DAY 53 - Ulaan Baator, Mongolia

Crossing the border into Mongolia took eight hours, two "Magnet" ice creams and one particularly threatening scowl (from the Russia border guard – I smiled, only weakly, at her when giving over my passport. Clearly I wasn't taking the situation seriously enough). Like the previous train, it was full of vodka drunks with dubious personal hygiene, all wanting to be your friend (provided you had some more vodka).

The countryside in Mongolia is incredibly beautiful – even in the pouring rain. Miles and miles of undulating hillsides covered in green grass, broken only by the odd river and mobile phone mast (well, you're got to build mobile phone masts). It's like the Yorkshire Dales only on a much, much bigger scale. There are no fences or walls dividing the land into fields and there are few trees. Ulaan Baator on the other hand is a Soviet inspired, soulless dump of an eyesore. Think Westminster council deciding to open a landfill site in Regent's Park, and you're not far off. There's supposed to be a large programme of knocking down the old stock of high rise housing and rebuilding it from scratch, but they've clearly got a long way to go. The situation wasn't helped on Monday when we drove through that Mongolia had won a second gold medal at the Olympics. There had clearly been quite a party. Although it was difficult to work out where the long term urban decay ended and the newly added debris from the previous night started, I'm pretty sure the crashed bus was fairly recent.

We were to spend the first two nights here in a Ger Tent in Terelj National Park, but on the way we stopped off at some local's tent to see how it's done properly. The couple who lived there were very welcoming and, in between milking the Yaks and rounding up the sheep, offered us some of the local delicacies. Of particular interest to foodies out there would be the fermented (horse) mare's milk (airag). It was very sour and conjured up images of pouring vodka into milk that's been left in the sun for a few weeks. There were various other cheese and cream products but I decided not to ask where they came from and politely tried a bit of each.

The Ger camp we stayed at was quite basic (cold showers again, despite there being a little box with red glowing lights on it promising the opportunity of warm water; it was alas not to be). The Ger's themselves are round, about 6 meters in diameter and have a wood stove in the middle. The furniture is just about ok – the beds are a bit hard with the mattress only being about 3cm thick – and we couldn't keep the damn stove alight for love nor money, so it was really cold in the mornings. All of this slumming was worth it though for the jaw-dropping scenery. No photos could do it justice. The area around the park is similar to the rest of the country only there are hundreds of granite rock formations worn out of the landscape like at Brimham Rocks in Yorkshire. But best of all, there's nobody else here. You can see for literally hundreds of miles and see absolutely no-one. Clearly there are some people out there, but – to further the Yorkshire Dales analogy – you don't risk twisting your ankle on poor man-made footpaths cutting through the natural scenery (there aren't any footpaths) whilst trying to avoid the hordes of middle-aged day trippers in their brand new fluorescent pink waterproofs who are equally trying to control their screaming kids who would rather be sat in front of their PS3 than enjoying the natural world. It's utterly silent apart from the wind through the (few) trees and buzz of giant grass-hopper wings. Good eh? J

Rich.

Over Lake Baikal.

DAY 50 - Irkutsk, Russia

Just to balance all that derogatory stuff I wrote about the Moscovites, I can happily report that most of the other Russian people I've met have been really nice, decent people (although they still don't smile). Lilianna, the lady who was sharing our compartment, was really sweet and spent the whole trip doing Sudoku puzzles. In Irkutsk the people were generally pleasant enough.

 

We arrived early in the morning, were picked up from the station and taken straight away to Listvyanka on the shores of Lake Baikal. Just to bore you with a few facts, it's the deepest lake in the world and contains over 20% of all the non-polar fresh water in the world. It's also very pretty which is just as well, because there's bugger all to do in the village itself except stare at the water. On the first day we had a look in the local museum with its pickled fish and couple of Nerpa Seals (cruelly kept in a tank no bigger than a shed – but at least they weren't pickled), then took a chair lift to the top of a hill to stare at the lake again (but from a slightly different angle).

 

The second day was better. A local guide took us for a hike along the side of the lake through Port Baikal along the old Trans-Siberian Railway tracks. Originally the railway followed the edge of the lake but the route weaved and turned so much they couldn't go very fast as they had to keep an eye out for rock slides on the track and gormless British tourists taking pictures of the lake, oblivious to anything going on around them. We had a nice camp fire before heading back.

 

On both nights we had a banya. This is just a sauna, only the Russians flail themselves with birch twigs repeatedly to encourage the impurities to ooze out. They were quite relaxing actually and I could see the attraction of them particularly in winter when it could get to -30C outside. (The lake completely freezes over in winter and the locals drive over to the other side.)

 

Saturday we were taken back to Irkutsk for a look around the city. It's really quite a typical European-style city and in general Siberia has turned out to be nothing like I imagined. I'm sure that would all be different in winter though when there's half a meter of snow on the ground.

 

Part of the deal on this trip was to use "homestays" rather than hotels. We thought these would involve us occupying someone's spare room and eating with the family so we thought this would be fun. The homestay in Listvyanka wasn't like this at all though, it was a bit of a hole. The bedclothes stank of old sweat and the toilet was of the poo-and-view variety. The owner didn't actually live there: he sent round the cleaner each meal time to shove some pre-packaged food onto a plate for us. The homestay in Irkustk was much better, complete with little old lady in huge lensed glasses (think the super-suit maker from The Incredibles). The room was pretty and she cooked the wonderful food herself.

 

Had a bit of an electrical disaster on the train before Irkutsk. Camcorder charger blew-up. The plug socket on the train was a bit loose and I think I'd stacked too many converters, splitters and chargers on top of each other, jenga-style, for it to cope with. Iain's bringing out the replacement when we get to Japan.

 

On the train now to Ulaan-Baator. We had to get up at 03:30 to catch it and then it was an hour and a half late. So I'm grumpy today. Get over it.

 

Rich.

DAY 45 - Barabinsk (i think), Russia

Last day in Moscow we went to the Kremlin to have a look around. Most of it seems quite modern except for the churches, of which there are at least five, right next to each other. One clearly wasn’t enough for the Tsars - that’s almost a different church for each day of the week. I got whistled at again by a soldier for sitting on the step of some faceless soviet era carbuncle.

 

After that we headed for Sculpture Park where all the old soviet statues of Lenin, Stalin, etc were dumped when the USSR fell apart. Since then they’ve added some more recent works including a barbed wire cage containing hundreds of stone heads to represent the hundreds of thousands of victims of Stalin’s purges. It been appropriately placed right behind a statue of the man himself.

 

After tea in a rather weird canteen-style restaurant called “moo-moo” we headed back to the hotel for the pick up to the train station. The taxi was late, of course. Finding the train was relatively straight forward though and we were greeted at the entrance to our car by a surly looking provodnitsa. She’s the lady who keeps the passengers in line while they’re on the train, makes sure the toilets are kept clean and (if your lucky) keeps the samovar (large hot water dispenser at the end of each car) topped up. The guide book advises to “butter up she-who-must-be-obeyed at every opportunity”. Quite. I finally got her to smile when I tried out my Russian (straight out of the guide book) to buy a bottle of water. I’m sure she was laughing at me…

 

There’s four to a cabin in second class but Dan and I only have one companion, an oldish lady whose name escapes me. She doesn’t speak any English but that hasn’t stopped all communication. So far I’ve managed to work out she’s descended from Genghis Khan and has been to Bulgaria. I’ll keep at it…

 

The trip we’re on involves three trips on the train. We’re currently on the first leg to Irkutsk on day 2 of 3. It’s really hot on board but fortunately there’s air conditioning which does a wonderful job of keeping the temperature at a barmy 30-odd degrees Celsius. And don’t forget there are no showers on board. It’s a bit cooler today though.

 

As for the scenery, well, that’s mainly trees with the odd burnt out shell of an old factory. We’ve passed into Asia now, going through the Urals last night. None of the stations we’ve been through have had any signs up saying where they are, so I’ve been using the GPS on my phone to work it out. Unfortunately Nokia seems to have forgotten about Asian Russia when drawing their maps so I’ve now abandoned that method and an relying on the timetable to work out which station to get off at. Wish us luck…

 

DAY 42 - Moscow, Russia

Back on the road again. Flew to Moscow yesterday. The hotel we're staying in is one of five large tower blocks which formed the athletes village for the 1980 Olympics. They're outside the centre of the city and I'd expected them to be cheap and rubbish, but they're surprisingly decent, only lacking air con. It's over 30 degrees here during the day and not much less during the night, but last winter it got down to -30 apparently, so i suppose it's not worth installing air con in most places.

 

The first thing you notice here is that some people have a lot of money. The second thing you notice is that they clearly flaunt it everywhere they go, so much so that (to me at least) it comes across as really crass. (There is no jealousy involved, honest.) It's as if all the bin men from Basildon suddenly won the pools - it doesn't seem to matter if you need it: if it's in, you've got to have it. Witness the huge cars blocking the streets, endless Apple iPhones littering the tables like disregarded crisp packets and the in-yer-face designer labels (I swear some of the D&G sunglasses are bigger than the heads wearing them). I've also decided to promote Muscovites above Tanzanians in the really bad taste shoes league (although some of the pairs i saw outside Bank tube station when i was on secondment were much worse, this was generally a localised effect caused by too many bankers). I shall say no more.

 

I know all this this doesn't sound much different to some parts of London, but most people here don't have anywhere near as much, including those we would term as "the middle classes". Apparently, the gap between the rich 1% and the rest is so great, other Russians are not allowed to come to Moscow without written permission as the authorities are worried it'll flood the place with beggars, make the place look untidy and getting in the way of their 4x4s.

 

On arrival we immediately got the metro into the city centre. Approaching Red Square is one of those moments where you suddenly realise you're going to see something in the flesh which you've seen countless times before on telly. As I approached the arch at the edge of the square and took my first sight of St Basil's Cathedral it was quite a moment. Of course it's never as big as you expected.

 

This morning we had a walking tour and picked up some interesting tit-bits from the guide. We paid a visit to Lenin who, owing to being pumped full of formaldehyde and dipped in wax, didn't have much to say. I got moved on by an overly (in my opinion) officious soldier for walking too slow. It's completely true that people don't smile here - particularly the waiters in the restaurants who seem to think they're doing you a favour by turning up for work. Anyway, Lenin was pretty creepy. You can't help but imagine the cleaner wiping him down one day and accidentally catching his face with the duster causing his nose to fall off. He can't possibly stay like that forever.

 

We saw a small bunch of old folk parading to Red Square with old USSR flags. Apparently there are plenty of people here who still hanker after the "good old days" of rationing, lack of ability to travel and general living-on-the-edge-of-war stuff. They're mostly old though. The young just seem to want a new iPod.

 

St Basil's is the most interesting church i've ever seen. It's made up of nine chapels, each separate but joined together so none is very large and most of the inside of the structure is wall. Each has it's own alter but the maximum number of people you could get into most of them would be about 15. Nice turnip shaped domes though.

 

Anyway, i need to go and evaporate a bit more. Getting on the trans-siberian for four days tomorrow. Will officially stink by Irkutsk.

 

Rich.