Inspired by Cameron I decided to jot down a few of my own post-adventure unblogged events and observations. Unfortunately my post is both shorter and unalphabetized but I hope you'll read anyway.
Hands on the ceiling seat belts.
The 'blueberry', the van we rode through the Gobi, didn't have seatbelts but we quickly learned that pressing your palms against the roof was a good way to avoid having your bum fly in the air when we went through potholes or small ravines. Despite Mooch's expert driving I would estimate we hit a pothole every 15 minutes and a particularly eventful pothole every hour or so, so we spent a great deal of time with our arms raised.
Pancakes that taste like nothing.
We ordered potato pancakes several times in Russia and they were always disappointed. I would describe how they tasted but quite honestly they didn't taste like anything. At times it was hard to know they were in your mouth at all. After some consideration I can honestly say that my repeated failure to find delicious potato pancakes-not in Irkutsk (at 'The Liverpool' or the swanky place on the river), nor in Moscow at the weird Ukrainian place near the Kremlin, was the single most disappointing part of the Trans-Siberian. I had really high expectations.
The Bristol Scale.
I realized something after the trip, Cameron. You're adventures on the Bristol Scale, remember how they were somewhat more eventful than my own? And remember our discussions on what it might have been that you ate? 'Bad peanut', for example? Drinking water around the rock covered in tp? I realized that we overlooked, or I at least overlook, a fairly important factor-you used to be a vegetarian! That probably explains everything. Mystery solved.
The girl at the desk of the 'Napoleon' in Moscow who thought we were twins.
I really don't know what to say about this. Was she blind? I don't think so. She was very insistent and she brought up the whole 'twins thing' at least three or four times though. One possibility is that her limited English vocabulary is clustered around subjects relating to people being twins. Maybe she did a diorama or something on twins in English class. Alternatively she could be colour blind. Or she may have mistaken my "niet" for "no, but please ask me again in 2 to 3 hours when I return". Going to Russia leaves you with a lot of unanswered questions.
great post Cameron, you reminded me of a lot of things,
Andrew
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
Saturday, October 22, 2011
Wrap Up
On a semi-regular basis, memorable but heretofore unblogged events from the trip pop into my head. So I’ve typed them up (alphabetically):
Accordion: There was a wonderful old man who lived at Nikita’s guesthouse on Olkhon Island. He had very twinkly, mischievous eyes. He studied English by reading the dictionary. He gave us a very accurate ranking of the comprehensibility of accents (Irish was last). His singing girls didn’t show up for his accordion concert, so it was cancelled. This upset him so much he was unable to speak (he had dressed in a traditional costume and told everyone to come). The singing girls arrived the next night, but they were the most frumpy, unhappy looking women I’ve ever seen. And they sounded like the baritone version of tortured cats. The old man pranced behind them, making deep eye contact with everyone in the room in turn and hamming it up for every picture. He announced each song, and said which country it came from. But I swear they all sounded identical.
Arcade: We bravely ventured into a seemingly deserted building in Beijing. Down a hallway and up an elevator was a big, nearly empty, cheap arcade. There was a shirtless man who played the “arcade free-throws” game the entire time we were there. The way he was playing (alone, with great focus, not pausing between games) and his incredible skill (he could finish throwing a third ball before the first fell through the basket) made us think that perfecting this game was this was pretty much his life’s work.
Beach: We were taken by the 24 year old owner of our hotel in St. Petersburg to a funk bar. There was sand outside to make a good sized “beach.” The bar was in the middle of an industrial area, so the contrast was fun. Some Russian guys breakdanced.
Bones: In Mongolia, you see animal skeletons everywhere. The best are camel skulls. In the Gobi we found a neatly stacked pile of camel legs.
Bridges: St. Petersburg is a bit like Venice; there are lots of canals and rivers, and in the Spring there is sometimes flooding. At 2:00am many of the larger bridges open for several hours so that freighters (long, narrow, and fast) can go through. The bridges are lit up when they open, and lots of people go out at night to see them. We went with a group from the hostel, but it disintegrated long before we managed to walk all the way there. (At night, the streets of St. Petersburg are full of people stopping you and offering champagne.) The soberest among us got there eventually, and it was very nice.
Camels: One family we stayed with in Mongolia had a large herd of camels. They keep all the baby camels tied up, while the mothers are free to wander around and graze. The mother camels come to nurse their baby camels one at a time. It’s very organized: as one mother walks away, you can see another mother in the distance slowly walking in. Simultaneous to the feeding, the camel is milked. This seems tricky to do; the milker must stand awkwardly and balance the bucket on her knee. At dusk, all the mother camels came back in a group. Each found her baby camel and lay down to sleep beside it.
Concert: There was a children’s concert at Nikita’s. Kids (about 5-12) sang and danced and played instruments. None of them were the slightest bit self-conscious, even the boy whose primary task was to do continuous cartwheels in a circle while a girl sang.
Danger: On the first day of the Gobi trip it rained heavily. We were still in the steppes, so it got quite muddy. Very unexpectedly, the van took a weird skid and went up on two wheels. It came pretty close to a rollover. Mooch thought this was hilarious.
Football: We went to an Ireland/Russia soccer match when we were in Moscow (a Euro Cup Qualifier). Luzhniki Stadium seats over 78 thousand people, and even though it was only 70% full, it was still pretty cool just to be there. The fans behind the goals are the most hardcore, and they would do call and answer chants across the field and set off flares. Our Irish friends from the hostel sat in the segregated Irish section (for safety), but we got tickets from a scalper and sat with the Russians. It was a 0-0 draw, a good result for outmatched Ireland.
Game: In Mongolia, Andrew and I invented a game that involved throwing things at water bottles to knock them over. A few kids played with us and got really into it. I like to think that they’ve kept playing it.
Hitchhiking: In Mongolia (and to a lesser extent in Russia), it is very common to hitchhike. But it's not free, you negotiate a price. In Dalanzadgat town, Mongolia, we did this with Mooch after walking to a store. It only took him a couple minutes to find a willing driver, and it cost less than $1.
Lenin: We saw Lenin’s corpse. Kind of a weird experience. The Mausoleum is dark and cold. Lenin looks real, but grey. Read about how they keep the body preserved here.
Mongol Rally: There is an annual event called the “Mongol Rally.” About 300 participants buy inexpensive cars in London and drive them to Mongolia where they are sold for charity. Only about 20% make it all the way. We met several people who were taking the train home after completing the rally. They told us cool stories. One team went in an ambulance, another in a fire truck. The most challenging route is to go down through Europe and the Balkans, across Turkey and Northern Iran, then through the ‘stans. We learned the term “rally-ender,” referring to the massive potholes that could total a car.
Napoleon: An Irish guy in Moscow got lost on his way home from the bar, which was only 50 meters from the hostel. He wandered around for hours until he was picked up by the police the next morning. He knew the name of our hostel was “Napoleon” (it’s in the same area where Napoleon stayed after conquering Moscow), so he just kept repeating “Napoleon! Napoleon!” Of course the police thought he was saying he was Napoleon, and that was crazy.
Pit Toilet: Pit toilets were expected in Mongolia, but not in the St. Petersburg airport!
Rally-Ender: Our friend Jack in St. Petersburg had a rally-ending night out. He got separated, and woke up the next morning, in a distant park, with no wallet and no memory of how he got there. This really shook him up. So much so that when he finally made it back to the hostel, he immediately bought a flight home to Australia. A real rally-ender.
Security: There was a huge police/army presence in Moscow. (But very little in St. Petersburg.) You get to recognize the different kinds of units. There are the lowest level army grunts. Most of them look about 16, and they wear jackets that are far too big. Then there are the elite troops, each of them over six feet, and with pants tucked into their heavy boots. Then there are a few different kinds of officers, and police, and etc. For public events, thousands of grunts are used to make human fences, standing shoulder to shoulder. On side streets you see huge, six-wheeled troop transporters full of reinforcements, just sitting and waiting.
Shamans: On Olkhon Island we saw a shaman ritual at the special rock. We have no idea what it was for, but it involved throwing vodka out of small cups.
Smuggle-Train: At the beginning of the train trip from Mongolia to Russia, a Mongolian woman came to our compartment and gave us four pairs of new jeans. She did this with every compartment in our car with various items of clothing. When we were in Russia she came back to collect the jeans, and paid one of the Mongolian girls in our compartment about $3.
Tattoos: The frequent absence of shirts on trains made our lack of tattoos embarrassingly conspicuous. I vaguely recall making plans to get half a snake head on each of our backs so we could stand together and form a full snake head. I’m hoping that deal is off; I’m gonna feel really bad if Andrew’s gone ahead with this...
Thirst: While stopped for lunch in the Gobi, a solitary camel stared at us expectantly. Mooch showed us that we could give it water from a nearby well. Andrew scoped out water with a big bucket at the end of long stick, and poured it into a tire which had been cut and spread out to make a trough. The camel drank three buckets full, and seemed happy, but not grateful.
And with that, I’m done. Thanks SudmantFamilyBlog for hosting! Here’s to the many future travels, adventures, discoveries, and dogs of the month that shall grace these pages!
-Cameron
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