…well it seems a shame to start every note with a comment on how short a time it’s been and yet how so much has happened but im sorry I’m going to have to…
“wow!! Has it really only been this long since I last wrote a note? But soooo much has happened!!” hehe
Ok so last I left you all in Moscow where I was suffering from caffine induced heart pulpatations and too much sleep…. Moscow pretty much passed like this, a few midnight strolls through the red square and late night drives around town but I didn’t once see Moscow in daylight… its odd to believe but I do think I was jet lagged….. if that’s possible when you have no flown.
So a few days after we arrived in Moscow we had convinced our friend Denis that he wanted to abandon his hostel, put aside his friends and come with us to explore Altai and Lake Baikal! So all loaded up and ready to go, me with my big red falling apart rucksack, and guitar, jack with his army green canvas bag with blankets tied on and drum and denis with his swishy neat tidey hiking rucksack and million gadgets tucked into it boarded the Trans Siberian on our journey into Asia. First Stop…. Novisibirsk to pick up beautiful rainbow sister Bella and any other straglers we could convice to come along, then to the mountains.
The three nights we spent on the train were pretty un eventful and yet quite eventful at the same time…I mean no major earth quakes or floods or great train robberies being pulled overby Siberian barbarians or anything…but an interesting journey all the same. See what I have come to realize is the true prize of Russia is the characters you meet…mostly in the babushka’s (literally Grandmothers…but applies to most old women) the Provenitzas (the female army of highly trained and stone faced train attendants…one for each carriage and DON’T dare cross her) and the drunks (of course). It feels like so long ago now its hard to put it all in order but one the train we met a lovely Israeli guy called Avi (well that’s what we called him) and the four of us set into three nights of copious tea drinking. The Provinitza was as stoney faced as a lump of slate but charming Denis with all his Russian charms cracked her a few times, he would loiter at the end of the carriadge outside her office by the Samavar (the fire water urn) and occasionally poke his head in and make a comment to her…. It came in damn handy when the toilets had been locked as we were coming to a station and I was about to pop for all the tea I’d been force fed and good old denis just flashed stoney provinittza a smile and asked her to unlock it and between holding my pelvic floor muscles and nipping past the two of them I could have sworn I saw her blush! Or parhaps it was just a little smile but as soon as she crossed eyes with me all I saw was stoney Russian face lady glaring back at me….. he’s a wizard I tell you…a wizard!
We traveled in Platzkartney (3rd class) the whole time and its separated into sets of 6 beds, two bunkbeds facing each other with table in between and two bunk beds running along the hallways with the bottom bunk becoming a table and two chairs in the day time if you want… now in our section was a true Babushka of the Siberian kind. Un afraid to tell off any young-un who dare do anything that wasn’t in the babushka rule book. Often it was found that after sitting in a stuffy sweaty smelling carriage for a good few hours Avi would risk the bite and lean up to open the window to let some fresh Siberian wind in…mmmm refreshing…until the Babushka-Lazer-Look-Of-Death and she would gesture to some other respectable Russian and jabber at then in Russian ordering them to close the window and then turn to us and tell us something along the lines of “You’ll catch a death!!” her in her shawls and jumper …us stripped down to as much as is decently possible on a train (and I tell you some of these Russian girls have a very odd sence of “decency” …”they’d never do that in India” Jack kept saying as short shorts and longs legs, tight tops and tight buns would parade past in the crouded isle) to stay alive in the stuffy swealtering carriadge… I thought Siberian was meant to be cold! She also gave poor old Avi (who was sleeping in the top bunk parallel to hers) a good telling off for reading in the dark with a head lamp, reaching up and giving him a sharp tap on the arm and tutting and huffing and generally Babushka Chatting at him about the health risks of reading with a head lamp on a train…..
On the other hand there was some beautiful beautiful old russian Babushkas…generally the way when you are far enough away from the that their lazer vision doesn’t reach you they are actually really really stunning. Beautiful map line faces marking out the harsh history of Siberian and Soviet life, wispers of the Gulag and -50 degree temperatures etched upon their brows… skin soft as petals and yet hard as iron…. Wow… amazing women. I love Babushkas and have made a habbit of adopting one of two on each train or place I stop to be My Babushka.
One night we passed the Ural mountains (which were barely a dent in the Taiga forested landscape) and Jack announced we had now officially left Europe….. now we were in Asia…. In all honesty it looked pretty much the same…a never ending stream of Silver Birch, Larch and Pine …but for a moment I could swear I saw my Wolf Self prowling alongside the train, leaping through the Siberian landscape and I knew really I was out there, free running…not in the stuffy train….
The last night on the train I barely slept knowing I would be up at 5am again to get off in Novisibirsk. I spent the night trying to keep my eyes closed on the silent train, listening to Carrie’s album and for the first time ever I think…even that couldn’t calm me to deep sleep…. In the end I rested with an image of me running down a mountainside screaming with the ecstatic joy of feeling free and my eyes finally closed….
The provantiza shok us awake 40 minutes before arriving and we piled off the train in Novisibirsk and hunted out our Mashrutka (Mini Bus type bus) that would take us to Bella’s house…. When we arrived at early o clock Beautiful Bella met us and took us back to her little house. He awaiting us was an uber cute kitten and an excitable flat mate whos insane broken English ramblings almost sent my sleep deprived mind into a state of pure surreality…you know the feeling im sure… so at 8am we all crashed out on the floor of Bella’s flat and slept…. 4 pm I woke up convinced I hadn’t slept longer than 20 minutes….. Just when you think we’d get a chance to rest now… off we set to the train station to buy stocks for the next few days in the mountains and to board our over night train down to Altai….
Chekov once said “Where does it end? Only the migrating Birds know” speaking of the Taiga, this endless expanse of trees which blankets so much of Siberia…. And I know what he means… though I suspect some of those Babushka’s know a few things that even the Migrating Birds are still yet to discover.
This night on the train I actually didn’t sleep a wink… perhaps it was because I had slept all day, but Bella slept, and Denis slept…the Russian… they can sleep. I lay in the bouncing dark listening to Mikes music on my player…a swealing of pure love bursting in me… Thoughts of all my amazing friends and family scattered all around this earth… their music… their pure un ending inspiration… and when the lights came on, and our sun rise stop happened…I climbed off the train as fresh as if I had slept soundly all night… fed on a feeling of over whelming love.
As we stepped off the train we were instantly pounced on by a driver convincing us that he was far better than the bus (it helps to have Russian Speakers with you….even if they are groggy morning ones) and eventually we agreed with him and climbed into his car and off we trotted on the 2 hour haul into the mountains. Russia… beautiful but its takes forever to get anywhere I tells you.
We were headed for the Karakol Lakes on recommendation from Bella’s crazy flatmate but en route we saw a stunning blue river running alongside the road and when we reached the bottom of the track which led 30 km up to the lakes (which only 4x4 and hard core trucks could handle) and realized we would have to pay a considerable amount (ish) for these mere 30km we decided the refreshing river was more what our tired little bodies wanted.
Off we trecked along the road… as we walked I started noticing a quite familiar plant growing along the road side… in jest I said “haha jack that looks like weed” …. On a harder inspection we came to the conclusion that yes indeed it was weed…and living up to its name fully it was Every where scattered in grass ditches, gardens and verges… wild medicine all about.
We reached the river and the bridge across it…. Now imagine Indiana Jones… a rapidly frothing yet picturesque river and what else goes so well with these two images? Yep, your right…a very unsafe looking, rickety wire rope bridge spanning the hugely wide river… boarded with creaky leaky wooden planks and swaying as we crossed….luckily no Indiana Jones style snapping and plunging to our terrible deaths and apparently its quite an often used bridge. We reached the other side safely and were greeted with a beautiful rest place…. The waters on the river smokey blue and impenetrable, the sky reflecting the river, the mountains all around a wonderful break from the flat lands of the Taiga and as Denis and Bella settled in to what they do so well (sleeping) I lazed about in the sun enjoying the pure air for a while.
Soon it was time to wonder on and find our camping spot for the next three nights… we headed up the track towards a village which we hoped to pass and meet the river after… as we got closer to the village the weeds became thicker and thicker until we were surrounded by a thick wall of weed, leading back into fields of it… and again it littered gardens and road sides…. The village was full of roaming pigs, dogs and children and wooden houses blasting out dance music, drunken men glaring at us and the unavoidable Babushka Lazer Glare.
Finally after too much walking we found ourselves our almost idilic riverside beach…a little close to the village but the only people we would see pass over the next few days would be horse and cow owners …and two teenage girls with hip hop blasting from their phones… (we wondered if they were all completely un aware of the abundance that surrounded them or if they took full advantage)
3 nights here by a beautiful river, resting and cooking on the fire… so amazing to be outside of a city and out into nature at last…. There are few words for this time… I played a lot of guitar to myself and to the trees, lay naked in the sun and in true English (and Denis) style drank a lot of tea.
All too soon we were ringing our “Driver” up again and clomping back to the spot he dropped us off. There he was waiting and off we headed back from our haven to Novisibirsk on the train. (The driver had HORRIFIC music playing the whole way to the town…ouch I almost went mad, they LOVE bad pop music here…but his was bad early 90’s pop music uuurrrmp!)
So from Novisibirsk after another over night train we got on ANOTHER train and headed towards Irkutsk… here the landscape began to change slightly, a few more lumps and bumps, a few less silver birch and even the dribs of snow. When we had been in Novisibirsk the temperature was “-0 degrees” …. How it can be MINUS 0 I’m not too sure but these Russians know about cold so I trust that in Russia there is such thing as -0 degrees. This was a big shock from our sunny riverside spot only a day earlier. It seemed we had skipped autumn and jumped to winter.. though as we headed further south the snow dissapreaed and the familiar scene of scattered red leaves of autumn amongst the Forrest.
It was on this train I adopted another Babushka who with Bella’s help taught me two Russian Folk songs and upon her leaving the train walked passed me and slapped me hard on the shoulder saying something along the lines of “good girl!” in response to hearing I had been practicing then waggled her finger and said “YOU MUST LEARN THEM!” sternly in russian to me… before disappearing off on her babushka way.
In Irkutsk we spent the night at a friend of Denis’s and then boarded our Mashrutka in the morning to Lake Baikal… a bouncy ride consisting half of a dirt track. I watched the landscape change…the Taiga disappeared quickly and became a barren land of felt like low dry grass and rocks…the lands scape could be called rolling except it was too jagged to roll…and was beautiful in its own bleak kind of way. But as we passed on valley between the “rolls” I was confronted with a huge dump, seagulls and all…reminiscent of the landfill sights of England… heart breaking…. And a sign of what was to come sadly…
However I did notice a few heart leaping things… I kept spotting trees tied with ribbons and coloured string, reminding me of the pagan rituals in England of tying colored strings in branches of tree’s at different times of year… and a tiny little creature…like a meer cat … or a squirrel without a tail…or something similar.. every time I saw one pop its head up or perched up behind a rock I would squeak “theres one!!” but no one else saw them…
…ok wow my brain is fried from all this typing… but must plough on…. Must plough on… while its all still fresh in my brain..
…hang on… raisin break..
…So Lake Baikal… the deepest, oldest Lake on earth, with 20% of the earths fresh water supply (not including frozen water) in china its ancient name was North Sea (but in Chinese of course).
The waters a beautiful full blue…soft lapping waves bring them to the shore and sand seems to cover the whole of Ohlkon island.(then again I didn’t stray far from the beach hehe)
The main village on the island is called Kuzhir and is a surreal place… it only received electricity in 2003 and the population seems to consist more of cows and dogs than people. There is a Village Bog (by bog, I don’t mean toilet…though the sess pit toilets are a “must see”) and the local internet café is in a caravan… and a souvenir shop in a yurt. Babushkas prowl the streets for lost looking tourists to hoist back to their homes where they’ve converted half their gardens into wooden “hostel” rooms.
Just on the edge of the village is a place called Shamans rock, and here there are many more trees and poles covered in ribbons and colored fabric, turns out these are called Obo’s and the ribbons called “Zalaa”. They are to mark places where Gods and Spirits have appeared. This territory, I believe, is of the Buryat peoples and they are the biggest native minority in Siberia. They live around Baikal, and Tuva, and also into Mongolia. I only found out about them on my last night there so to be honest I cant tell you much more than that but I can say that these places marked are often places which to me stirred great energy, even before I know what the marks meant. The Shaman Rock is like a silent Buddah sitting out upon the lake, beautiful, old ancient brother. I spent some time in silence with it and then played some twinkley guitar improvisations…. After some time I heard the dulcet tones of a ukulele, I looked to my side and there was Bella plucking along…I looked round a jack and a few others were all sitting peacefully near by… nice moment.
We spent the first night in a little Hostel and then the next day said goodbye to Bella who was on her way back to Irkutsk for a concert…. So sad to see Bella go so soon, it felt a bit silly to only be there one night after coming all this way… but off she trundled with her ukulele. Bye Bella!!
Denis, Jack and I marched off along the shore to find a nice place to camp for the next few nights…here I saw the extent of the Russian tourist respect for the sacred and for nature… litter everywhere… I mean people need to learn, they HAVE to learn how to treat and respect nature, not just “don’t pick wild flowers” like we are taught at school…but “don’t leave condoms and tampons and sanitry towels, and bottles, and cans all over the place” and not just that but “this is how you go to toilet in nature… you fill a bottle with water… you walk off and away from everywhere…you dig a hole…you poo… you wash your bum with the water and then burry your poo…its not hard! ITS SAND! And if you MUST insist on leaving toilet paper behind… BURY IT! Bury it… it will degrade but bury it! …even if its just a pee… shimmy some sand on it..please.” and anything else you use there…take it with you…I understand that this little shelter you built with stickes and plastic sheets looked so nice when you made it and perhaps someone might want to use it…but they wont..the wind will destroy it in a few nights and soon it will be just another bit of rubbish half buried in sand. You carried it there…you can carry it back out with you. And no, leaving a black sack full of your rubbish does not count as “well we made an effort”. The seagulls WILL rip it open, the animals will rummage through and make more of a mess… and yes one day someone like me will find herself shifting through animal poo (owl pellet or fox poo) looking at all the interesting bones and find that half of the poo consists of undigested tin foil balls from someones disgarded lunchbox which the poo creature ate thinking it might be a tastey morsal and instead had to poop out a chunk of metal…AAAAGHHHHHH!!
…sorry rant over… it just angers me to go to such old, beautiful ancient and sacred places and find such an imence amount of disregard and pure idiocy.
Then on the flip side… the nature… pine resin dripping from every tree filling the air with such a sweet woody smell. The sunset lighting up the rocks and water. The woodpeckers all black and white and pecky in the trees. To top it all of is the lake, the spirit of which is untameable… Jack said of it as being “a Beautiful Beast” and I couldn’t put it better myself. The weather would shift suddenly from glorious stillness then a harsh North Wind would begin to blow, pummeling us with sand, freezing into our bones. At night one evening I woke so cold, even in my duck down sleeping back with my sheepskin in with me, the cold in my skull. I pulled in my blankets and wrapped myself up, putting one blanket around my head and slowly the headache disappeared and the next thing I knew I woke to a still morning.
Denis Left a day before we did and headed back to Irkutsk, flask in hand, neat little pack on back. Old Chai Baba, back to his Moscovite ways. We spent the day lounging about, enjoying the nature and tea and I played more guitar before we packed up and walked back towards Kuzhir. Here again the universe presents me with the glorious synchronicities of life… if you’ve been following my trip you might know whats coming now…
So there we were, lying at the end of the beach taking a rest before the last stretch to town when I see a backpacked man, Indian ethnicity carrying a home made cactus drum…I sit up sharply… ”no…no” I think “couldn’t be” … “hey!” he says in a soft London accent, no form of recognition in his voice… “you guys going to camp tonight? Know anywhere good I could go?” we tell him yes and point him in the right direction… “you look just like someone I know” … “people often say that” he said “yes… you look like a guy I met in spain once” …”Its not fleassy is it?!?” he says suddenly face lighting up. “YES!! SAT!?!” turns out it was him after all, Sat, a dear friend Rosie and I met whilst traveling through Spain 4 years previous. Funnily enough I had been talking about him to Jack only a few days earlier. However we had things to do in town and the sun was setting fast so we all went our separate ways waving goodbye to Sat.
That night we were hoisted by a Babushka back to her “hostel” where she offered us Chai (tea) and presented us with hot water and told us the shop was next door (in typical babushka fashion) perhaps as a pay back for us haggling her price down. The next morning we boarded our Mashrutka and waved bye bye to Baikal, the Beautiful Beast. And now… im in Irkusk in Denis’s friends hostel, and just as I am writing about sychnoicities in Baikal the door bursts open and in walks our old friend Avi from the train!! WOO HOOO!!
5 am tomorrow we board trans Siberian to Vladivostok…then a boat to japan via a 6 hour stop in South Korea…
JAPAN HERE WE COME!!
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