A spot of Cak-Bum

No, not a comment on the state of our personal hygeine after the expedition - rather the curious name of a fizzy orange drink here in Mongolia.

We arrived back in UB (Ulan Bator) on Monday night after an exhausting 3 weeks covering 3500km of surely the worst roads on the planet, and we have a welcome few days rest before we hit the road again bound for Japan.

Thanks for all your comments on the blog, they've kept Mel & I amused over the last 5 weeks of travelling. The posts from our expedition should be published over the next couple of weeks, and following a marathon uploading session over the last couple of days (thank god for 35p an hour internet access) there are loads more photos on flickr.

Join the Mongolei Millionaires Club ...

Just a quick post from Ulan Bator - we were met from the train by our charming hosts from the Khongor Guest House who will also be our logisitics partners for the forthcoming 3 week expedition. The money here is simply crazy .. I've just exchanged a perfectly reasonable amount of dollars into a cool 3 million togrig in a wad several inches thick. But don't worry, you too can be a millmionaire in Mongolia ... for the princely sum of just 450 English pounds! Already we love this place, the people are fantastically welcoming and although UB is a city the size of Leeds it's pretty laid back and we're enjoying re-acquainting ourselves with real food, laundry and stocking up on supplies before our expedition proper. So see you later ... it's off to the Gobi Desert in the morning!


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Life on the rails .... part 3

Finally the Ural mountains and some scenery. Or at least it would be if it wasn't dark - for about 30 minutes we had pine clad valleys before the lights went out and another night of gently rocking along trying to get some sleep.

Another 24 hours and we arrive in Krasnyorsk, beyond which we cross into more picturesque Eastern Siberia. Finally some decent platform food - we took on supplies of hot sausage rolls and Siberian dumplings at Llanskaya. By this stage our body clocks are all over the place - as well as gaining an hour or two each day, the train and everything in it continues to run on Moscow time right up to the border. Breakfast today was served at 3am. Another semi-interesting train fact is the toliets - press flush and you get a nice view of the tracks, it just deposits it there for nature to do the rest. Of course if you're really lucky and the wind is right you get blowback ... a little like the winners challenge on the Crystal Maze. Nice.

After a pictureseque climb through logging country we settled in for our fourth night aboard. We set our alarm early & awoke to the scenic highlight of the journey - Lake Baikal, the largest freshwater lake on the planet and we had great views for around 3 hours as our train followed its shores for 180km before heading South for Ulan Ude, our last major stop before the Mongolian border.

After Ulan Ude we left the mountains and a dramatic change of scenery and weather as we hit sunshine and the rolling plains that would lead us to Mongolia, as we followed the course of the Selenge Gol river.

The Russian border crossing was a hellish 4 hour, full toilet lockdown, culminating in us clearing immigration only to roll out of the station straight into a floodlit pen, where once again the undercarraige was inspected at length. Seriously, someone should tell these guys the cold war ended a long time ago. So at last we made it over the border, and arrived 21km later at the far more relaxed Mongolian border - we're liking this place already. Next stop Ulan Bator ...

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Life on the rails .... part 2

With the weather very firmly now changed from bloody freezing to warm and humid, it's time to head back to Yaroslavki Station for the beginning of our epic train journey across Siberia to Mongolia. In and around the station is definitely the worst part of Moscow we saw, "full of crazies" is no understatement. I drew the marginally shorter of the 2 straws and left Mel in the waiting room, surrounded by drunks and rough sleepers (occassionally being beaten awake by the police - nice) and headed out into the surrounding night market to stock up on supplies. As with everywhere in Russia so far, if you make the effort then people are genuinely warm and helpful. So I was soon performing a series of mimes to describe which goods I wanted to buy from the people staffing each kiosk (no self service here) - much to their amusment. I got a bit delayed, because the pot-noodle seller decided he needed to practice speaking French to me. Only in Russia ..... So after 2 hours of what is possibly the most intimidating train station on the planet ... we finally boarded the legendary train 4, bound for Beijing. Not all the way in one hit, but we'd be spending the next 5 nights aboard so decided to go for the luxury 2-berth Kupe compartment. As it was a night departure, we missed the picturesque spires of the golden ring cities completely, waking up to scenes of Western Siberia. Bascially 2 days of this... And occasionally one of these ... And that kind of sums it up really. Our guidebook had assured us of plenty of opportunities for taking on supplies at stations, sadly we found this to be a slight exaggeration and were almost immediately on emergency rations -apart from a very occasional visit to the awful and ludicrously priced Russian restaurant car (even GNER could learn how to profiteer from these guy's). Without a doubt the most fun I had in the first 2 days was watching Mel trying to eat her pot-pasta with a drinking straw - someone had forgotten to pack a fork ..... although exacty who it was is still a matter for debate ....


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Painting the town Red ... Moscow - part 2

Well, our night out in Moscow was one to be remembered ... It started well, and we found the recommended Indian restaurant no problem - only to discover it was dry after we'd sat down at our table. We decided to move on. After some searching the locality we ended up in a cellar bar with a nice atmosphere and half decent food menu, but more importantly beer. So we settled down to fajitas and lots of ice cold pints of Staropramen. We'd been there about 30 minutes when we realised most of the rest of the bar was there for a birthday party. If we hadn't realised already we would have around an hour later as the bar filled up and a certain critical mass of alcohol had been reached. Every minute the same girl would shout "hippy birt-day!", then every other minute would come a big shout in Russian and everyone would drink a shot of Vot-ka (see we've been learning Russian too!). This phase lasted around an hour and everyone was getting in very good spirits. Then something we didn't expect. Enter the stripper. Not just the standard UK pub stripper dressed as a police lady - but a very professional young lady indeed, who performed in 3 separate acts (each with it's own stage custume) lasting about 45 minutes overall. Then 2 of the party guests started pole-dancing, at the same time, in what can only be described as a well choreographed girl-on-girl routine. Clearly they we're professionals too. Then everyone else started having a go (including the men), and in case you hadn't guessed the party was in full swing by now. By the time we left to catch the last to catch the last Metro home, the second table full of plates and glasses had just gone over - we figured the party had probably reached it's zenith ...

Next day, and nursing a pair of very sore heads indeed we headed off to Red Square & the Kremlin for some slightly more sedate cultural activity - more photo's from there on my flickr account. Tomorrow we head off on our trans-Mongolian train journey - so it's off to the local shop for a litre or two of that cheap Stoli ......

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