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Published: October 4th 2009
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So our guide book had told us about a little town called Suzdal, to get there you have to get a bus to Vladimir (3-6 hrs) and then a 1 hr bus to Suzdal. We decided to spend the night in Vladimir as we had sorted out any accommodation or didn't know anything about getting the busses from Vladimir to Suzdal. We had tried to reserve a room on this hotels website, there were not any hostels in Vladimir but this budget hotel called Zayra, which had double private rooms for 20 pounds, but of course, knowing our luck, when we arrived which by this point after our late morning leaving moscow, long bus journey was now about 8pm, there were no rooms left!! Disaster. We had seen a little internet cafe, so we headed back there searched some other hotels, but none were as cheap as this, we ended up getting a room costing 55 pound which was a bit of a blow to the budget! But...it was sooo worth it. It was amazing to have our own clean room, our own bathroom with a nice hot shower and clean bath, we had a TV too 😊 So we wondered
into the main street grabbed some dirty cheap dinner from a burger bar and went back to our nice hotel room, did some washing (in the bath! haha) and watched our tv, it was all in russian of course, but we did find the film 'theres something about mary' dubbed with a russian voiceover, surprisingly we were able to watch it quite well, you manage to block out the the voiceover after a while.
Saturday we had a nice slow stroll back to the bus station through Vladimir, theres not too much too it, a main street with shops and bars, but there was a nice area with this cathedral and as Vladimir is up on a hill you get a pretty good view over looking the surrounding area of pretty much nothing. Our bus to Suzdal was only 1 pound each, bargain! We hadn't booked anywhere to stay in Suzdal, they had 1 hostel which was 15 pound per person per night, and they also had these guest houses you can stay in for 10 pound a night. We decided to head to the hostel and spend 1 night there as the facilities would probably be better, then
spend the 2nd night in the guest house. The hostel was fine, but it was brand new and much of it was unfinished, there common area had nothing in, just a kettle and some pastic chairs, it just felt a bit empty...so so much for the facilities, no internet either. At least it was nice and clean though, and since we were in the middle of nowhere we had the dorm room to oursleves. After settling into our new room, we strolled up along the river to find the guest house for tomorrow, thought we would check it out first and make sure it wasok, and it was fine, really nice actually, wish were staying there both nights, it was much more cosier. It was basically some Russian ladies house, and she had three rooms where people could stay and her own little place out the back. So we tried to explain we would come back tomorrow and she was fine. We spent the rest of the afternoon wondering aorund Suzdal, its like a small village, all the houses are really old wooden houses, really pretty, its on a bit of a hill so some nice views and a pretty
river. Most of Suzdal is wooden houses & churches. Our guide book gave us a bit of history on some of the places. There are loads of locals on the street selling things like apples, potatoes, gherkins, tomatoes etc . We found this little cafe bar where we decided tostop for a drink, this was quite difficult as we were trying to check to the prices of different drinks, the lady gave us an English menu but it was only food, so we were asking her how much different things were and ordered a beer for Ste for about 90p and a vodka 1 pound and coke 80p for me...thought it was all well until she brough out Ste's beer, my vodka, and an expresso!! So random, have no idea how we managed to confuse coke and an expresso, but eventually we got some coke and all was happy. We had pretty much seen all of Suzdal and there didn't seem to be much to do at night and our hostel was down a really dark lane by the river which we didn't fancy walking back in the dark so we headed back to our hostel around 8pm and had
an early night.
Sunday we swapped rooms in the morning and moved into our cosy guest house. We walked a bit of a mission trying (unsuccessfully) to find a tourist complex that offered different activities, think it must have been for summer only. We walked back to the main market square and ate some lunch overlooking the river which was really pretty. Although there was this man lying on the floor completely passed out next to us, with an empty bottle of vodka next to him and a wet patch underneath him!! We went back to our little cafe bar from yesterday and tried to figure out the russian drinks menu where I managed to find a vodka (large shot) and lemondade for 60p!!! 😊 So we stayed here for the afternoon having a few drinks and went back to our guest where we made jacket potatoes and beans!! Yummy!! Bought some potatoes of the street sellers, bargain about 6/7 potatoes for 40p. We had another early night playing cards and reading. Good to catch up on some sleep.
The Monday we left late morning to get the bus back to Vladimir where we had a 2 day
2 night long train booked to take us to Novosibirsk. We went via the supermarket where we stocked up on instant mash, noodles, apples, bread for our long journey ahead of us.
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Jennifer
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You were right: that last photo correctly sums up the vodka mania in Russia. Hopefully, Mongolia will have mercy on us, and we don't get addicted to sour milk!! We'll meet up with you guys in Mongolia, ciao! Jen and Antoine