le blog trans-siberian

A few hours before I leave china, here is the conclusion of the trip. As usual, it should be nice to come back home. I didn't do too many things yesterday or the day before, and it's already a bit over in my head.

It's gonna be time to wash the laundry, now.

The next big trip should be a tour of the world, for one year. But for that, I will have to save quite a lot of money, and will start to do that when I come back.

anyway, as soon as I will cross the threshold of my appartment, I know that my first thought will be "what will the next trip be ?"

I came back yesterday from the Mongolian countryside, back to the puking Oulan Bator. I spend my last day here before I go to china, the last part of my trip.

AAaaaahhh... great mongolian lands !! lt's talk a bit about those four days.

It loks like a postcard all along the road. You feel like you want to take a hundred photographs (but quickly realise they will look the same and should never be as magnificent as reality is). The landsacape is an alternance of green from the bottom of the fields to the top of the mountains far away ( this is something you always have, those mountains far away), and then some dusty lands, sone rocky mountains with a lot of grass and a lazy river in the middle, and also big fields with huge rocks polished by time and weather. Unfortunately, I don't have enough vocabulary to describe it. All the landscapes are quite different and at the same time quite similar : most of the time, they are empty, even if I have to say that you never feel completely alone there. The main explanation is certainly the presence of our road  (sometimes more path than road, indeed. Most of the time), but even when you feel in the middle of nothing, you can always see a tent, or a cattle of sheeps, goats, cows, yacks, or horses ( or ven camels, but rarely : you will see much more of them in the south), or even a lonely man on a horse. 

There is not necessarily someone to watch the cattles : they can just go free where they want to go. What can happen to them anyway. And in the evening, gathering them is quite easy for a skilled horseman (even though they can be huge : smetimes several hundreds heads... that's quite impressive)

And believe me, Mongolian people are real horsemen. This is really part of their life. A 4 year old child will have problems to sit on the hose, but if you help him, once he is there, he can handle the things alone the basic ones, I mean)

To visit those lands, we've been given a driver : Mounkh. The lack of time will prevent me from telling you all that could be told about him. Let's just explain that his way of driving (the common one in Mongolia) doesn't know the straight line. The road is so full of holes that the main purpose is to avoid them at any cost. I've never seen so many turns on a straight road... one must have a good heart. Unfortunately, Mounkh just speak a few words of russian. I think that's largely enough for him : so, he doesn't have to talk too nuch with the tourists. And anyway, he's a driver and not a guide... too bad for us, anyway. Mounkh also bought before we left OB this f... tape of mongolian popular songs, and have been listening to it all along the way, seven hours a day... no comment.

The local food, in the countryside, is made exclusively of pastas, with potatoes and carrots, and greasy lamb. if you are lucky, you will have rice instead of the pastas (home made, they are the worst) Don't expect anything else, you won't have it. We ate that for dinner and supper every day. So, yesterday, I had a pizza and an assortment of different meats, with a strawberry ice-cream on top of it. they drink Airag, which is a drink made of milk, plus... something else that make it a bit bitter sometimes... quite strange, but not bad. Or else, you can also have tea.

But from the start till the end, we really felt we were tourists. this is the problem when you don't know the country at all. Next time, I know what to do, how to buy a map, how to plan your own food and cook there... This year, we didn't have many possibilities to give any help, nor to communicate with the people we met (even though I tried several times)

The purpose of this trip was of course to enjoy the countryside, but also to visit a few things. The most interesting one was the visit of the ruins of the ancient Mongol Capital, under genghis khan. It's been converted into a religious museum (buddhist), since there were at this time aleady a big religious activity there. We've also seen a well known waterfall (well known in Mongolia) that was not bad but had nothing special. the main interest laid in the landscapes around. This evening, we slept in the ger of a family of herders. a ger is something geat : it's circular, must be 26 or 27 square meters, and the whole family ( seen people !!) live there, but not all year long : children need to go to school. Since they had another one for tourists, we slept there. You can build a ger in one or two hours (but not alone). And finally, on the way back to Oulan Bator, we spent some time in sand dunes. And then, w stood in another ger, from whee we did some horsing (it wa a bit hurting where you know. Mongolians must really be tough guys !!), and I even swimmed in the river, even though it was a bit cold.

There would be many other details to tell, but I have to prepare my trip to Pekin, buy a few things for the trai, and prepare my bags.

I came back yesterday from Listvyanka, and am only now able to tell you in a few words how it was there. Indeed, they have only one connection for internet and it's such a poor one that it's been ill the whole five days when I was there.

Before I arrived in Listvyanka, I finally took that trans-siberian train that escaped from me for such a long time !! the reality is not far from the reputation : this is really something you have to experience once in your life. big comfort, with air cond. and quite big seats... or at least when the compartment is not full.

Unfortunately for me, three malaisian guys arrived soon after me. Did I say "unfortunately" ? what a mistake !! They were very nice guys, and already knew a lot about the train, and so they learned me many things about it. First evening has been a quiet one, disturbed only by the coming of Evgueny. The poor young man was looking for a few pals with who he could spend thr night drinking beer. He explained me (since I was the only one who could speak a few words of russian) that he was officer in the russian army, and that was the reason why he couldn't imagine we wouldn't accept to drink with him (and was describing the stars on his left shoulder). But that's what we did !!! The three malaisians in their beds, looking aslept (the cowards) while I was trying to prevent our lieutenant with my body from entering the compartment, repeating that we were tired and just wanted to sleep. In the end, a controller arrived and saved us. Poor evgueny !! he just wanted to drink.

the following day, we spent it in the restaurant wagon, where it was cooler. there, after explaining Evgueny a second time that we didn't want to drink with him, nor play cards, nor talk or anything, we met a german guy and his russian girlfriend who went also, like the four of us. And believe it or not, we started to drink beer, and did that all the afternoon. Evgueny would have been crazy if he had seen that.. we also ate a bit, and played the guitar ( even the waitress of the wagon played a bit)... it's been quite a good time for everyone, I think. And at 11 pm, when the wagon closed, we went to bed and decided to go together to Listvyanka.

Indeed, this is what we did, but we didn't do anything together there.

Listvyanka is not really the kind of place that I like : too many tourists, so that it's just impossible to have any authentic relation with people there : they're just trying to grab as much money as they can and run away with it. What's more, it's not such a beautiful place, since the main road is running along the beach... or should I say the meter and a half of stones between the road and the lake that people use as a beach. If you walk a bit, you can find something better, but you have to go quite far from it.

The interesting part of Listvyanka was the port, where you could buy some smoked fishes. I had already tried the dry fish, that you eat with a beer, but it's quite different from the smoked fish, not as salted, and, as for me, better ( under the smoked part, you find fresh fish, very tasty !!). I ate one or two for every meal. and a lot of ice creams.

And of course, I visited the place, I mean around the village. Next to it, there is port Baikal, but it's really a depressing little village, with rusty boats waiting to sink once for good, old wooden houses half broken, with no one living inside, no one in the streets... No, I definitely preferred the little village ( 18km in the north) of Bolchoie koty : a real paradise. the kind of place where I would really appreciate to finish my life. Imagine : no cars at all ( you can only go there by boat, or by car in winter, on the ice), or the only ones there were 50 years old, old trucks from the war. No roads, just some paths of earth and stones. Grass so short everywherre that you would believe it's an english garden. The responsibles for it are the cows and horses that run freely everywhere around you and spend their time eating the grass. The village only exist around ( and because of) the biological station that stands there.

Unfortunately, since I was alone there and didn't meet anyone, I didn't try a longer trekking. Maybe next time I will try to go there with a friend just to be sure. I think it would have been better.

I also dived in the lake. Nothing special to see there, I can tell you, but the feeling is anyway very nice, to be IN the baikal lake. That's something.

Then, after resting a bit, I took a marchroutka ( sort of minibuses-taxi, quite cheap : 60 roubles for 60 kms) to Irkoutsk. And here I am. There are not many things to visit here, I'm afraid, except with the houses of the decembrists, intellectuals and nobles from St petersbourg who missed their insurrection in the 19th century and have been deported to Siberia (to sum up the story). There, they developped the place during the time they were in exile. Very interesting. But else... this is russia : a nice market, a few churches... I mean, nothing special. Tomorrow, I should go to visit, 40km from here, the museum of wooden architecture. it should be nice, according to what I've been told. And maybe today, if I have time, I will go to the cinema if I can find one (the main one is closed for the moment)

kisses to all of you. My next article should be from Oulan-Bataar (I leave irkoutsk the 8/8/05)