The Purple Penguin

This trip just keeps getting better and better! Up early on the Thursday (I think it was Thursday – it’s been very easy to lose track of the days), threw our stuff into the back seat of a blue Russian van, climbed in behind the stuff, and we were off! We also very quickly learned that our driver didn’t speak English! Well, he spoke more English than we speak Mongolian but that’s not saying much! Out of Ulan Bator on paved roads, through an arch and checkpoint, then a left turn onto what we’d be riding along for the rest of the time – a dirt track. Mongolian roads seem to just be where everyone decides to drive – so dirt tracks, some times rocky or muddy, but tracks all the same. We spent the time bouncing around the back of a blue Russian van! We probably could have stopped more often to see stuff, but being British we just looked out the windows. And what did we see? We’ve tried to think of how to describe it, but it just can’t be done. Forget pictures of Mongolia – the real thing is much much much more amazing! The scenery changes quite a lot for what you may think of as grassland, and we went through several types of scenery – grassland, mountain, different sort of mountain, hills, lakes – and all of it just amazing.

We also managed to see some of the wildlife, but don’t have a clue what we actually saw as we don’t have any books with us! So we decided, in true British tradition, to name the things ourselves. In no particular order we saw: Mongolian grass and ger (yurt) sparrows (well, they looked like tree and house sparrows but as there are no trees or houses . . .), Mongolian Steppe eagles (huge things and beautiful), Mongolian cattle egret (grey, black, and white birds that looked like they didn’t fly), various Mongolian finch birds, Mongolian hoopee, Mongolian furry critters – well, let’s be a bit more specific, Mongolian groundhogy thing, Mongolian weasely thing, Mongolian foxy thing, and Mongolian rodenty thing. We also saw horses, cattle, camels, sheep, goats. Up close and personal even. Like riding. At least we had to ride a horse and camel – just round the yard. Some of the other things we did: ate mutton soup with noodles (watched the noodles being made); watched a camel being sheared; played shepardherd to a lost lamb (decided I was it’s mother and I couldn’t get it to stop following me!); slept in two different gers and met two different groups of Mongolians (never did figure out the relationships); milked a camel (Joe got out of doing that one); watched sheep and goats being milked; helped round up lambs/kids (Joe got to do that and let one get by); went to an amazing shrine/temple hidden in the hills; saw some wonderful scenery; changed two tires (one on the first day which was pretty straight forward – flat off and spare on – and the second the second day – funny that – which involved taking the tire off the rim and replacing the inner tube); and bounced around the back of a blue Russian van trying to get pictures that will never do the place justice.

We now have our tickets to Beijing – deluxe first class (gee) – and we leave tomorrow morning. So we have seen nothing of Ulan Bator – we’re pretty tired and need to get packed up as we leave at 7am tomorrow morning. Oh well. We plan to go straight through Beijing – only stopping long enough to get a ticket to Shanghai. We’ve met several people doing our trip the other way and that’s what they’ve done (in Beijing long enough to get tickets to UB!) and it looks like it’s no trouble. Japan is still allowing flights from China, including from Beijing, and our ferry is still running – so we’re off again tomorrow! Probably no update until we are in Shanghai, hopefully Tuesday!

Posting from Outer Mongolia! We made it to Mongolia after a couple of days on a train. Have now run into our first contact with Sars prevention – all the border control/customs/immigration people were wearing masks and our train was sprayed with something nasty and disinfective smelling. People in Ulan Bator are wearing masks, espcially in public places. So we’ve taken to wearing ours now. Still planning to maintain our travel plans, but will probably just go straight through Beijing.

We are in Ulan Bator which our guide book says ‘Mongolia has, on average, 283 sunny days each year.’ Just guess what’s it’s doing right now. Yep. Absolutely pouring it down. And snow out in the mountains. I think we’ve brought this stupid cloud with us from London!

A note about our blog – we have now made this public, so if you lose the URL you should now be able to search on the Blogger site and find us. Of course, if you’re reading this now this little piece of information is of no use and if you aren’t reading it cause you lost our URL it’s no use at all! But there you are.

The train journey was a bit more interesting between Irkutsk and Ulan Bator. The scenery changed completely and kept changing; though we missed our last look at Lake Baikal. Went by that late at night as we were on the very very very very slow train. Even when it was actually moving it wasn’t doing much of it. A bit more like Railtrack! We were also in a kupe compartment (four bunks rather than just two) but were only in with one Russian woman. She didn’t speak any English and we speak no Russian, but we managed to communicate fine! We also met a Dutch couple on the train who were travelling the same way. They’d flown to Moscow though and were flying out of Ulan Bator to Tokyo. As they hadn’t planned to go to Tokyo they borrowed our guide book to see what they would see! So the trip was much more interesting.

The border was even more interesting – took hours. We went into the station and all got out for a stretch. Joe wandered off in search of a bank to get rid of the roubles we had left. Our carriage attendant told us all to get back on the train, but Joe was still missing. The Dutch couple went a bit hysterical thinking we were leaving Joe behind – I knew we’d be at the station a while yet but was worried the train would be moved to where Joe either wouldn’t find it or wouldn’t be able to get back on. So we were looking out the windows for him and getting the carriage attendant to re-open the door. And here came Joe, sauntering along, humming and looking around. Dum de dum – all the time in the world. (sigh) It turned out that we were merely shunted out of the station back towards Irkutsk, then shunted back in, then shunted back towards Irkutsk . . . about four or five times. Then we were shunted to a little siding just beyond the station and our little carriage was left all on it’s own. For five hours. So everyone got out and went shopping, walking whatever. In the rain. I read Tolstoy. Joe found the bank and changed the roubles. He also found a nifty little market and a little food shop where the attendant was adding purchases up on a abacus then putting the amount into a till.

Finally we got shunted a bit more, then attached to another train and the border control started. That was the easy bit. We went over the border – barbed wire, tanks, and amazing scenery – beautiful! And on to the first station in Mongolia, about 20km from the border. Customs barely looked at us, but went through every single bag that every single Mongolian had. And caught a bunch of smugglers. That took another four or five hours! But at last we were on our way – slowly but on our way. And arrived here at 6 in the morning. Had to sit in the station waiting for everything to open, then had an adventurous ride on a Mongolian bus to the centre. Found a nice place to stay and are off to the wilds of Mongolia tomorrow morning early! Going to stay with nomadic families in gers and hopefully see some wild life! So won’t be able to update this until we are back on Saturday – hopefully will be able to update before we are off again early Sunday morning.

Thanks for the e-mails. Postmaster seems to be running a bit slow so I haven’t been able to answer any, but we are reading them!

An update from an Internet cafe in Irkutsk – with loads to say! The train ride was good – we have pictures of trees, train stations, trees, train carriage, trees, trains, trees and maybe a few pictures of trees! It was surprising how little the landscape changed once we were outside of Moscow. It was mainly taiga with some marsh and stayed that way. Joe was disappointed with the Urals as they are quite small and not Alp like at all. They are more like the Smoky Mountains in the eastern US. We travelled first class which was a new experience. We had a little cabin to ourselves, in fact for quite a bit of the trip we had the carriage to ourselves! We were the only ones in the carriage travelling all the way from Moscow to Irkutsk; other people got on and off at various stations. Our meals were brought to us and we were generally looked after, but weren’t allowed to go exploring around the train. The one time we did go exploring one of our carriage attendants caught us and was a bit cross. So that was the end of the exploration of the Trans-Siberian train! We did get out at stations and walk – each area/station had their own speciality. So we started with people selling glass and china, then knitwear, then fur, onto smoked fish, and then veg and bread. The attendants all knew what to get off and buy. We didn’t get much as we got meals on the train, but Joe tried the caviar bread (yuck, but he seemed to like it) and we had ice cream at one stop.

We arrived a bit early in Irkutsk – all the way accross Siberia, four days, and our train is early. Maybe Railtrack should get some lessons! So we were standing on the platform looking around a bit lost at 3 in the morning, but Sergey (our guide) turned up right on time and whisked us out of the station, through the taxi touts and into a waiting car. We’re staying with a local family in a little house on the outskirts of town. Our host does work with Greenpeace locally and so it was arranged through the office. It’s a nice little place and it’s great staying with a family and seeing how they live. We have been well fed as well. But our first morning it was a cup of tea and off to sleep – we were too wound up about missing our stop to get any sleep on the train.

We were up at 9 and got a shower! What a luxery. I’d managed to wash on the train (we had hot water) but that was by filling the sink with water and pouring it over me with my mug. It was wonderful to get under an actual shower and feel clean. Then we were off around Irkutsk. The first day was just walking around the town – several times. We went to the train station, which is across the river Angara from the town, and arranged our tickets to Ulan Bator – which was an adventure in itself – then across the river and along the Angara. It was a beautiful day, very sunny, and a holiday (Victory Day) so everyone was out walking along the river or in the city centre enjoying the holiday and sun. We sat in the centre for a bit watching people go by and generally had a lovely day seeing the city.

The next day, yesterday, we headed out for Lake Baikal. Beautiful. Very short time there, so we have to come back and spend a few days actually at the lake. The diving should be wonderful. We did dip our hands in (5 extra years of life according to legend). We also walked a bit along the shore and up the cliff for a view over the lake. Got hit by squally rain but otherwise it was nice. On the way back to Irkutsk we stopped at the open air museum, which is where several types of Siberian wooden buildings have been brought and rebuilt or reconstructed. Had lunch there – smoked omul bought at the lake, stuffed bread, blinis, vodka and even Lake Baikal water. So a very interesting day.

Speaking of food – since we’ve arrived in Irkutsk we have been very well fed. We get breakfast at the host house and the table is loaded with food – we’ve had buckwheat, omlette, and rice cereal and those always served with cheese, sausage (more like what we would think of as hot dogs), bread, cream, boiled eggs, sweets. We have also tried or been fed dumplings (more like stuffed pasta, but steamed) with sour cream, blinis, omul caviar, loads of salads with mainly cabbage, beetroot, carrot, cucumber and tomato, all sorts of breads – generally wonderful food.

Today we have been ‘doing’ museums – just two. The Regional Museum and one of the Decemberists houses – the other was closed for repair. So an interesting day for me, boring for Joe.

We are off again tomorrow evening around 8.30pm heading for Ulan Bator. We’ll be in UB until 18 May and hope to get out of the city on a trek – possibly off to the Gobi desert! Sergey has been in the Gobi so we’re getting pointers. We have had a wonderful time here – our host family and guide have been more than wonderful and we have enjoyed being here. Just have to come back to spend more time at the Lake! Hopefully we can update when we get to UB!

So we are in Moscow in the Greenpeace office after two good days. Highlights: being met at the train station by a woman waving a Greenpeace calendar; getting a tour of Moscow by car and seeing the view of the city from the highest point; walking through Red Square; seeing the Kremlin in the rain; going to the Bolshoi Theatre and seeing Don Quitoxe. We’ve had lovely food, vodka, kvass and met some wonderful people. I can say ‘thank you’ in Russian now and that is about the total of my Russian. Poor Joe couldn’t get on-line to do the updates but did type his bits:

Day 1 : This is the first day of our trip leaving the house at 6.30 ish on the first of May leaving the anarchists behind to start our own kind of insanity hop the tube and down to Waterloo station. After a sit and wait for the brussel train to be called, every thing is fine until we start boarding and the dead people are on the moving walkway and thay aren’t going to walk and they’re going to stand two abreast and chat. Make the train find the seats and not too much fuss until I go to get some tea and coffe: immediately agent 78 is alerted probably named after his age and IQ. He cunningly manages a blocking manouver that Schumacher would have been proud of, and holds the pole position all the way to the buffet car; then with a strock of qenius orders evey thing thay have not got. Get the tea and coffe, back to the seat find its a tour of dead poeple, as two are missing presummed still getting to their seats. At Brussels we make quick get away as the dead poeple are still hooking up there god knows what (seriously one of the people have a medical thing on wheels). A quick panine and water then off to the thalys – the fast train to Koln. Not much to say really apart fron the poor train gaurd had to announce everything in French, German, Dutch and English, which means that you are in the station before he finished, and the English was always last. About 10 minutes before we got to Koln he started his spiel, at which point a lady jumped up and was off, coat bags and to the door camping in front of it. The train stops she hits the button jumps out the door which then shuts behind her. Evey one else gets out on the other side; when we left she was still trying to get back on the train so she could get to the platform! A stop for some pre Moscow trip shopping and some German train station food which was ok (I had potatos, root veg and liver and onions, Kathleen had the sausage and mustard. Up to plaform three and a wait for the sleeper. It arives a very Russion looking guard looks at our tickets and we are now in a 2 by 1 m cabin till Moscow. So here I type and the poor gaurd stick his head round the corner and speaks and wonders off we have not a clue what he said. Kathleen has a laughing fit (you probably have to be there :). So that it for today over to the speel checker (kathleen )

Spell checker here. It’s been a good trip except for the big black cloud that has followed us from home. And the fact that I am travelling with a total nerd who has to post a report from the train! At least he’s a cute nerd. The laughing fit was due to the totally matter-of-fact manner the guard poked his head into our ‘room’ and made the statement and the look of total bewilderment on Joe’s face which was mirrored on mine! It has been a good day and I look forward to arriving in Moscow – especially as there is no shower on the train.

Day 2 : This started at about 3 AM; we crossed the border to Poland, a quick swip of the passports by the Polish border guards and a where are you going and we we’re through, if a bit tired. Got up about 8 ish not sleeping really but not too bad. 9 o’clock we stop in Warsaw for an hour and get a quick trip out and up and down the platform. Having fun with the Russian conductor who speaks no English, but got some coffee and biscuits for breakfast 🙂 The scenery has been quite nice. The most obvious difference has been the worker in the fields hand sowing and ploughing by horse; the buildings are tall and high piched roofs. It took about 10 hours to cross Poland and arrive at Belarus about 1 pm. This looks like a real border. Swiped out of Poland and then shunted across to Belarus passing the army barricks and guards. As far as we can make out we have been processed by Belarus and Russian immigration so may be no more three am wake up we hope 🙂 It took about 3 hours to change the wheels of our carriage, as the Russains use a railtrack 3.5 inches wider then Europe. Before we went into the shed we had a load of street sellers jump on passing through the carriage selling champaign, vodka, beer and salad veg and news papers. Into the shed with all the people still in the carriage, the carriages are separated out then lined up and jacked up, the wheels are unhooked and moved out of the way, new ones are put in place and the carriage lowered down, the carriages are put back together and then we leave the shed and back to the station, where we waited till 5 30 before carrying on. I have put another hour on the watch as I think the time zone has changed? Off into sunny Belarus full of trees, marsh, and the odd factory. Everyone seems to be sitting outside chatting, smoking, drinking, or all over the above. Very little else to say so far, only sparse mobile phone signals, so haven’t been able to try an upload yet. The one in Germany finally got through but would not accept my password. humm. Over to the spell checker, but battery is running thin so we see

HA! Battery ran out before I got a chance to check it so it’s already day 3 . . .

Day 3 : The battery’s on charge so here we go. After putting the laptop to bed we prepared for the next day, packing and sorting, laid down and watched the world (well Belarus) go by and the sun set, passing a classic Edward Hopper (editor: that painter that did Nighthawks – we can’t seem to agree on the name) scene of this waiting room station in sunset with sodium glow on a man in a suit sitting with his paper, only the inside was lit and it had orange walls ceiling to half way then red to the floor. The sunset took a long time. Finally pulled into Minsk station (?) and stopped so we pulled the blinds and to sleep, the train trundeled on. Must have slept some. At 7.30 ish got up, got some tea and coffe, and had a fine breakfast of pickled gerkins, to finish them up. We packed away the beds so had seats, and watched Moscow roll in. The small shacks and sheds gave way to closer and bigger buildings, the bigger houses to tenament blocks, the blocks to roads and stores, and all finally to city life as we now expect to find anywhere only the words have changed. We pull in on time to a line of porters and taxi drivers, ignoring them started looking for Irina. Then coming up the platform was a woman with a greenpeace calander – that had to be her 🙂 Out of the station, a quick picture of our mobile hotel for the past few days, through the station a quick look up to see a painted ceiling of George and the dragon, though to a car park and putting our bags in the car a tour of the city. Point here point there and this park and that statue, Moscow in 10 minutes and only one ticket. To the hotel, up to the room, a quick wash, and out. Changed some money and went to a My-My (possibly Russian for cow ??). The menu had English subtitles as we are now on our own. The food tasted good even for fast food. Then a long strole across the river around Gorky park, though the art market, across the river again, through Red square and back to the hotel by tram. Over to the overseer for spelling 🙂

We won’t be completely free of 3am border crossings – we still have several borders to go! Irina meeting us at the station and driving us around Moscow was a bonus – gave us a good idea what to see. And she showed us the Bolshoi Theatre! Can’t believe Joe left that out! There are several statues of Pushkin as well. Unfortunately St Basil Cathedral has scaffolding around it so it isn’t quite as impressive. But I’ve now been in Red Square! Going to see the Kremlin tomorrow as it was getting late and we are very tired. Hard to believe I’m actually in Moscow. Oh yes, our hotel room overlooks the horse race track!

Day 4 To finish off day 3 we wanderedd out of the hotel and down to the road, looking for something to eat. The inablity to read cyrillic become a problem as interpreting from the sights and symbols outside is tricky, finaly spot an ausie pub on the other side of the road, near the railway station; crossed the road and took a chance they did food. The menu had pictures and English on most things. ordered drinks and waited for the food. It took a while but when it arrived it was better than it looked on the menu, so a main course of chicken for me, duck in orange for Kathleen. Kathleen finished off with cheesecake and an irish coffee and an glinents for me (which turned out to be a mulled wine /punch hot 🙂 a nice strole back to the hotel just in time to watch fireworks from the balcony. Up and down to breakfast at the hotel, which consisted of a block of egg ? some where between scambled and omlette, with pinapple juice, instant coffe and a slice of raw salmon on bread. This produced the quote of the day from Kathleen, “I don’t mind seeing new things and trying new food but not this early in the morning”. Out of the hotel on to the bus and down to the center. We get off a bit early and walk. We walk over to the Kremlin ticket office (it displayed information in English) 350 roubles for our ticket into the Kremlin and various churches and a display of Faberge easter eggs, an extra 50 roulbes to be able to take photographs. We started with the easter display and the rain started. For us the Faberge was the most interesting part. The churches are a bit uh ah. Unfortunatly the rain just got heavier and the wind worse, so not much wandering around 🙁 We lasted as long as we could then got into a shopping mall nearby. we wandered around looking at things, trying the ice cream (try the lemon sorbay). Leaving this we ran for the bus hit it just right and away in the the wind and rain to the right stop and back to the hotel. A coule of phone calls from Irina later i think we going to the balshi ? we’ll see 🙂

The spell checker – yep we went to the Bolshoi! Wonderful Then off for a quick meal as the resturant staff were trying to close and go home. Irina and her husband are wonderful and really got us as much Russian things as possible. What a fabulous evening.

The last pre-trip update!

First, it has been pointed out to me that I need to state that although Joe’s name is on the reports, it is me that actually writes them. Not that it makes loads of difference as he tells me what he’d like me to write and the entry is approved by him before publishing.

Second, we can both now be reached on my web address: kwilliamsatpostmaster.co.uk
Please don’t use other e-mail addresses as we won’t be checking those til we get back in June.

Third, a blatant advert for Karrimore and YHA in London. The rucksack didn’t get out to be mended until late last week so it isn’t done. However, they have loaned us a 65l rucksack for the trip – with the condition that we take a picture of it in a crocodile’s mouth. So now we have to find a crocodile somewhere along the Trans-Mongolian railway! Not only have they loaned us a rucksack, free of charge, because Joe’s isn’t done, when they learned I had a list of stuff to get they asked for the list and ran about the shop getting the stuff for us. If they didn’t have it, they told us where we could get it and gave us directions! Excellent service.

And an advert for the Japan Centre in London. Went in today to get our flight tickets and Japan Rail pass. While the assitant organised our tickets I mentioned to Joe that we should ask him what not to miss in Japan. So he organises our tickets, gets our air tickets, sells us two Japan passes, then gets up and brings us a huge stack of information! Most of which we can’t take because it’s just too heavy; however, there are two excellent booklets with information that will definitely come in handy and several really nice maps. So we’re now set for Japan.

So up early tomorrow morning (very early). We’ll change in Brussels and Cologne tomorrow and will arrive in Moscow on Saturday morning at 0908 local time. I may not get a chance to do an update from the train so the next update will probably be Monday!

Joe 16:48

Yet another pre-trip update. We went out at the weekend to do a bit of trip shopping. It was mainly to get the rucksack mended; the zip is busted and we’ve taken it in to see if it can be repaired. Good news is that it may still be under warranty but the bad news is it probably won’t be ready before we leave.

The other bit we went out to buy, a digital camera, we did not get. We walked into PC World all ready to spend the money and get the Kodak camera that they had on special offer; however, the person behind the camera counter walked away without even looking at us. We had time to stand there and discuss why we were getting the camera, how we would use it, what cameras we would take on the trip, how we would upload the photos, not to mention walk around the shop to find the other bits and pieces we would need. We then stood there and discussed why we wouldn’t need the camera. In all this time several PC World sales people walked by us. But they gave us enough time to decide that we really didn’t need a digital camera right now. So no photos til we get back!

We are of course watching the information on SARS quite closely. We haven’t changed plans yet, but are keeping in touch with whether or not we can go from China to Japan and are ready to fly out of Mongolia if we have to. Be a shame to miss China though.

I just realised that although I’ve been posting test messages I haven’t actually given any idea of what we’re actually doing! So here it is: (by the way, the trip is still quite flexible)

We leave on 1 May early in the morning as our train leaves Waterloo at 8.30am. We’re taking the train to Brussels, then Koln, then Moscow. We arrive in Moscow on 3 May.

Staying in Moscow for a couple of days and will be spending one day in the Greenpeace office there. We leave on 5 May to go to Irkutsk and will arrive there 4 days later! We’ll spend a couple of days there (this is where it gets flexible) and will then go to Ulan Baator for a couple of days. From Ulan Baator we’ll go to Beijing.

We’re in China for about a week and are planning to see as much as possible. Hope to get over to see the Terracotta Warriors. We’re planning on getting to Shanghai by 25 May as our ferry leaves on 27 May. We go by ferry to Osaka and will arrive in Osaka on 29 May.

We’ll spend about 2 weeks in Japan (Joe is planning that bit). We fly back from Tokyo on 15 June arriving back in the UK in the afternoon.

And yes, we are quite excited by the trip!

Right, that didn’t work for whatever reason. So you’re

Right, Joe didn’t like the original title (it was boring) so we’ve changed that and the description. Much more snazzy. Now we’re going to try to set this up on our own webpages rather than leaving it on Blogger. That way if blogger gets overloaded people can still see our information!
Nearly ready . . .

Got it all sorted now! All the visas are done, all the tickets have been sorted, and we have two people to stay in the house while we’re away. So we’re all set and ready to go.