Land and Sea Journey, Part 8 - The Big misstake, South Korea and Japan.

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

land and sea jounrey part 6 - Asia and Siberia

…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!!

land and sea journey part 5 - European Russia!

Wow has it really been under two weeks since i got on the bus to Riga? it feels like months have passed...

Riga... Latvia passed in a sleepy blurry haze, tending tender heart and and feet (bloomin bee sting to a week to heal and theres still a little lup there now) but after a few days of lie-ins and early nights my new traveling buddy Jack and I headed to the bus station to beging our Russian Leg of our adventure. Already in latvia the landscape was wonderfully difeerent to that of the mountainous france... the further east i got the flatter it got, the more silver birched lined the road side, rowan trees would pop their little bright red berry faces between them, more building were made of wood rather than bricks aтв the city was a concrete world in a new language... so as we boarded our bus to Russia i knew of what there was more to come... the bus took small roads through forrests of what seemed to be pine or larch and birch trees and headed slowly towards the russian border... every moment the mountains of france got further away and the temples of Japan became more of a reality. Jack as i passed our time on the bus sharing peanut butter sandwhiches and he began to reveal to me the limitles knowledge his brain seems to hold. For a sieve head like me its seems inconceivable that someone could remember so many dates and events and geographical changes through out history.... i barely remember my own birthday let alone the in's and outs of the USSR, revolutions and border changes to countries... but he does and hes a never ending font of information... which is nice because its like being told stories consistantly... even if i forget who each character was and need explaining a million times that its not called the Gremlin and that Stalin and Lenin were'nt the same person... im slowly getting the hang of it though :p

So the border passed smothly; despite my socialy planted images of evil russian guards robbing me at every oppotunity they have, and aside from a giggle passing the lips of the customs ladies as they saw the image of beardless babyfaced jack in his passport it was suprisingly uneventfull and suddenly i was in Russia...
...vague memories of Mr Wilson's History class.. something about the winter palace... men with large eye brows, a big moustauch and Rasputin yet looking out the window at the wispering silver birch i find it hard to believe such a land had been through so much torment and change...The landscape continues to shift slowly, the alphabet on the road signs illegable and the churches regal and gold topped with domes of pride.

Arriving in St Petersburg that night we had little more than an address and a metro stop name to get us to where we woule и staying that night at an apparment gifted to us by our couchsurfing host Elena. But not long trudging through the rain (which apparently had been falling for 11 days now) we arrived at the appartment block and was met by a french man who handed us the keys and swiftly left never to be seen again. ...so there we were in st petersburg in an appartment which held the decor of the soviet world which had once been, plastic chandeliers and greeny grey yellowy brown colouring to everything (including the water) yet charming and homely all the same...

Our time in St petersburg was for me glittered with beautiful moments, however the characters and excentrics we met sat down and farted on the face of the architecture...as beautiful and enchanting as that was....

St Petersburg city... probably number on highligh...the metro... blieve it or not. A man selling plasters... light box advert slots which contain no more than cute pictures of kittens and grand architecture and chandeliers... nothing like old sewege tunnels of the london underground. But better than the actual space was the perfect spot to sit on a bench and watch the locals storm by. Jack and i precticed our Russian Faces in an attempt to blend in with the locals but the outbursts of giggle fits and the shabby clothes i fear may have given us away slightly.
One lovely metro moment was when jack and i were sitting in our favourite spot under nevsky prospect and a woman walked past amongst the croud carrying two balloons shaped like balloon people...with balloony heads..balloony arms.. and little balloony feet... i felt the spark of inner child light up in me, my eyes sparkeled and a beaming smile came out of me..parhaps (knowing me) i may even have let out a joyous squeek to go with it. i looked at jack and he too had the fire of the little boys glee in his eyes... that lady saw us anв beamed a warm russian smile at us (a rarety in the metro) and was sweapt away in the crowd... a few moments later we pased her on our way to meet our couch surfing host. She was waiting at her platform and again we caught eye contact and big smiles, as we passed her she held out onу ща the balloons to us as a gift... wow "no no" we say "yes" she" gestures" though language barriers are no problem in situations when the heart and body are communicating "thank you" our eyes said "spasiba" our mouths said and we wondered away full of liquid gold carrying our new friend Bubbles up to the Streets.
This leads nicely to a perfect syncro flow moment up on the surface where Bubbles was wobbling greetings to the stoney faced russian passers by when suddenly i see a face very different... a feeling of home and sensation of familiarity in him... his dreads? ..no something else... he smiles and makes wiggley noises at bubbles and as he passes i spy a hang drum and a familiar blue monkey on him back... "Bristol?" he says "yes!" i say "Hangplaying hedgemonkey?" i say "yes!" he says... "mannyfesta da monkey?!" "yes!!" and we revel in a moment of praising our beautiful shared tribe of friends from back in bristol, mike, craig, ben, kev, marcus, the whole crew were with us right there in St Petersburg.... and suddenly our rivers pulled us on seperate currents, he was swept away with the crouds and we were meeting up with our couch surfing host with whome will still hadnt met even after staying two nights in her appartment.

The evening was spent with red wine, bread, chocolate and canals... at a friends house we wiled away the evening at at 2am a knowck on the door introduces us to excited Valentina. Babbeling madly in Russian our lovely friends translate for us "she has always loved england and when she found out real english people were here in her own appartment she just HAD to get you a gift" at 2 am she had run to the shop and bought us chocolates set in the shape of local tourist attractions and she brought them out from their hiding place behind her back..overwealmed we took them laughing atthe obserdidty of it all "she is in love with england and has never met english people before, she says england in a country of honour and stays at late into the night to watch period dramas" ... We gift her wit реру only theng suitable we could find on us, a 20 pence piece and pointed out the queen which made her happy... she truddled off to her appartment.. the first english people she had met in her 50 od years of life.

She also woke us up in the morning with a knock and a plate full of the best pancakes ive ever haв (ерун LOVE pancakes in russia!!) and a bowl of AMAZING honey from her dads own bees. whilst eating i wished i could post back the honey to the bummbling honey bears in brighton, amy, guy and green and send some to mike as it was sures some of the best honey i have ever had. (as a side note there was also a honey market happening the next day which we didnt make it to)

So aside from them and many many other amazing characters we met in st petersburg the actually city was beautiful its self. Architecture ranging from bleak soviet appartment blocks to grand gold topped churches, cathertrals and the hanzel and grettel esque Church on Spilled Blood. We spent days walking the city, drawing things and eating pancakes in different establishment, getting to grips with the alphabet and the language.

After 5 nights in st petersburg we boarded our first russian train for our 8 hour journey to Moscow. Bunk beds and children we showed the provinitsa our passports and boarded the train. Probably the best train i have ever been on, and the cheapest (especially compared to the uk) there was an urn with constant hot water from which we made ourselves free cups of tea with our tea bags... thre were feather pillows designed for the bedding which we sat upon and drifted the ride away. About an hour from Moscow three Russian drunks boarded the train and sat in our area as their tickets told them to, we spent the next our battling for our perfsonal space and jack got sucked into a convocation about football (which to me sounds like hell but he loved it i think) with three drunk guys who dont speak a word of english (and according to a friendly english speaking russian girl) barely made sence in russian either...

we greatfully got off the train at Moscow and was instantly recieved into the arms (quite litterally) of the lovely Dennis, Jacks old friend.
He took us out to a gerogian restaurant and we did a night tour of the red square and now here we are a few days later in his appartment after having convinced him that he wants to leave the hostel he runs for a week and run off to the mountains with us... on saturday we shall board a train to the mountains... 50 hours ....and our first experiences of the great trans siberian railway. ..WOOOHOOO


.....side notes:
-i must give up caffine again, jack corrupted me with ealr grey and now im dealing with an over excited heart rate and the sweats.
- I was shocked to see HUGE billboard posters with our old friend Dub FX on them here, turns out he's arriving sometime soon, synchro flow!! and it seems hes pretty fameous. A ticket for his show is almost as much as the tickets to go see tori amos here!! oooOOOOOoooo go Ben ... funny considering im used to seeing him cotch up on a street corner with a busking amp haha. So we may well cross paths with him and shosh at some point too.

- Oh and i am SO in love with all my friends in england right now, constantly latenting my love for them... so i love you all sooo sooo much, you are strong in my heart.

Love and light. May your journeys be strong and great.
Fleassy xx