Beijing!

Our final part of the transsiberian railway took us from Ulaanbaatar (Mongolia) to Beijing. We were on the nicest train so far - fancy bedding, clean bathrooms, HANDWASH, tv screens (that didn't work) and music (that lasted about 10 minutes). 

The most exciting part of this journey was the border crossing. Apparently the size of China's railway is different to that of Russia and Mongolia so rather than make us get off and change trains, the Chinese have decided it's more efficient to change the wheels on the train! This involved separating each carriage, jacking them up, changing the wheels, and then lowering and reconnecting them. The whole process took about an hour with massive hammer knocks throwing you back and forth in the carriage if you're not prepared for it! I was caught unawares by one and nearly fell off my top bunk! Somehow Andy slept all the way through it...

 

We arrived in Beijing happy with the knowledge that we did not have to spend any more time on a train (at least not too soon!). Being the enlightened cultured group of travellers that we are, we obviously headed straight to one of the many mcdonalds' that were right outside the train station!

After a lovely hot shower and some rest we all tried to meet up for dinner at Tiananmen Square. I say 'tried' because as soon as we got there at the designated time, something seemed to be happening there and outside the Forbidden City (we couldn't see what) and there were massive crowds everywhere! Once that was over, soldiers started ordering people off the square very quickly and we figured we didn't really want to mess with them! Thankfully we ran into one of our group who led us to the rest and we went for a lovely dinner of Peking duck. This night became known as 'The Night We Ate All The Ducks in Beijing' - between 9 of us we polished off 7 ducks and 21 beers! The waiters thought we were hilarious!

The next day we decided to explore some of Beijing including the Forbidden City and a lovely park behind it. The Forbidden City was absolutely huge and stunning all the way around. You could definitely imagine an emperor living there! The park behind it had a small temple at the top of a hill which had fantastic views of the whole of Beijing. It was interesting to see the majesty of the Forbidden City against the backdrop of modern Beijing with its skyscrapers.

The following day was set aside for a visit to the Great Wall. We decided to go to Jinshaling which is further away than the normal tourist area but also much quieter as not as well restored. We thought we would try and do it independently instead of an expensive tour group so we caught a bus to a town that happened to be about halfway there and had been told we could get a minibus from there to the wall. We were expecting to be dropped off at a big bus depot like the one we had left and that the next part would be fairly obvious - what actually happened is we were dropped off at a station at the side of a busy road and a load of drivers started offering us their 'best price' to drive us to the wall! The first guy thought an acceptable price would be the equivalent of £64 and his friend openly said to us that we were English so would have lots of money! Needless to say we were not excited by that 'offer' but were also a bit stuck on what an alternative could be. Thankfully a nice man eventually let us know that the bus stop we were looking for was round the corner with a bus to a similar area to where we were going. As we were walking towards it, we were accosted by a female driver who wanted to offer her 'best price' - £13 one way or £35 return! As I pointed out to her that did not make financial sense! However, knowing that this was going to be our only realistic option of getting to where we wanted to go (and more importantly getting back!), I tried out my haggling skills that I had been honing slowly in Beijing and got the return price down to £27! 

The name 'Great Wall of China' does not do the wall justice. It was absolutely spectacular. You got onto the wall at the top of the mountains and could see it for miles around snaking up and down the mountain peaks. As we were in the less touristy part, there were times when we could have an uninterrupted view for ages. Parts of the wall had been restored but other parts were pretty much as they had been originally. There was one bit that was in the process of being restored, so we had to detour around the side of the mountain! There is no way health and safety approved that!

All in all Beijing was a great experience and a nice introduction to the next 2 months we'll be spending in Asia! I think we would definitely go back there to any bits that we missed  and explore more of China too. 

Inside Genghis Khan's horse and Ulaanbaatar

From Irkutsk we had to cross the border into Mongolia. Border crossings on the transsiberian are extremely long taking up to 7 hours sometimes. We stopped at a tiny no name russian town. (It did have a name but to emphasise it's smallness and remoteness I'm not going to bother looking it up.) The town had a few supermarkets selling principally dried meat, vodka and snickers bars, this trip has taught me that everywhere sells snickers bars. We were looking for fresh fruit or vegetables and were out of luck. 

We then walked to the far end of the town, this did not take long and photographed some of the desolation around and the animals roaming through the town. Back at the train we had a few more hours to wait before getting our passports back and the train leaving. 

We arrived in Mongolia at 5am or some other ungodly hour. We were driven directly to a ger camp in the countryside around ulaanbaatar. They had hot showers followed by hot breakfasts so we were all in a great, but tired moods.

I'd like to say that we were in an authentic ger camp in a sea of Mongolian steppe, however there were a very large number of very similar ger camps dotted all along the valley. That's not to say it wasn't nice though it was just clearly very touristy.

The landscape was awesome, lightly grassed semi desert with massive rock formations punching through the valley's ridges. I did what i usually do in such situations and set about climbing as many as possible. 

We then visited a rock formation that looked like a turtle, and climbed it. Inside a crack in the formation was a table shaped rock covered with money which i assumed was a good luck or wishing thing. There was a tight crack that i could just about ferret my way through to get the other side of the rock.

We then visited a Mongolian woman living in a ger and sampled traditional foods. The food was almost entirely comprised of various combinations of cheese, butter and oil deep fried. Mostly quite bland but one type the ruled out cheese was extremely strong. We also tried airag which is fermented mares' milk, tastes like alcoholic yogurt drink and was quite nice. We also tried milk vodka which wasn't as strong as real bodka but wasn't bad. The woman's ger had a refrigerator, television and old fashioned dressing table which was a bit jarring in a ger. 

Our next activities were archery and dressing up in traditional mongolian clothes. The bow was like the kind of thing english heritage sell in their gift shops, genghis khan would not have conquered greatest land empire ever using it. The traditional clothes were good though.

Our final activity for the day was horse riding. Similarly genghis khan would not have used these horses in battle but that was probably a good thing for us.

We learned to play knuckles after dinner which involves doing sheep knuckles on a table at which point they can land in four different ways. You then flick knuckles that have landed in a similar way into each other with your right hand. If you have managed to hit the one into the other without touching any others you then pick one of them up with your left hand and get to keep it. Sounds simple, but it is pretty fun but takes a very long time with 15 players, we have up after a few hours.

The next day we visited a 40m high stainless steel statue of Genghis khan which kind of speaks for itself. There was a museum under his horse showcasing arrowheads, swords and stirrups which you can only see so much of. The real fun is climbing up inside his horse where you can stand on his horse's head and take Genghis khan selfies.

Then we left to ulaanbaatar.

Our hotel looked nice but they had obviously scrimped on the final touches with banisters that rocked madly when touched lightly, cracked wash basins, no hand soap and no hot water. But they did have wifi and signs exorting us not to flood the bathroom floor.

We visited a buddhist temple which seemed kind of unassuming from the outside but had a massive golden buddha inside it which was overwhelming. At the temple they had rotating drums containing religious texts that you spin as you walk around which i hadnt seen before.

We then went to a mongolian culture show with some cool instruments, singing and gross contortionism which was entertaining.

Then home to bed annnnd back on the train bright and early.

Irkutsk and Lake Baikal

Our tour group arrived in irkutsk early on the 20th September. We all wanted a shower and a good meal after four days on the train from Moscow. The bathrooms on the Russian trains were very basic, cramped and only operational whilst the train was moving. 

From irkutsk we took a bus transfer to a town on the shores of lake Baikal. Lake baikal is enormous, 395 miles long at its longest, 49 miles long at its widest and just over a mile deep at its deepest. It contains 20% of the world's unfrozen fresh water. The lake is beautiful up close.

The town that we stayed in was a typical Russian town of timber houses with a scattering of ugly (maybe soviet era) housing blocks. Our accommodation was basic with jerry rigged showers with hot water from a cracked (and leaking) electric hot water cylinder in rooms in newly built log cabins. It was paradise after the train however when you cranked up the oil heaters and tip toes around the leaking water.

On the train the power points were located either high up by the toilet doors (gross and requiring balancing your phone hanging from the charger cable and praying), in our cabins (not working at all), by the samovar (water heater) (prone to being flooded by over eager customers wanting water) or only outside the second class cabins (slow to charge). So, we had power in our rooms and wifi to talk to all at home which was great.

We went to the market and ate freshly caught and cooked fish with bread which was a welcome change to pirozhki. When i first tried pirozhki they were amazing, they are hot bread dumplings stuffed with meat or vegetables and are approximately thirty times cheaper than the dining car and just as filling. They are quite horrible after a few days of eating nothing but them and noodles however.

From the market we had a jaunt around the town visiting a supermarket for beer, vodka and snickers bars. A museum of metal sculptures and defunct technology and cars. Then a small timber russian orthodox church that contained a crucifix sculpture of Christ atop a skull and crossbones, these are apparently Adam's bones but at the time they suggested some kind of piracy in Jesus' past. 

Some log cabins had ornate carved windows. These looked pretty nice set against the depressingly small seal enclosures for shows involving lake baikal's native fresh water seals. We passed on setting those shows. 

We then had a Russian style sauna, this comprises various amounts of sitting in a hot room, throwing cold water over each other, drinking tea and whipping each other with birch leaves. The birch leaves don't actually hurt no matter how hard someone tries to hit you. This process is quite relaxing actually and again a nice change from the train.

That night we ate dinner in the accommodation's common room and enjoyed getting drunk together. When people think of the transsiberian railway they tend to think of massive drunkenness and partying as depicted in films like 2008's Transsiberian.

This is only partly the case. Our first few days we drank vodka and beer and become moderately drunk before, with no warning being yelled at by an old Russian man at 7pm. Now he could easily have asked us to be quiet with gestures, but instead yelled at the top of his voice about us not understanding him and being British. Kind of puts the brakes on a relaxed night of drinking. 

Also drinking isn't strictly allowed apparently. Despite selling beer on the train the police will walk up and down making stern faces and shaking their fingers at those caught drinking. Then ten minutes later they will do the same again even after being completely ignored the first time. On platforms women pushing baby carriages of hot food offered us unseen alcohol, on purchase the alcohol was produced from a hidden compartments beneath the food.

To cut a digression short, we enjoyed getting very drink and very loud. Arm wrestling and midnight swimming in lake Baikal soon followed.

The next morning we got some obligatory shots of us on lake Baikal and went on a boat ride to another part of the lake. This area was one of the oldest parts of the transsiberian line and apparently now only takes dedicated tourist trains. I think this is where the beautiful shots of the train running right next to lake Baikal are taken from. When we passed lake Baikal it was in the middle of the night so we couldn't see anything at all. But anyway we got back on the train. Here are some more gratuitous photos of some water and some rocks: