Well mistakes happen and adventures take us onwards....
The last leg of the Russia journey was short and looked to be a nice simple journey. At 5 am we left Ula's Hostel and walked to the train station, hopped on our train and settled down for our 3 day and Night journey. This train was by far the best so far, train number 2 with a newer decor and better toilet but to be honest this wasn't what made it the best. By far the best part of this train was the people in our carriage, full of interesting babushka's, a beautiful Uzbek woman who was as interested in us as we were with her (though we didnt share any words, just giggles and glances) and a general melange of interesting and interested people. This is the first time we've been on a train without our Russian friends since we arrived in Moscow so communication was fun (if not restricted) and we made a good few friends. The people seemed to be quite intrigued by us in a good way (unlike on a another train where Denis over heard a Babushka warning another passenger to "watch your bags, there are gypsies on the train" which i found hilarious). On the first afternoon i pulled my guitar out and started to softly pluck in an "i'm trying to be unobtrusive and not annoy anyone" kind of way and along cam our Provonik (man carriage attendant) with his crew cut and smart uniform. When he reached me he gestured to my guitar and i handed it to him giving it a little Kiss to signify that i would appreciate it if he didn't bash the hell out of it , he smiled and nodded and gave it a little loving pat to let me know he understood. He then proceeded to strum out some loud lively fun Russian songs, singing care free of weather or not he was bothering anyone, the whole carriage peered into the aisle and watched. Quite an image, this crew cut, uniform man sitting at the foot of some babushkas bed singing Russian songs... and as he finished the whole carriage applauded. A great moment. He played another which people seemed to know and sang along to before giving the guitar back and continuing on with his work. Probably the best train attendant we had the whole time we were in Russia, unlike the stoney faced bondage style Provinitza's we had had in the past.
That evening another man in the compartment just next to us approached me and asked to use the guitar, again i handed it to him with a gesture of "i love this guitar a lot, please treat her with love and respect" and he flashed me a kind smile and patted her understandingly ....i think he may have even given her a little kiss. He spent the evening strumming and singing Russian Folk songs. He gained a little audience who sang along and joined in at appropriate moments. It was quite lovely. At one point a little chubby Russian girl came up to me and asked my name, i told her and she asked if i would play. How can you say no to a cute 9 year old girl? So i went over and played "Oi Maros Maros" one of the folk songs Bella and the Babushka had taught me the week before, as i started singing they all smiled and started singing along and after even played me another version of it. it was a good evening.
The next day passed pretty smoothly too, i read the whole of Siddhartha by Herman Hess (fully recommend it) and watched the Taiga roll by. The landscape was changing now since leaving Baikal. More hills and the trees were turning, "the further east, the more gold the trees and the more gold the teeth" something i wrote in my book whilst on the ride and its true, the further east we headed the more shining glittering smiles packed full of gold teeth behind the weathered old lips of post soviet babushkas and old men. One point we had a longer stop and everyone piled of for cigarette breaks and jack and i pop into the shop and bought some stocks for the evening meal, namely cheese and bread and instant noodles (for jack). Jack went for a wonder along the platform to admire the architecture and i hung by the carriage in fear of the train buggering off with out us (which he picked on me about afterwards). But we boarded the train and off we trundled again, and again in the evening Our Man in the next compartment took they guitar and played some more songs, and again the little girl came and asked me to play so again i played Oi Maros Maros, and again they all sang and then i played a few more of my own songs before eyes got heavy and i trundled off to bed.
The next day rolled on and we had truely mad ourselves at home, stuff sprawled all across my top bunk, nice community of people. The little 9 year old girl came to me "Fleassy!??!...." and muttered in russian a request, clutching a pack of crayons. She wanted me to draw something so after working out she wanted me to draw a sea horse we proceeded to work together on a little underwater scene picture.
Later that day as the afternoon was drawing close and we'd crossed a time line or two we pulled into Karbarovsk (spelling is wrong) with a sheduled 30 minuite stop. Some people got off, an english speaking lady got on and joined us in our compartment and we decided to hop onto the platform and look for bread and noodles. Feeling quirky we decided to put on one of each others shoes (as we are the same shoe size) and jack brought his cup of tea and off we hopped. For the first time on the whole trip i uttered the words "could you look after our stuff?" to the english speaking lady, "yes sure, see you soon!" she said. Finding no shops on the platform Jack headed towards the stairs, he wanted to go to the main building to look..a little worry spilled up in me "we shouldnt leave the platform" i thought but remember the constant jesting and jibing of denis and jack at my worrying i decided there was probably no harm in a quick nip across the tracks... unfortunatly it was bout 4 tracks and a long stair well to the main building and reaching the outside world i said to jack "we should go back" "stop worrying fleassy" he said with a slight air of cocky confidence "the trains not going anywhere, if your going to wory why did you come? look just enjoy yourself, look at these flowers! look at the building!" ....i swallowed my worry and followed him thinking "hes right fleassy stop worrying all the time..." ...yet still a little wary... there was no bread but jack got some noodles for himself and we headed back up the stairs. Then waliing along the overpass we got to out platform and looked down at the empty rail....
...the empty platform...
...the empty track...
..the train had gone.
...there we were no socks, odd shoes, no jumpers and just our passports and my money...jack with a cup of tea and a packet of noodles.... All our bags, guitar everything gone to vladivostock with out us...
...shit....
I looked at jack... and wanted to laugh. I thought that was in appropriate so instead i said "fuck" and then laughed... and then looked at jack thinking "come on now fleassy, be reasonable about this...blame him" so i said "Why do you have to be so fucking stubborn sometimes jack?!" ... but that didnt work either so i just gave in to the surreality of the feeling and began to think more logically... "ok so we have to go to the station and tell someone, phone ahead for our bags and get the next train to vladivostok" (which was still a days train ride away), i looked at Jack.... he was looking at the platform still...the news still sinking in.... finally we turned and headed back to the station hall across the tracks... We went to the help info window and tried to communicate to a Blond lady what had happened... she seemed to understand and took photocopies of our tickets...handed them back to us ...and shrugged.. .SHRUGGED!
tails between our legged..the embarrassed and forlorn foreigners headed to the ticket office to buy ourselves a ticket before they all sold out, the next train was in an hour. I Stood in the que (if you could call it a que, queing the Russian way involved forming a que and then when it comes to the next persons turn you run from your spot and try to get to the front) to get us some more tickets and Jack disappeared off to the platform to see if he could explain it again to someone else... i stood there repeating the mantra "I Trust" and feeling the excitement and yet odd calmness in my stomach .... i began to pray funnily enough... i prayed for (would you believe it) a babushka.. a helpful babushka.. infact to be exact i prayed for an Angel Babushka.... meanwhile Jack was standing in front of a platform assistant and saying "Balshoy Problem!" (big problem). As he began to try to explain a lady stepped in (not a babushka but a friendly English speaking Russian lady doctor about our age) "can i help?" she says.... "yes!!" so the beautiful Daria took Jack to the police, explained the situation and then went back to our blond blond haired Shrugger and explained to her (she was a lot more helpful this time) and eventually jack returned to me and explained that everything was going to be ok. They had rung the train and our bags would be kept safe for us, all we had to do now was get some tickets to Vladivostock. They were kind and gave us a discount and the 4000 rubles we paid was (to be honest) not much to get all of our stuff back. However as we ran to catch the next train (the intricate and slow Russian Bureaucracy nearly leading us to miss the next train) there was a lightness in my heart, the feeling of having nothing was quite liberating... dare i say it but part of me was so prepared and almost happy to loose all of my bits and bobs, to be free of it all.
We boarded the train and this time experienced our first experience of Kupe class (like 2nd class). This is where you share a compartment with others so the carriage is broken up into smaller more private rooms (a bit like the old school first class carriages in england). The compartments have 4 beds in them so we were sharing with two older ladies (bordering on being babushkas but they hadn't quite aged to the vintage of the Lazer Stare and Shawl faze) Nada; a Buryat lady, and Lida. We spent the evening looking at photo's of Lida's son in different landmarks of USA, drinking tea with the ladies and Jack tucked into his noodles (which were apparently not nearly as tastey as he hoped they would be and deffinatly not worth over 4000 rubles). That night i woke up at one point to find us flying so fast through the night i was almost to afraid to sleep... but eventually my eyes closed and i awoke as we were pulling into Vladivostok.
We found our way to the Police station and tried to explain the situation to them (I swear one of them was pretty drunk, rosey red cheeks and a big grin waddling about the place) eventually we got them to phone our wonderful Angel Doctor friend again and after the police had had a good chuckle about us we were escorted to a place where our bags were waiting for us... And there they were.. the Provinik had kindly packed all our scattered bits and bobs into a plastic bag and even my ipod which had been left sitting on my bunk hidden under the pillow was still there. This is the perfect reason to make sure you make friends with the people on your carriage. After we paid our stupidly precise amount to get our bags back (1268 rubles and 20 kopecks?!?! how they worked that price out i DONT know) we trundled off into the city of Vladivostok to find our ferry to japan a little lighter in the pocket and a little bruised in the ego. I had a nice little moment when i opened my guitar bag to check it was ok and my little suspicion was confirmed, the guitar had been put in the case back to front... meaning our chums on the train had had one last little play on the guitar after we disappeared.. this brought a little leap and smile to my heart and i pictured them all singing Oi Maros Maros and thinking about us, the dopey foreigners. :)
The Ferry to South Korea was relatively relaxing and we formed a nice crew of travelers with some other lonesome wanderers that we met. Lea (a half Japanese, half Slovenian girl), Oochi (a Japanese guy who had been traveling through russia with his motorbike), Hiromi (a Sweet Japanese girl who would giggle at every opportunity), Hiroshi (a Japanese guy who was always drinking coca cola), and Musashi (a Japenese guy who had been traveling for 12 years working as a Shiatsu practitioner, arriving back to japan for the first time in 12 years). We made quite a quirky looking bunch and sat around in the evening sharing Musash's vodka (though i only took one shot and disappeared off to bed) and talking. At sunset Lea and i visited the bath house and i lay naked in a beautiful warm wooden panneled bath looking out these huge large windows, and right in front of me the glowing orange sun was setting into the sea, leaving a pathway of reflective sunlight right across the water towards me and i could feel it feeding me.... for a moment i understood the sun watchers and breatharians of the world.... heaven...
The next morning we ported into South Korea and as a little gang we all left the ship (leaving our bags somewhere safe on the boat) got our passports stamped and there we were.... in south korea.... with one thing on our mind... Food! we had about 5 hours to get a bus to the town center (Dong Hae) find a restaurant, eat and get back to the ferry port ready to go through customs again. We found ourselves wondering through the streets of Dong Hae looking for a restaurant on a public holiday (apparently this was the day when the souls of the dead are meant to return to the earth). Its a whole world away from the endless Taiga of Siberia. Wide concrete streets, flashing lights, restaurants on top of shops, asian faces everywhere... wow.... just a glimps of South Korea and I'd love to go back and see more of it. We all shared a very spicy meal together in the only place we could find (a fast food noodle, rice and sushi place) and headed back to the ship buying ice crams on the way. It was clear just from this little stop in South Korea how much further south we were from Siberia, the trees were all still green and the air warm and fresh.
That evening we sailed away from Korea under the watchful eye of a full moon playing music to the Sea of Japan.
The seas got a bit rough so i, prone to sea sickness, trundled off to bed for a while and when i woke i found our Japanese crew sharing Vodka with a Russian and so i wondered off to find Jack...and where did i find him? Why in the night club of course! The empty night club, just him and two Russians on his 4th or 5th vodka shot. I joined them and watched the Russian man (a very gentlemanly Russian i may add) fill Jack with at least 10 shots of vodka and as the night went on a group of Koreans came in and started to dace to the horrifying music under the strobe lights... it wasn't long before they drunken Koreans were dragging us up to the empty dance floor and i must say it was probably one of the surrealist feelings ever. I felt drunk even though i hadn't touched a sip. The floor was moving benieth me (the seas were pretty rough) and the lights distorting the crazy fools around me, jack a drunken troll strutting his stuff with the loonies of Asia... and we danced and danced and slowly jack got more drunk until i decided i needed to sleep and slipped away at the end of the evening to my little capsule bed after a quick hello to the sea and the moon.
I awoke in Japan.
Japan... wow... the green land. The lush rolling mountainsides, the bamboo and cedar creating a fascinating texture in the hillsides. If you have not seen the film Princess Mononoke i really recommend it as it paints to me such a clear picture of the beauty and spirit of the natural lands of japan... way better than any words i have can. We arrived in Sakaiminato and walked into the town with our little crew. As we reached the high street I felt like we were entering a Theme Park, with statues and carvings of cartoon characters and monsters all the way down the street, themed shops and little rubber stamp stations where you could collect a rubber stamp from each character you passed. Apparently this is the home town of a famous Japanese animator so the whole town is themed to his cartoons...even the post office, police station and taxi's are themed to fit. Mad... absolutely mad.
Slowly we lost our gang one by one as they all headed off on their own journeys and soon it was just Jack and I on a train heading to a little town where we were to couch surf with an American Guy named Nate.
Im getting tired now so my writing is flimsy... so i think ishall stop there... Japan will come in the next chapter :)
Hope your all good
xxx
What happened to part 7??
ReplyDelete