone who knows me knows that , if med school hadn't gotten in the way I would be gracing the cover of Billabongs latest campaign titled " look at me now, b!tches". So the rules were set. 2 meals a day. Low carb. Lots of fruit & veg ( unless there is an obvious threat of gastro) & 1 hour of yoga/surf workout a night. Those rules didn't apply to free meals, included meals, beer, vodka and weekdays. So it was balanced, obviously.
The Russian alphabet has 36 characters in it's alphabet, throw into the mix they occasionally use numbers in there, add some disdain for foreigners who don't speak Russian, 3oz of an untranslated Metro system and a non concordant colour route map. Stir thoroughly and at the last moment add Dee and Dofo. Et voilà, one has an interesting subway journey. On we get, headed (hopefully) for Arbat St, where according to the info book from SJ was a good place to hang out & grub down. To be fair we negotiated it pretty well, we just abandoned all language skills and went for symbol recognition. The Russian Subway is spectacular. It's a highly decorated interior with sculptures and pillars decorating it's core with sequential lamps along the escalators to the surface. No advertising to be found. I was truly in awe, although as we would later find out the Metro in St. Petersburg is the worlds most beautiful. We stop at a highly recommended cafeteria style place called Moo Moo and after a debacle whereby rubbings ones now emaciated stomach and pointing at what you want to eat is bearly sufficient indication of choice we do, eventually eat. The beer and wine were good. The food? I really really must stop taking advice from SJ.
Deirdre had with all due respect and an admirable silent dedication, organised our trans Siberian rail journey. Constant e-mails with the company organising excursions, transfers and itinarys. It was only fair that I take lead for the SE Asia leg. My research ( an hour briskly reading LP SE Asia on a shoestring) lead me to choose northern Laos as a good start point, it made sense as we would be generally be heading in a southerly direction to Vietnams Hoi Chi Min to catch our flight home, 3 weeks after our rail journey would terminate in Beijing. The main thing that needed booking was how to get our butts from Beijing to Laos. Flying really was the only option given the distance involved and lack of rail network to the trans Sib standards. I had ( I would later rue this decision) looked up flights before departing Ireland. They seemed reasonably priced and had more than enough options with regards to timetables so I left them unbooked so as to have more time later to " tweak with prices and connections" closer to the time in Russia. Dee didn't even have her visa at this stage and I had just re booked our second set of outward flights to Moscow, so this decision ( I defend it to this day) was prudent at the time.
Internet access in Russia is terrible, despite the hotel having wi-fi the flights simply would not book. All the search engines kept crashing, the service was just too slow. A Skype conversation with Maura back home lead to more expensive options. Screw it, we were exhausted. We'll book them later.
The next day we were due to board the train at 14:45 but had a walking tour of Moscow first. We met a red haired ( we had a pretty good laugh at that ) Moscovite named Iv. Tour was pretty good , we briskly walked around Moscow for about 3 hours in the morning sunshine. We saw all the usual sights, Red square, various statues dedicated to important poets, scientists, political leaders and the Kremlin. Iv was young, entertaining and had great english. He was upset when we told him we mixed coke with our vodka, even more so when we told him it was Smirnoff. We duly purchased a recommended bottle. How "Johnny - Irish" is that ? In Moscow a city with innumerable sights and a truly fascinating history and a conversation between a Russian and 2 Irish finds it's common ground with, so how do you get sloshed? Multiple times in the tour Ivan would say the original was knocked down in the soviet time, but this copy is pretty good. I think it's great that if a building of significant historical meaning was lost then they rebuilt a replica. It does say something about the value of history in the ideals of their government and indeed it's people.
We finally board the trans-Siberian train at 14:30 on Saturday 23rd July. A truly exciting time. The morning sunshine had now evolved into full-on sweltering dry heat, men were topless and sweating and the girls in short summer dresses. Me and Dee,ahem, "people watched" happily before departure. We were travelling second class, which gave us a 4 berth cabin on the carriage. We were bunking with (whom Dee would later gather as Alec and Alexis, or as I would differentiate them as) the fat and thin Russian man sleeping in my room.
Whether this was the heat, dehydration, intoxication from BO,the new vodka, exhaustion from our lives in Ireland or the 2 lads simply drugged us I'm not sure but the first 2 days on the train are no more than a hazy blissful nap. I think we slept about 12 hours each day, I slept significantly more up to 15. Dee would occasionally wake me up for housekeeping duties like assessing GCS and going to urinate. It was during a visit to the dining carriage for a dinner of 2 cans of coke on day 2 that we met 2 Danish lads A & L. Through them we met a group ( including 2 Irish girls) travelling on a vodka-train tour. We spent the next 2 nights in their berth basically getting slammed. They have some Danish drink that tastes surprisingly like jaëger, ergo I'm happy. Arrival in Irkutsk was Wednesday morning, so we had 4 nights & 4.5 days on board the first leg.
Trans-Siberian train life is different to the auld Iarnróid Eirinn to Dublin. Imagine spending almost an entire week on a sofa in a room the size of your toilet with the smell of a skip mixed with pot noodle, BO and vodka. Now share that room with 3 other people. Everyday tasks become a carefully planned out MI6-like missions. On every carriage there are approx 12 berths, 2 toilets ( that are locked whilst stopped) and a short (in stature and temper) fat Russian woman who is essentially a guardian of the carriage called a Provodnitsas. Like golem in LOTR. She never smiles. She never sleeps. In every carriage there is also a supply of boiling hot water. Eating must consist pretty much of non perishable space food. The dining cart is unforgivably priced ( even by western standards). On day 3 we purchased 2 portions of chips and we literally got 20 macdonald-like french fries. One look at Dee and I tipped my portion into her plate. My food sacrifice had worked. The beast had been appeased. Our diet for 4 days consisted of vodka, pepsi, pot noodle (staple of all meals) and beer. One food item (term loosely applied) I openly refused to ingest was introduced by the Danish lads. They would take the left over noodle juice ( cloudy tea coloured fluid) and add in powered smash to make potato mash. I tried but I'll starve thanks.
To Dee's credit, I don't know of any other girl that would have tolerated the rudimentary conditions on board coupled with the hygiene standards so gracefully.
I'm comfortable in my own filth. There I said it. I came from a nice family and my mother, God love her she did raise me well and I am of the opinion you can be too clean. All those yummy mummy types spraying alcohol gel on everything from the telephone to door handles really pisses me off. It's called an immune system, if Darwin taught us anything it's use it or lose it. I intend to use my immune system. Daily. I got at least 30 minutes of skittish laughter from reading Lonely Planets Trans Siberian guide & our own info packs sections of hygiene on board the train. Clearly the original editions had spawned bags of complaint letters from disgruntled travellers whining about the lack of warning of such "basic facilities as a hot shower". Later edited editions were forced to include guides with step by step instructions for setting up showers in the carriage toilets, with detailed instructions of ratios of boiling water to cold in plastic bags where the underside was perforated with little holes to simulate a herbal essences tropical mist ad. Seriously ? You do realise your travelling through Siberia and Mongolia here. These places aren't like home. Is that not why you came? To experience how people live elsewhere? I fully realise that most locals may not even take the trans-sib and indeed if they were, would not be travelling in second class but that just reaffirms my point. I probable fell into LP's category of taking an APC shower. Arm-pits & crotch with baby wipes and can of LYNX. Few statements annoys me more than hearing people b!tch about "at home we always do this or have this" whilst abroad. You just missed the entire point of travelling. To broaden ones horizon. Now I had better state that I do shower, I shower daily , sometimes even twice but for a few days whilst in Siberia my flesh won't rot off me. Plus how amazing you do feel after that first shower in a few days. In summation as I know that I'm ranting, one will live perfectly adequately without a shower for a few days.
That notwithstanding, it was thoroughly entertaining watching Dee descend from make-up and perfectly groomed hair to PJ bottoms sipping vodka for the last 2 days.
We disembarked the train (with new Irish & Danish friends) on Wednesday morning in Irkutsk. Where we were immediately transferred 70km to our hotel on lake Baikal. We got some breakfast but no chance to shower or clean up and off we were lead by our tour guide T, to check out ( amongst a church and a junk yard) the Liminological ( limiology is the study of lakes) museum. Now personally my nerd came out and I found this truly fascinating. There are so many interesting facts about Lake Baikal including it's the worlds largest lake and 75% of the species there are not found anywhere else in the world etc. Dee was looking forward to a proper shower and chance to freshen up ( to be fair the night before on board the train had been particularly broken as there was a berth party on next door, our Russian room mates left at 1am and they were replace by a Mongolian dad and his little daughter at 3 am ). Add in the immediate transfer and ones interest in the transparency of the waters of the lake at various times of the year are probably not that easily roused. The museum had a small aquarium whereby one could see most of the fish you would otherwise meet on the menu but they also houses 2 nerpa (local seals) rescued as cubs. These creatures have 8 inches of fat to insulate against the icy waters of the lake. Dee sombrely suggested if if found them that interesting why not jump in and become nerpa no 3. Oh thats lovely I muttered.
We had 3 days to spend here before transfer back to Irkutsk to get back on board.
Day 2 was a day I had been looking forward to since arrival in Moscow. A trek in the Siberian forest. 10 am departure and I was at the departure point like a kid at Christmas. Bragging rights of a Siberian trek ? Holler ! The Brady bunch arrives. Except they were Spanish. We eventually divided into 2 groups to accommodate the different "paces". Later dee learned that one of them had knee surgery 6 months ago and was not supposed to be doing anything more than light housework. Sandals aside how clueless are people. I brought a torch, 4L of water, a compass, hiking boots , layers and this bird didn't bring her cruciate ligament. The trek was far from taxing but enjoyable never the less. Even managed to dip toes in lake Baikal ( apparently if you go knee deep it adds 5 years to your life). I had foolishly read this on the train and was like what's the issue sure I'll launch myself in and get 30. No no it was dam cold (5 degrees c) according to S our guide.
That evening 1 niggling job remained, we were still without flights after arriving in Beijing. 2 places with Internet access were recommended. The first the local post office. There are 2 pcs immediate to the right which require a card as payment. After an initial ordeal to get the card, clearly 4 staff and 2 customers is overun. It wouldn't work, I asked the lady for some help. The assistant was a young Russian lady. Imagine the souless, starving personal assistance to Meryl Streep in the devil wears prada. She full on tutted, tossed her eyes to heaven and lifted her stuck frame out of her chair as if it was lead. Then we couldn't switch the keyboard to English characters , that required my second born ( first is promised to the embassy in Dublin). Finally the page wouldn't load. Dee made a point of going to the desk to thank her and wish the entire office a great day. If sarcasm was freshwater, lake dee had just overtaken lake Baikal. The other Internet store, we had been warned off by out Spanish Brady bunch trek buddies. Last hope was this hotel. On dee's phone on the 9th attempt of various combinations of layovers, dates, airlines and starsigns tensions were running high. Success !! I love you ebookers! Calls for vodka shots?
Our final day was spent reading, drinking and sunbathing. Hard work? We thought so. A nice dinner was planned, I ate like a nerpa, dee drank like a true Russia and we didn't have enough money to pay. Awkward. I must have read the all Russian napkin 100 times over whilst dee trekked back home and got more money.
Lake Baikal gave Dee 5 years , me? About 3.
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