-Bring yer own: toilet paper, plug for the sink, and a short length of hose to fit to the sink tap for a makeshift shower...
-"refusing a drink can be very difficult...the only tested and true method of warding off all offers is to say "ya alkogolichka" (the feminine version) - 'I'm an alcoholic'"
-Time: in Russia, the train always runs on Moscow time, even though my last stop in Irkutsk is 5 time zones away, while all of China is on Beijing's clock, and Mongolia has 2 different time zones:
"none of the people on the train knew what time it was. Some people traveled on Moscow time but operated on local time, if you can figure that out. But half the people were on Beijing time and one diplomat said he was on Tokyo time, which was the same for some reason as Ulan Baatar time. Our Chinese porter changed his watch 15 minutes every few hours or so, but this was a system of his own devising..."
Mary Morris, Wall to Wall-"Irkutsk was founded in 1651 as a Cossack garrison to establish authority over the indigenous Buryats. In the 1700s, it was the springboard for expeditions to the far north and east. Under trader Grigory Shelekhov, expeditions even went across the Bering Strait in Alaska (referred to at that time as the 'American district of Irkutsk')" LP
-Lake Baikal - the "pearl of Siberia": world's largest (in volume), deepest, and oldest freshwater lake, containing 20% of the world's unfrozen fresh water and is 20 million years old (many freshwater lakes are only around 20,000). "Over half of the 2,615 plant and animal species found in the Baikal region are endemic." from the Tahoe Baikal Institute. It is possible to see down into the lake as far as 40 m. (LP)
-Ulan Ude (my last stop before Mongolia) is the capital city of the Buryat Republic - the Evenks (Siberian indigenous tribe) and the Buryats (Mongolian indigenous people, now reviving Mongolian/Tibetan buddhism) put up a strong resistance to Cossack and Soviet rule. Ironically, the largest bust of Lenin ever built is located in Ulan Ude.
-Currency in Mongolia is "togrog" (T) - the dollar is worth more than a thousand T. Mongolian GDP is $1,840 per capita, ranking Mongolia as 175 out of 200 countries.
-The 1st phrase listed in a top 10 Mongolian survival phrase list is: Nokhoi khorio! (hold the dog!) Mongolian is a member of the Ural-Altaic family of languages: including Finnish, Hungarian, Turkish, Kazakh, Usbek and Korean. Traditional Mongolian script looks like Arabic turned 45 degrees, but in 1944 the Russian cyrillic alphabet was adopted.
Bodog: "this authentic "Mongolian BBQ" first involves pulling the innards out of the neck of a goat or marmot. the carcass is then stuffed full of scalding rocks and neck cinched up with wire. The bloated animal is then thrown upon a fire (or blowtorched) to burn the fur off the outside while the meat is cooked from within. Furthering theadventure, it's worth noting that the bubonic plague can be passed by handling marmot skins. There is less a chance of catching the disease between mid August and mid October" (so that works in my favor. whew.)
-"Spitting in China is only slightly less popular than badminton. Although it is technically illegal in Beijing, everyone does it everwhere, loudly and flamboyantly." LP
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