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Our Russian friends
'Wanka' is third from the left. On the train to Ulan Ude, our young Russian cabin mate takes one look at us before taking two bottles of six star brandy out of his bag. We hope he's going to share it with us, but instead he shouts "Wanka" and sets off down the corridor. We fall about laughing, but later find out that this is the name of one of his friends in another cabin who he has gone to drink with.
Later he returns, a little drunk but a lot more friendly. His friends also join us. They turn out to be working on the GPS systems in Russia. They speak some basic English and we have a laugh reading out random Russian phrases from the guidebook that one would never actually have to use. They share their wine with us (the brandy seems to have been dealt with) and after a while we are all bit merry. In the morning there are some disapproving looks from other passengers, especially from the army officier in the cabin next door.
We are met at the station by our driver who takes us to our homestay. The three of us are all in the same place
this time, an apartment in the city owned by a Buryat lady called Valeria. She does not have a normal job, as she is putting travellers all the time and has bought the apartment for the purpose. She welcomes us with breakfast and plenty of tea (the tea drinking in Russia increases as you get nearer China). We sleep until 11am when the local guide arrives to take us on our first tour.
We drive about an hour out of Ulan Ude to a village called Atsagatsky. On the way we notice that the scenery is now completely different. The cold harsh landscape of Siberia has been replaced by rolling steppe, which is to be expected as we are now close to Mongolia. The village has a buddhist Datsan (monastery) close by, which we are visiting. Upon arriving at the monastery, the guide describes how the soviets stamped down on religion and knocked down many monasteries, although a few survived and many of those that were destroyed have now been rebuilt. We all get a real shock upon entering the temple, as a very realistic lifesize wax model of the Dalai Lama is on display at the front. After
monastery, we visit the museum next door. This contains many archives about buddhism in the region.
Next, we drive to a Buryat village were we are given a warm welcome and a home cooked lunch in one of the village houses. The friendly host serves us some of the local spirit and invites us to try on traditional Buryat costumes, which of course we do. She then announces we are going to play a traditional game and produces a bag of bones which turn out to be sheep's ankle bones. Due to the different appearance of the bone depending on what side it sits, there are several games that can be played and she teaches us two of them.
We return to our homestay and after more sleep Valeria prepares dinner, at which I make a faux pas by spilling a dish of jam all over myself, much to the amusement of Matt and Nicola. Later, we go to a local bar, where the locals are intrigued by us. Again, they spend some time working us out, then a table of students invites us to join them. We do and are soon sharing a bottle of vodka. Matt
agrees to go to a nightclub with them, Nic and I return home. Matt returns at 4am, breaking Valeria's previous early morning guest return record of 3am.
Later that morning, the local guide returns to take us to a much larger monastery. This is the Ivolginsky Datsan, the biggest monastery in the region. We are in luck as today there is a large ceremony taking place (bear with me, this gets a bit strange). It turns out that years ago there was a Lama (senior monk) who decided to undergo a process of self-mummification. Although he died 76 years ago, his body has still not decomposed. Six times a year, his body is put on display in the main temple and the buddhists in the region flock to the monastery to pay their respects. We join the procession of pilgrims making their way around the site (you always walk around a temple anti-clockwise) and eventually make our way into the temple itself. There are hundreds of people filing past the body, which is displayed in a refrigerated unit. It is an odd feeling to be part of this and after quite some time jostling through the crowd we too
Has anyone got any bleach?
The facilities at the Russia-Mongolia border leave much to be desired. file past the Lama. He is fully clothed in monk's robes, but his body is in remarkably good condition. Our guide tells us that when the monks change his clothes, they can still feel warmth in his hands and that it can be proved that his hair is still growing very, very slowly.
After this bizarre experience, we return to Ulan Ude and spend some time walking round the city centre. To our disappointment, the Centre of Eastern Medicine is closed, we assume because all the staff are the temple for the ceremony. Nic is gutted about this as she has been looking forward to seeing it ever since reading about it in the trip brochure.
After our final night in the homestay, we board an early morning train to Ulaanbaatar (capital of Mongolia), which will take a full day. At the border, the train is stationary for 7 hours as the Russians check documents and cabins thoroughly. After this tedium, the Mongolians are very quick and let us through with the minimum of formalities. On first impressions, Mongolia looks a poor country (this is very much the case anyway) and children approach the train to beg for
food. We give them what we can before the train carries on. We are glad to have reached our second country and are looking forward to experiencing one of the least visited countries on earth.
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Teresa
non-member comment
Do we envy you two
Only just managed to see all your photos - loved the beard. Can't wait to hear all about it, from what I see don't ever think you will want to return but please do. Take care