The Vodka train to Vodka Land!
Trip Start
May 07, 2003
1
54
65
Trip End
Sep 05, 2005
Lake Baikal,
Russia
Thursday, August 4, 2005
Tache Ticker: sadly I think it's now Russian defence policy to have all their troops cleanly shaven. So all the border guards had baby faces, as have all the hundreds of polis (militsya) we've encountered. We did however see some real lip curling beauties in some random stations coming into Siberia. On the whole though, it's been rather dissapointing and myself and Chris are feeling decidedly dejected and out of place with our spanking tachios! No one told us the Russian fashion scene had moved on!
Left the legendary gentleman Mejet a nice tip for his brilliant services. After our spectacular jeep tour, him and his wife let us shower in their in flat, took us for Transzip stocks in the supermercado, then dropped us at the trainstation in Ulaan Bataar - bloody awesome - be sure to check 'em out when you go to Mongo - mejet69@yahoo.com
Jumped on the old slow train #263 - to Irkutsk
01 Oor train, number 263 - the slow one!
. The higher the number, the slower/older the cho-cho, and she sure was a right old clunker. It seemed to stop at every single Ger camp on the way to the border. We found enough to amuse ourselves however and that night along with our two Ozzie cabin mates, a Californian couple we had befriended and a really jolly Mongol who turned out to be an international diplomat with a sideline smuggling contraband across the Asian plains and a penchant for neat Vodka, had a great knees up and managed to cram everyone into our tiny cabin for cheesy Beetles singalongs and attempting to keep up with the Mongolian vodka monster, Surmaa, as we rapidly polished off three bottles of Chingis Khan. Mongolia has been real quality, the people and the landscapes have been like no other, so it was abit of a shame that the bastards kept us on the border for TWELVE BLOODY HOURS! - we had to wait donkeys for the Mongol customs dudes to shake off their own hangovers and let us across the border! Pissed around on the Ruski side for hours too, doing not much else but watching burly army dudes with big hats tearing our cabin up and searching for stuff - but hey they let us thru and they didn't steal any of our shit!! Myself and Chris, in delusions of paranoia rolling north, fully expected to be told "Nyet" and sent back from whence we came!We soon discovered the Ruski's have a passion for the negative answer; "nyet" is by far the word we've most commonly been hearing
02 Meet Surmaa and Josh
. - "Can we get off the train we've been stuck on at a standstill for the past 4 hours?" - "Nyet"
- "Will you at least unlock the toilet so we don't have to piss in beer cans?" - "Nyet"
- "Can we change money in your currency exchange, so we can spend money here" - "Nyet"
- "Any other way to change money" - "Nyet"
- "Can we get on the boat" - "nyet"
- "Is there any way to get to the lake without paying an exorbitant taxi fare?" - "Nyet"
- "Is there any cheap accomm on the lake" - "Nyet"
- "Can we register our visas here" - "Nyet"
- "Will you sell us an ice-cream out of your fully stocked freezer" - "Nyet"
But where there's a will, there's always a way and you quickly learn here that it usually takes a while.
We did eventually find shelter in the Lake Baikal-side village of Listvyanka, with this senile old wifie and her two distraught sons
03 A dangerous man...
. Still about ten times more than we'd been used to shelling out further south, but hey we'd better get used to it - we're back in whitey land - it's so wierd seeing white people everywhere - amazing what happens when you cross a border! Anyway the mad Babuska had an affinity for shouting at us at full volume in Russian within inches of our faces whenever we were in the house and it was pretty hard to get any privacy without being bawled at! She too, liked to lock us in while also locking the toilets - what is it with these people! When I asked her for some sheets for the bed-setee I had paid for it really rubbed her up the wrong way - "NYYEEET!! THAT IS A LUXURY!" That really set her off on a rant and she bawled away repetitively thru the translation services of this poor Russian speaking German dude (who had serious trouble comprehending her splutterings) that she'd "had no trouble here in 74 years" and that "you didn't pay for luxury so yer no gettin nowt son!" Turned out she expected us to share a bed - the voyeuristic old bag! - normally I'd have no problems sharing a bed with the stinking carcass of the man Christopher but only IN DIRE FECKIN CIRCUMSTANCES and certainly not if there's a spare bed across the room - "Ahm no buftie". So, we dumped our shit and escaped loony tunes, ignoring her bellowings as we slammed the door. No sooner had we perched ourselves on a primo spot by the lakeside for enjoying the views, than we were accosted by 6 burly Russian henchmen who had just come off a booze cruise round the lake. Russian men look well scary - let me tell you! All these guys insisted on however was that we joined them in consuming vast quantities of neat Putinka vodka and a table piled high with gorgeous traditional Baikal scran. They were great fun these guys, one claimed to be an ex-army sniper, veteran of the Chechen and Afghan wars, and another the cousin of Abrahamovich, Chelsea FC owner
04 Get it doon ye Chris!
! Amazing - we shared only a few words and had never met them before but we laughed for hours; until they crawled off home.We too, crawled back up the hill, and as soon as we crossed the threshold, the shouting match commenced. She stood in our room ranting the house down in incomprehensible Ruski while her sons stoodby in what seemed to be unknowing disbelief. When I tried to usher the old hag out the door, explaining we needed some sleep, she really lost her rag, and I suppose - I did too! Not that she understood a word, but the tone must have nevertheless conveyed that I was telling the psycotic old bag to get the hell out of our room and leave us the fuck alone! Bad idea! The crazy old dragon had no hesitation in kicking us out onto the streets of Siberia at half past midnight with all our worldy possessions! Oh dear! Chris and I tried vainly to knock up some other folk down the road with no joy. Luckily two kindly Kiwi's we'd befriended earlier on, were sleeping in an old shop for a pittance and they were only too happy to take us in and let us sleep on the floor. It actually turned out brilliant - cheap as, and no more babuska in our face!
Lake Baikal, known as "the Pearl of Siberia", is pretty damn big, the deepest lake in the world in fact. Apparently if all the reserves of water in the world dried out, Baikal could quench the thirst of the worlds entire population for 40 years. Similarily if Baikal itself dried out, it would take 5 of the biggest rivers in the world, an entire year to fill it! It contains a fifth of all the worlds fresh water and is so oceanically massive, it affects the year-round weather and the temperature of it's surrounding area. In winter, it can have ice up to 5m thick in places. In summer, it's still bloody freezing but that didn't stop the crazy squad freezing our bollox off on numerous occasions diving into it! The lakeside village Listvyanka is like a seaside town and buzzes with activity. Now, lets talk about the Russian women, most of them, but the market sellers in particular, i.e. those selling fruit, souvenirs and the delicious local delicacy - Omul, literally smoking fish - usually wear nothing but their bikinis and their stilletos while slaving over the stinky smokers - a feast for the eyes indeed!
Tonight off to Mockba. Only a four day train stands between us and a long overdue return to Europe.
