Rushin' around Russia

Our beautiful Mongolian Ger.

I obtained the help of a local ninja in order to Protect Mongolia.

Me on my little Mongol pony.

Dev and I out on Lake Baikal.

Explaining to a local just what it means to be the Perth 8-ball Champion.

Dog sledding!

Sunset of a frozen Lake Baikal.

I think this camel took a wrong turn somewhere around Syria.

Frozen bogeys.

I triple dog dare you to stick your tongue on the ice Kremlin.

The first leg of our Trans-Mongolian railway rolled out of Beijing at 7:40 on the 27th. After some minor confusion in the Beijing train station, we eventually found the proper platform/waiting area and soon enough were on our way to Moscow! The ride to Ulan Bataar, the capital of Mongolia, lasted 30 hours, during which Dev and I shared a single, two-bed, cabin in the first class carriage (the only tickets available from Canada). Most of the day was spent either reading, playing Hive (thank you Mr. Holmes, fantastic addition to our entertainment library) or lying around destroying one another on our nifty little Nintendos. All in all our travel companions for this leg were quite civilized and nothing major happened in that respect. We were able to enlist the young Mongolian kid next to us as our translator, and periodically he would help us through any communication breakdowns.

There was a little confusion at the Mongolian/Chinese border which resulted in not being able to see the bogey changing (Mongolia and China use different widths of tracks, which means each carriage needs to be lifted up, then new sets of wheels slid underneath at the border). We left the train too early and after briskly walking through the -25 to -30 weather (so...cold...) we spent the majority of the 3 hour border crossing sitting in Chinese immigration watching Mongolians stalk up on oranges and bananas to import to their frozen nation.

After arriving in Ulan Bataar at 2pm, we were quickly located by a tout and whisked away to one of the major hostels in the capital (a whole 3 rooms). The following day saw us heading out to a nearby national park where we moved in with a local family for a night in an attempt to get a feel for the Mongolian countryside. The three of us (we were joined by a Swede named Stephane) walked around outside in the subzero temperatures, played with the farm dogs and eventually saddled up onto some Mongolian ponies for the coldest time of my life as we rode over some hills and through the driving winds. How the Mongols were able to carve out the largest empire in history by using these sturdy yet tiny little guys is beyond me, all of ours were incredibly stubborn and seemed just as happy to get out of the cold as we did. We spent the night sleeping in a Ger which is a traditional Mongolian tent. The son from the family would periodically come in and top the stove up with coal and wood until the entire thing had reached an unbearable heat, making sleep a distant memory. The two days and one night we spent out there was definitely worth the small troubles. The Mongolians are a very hardy people and quite proud of their long history.

We left Ulan Bataar at 2pm the next day, making our way for Irkutsk. The train ride north was less a train and more a travelling band of smugglers who took every liberty to hide their merchandise throughout the train. During the 7 hours before reaching the border, the train was a madhouse of Mongolians trading their goods, moving their goods and hiding their goods. The woman in our compartment was some sort of Green Tea Baroness and after stocking our little room up with bricks of tea (which we first thought was some illicit drug), she then travelled the length of the train, trading her tea for blankets, shoes, vodka, baby clothes and sausage. After obtaining what must have been a small fortune, she then attempted to thwart the Russian customs agents by hiding her contraband through our compartment, but mainly under the westerner's bags, the westerner's being us. The chaos of the traders, mixed with the Mongolian wrestling team next door (this actually isn't an exaggeration, they really were members of the Mongolian wrestling team and they wrestled the ENTIRE trip) meant the whole trip was full of strange people bumping into us and exploding into our cabin. Once the traders finally settled down, it was only minutes before someone broke out the Vodka and the entire place seemed to explode again as drunken Russians and Mongolians would stumble into/over our living space. The Mongolian/Russian border took an agonizing 10 hours (officially taking the "longest border crossing" title away from my West Bank/Israel experience). Unable to read the schedules, we were too scared to get off the train to attempt to buy food or change money in the fear that our train would simply up and leave, stranding us somewhere in Siberia. After several hours of debate, we finally took the plunge, asked the carriage attendant through hand gestures when the train leaves, and walked out onto the -20 degree train platform. We emerged back from the station minutes later to find our train gone. Luckily, several of the smugglers were still milling about the station and eased our worries by explaining in a combination of Mongolian and Russian exactly what was going on. We waited on the platform, trying to devise what the hell to do next, until our train miracously re-appeared, but with a dining car attached! The only further interruption from this point forward was the carriage attendant attempting to wake up the Mongolian smuggler who had passed out in our compartment. His voice emerged in my dream as a bumbling loudspeaker which repeatedly yelled out the phrase "Ronaldinho, Scurvy!" until I was much more awake than her and wondering exactly what that translates into in Russian.

We arrived in the somewhat gloomy city of Irkutsk (always pictured it much more lively while playing RISK) the next afternoon and found our way to one of the few hostels in the city. Apparently there are no signs advertising this type of establishment in Russia, and we were only able to verify its existence through the word "hostel" spray painted on the steel door behind the building, quite inviting. The next morning we departed for the village of Listvyanka, on the shores of Lake Baikal. Lake Baikal is the deepest lake in the world, holds more unfrozen, fresh water than all of the Great Lakes combined (1/5th of the world's fresh water) and will eventually become the next ocean. For those reasons and more we were inclined to see this gigantic pearl of Siberia. Once again there was a complete lack of signage in the village even though it apparently has abundant hostels and guesthouses. After walking around for more than an hour we literally stumbled across a nice place at the back of the village.

After walking out onto the frozen lake for a while and generally playing around, we settled into a warm lunch at a local restaurant/bar. As sometimes happens when it's freezing outside we delayed our return to the outdoors by ordering a steady stream of beers until over 8 hours had passed in this place. The beginning of the strange drinking event saw us starting with a nice couple from England, then moving onto some amiable Aussies and eventually saw us quarantined to the pool table where we spent the rest of the night with a group of vodka drinking ex-soldiers (although all still wearing their fatigues...). Not sure how we communicated, but after enough of the vile liquid had flowed, they too had their charms until we were all cut off by the angry tavern wench and forced out onto the street.

The following day was spent recovering in bed until we had to get up in the late afternoon to go dog sledding. Because of short notice we weren't able to go on a huge trip, but the 5km path we did gave us a good taste of it all. As soon as you release the brake, the canines bound into action and zoom out along the forest path, almost knocking me off the back several times. It was an awesome little experience and it seemed like the dogs enjoyed it as much as myself. I was however amazed that it took 7 of these seemingly ordinary dogs to do the job of a single Dutch.

This morning we caught a bus back into Irkutsk, where we were told that there are no train tickets available for today. The train station ticketing system is a gong show and once we were rejected from that (we had hoped to leave today) we forced to march back to the hostel and book another night. Luckily we *think* we have managed to secure tickets leaving tomorrow, should be interesting. With any luck, we'll be out of here before the sun sets tomorrow, beginning the 4 day train ride to Moscow!

Unfortunately I had to quickly pre-select which photos to upload here from the attendant, or else I would have many more, sorry!

On a completely unrelated note, my fellow travellers are experiencing some kind of problem with their blog site (or more appropriately its email server) and you may not have been getting any of their updates, so if you're interested in checking out what they're up to:

Ryan
http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/El-Tigre/

Jason
http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/lush/

Jamez
http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/lushious/

Trevor
http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/tchamber/