транс-сиб странникa

Back in Kodiak

2009-10-25T12:35:00.000-07:00

Favorite photos from the real camera will be posted here
eventually... In the meantime, it is a beautiful fall day and I am
off to help move firewood...

There and back again

2009-10-09T20:59:00.001-07:00

"A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent on arrival". -
Lao Tsu

A welcome home mojito at LAX. Mixed feelings...

Brushes for sale

2009-10-09T16:01:00.000-07:00

Inked

2009-10-09T15:59:00.000-07:00

Happy birthday, PRC

2009-10-09T15:57:00.000-07:00

China, chimay, far away

2009-10-09T05:13:00.000-07:00

I've had that Greg Brown song in my head for days... "so you say you're going away to china, china, chimay, far away". Unlike the song, I know when I am leaving china- waiting now in the airport fo LA - but I have a feeling this is not the last time I will travel in this country.

I've been surrounded this past week by a people in the grip of patriotic furvor- you can see it in their faces as they walk and wave theirini flags, wearing heart stickers with the flag and "60" in gold, as they take photos of each other ad nauseum in Tiananmen square and in front of chairman Mao's portrait. And holy crow, there are a lot of people. I was told that everyone leaves BJ during national holiday week (making it impossible to travel elsewhere in China)- but I think the opposite happened this time. I feel kind of privileged to have been a tourist in the presence of so many local tourists; even though overwhelming, it was a sight to see.

Today I spent the morning walking along the street of calligraphers- not only art displayed, but also the shops where artists come to buy their inks, brushes, and rice paper. I watched a few at work- quiet, modest men, so different from the litany of shopkeepers jabbering "I make-a you a good price". One man reached the end of his scroll and, with an uncharacteristic flourish, stamped his bright red signature at the base.

Today I also fell in love with a teapot. The shopkeeper claimed it was Ming dynasty, around the 16th century, which I find hard to believe- but it certainly stood out (although the shopkeeper was very surprised I noticed it- I had to laugh when she guilelessly complimented that I had very good taste...for a foreigner). It was made of very fine clay, with a very worn grass tether from lid to handle, and large enough for at least 4 cups of tea. A very simple round shape, but perfect and proud- dark earthy color, but it may have had a red glaze at some point. It was impossible to tellthe true color-this was a well loved pot and many, many hands had worn at the surface until it had a dull sheen...really, the thing seemed to glow a bit under the desk lamp- I can't fully describe how special and captivating it seemed. I couldn't handle the1500 dollar asking price though, so had to settle for taking several loving pictures and walking away.

Of course I did spend some money for a fine meal... 3 guesses what I had for lunch... I went to a tiny hole in the wall that is reknowned for it's Peking Duck- the real deal. Tasty, tasty yum.

So long, Beijing, it's been fun!

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View of FC from park

2009-10-07T23:31:00.001-07:00

And a little smog, too...

Interior

2009-10-07T23:29:00.001-07:00

Hall/gate used as a resting or changing place for the emperor on his
way to the main gate

Intimidated

2009-10-07T23:26:00.001-07:00

Bearded turtle

2009-10-07T23:24:00.001-07:00

Sign of longevity

Eaves

2009-10-07T23:23:00.001-07:00

A little more detail, please.

Cauldrons

2009-10-07T23:21:00.001-07:00

Traditionally kept full of water to fight fires...

Forbidden city, first thing in the morning

2009-10-07T23:19:00.001-07:00

Water calligraphy in the park

2009-10-07T02:28:00.001-07:00

Fierce flowers

2009-10-07T02:27:00.003-07:00

Temple of heaven

2009-10-07T02:27:00.001-07:00

Where the emperor goes to pray for a good harvest...

Lanterns

2009-10-07T02:25:00.001-07:00

Afternoon at temple of heaven park

2009-10-07T02:23:00.003-07:00

Mini concert

2009-10-07T02:23:00.001-07:00

7 musicians camped out in an arch at the park- chinese folk or
classical? Complex and beautiful...

Hutong walkaround

2009-10-07T02:21:00.001-07:00

Raisins for sale

2009-10-07T02:20:00.001-07:00

Tasty treat

2009-10-06T17:43:00.001-07:00

Seahorse on a stick...

Ready for bbq

2009-10-06T17:41:00.000-07:00

The back tray has silk worm cocoons

Donghuamen night market

2009-10-06T17:37:00.001-07:00

Peking Opera

2009-10-06T17:36:00.001-07:00

Very different from western opera! At a traditional guild theater.
Much less singing (and "cat gut" does come to mind) and much more
elaborate facial expressions, highly choreographed dance, acrobatics,
and sword fights.

Great Wall- end of trek

2009-10-06T17:31:00.001-07:00

12 km and a pair of shaky legs later...down to Simatai

GW 4

2009-10-06T17:29:00.001-07:00

GW 3

2009-10-06T17:28:00.001-07:00

GW 2

2009-10-06T17:27:00.001-07:00

Great wall - start of the treck

2009-10-06T17:25:00.001-07:00

Drum tower

2009-10-05T05:54:00.000-07:00

(bell tower is in background of other photo.). Closed to climbing
today :(

Street chaos

2009-10-05T05:53:00.001-07:00

Note that everyone is flying the flag. Patriotism is in the air

Admittedly...

2009-10-05T05:51:00.000-07:00

Mildly obsessed with the dining experience here

Shrimp in special flavor

2009-10-05T05:49:00.000-07:00

Ala carte :). Absolutely tasty.

Indulgence

2009-10-05T05:48:00.001-07:00

For lunch, yummy spicy chicken and peanuts, bamboo shoots in sauce,
and some of the a la carte gourmet: chefs special scallop and shrimp.
Have to keep up the energy, you know. A few items on the menu I was
not brave enough to try: homemade marinated pig maw, pork skin jelly,
& braised pig trotters with soup. Other interesting dishes with fun
names: spicy duck chin, drunken fish- and a few interesting combos:
braised bullfrog with pepper in pot, lotus root stuffed with glutinous
rice, & braised sea cucumber with deer tendons (anyone in kodiak want
to help me try and recreate this?). Had to waddle around the hutongs
all afternoon to work it off...

Lama temple

2009-10-05T05:38:00.000-07:00

Beautiful way to spend the morning (forbidden city and the square were
a madhouse - I spoke to soon about the end of the holiday...). This
temple has anabsolutely enormous Buddha famous for being carved out of
a single piece of sandlewood...

Big blue sky: Mongolia II

2009-10-04T09:34:00.001-07:00

From a few notes in my sorry excuse for a journal. Late night cafe,
pina colada, Beatles blaring Let It Be, smoke in the air, expat
atmosphere. How does anyone ever go to sleep here???

- Goat. My last experience was in Kenya, and I swore I was off goat
for life. Just goes to show. The flavor is unmistakeable, and has a
tendency to ooze out of the pores the next day, a goaty odor in a haze
all around...

- Blue. Every ovoo I saw was wound with the blue silk scarves
available at stores outside of Buddhist temples. From a halting
conversation: blue=sky, yellow=god/spirit, white=mother (mother's
milk), red=family, and green=the earth or the ten thousand things (a
little lost in translation). The scarves are usually in packs of 5,
one of each color. I am not sure why, starting with the more
Shamanistic peoples of Baikal, all the way through primarily Tibetan
Buddhist Mongolia, but at every pile of stones (ovoo) or likely
looking tree / other natural landmark, the blue scarves are
predominant. I would also love to find out what about a site makes it
likely for a scarf/stone shrine. In Mongolia, these are everywhere,
but definitely in high places with views or especially lovely natural
features (like the Orkhon waterfall). We stopped at a few on the
drive, and the driver would walk 3 times slowly in a clockwise
direction around the shrine, adding another stone at the end. What is
it about the human tendency to pile rocks? And, in the case of
Mongolia, how is this more shamanistic practice woven into buddhism?
On our last morning in the ger camp, we had an early morning cup of
tea in the host family's ger, which of course is more richly decorated
than the guest gers, with a small shrine, more intricately painted
wood, and - lovely in early morning light through the removable center
roof panel, a single tattered blue scarf draped from the tiny bit of
sky entering the ger to one of the center supports.

- Bones. It is easy to rhapsodize about the exoticism of Mongolia,
but to balance it out a bit: nomadic presence in the Orkhon valley was
anything but a "lightly on the land" ideal. The manure of yak, sheep,
and goat is literally everywhere, and the bones are scattered just as
thick: fragments of pelvis and scapula, skulls, piles of whole furred
legs discarded as butchered. The grass is cropped incredibly close to
the ground from complete overgrazing, and the bare patches of sites
where gers camped in the summer and then recently moved to their
winter grounds are always in close proximity to ad hoc middens of
plastic, discarded clothing, tin. This is not a place you can walk
with bare feet: shards of glass glitter in the afternoon sun, and
there is an endless stash of empty vodka bottles in rock crevices, and
along the river. By contrast, the inside of the gers we visited were
always a miracle of homemaking, with everything exactly in its place
and an entire family sharing the same circle of space. The little
girl of the family we stayed with in Orkhon had a split in the crotch
of her trousers: diapers were not an option, and with one pair of
pants, the obvious solution. Still, I watched as she was clearly
included and loved in the family circle- the circumstances were not
neglectful.

I admire the lifestyle still practiced by so many in Mongolia, because
of the skill and toughness and knowledge about the land required, but
can't help but compare it in some ways to the many dilemmas facing
Alaskan villages.

Below I've included a comment by a friend of a friend, Wallace
Kaufman, to an article in the WSJ:

Story: Wall Street Journal: The Global Downturn Lands With a Zud on
Mongolia's Nomads (132 days ago)
Comment: The US, Japan, World Bank, and European nations have poured
foreign aid into Mongolia, much of it for rural communities and
herders--most of it sadly mistargeted. A few years ago I attended a
briefing where the head of one of the largest projects summed up by
saying he was afraid most of the foreign aid efforts were intended to
do little more than "to make poor herders better poor herders."

The emotions and cultural misperceptions that drive many aid projects
came home to me as I was traveling through roadless Mongolia with
World Bank and other foreign aid workers advising banks and
businesses. They praised the pastoral simplicity of the herders'
lives, their closeness to the land, their love of horses, their
apparent health. A Texas banker said, "Look, they have grown up riding
and they are bow legged from spending so much time on horseback." The
visitors in various ways expressed a longing for such a healthy and
simple life and a desire to preserve it. A week later in the capital,
Ulaan Baatar, an American doctor told me that the bow legs came from
the vitamin deficiency rickets. A few months later a winter 'zud'
(harsh and prolonged sub zero temperatures and deep snows) killed
hundreds of thousands of animals and plunged their owners back into
poverty.

Mongolians, like other Central Asian herders, have to make the
transition from traditional herding to a modern technologically
efficient economy. They have resources. They have an intelligent and
hard working population. They have universities and teachers ready to
develop the human resources. So many rural women have headed to Ulaan
Baatar's schools and universities that the men left behind complain.

Despite recent troubles, Mongolians have a democratic structure that
worked through several changes of ruling party (more than any other
Central Asian country can say).

Rural aid projects have also focused on cashmere production. That
production is not only highly volatile, it relies on ecological
devastation. The best cashmere, with the thinnest fiber and highest
price, comes from animals grazing on stressed rangeland. Almost all of
Mongolia is terribly overgrazed. A foreign aid project found that if
present areas of range were protected, its short stunted growth grew
tall with grasses and forage.

Much of the overgrazing could be avoided by clear and enforceable land
and water rights, assigned to individuals, families or cooperatives.
Such "enclosure" would cause some disruptions, but in the end it would
allow the best herders to optimize their production and encourage
those who do not have the talent and desire to be herders to find
other occupations.

Back to Beijing

2009-10-04T07:13:00.001-07:00

Soo... I am back in Beijing for the week, and so will have no access
to the blog except through email - sorry about the formatting!

We crossed the border to China late last night, after a much briefer
process than Russia/Mongolia... some official green and brass, and
then we were into the shed for the changing of the bogies, which took
a few hours: Chinese rails run at a different width than Russian and
Mongolian, so someone came up with the brilliant idea that the train
cars be separated, lifted on hydraulic jacks, and the entire wheel
setup (I don't know how else to describe it) be exchanged for the
smaller size. I was in a compartment with a Mongolian couple, who
kindly shared some goat pastries and could have cared less about the
whole thing. The rest of us tourists were sticking our heads out the
one open window, trying to photograph this bizarre scene.

After a day watching the bleak Gobi Desert go by, I woke up this
morning to the extravagance and cultivation of China, with brick and
mud courtyard villages, people harvesting their small plots of corn
and hay mostly by hand, trees and dramatic mountain landscapes,
including the last few hours before Beijing where I think we went
through no fewer than 30 tunnels as we were winding through an
impressively steep river valley. I'm a little sad that this was my
last train ride of the trip, the official end of the Trans-Siberian
(or the Trans Mongolian, as the case may be). I really, really love
traveling by train!

I am also in love with Beijing. The excitement of the one night I had
here on the way to Moscow is back - this is a truly great city. I am
staying in a hostel near the center of the city, a few blocks from
Tianmen Square - but I am in a "courtyard" hostel, which is located in
one of the hutongs - the old parts of the city that are all narrow
alleyways and, although they are becoming more touristy, sport a lot
of the old classical China feel - old men playing what I think is
mah-jong (sp?) on the streets, people taking their songbirds for a
walk, streetfood everywhere, labyrinths of courtyards and small
passages. I walked into a tea shop this evening and was invited to
sit at a table where an elegant woman was pouring herself tea in an
elaborate process of tiny pot, glass with filter, and then finally
tiny cup. She used to manage the store, but now just teaches all
about tea with the same company, and comes in on weekends to taste the
store's tea. We sat and she poured several brews of different green
teas, and then suggested I should try a "champagne oolong" tea, made
from young leaves instead of the "adult" oolong leaves. It was a very
relaxing and insightful way to unwind from the train trip. I love the
hutong where I am at: there are more tea shops than I know what to do
with, an entire street that just sells caligraphy supplies and
paintings, and plenty of storefronts with a variety of massages
advertised. Not only that, but as previously discovered, I think BJ
is just one enormous foodie haven. I intend to stuff my face for the
next 5 days. Tonight, spicy chicken and green pepper stir fry in the
Sichuan style for less than $2 at a boisterous little hole in the
wall. LOVE IT.

On another interesting note, the city is still in the grips of their
week long holiday that started on October 1, the 60th anniversary of
Mao's declaration of the People's Republic from Tianmen Square. I was
told that the 1st and 2nd are possibly the worst time to visit China,
since the entire country picks up and moves around and the pomp and
circumstance in the center of Beijing is out of control... definitely
saw evidence of this at the train station today. But, I think for the
most part, daily life has resumed. Ironically, I have been reading a
fantastic book, "Wild Swans", which is a memoir by Jung Chan about her
grandmother, mother, and herself set in the context of 20th century
Chinese history. HIGHLY recommended. It is gripping- her grandmother
was concubine to a warlord and suffered through the series of civil
wars at the beginning of the century, and her mother was an idealistic
young communist at the rise of Mao, both her and her husband became
very high ranking party officials, and then went through the
atrocities of Mao and the family suffered incredible persecution. The
last half of the book details the Maoist period in great detail -
events that I was abstractly aware of, but now I can't walk down these
streets without seeing stooped elderly people and wondering about
their history here. The book is still banned in China, and I was a
little nervous when my bag was searched at the border, but they didn't
look in my backpack :) I think I will go to Tianmen early tomorrow
morning, which will be a little surreal after this reading. I still
have a few things I wanted to add about Mongolia as well, but will try
for more later!

In the bogie shed, Chinese border.

2009-10-04T07:10:00.001-07:00

Nomad child, Orchon ger camp

2009-10-04T06:43:00.001-07:00

Orchon R.

2009-10-04T06:35:00.001-07:00

Mmmmm...goats.

2009-10-04T06:33:00.001-07:00

Yaks! Orchon Valley

2009-10-04T06:32:00.001-07:00

Our ger in the Mongol Els

2009-10-04T06:31:00.001-07:00

Mongolia Adventure: Redux

2009-10-02T09:27:00.000-07:00

Just got back into UB this evening, washing the dust out of my ears, repacking the bags for the train tomorrow morning to Beijing... Crashed into a good hostel (another $6 per bed night!) and cooked up the last of my groceries for an archeology grad student and a kid who has been living with a nomad host family for the last month. Good times. As per usual, the time here just wasn't enough, but for an ad-hoc trip to the boonies for 5 days, I think we did pretty well. Late night re-cap:

Day 1: Driving out of UB in a well-stocked jeep/van with a kind faced driver and 2 other couples, fighting unbelievable city traffic and then free onto one of the best roads in Mongolia: mostly paved. We stopped at a roadhouse for lunch, and I had my first taste of Mongolian tea: there is actually no tea, it is either yak or sheep milk with hot water, some rice starch, and salt. I think it may be an acquired taste. In late afternoon, we dodged off the pavement and straight onto the steppe, hopping from one dirt semi-track to another, as our driver maneuvered us closer to a series of hills that had the unmistakable geology of Joshua Tree NP... We passed several ger camps and then went into a canyon that ended at a small temple, with a caretaker family who opened up a tiny building - the woman I think is a lama, and supposedly has soothsaying abilities, but she just gave us a careful smile and let us wander around... a few other shrines, the ruins of an ancient wall, and a tiny brick house built into the cliffs, with very tattered prayer flags hanging under the eaves. A few km away, we stopped for our first ger stay, with a family on the edge of the Mongol Els, a set of small sand dunes that some people call the "mini Gobi". Absolutely beautiful evening. The family served us some mutton soup for dinner, and the small stove in the center of the ger kept us cozy. A few candles on the table, some vodka, and we played card games. Maria and I both had bought a pouch of sheep ankle bones in UB, hoping to learn the popular country game- as our hostess came in with hot water, she saw us attempting to figure it out, and her face lit up, she came over and expertly flicked the bones onto the table to show us the different sides for the game, then she quickly went out and came back with 8 more, apparently a larger number needed for so many people. She played a few rounds with us until we got the hang of it, and then gifted the bones for our collection.

Day 2: We said our goodbyes in the morning, and visited the inside of the family's ger, where there were several strips of sheep? goat? hanging from the center circle of the ger's roof, drying like we might dry salmon. We asked if this had been part of our soup the night before, and made appreciative sounds :) We visited the neighbors and had a chance to ride camels down to the dunes. Couldn't pass up the chance, and had a blast. Camels are comfy! Our guide was an elderly man in full traditional dress, who sang softly as he led us through the sand, and on the way back pulled a long pipe from a pouch in his elegantly tooled boots and began to happily smoke. We left the Els and navigated back to pavement, headed for Kharakhorin, an ancient Chinggis Khan capital city. Not much is left of the original city, as the remains were used to build a monastery in the 16th century. Had some goat dumplings from a vendor, and then rambled around the monastery for a few hours: colors more subdued here than in the city, fading into the yellow grasses and looking half-abandoned. At the far end is a more contemporary building where a group of monks were finishing up their daily chants, with much horn blowing and cymbol bashing. Their dark red and saffron robes are such a contrast with the landscape here, a blast of color. Still a long day ahead, we began the off-road part of the trip, up the Orkhon valley on a confusing network of rough dirt tracks, sketchy river fordings, and sometimes just open terrain. In the late afternoon we went up a side valley to the beginning of a beautiful larch forest, the base of a mountain that had another small temple at the top. I don't think that even Saltery Rd. could compete with the next 5 km, but the clearing at the top was a mystical place, colored flags strung throughout the surrounding trees, a single ger with a caretaker family, and then the steep cliff up to a tiny monastery set into the rock. The place was high, crisp mountain air, the view over the mountains and plains panoramic, and dark storm clouds were sweeping up the valley. It was a completely peaceful place, and I thought, I could stay here for a long time... Above the temple was a rocky peninsula with a more shamanistic ovoo (large pile of stones) wound through with colored scarves. The surrounding larch forest was entirely gold, and kept flickering in and out of the evening sun. I didn't want to leave. But, another 3 hours into the dark and horrendous dirt tracks weaving up the valley, and we finally arrived (mostly) in one piece at the ger camp for our next 3 nights.

Day 3: High steppe is bitter cold in early morning, we kept to our wee stove in the ger until the sun had a chance to heat up the plains. Our camp was right next to the Orkhon waterfall, with a lovely gorge filled with birch and larch at its base. Several hours climbing around on the cliffs of the gorge, walking in the warm sun by the river, finding more small ovoos with their bright scarves scattered throughout. I hiked up a nearby mountain in the afternoon, through a forest that had long been selectively logged by the many ger camps in the valley, up to a windy view of the steppe. Came down at sunset, walking past neighboring gers, nearly full moon rising.

Day 4: Another late morning. As I walked out toward the falls, our hostess and her husband and (I think) granddaughter were separating nursing yaks from their mothers, so that they could be milked into a large white bucket. They let me watch for awhile and the little girl and I played with the camera. I gave a shot at riding a Mongolian horse in the afternoon - a funny experience because I had more of a recalcitrant mule... for awhile I rode my guide's horse, with it's high wooden saddle, which I am still feeling today. It is something to watch the herdsmen here ride - the horses have short legs and their gait is an extremely smooth canter - the men don't seem to move at all. My guide was 23, round face windchapped red, with no more than a handfull of English words, but we laughed a lot... He tried to read my fortune in ankle bones as we rode, and sang what sounded like the Mongolian equivalent of cowboy lullabies. At one point we were able to coax the horses into a fast canter, shouting "choo" and nudging with our heels- he kept close to my side to make sure I was ok, and it felt like we were racing down the valley. I walked up to a spring in the evening, which had a flow of dark lava rocks at it's edge, a place that felt like new. Walked back down in late light, passing gers, sheep, goats, yaks. Got together with my traveling peeps for some vodka down at the falls at sunset.

Day 5: The long drive back. 12 hours of jolting. Envying the many local people I saw on motorcycles, clearly not on a day-long ride. The time it would take to see more of this country...

Ulan Baatar

2009-09-27T08:38:00.000-07:00

How to sum up two hectic days in Mongolia's big city? I'm drinking my Zhalam Khar beer, it is getting late, and I am strung out on a city full of temples and rubble, surrounded by mountains but harsh with fumes of pollution, friendly but mostly incomprehensible. Of note:

-Gandan Khiid Monastery: spiritual center of the city, we walked up on Saturday for the morning rituals and went into several temples where red and orange robed monks chanted and blew horns and bashed cymbols together in celebration. In one temple, it seemed like the baby brigade of young monks in training, 7-14 yr olds that seemed too young for the serious faces - yet once we looked closer, they were just like any other normal boys, fidgeting and poking each other and one with the cymbols caught our eye and hammed it up a bit when we smiled. In another temple, there were much older monks, and as we made the clockwise circle around the perimeter, I could see a few of them reading sutras (?) off of scripted text - old Mongolian or Tibetan I don't know. One had been creating a small drawing out of tiny pebbles, a stylized scorpion. Many Mongolians were there to turn prayer wheels and bathe their hands in the incense that poured out of ornate pots in the courtyard. Small boys sold bags of seed to feed the congregation of pigeons, old men in traditional costume sat in the shade of the temples and smoked pipes. After the cultural strictness of Russia, the first thing we noticed was a plethora of smiles.

-Strangely, the westernization of this city - supermarkets that are more similar to an Alaskan bush AC store instead of the kiosk arrangement of many Russian shops, restaurants and pubs everywhere, most of them advertising free wi-fi. The sheer number of "Mongolian Irish Pub" joints in the downtown sector is unbelievable. While the Mongolian language uses the Russian cyrillic letters, there are more bilingual signs here than I saw in Moscow. Some of the translations give me a giggle, I should have taken more pictures...

I spent a lot of time on Saturday and Sunday morning trying to make arrangements for a trip to the countryside. Mongolia is a very difficult place for an independent traveler - beyond major cities, good roads and public transportation just do not exist. Standard practice is to get enough people together and rent a jeep or minivan (with driver) and then explore from there. Places to stay are also limited, especially after the peak summer season. Several of the guesthouses have connections set up in various spots and will work with people to plan an itinerary with transport, but you definitely have to "shop around" and as a solo traveler, find at least 3 or 4 other people to split the costs. I was lucky to meet a couple from Spain last night who had a similar time span and seem like really great folks. We waited until this morning to find another 2 people to join in, and now have a plan to leave tomorrow (Monday) morning and head into west central Mongolia for 5 days. We will stay in the extra gers of nomadic families and pay them directly for accomodation and food, which I think is the best arrangement. Our itinerary will be: a night in a place that is a smaller version of the Gobi desert, then out further west to a national park for 2 days, where there is a famous waterfall on the Orkhon river, and the potential to attempt riding Mongolian horses and visiting hot springs. On our way back to UB we will visit Karakorum, which is one of the ancient capitals of Mongolia (in 1220, Chinggis Khaan moved it here and then 40 years later his son moved the capital to what is now Beijing, then the remains of Karakorum were used in the construction of Erdene Zuu Monastery in the 16th century. The Monastery still stands, but mostly was destroyed during Stalin's religious purges. We will get a chance to visit, and see what is left!)

Ok, of course there is so much left to write, but I am fading out and this is already so long. So, I will be out until Friday night, and then take the Saturday morning train from UB to Beijing, arriving on Sunday morning for the last leg of my trip. Nohkoi Khorio! (standard greeting when approaching a ger, meaning "please tether your dogs")

Border

2009-09-27T08:02:00.000-07:00

I haven't posted about the train trip into Mongolia yet, so a quick retrospect:
Completely different dynamic than the Moscow to Irkutsk line - instead of a car full of Russian families, I joined the migration of backpackers as we all crammed ourselves into the only train car that would cross the border - there was one Mongolian family as well, but we otherwise saw familiar faces from Irkutsk and Orkhon Island hostels. We went around the southern tip of Lake Baikal overnight, and arrived at the Russian border town of Naushki at around noon the next day. At this point, we were disconnected from the train and stood a solitary train car in a station that had eerily little of the previous Russian station bustle. No one selling pirok and beer on the platform here, and the station was completely empty: no people, no decoration, no stores. At one point, a cow wandered up onto the station platform and calmly munched its way down the dreary remains of flowerbeds.

We sat throughout the entire gloomy afternoon until 4 pm, when an invasion of different colored uniforms began the border check process - the longest border crossing I have ever been through. More waiting as we acquired an engine and then began rolling our solo car towards Mongolia. The scenery here has changed from the Siberia of the previous trip - out of the pine forest and into scrub, steppe, hills, and large meandering rivers. As we approached the Mongolian border town of Sukh Baatar, first glimpses of gers set up along the riverside, just out of town. We repeated the series of checks and customs on the Mongolia side, and officially entered the country at around 10 pm. At this point, our train of one car grew again for the local service into Ulan Baatar - we arrived around 8 am, and took in Saturday morning in the capitol on an early morning backpack walk down "Peace Avenue" in search of a good guesthouse. Glad to be here.

Had to...

2009-09-27T01:17:00.001-07:00

Mongolia: first impression

2009-09-25T21:37:00.001-07:00

Love it. Love. It.

Sent from my iPhone

Gandan side entrance

2009-09-25T21:31:00.001-07:00

Prayer Wheels

2009-09-25T21:29:00.001-07:00

Avalokitesvara statue, Gandan Monastery, Ulan Baatar

2009-09-25T21:26:00.001-07:00

Olkhon Island

2009-09-23T22:45:00.000-07:00

I've just got back to Irkutsk from a 3 day trip up to Olkhon Island, an amazing place about halfway up Lake Baikal - 4th largest island-in-a-lake in the world, and one of the old centers of shamanism in this area. I didn't originally think I would have enough time for this side trip, but decided to go for it anyways and am very glad I did. I'm pretty tired, but will try an write a coherent post :)

We left Irkutsk early in the morning in a minibus, which I knew from a previous trip to Listvyanka would be filled to the top with people- we looked a little like a clown car by the time we finally left the station. Nearly all were backpackers, but there were two Russian men on our bench, and I ended up as a semi-translator for questions from the backpackers (is the snow usual this time of year, how high does it get?) As usual, a pretty hilarious exchange where I only understood about 50% and nodded the rest of the time... We zoomed north through flat fields, evidence of recent farming and some large greenhouses, a few very small and crumbling villages, and then we turned east and headed over the hills toward Baikal - my favorite part, and it was sooo difficult to be trapped in a crazy Russian minibus with no way to photograph it all.

As we got higher, the forests were almost completely birch and larch, more larch than I have ever seen before. Almost every larch was a glowing bright orange, an incredible color against the snow, and the whole forest looked like it had been scorched but was still vibrant... After about 6 hours we came to the ferry crossing for the island and huddled with other minibuses and cars while we waited for the boat to cross - enough time to get blood circulation back to our legs! The wind was bitter cold, it reminded me of a brisk January day in Kodiak as we crossed to the island and climbed back into our bus for another hour onto the main village of Kazhir. Kazhir is mostly Buryat, a local indigenous people, and fishing is a major part of village life - as we drove toward our hostel, I was watching several people sort out their small gillnets in the street.

I had met another English woman traveling alone, and we were close buddies by the time we reached Olkhon - we shared a room at the Island's backpacker central, which is almost a village within a village owned by a former Olympic table tennis champion. Our room was above the banya, with a view out over a few other buildings, yurts, and fences to the cliffs along the lakeshore - pretty much awesome. Even though it was bitter cold, the late afternoon sun and sunset came through the clouds and I went running around on the bluffs taking photos, especially of the photogenic twisted pines with trunks that were completely wrapped in brightly colored fabrics, the equivalent of prayer flags, I think.

With only one full day to really spend here, Kath and I planned for a long hike into the woods, which was great fun, although we never really figured out which path we had ended up taking- I think we made it almost across to the eastern shore of the island, but there we got stopped when the snow got too deep. It was great to have a chance to really stretch the legs and go, after time traveling. We started off in sand and pines and ended up in snow and larch, and then slid our way back down to spend a few hours in the evening on the coastline. I got to soak my tired feet in the lake (said to add 5 years to your life- a full swim will supposedly add 25 years...) and had a solitary walk along a long rocky beach at sunset, watching a boat pull in it's net and just enjoying the peace and space. The cliffs run out to a rocky point that is known as the Shamanka, or Shaman's rock (one of the Asian Most Sacred Places), and I watched the last bit of clouds light up from the grassy steppe above the rock, trying to absorb whatever power may be there for travelers passing through.

There was hot mulled wine in the evenings, and travelers talking plans and routes - this is maybe the most easily social time of backpacking I've ever had, perhaps because there are fewer people in a more narrow and defined travel route, and perhaps also because it can be very challenging to travel in some of these areas, and we naturally seek out others for advice and comfort. In some aspects, this has been wonderful - I am rarely alone and I've really enjoyed meeting so many of these people, most of them with long term travel plans that will end in SE Asia or India several months down the line. In other aspects, it seems to take away time spent trying to communicate and learn from local people, and since Russia is the only country out of the 3 I am visiting where the language barrier is not so significant, I keep trying to break out from the safety of other travelers...

There is a certain discomfort I get from traveling in countries where the majority of the population will never have privileges we take for granted in the West, where most people can't imagine taking a month off from work and riding on a train, just for fun. It seems almost to be a kind of voyeurism...even participating in the odd social volunteer program (a week at an orphanage, for example, which I originally looked at) seems like it is mostly just something to soothe my own conscience and does more harm than good to children whose lives are already in enough upheaval. I've had this on my mind a lot lately as we really head out of the West and into the more rural and poor villages. It is a conflict about traveling I've never been able to resolve. However, at least in Russia I can stop and have a conversation with the fishermen picking the algae out of their net, and we can laugh about the fact that I am not married (at, gasp! the ancient age of 28) and I can tell them a little about fishing in Alaska and they can tell me about Baikal. Mongolia and China will be different, and I have been trying to soak up as much of these interactions as possible...

I'm back in Irkutsk now for the afternoon, loosely traveling with a really great pair, an Aussie and a Brit, who were on the Olkhon and will be on my train tonight to Ulan Baatar. I am envious they will have more than a month to explore Mongolia, and I am trying to see as much as possible in just a week - we may combine some travel plans next week, or I may link up with other folks, or try to travel solo out to the countryside. I'll arrive in UB on Saturday morning, and will update plans as they occur!

Baikal sunset

2009-09-23T21:28:00.000-07:00

Out of the City

2009-09-21T07:15:00.001-07:00

Brief day trip to Listvyanka today - the small town on the shores of Baikal, the most direct route (60 km) from Irkutsk. It was another soggy day, and I had to keep wiping at the condensation on the inside of the crowded minibus to see the wet forest and overcast colors of the wide Angara River. Listvyanka in general has caught on to the tourist gig and is not the best place to experience Baikal, but I ended up having a great afternoon.

At first I just walked the shoreline promenade, where the storm seemed to still be going full force - the kind of weather that makes me think of cliches like "scudding clouds" and "windswept seas" - there were whitecaps and wild, dark skies to the north. I got thoroughly whipped walking around and had to stop in for a cup of tea, but then I started up the main street of the village that runs up a beautiful little valley, and things seemed to calm down. It was so peaceful after the chatter of the train and the 2 days of Irkutsk (there is just something about these cities, so much easier to overwhelm with sounds and smells - usually the acrid diesel fumes and something like river mud mixed with faint sewer).

I was taking deep breaths and enjoying the climb and the steep hillsides of pine and birch. I stopped outside a village house that had a sign for rooms to rent - I had seen a note about it at the hostel, and the owners showed me around: classic banya in a low woodshed, separate little Siberian outbuilding for guests, with an old style hearth/wood-fire-cooking stove. There was incredible detail inside, different kinds of wood carved for decoration - all of this explained to me in rapid Russian, not all of which I understood. The main house was also low and intricately carved, with a colorful flower and vegetable garden all around. I noticed a woodshed stocked with firewood, which was common all along this street - made me think of the long process of wood gathering in Kodiak...

I walked a little further and came upon an art gallery co-op in a building with vaulted ceilings and skylights and lost track of how much time I spent looking at paintings. The owner was at work in his shed when I stopped by, and seemed such an unlikely person to have this place- more like a Roma gypsy than anything else. I walked up to the end of the valley road and couldn't get enough of the early evening fall chill, woodsmoke in the air, little patches of snow still on the ground, birches in full flame. I need more of this fresh air and quiet! If I had more time and the weather had been better, I would have hiked the 15 km along the lake to Bolshie Koty, a traditional fishing village only accessible by foot or water (sound familiar?) The short time in Listvyanka emphasized the unfortunate side of this kind of travel - I was ready to settle in for a week in a cabin the back of someone's garden, banya at hand, and just be as much a part of the village as possible. But sadly, this month is much more about constant motion than digging in anywhere specific.

I've decided to skip the day I had planned Ulan Ude, and just go straight from Irkutsk to Ulan Baatar (Mongolia) on Thursday night. I'll arrive in Mongolia on Saturday morning and will be there for a week. In the next three days, I'll take advantage of the extra time to go up to Olxhon Island, which is a 6 hour ride by minibus north. I'm really excited to see this place, it is wild steppe and forest, sacred to the indigenous Evenkii people, and really iconic as part of the Lake Baikal landscape. Can't wait!

Market tidbit

2009-09-21T07:14:00.000-07:00

So, on my way to catch a bus today, I got sidetracked again by the central market for about two hours and had buckets of fun walking around the outdoor stalls in the rain, taking photos. This provoked several stumbling conversations about where I was from, where I was going, and why on earth did I want to take photos of garlic and turnips? I always ask before taking a photo, and usually the vendors stipulate not to include them in the picture, but one woman teased me and said, i ya? And me? Koneshna! Of course! So she posed proudly with her produce, and then we did a few more so she could see the digital version each time. This happened with a few other vendors as well, and their neighbors would giggle and tease them back.

I tried to capture a few of the stalls from a distance, getting more people into the picture, but there are so many I would love to just get candid portraits - the mouth full of gold teeth, the elaborate scarf headwrap, the folds and wrinkles and deep set eyes of an old babushka... And if I were really bold enough, I would do an entire photo series of Russian women's footwear. I had forgotten their peculiar talent for balancing confidently in 5 inch patent leather spikes on uneven pavement in rain, snow, sleet and hail, while purchasing a bag of potatoes and onions. It really is unbelievable the variety and fashion-conscious styles sported by many...and the sexy leather boots! I saw a pair today that were going for the Pretty Woman prize, and a few others that just have crazy details and fandangles, all with those high, high heels. The easiest way to tell that I am a foreigner is my sensible hiking shoes - and I think that no self-respecting Irkutsk or Moscow urbanite would be caught dead wearing my chaco sandals!

Fall color above Baikal

2009-09-21T04:09:00.001-07:00

Rainy market

2009-09-21T04:07:00.000-07:00

Center of the universe of Irkutsk

Irkutsk market 1

2009-09-21T04:06:00.001-07:00

Siberian berries...

AK Trivia

2009-09-20T20:18:00.001-07:00

Memorial to G. Shelikof... Znamensky Monastery, also memorial for St.
Innocent, there are beautiful paintings of him all over the outside of
the church. Inside was lovely and quiet, a few russian women in
headscarves, lighting candles and murmering prayers...

Random Irkutsk 3

2009-09-20T20:09:00.001-07:00

Yummy lunch: beer and borsht!

Random Irkutsk 2

2009-09-20T20:07:00.001-07:00

The very intricate cakes in the central market... I almost caved to
one with kiwi and coconut.

Random Irkutsk 1

2009-09-20T20:04:00.000-07:00

Trans-Sib Part Dva: the land that goes by

2009-09-19T19:33:00.000-07:00

There were so many places along this journey I wanted to yell at the top of my lungs: stop the train! I want to explore! We left the Moscow station at night, and sometime in the wee hours we passed Nizhny Novgorod, which is the capital city of the area I lived during my exchange - I didn't realize until I woke up at sunrise the next morning that we were farther east than I had ever been. When we left, it still seemed like summer in Moscow - some of the leaves were changing, but the gardens around the Kremlin were still in full bloom, and everyone was out in short sleeves, eating ice cream and wearing sunglasses. For the first day of our journey, it still seemed like we were just on the cusp of fall: the stands of tall birch had splotches of color here and there and the grasses were just beginning to change (including something that looked very much like fireweed, gone to tuft and beginning to turn red).

There were fewer industrial cities than I expected, but tiny settlements up against the tracks here and there, old style wooden houses with garden plots and dirt roads. At one point we passed two crumbling complexes that looked as though they were prisons or detainment camps - they had watchtowers set around the fenced perimeter and bunker-type buildings within.

We never stopped long enough at any of the stations to go beyond the platform. I would see a solitary fellow walking along one of the village settlement roads, or someone riding a rusted bicycle along a path near the tracks, and wish that we had the chance to stop in these out of the way places. On the second night we passed through the foothills of Ural Mountains and did not see the obelisk that marks the border of Europe and Asia. The land became more open, with grassy stretches and fields where hay had been scythed and appeared to be gathered by hand into stacks - the kind of landscape you might see in a Van Gogh painting, which also made me think of the part in Anna Karenina when Lev goes out into the fields to work with the peasants. We passed Omsk and Novosibirisk, the largest city in Siberia.

Dostoevsky was exiled to Omsk in 1849 - the Siberian exile system of the Tsars was rarely practiced by the beginning of the 20th century, but Stalin brought it back on a whole new level with the vast network of Gulags, the main administration centers for a variety of work camps, resettlement programs, and psychiatric hospitals. It is easy to see why escape from the Gulag seemed unlikely - open bogs and wide rivers and forests that stretched to the horizon. We seem to have passed into full-blown fall at this point- everything either dark red or burnt orange or yellow, another beautiful sunrise as I lay in my top berth and watched the colors all light up from the low angle of the sun across the flat Siberian plain.

On our third day we woke up to heavy skies, the dark and wet trunks of pine trees, and wet leaves on the ground everywhere. We started twisting and turning through more hills and the landscape with dark evergreens and late fall color made me think of New Hamshire. At one point in the morning, we started to see the first light layer of snow from the night before, and as we climbed a bit higher, we went through a village that looked like a remote Christmas card, leaves entirely gone and evergreens with a few inches of snow under low clouds. We twisted back out to fall again, and through my favorite scenery of the trip, on the way to Krasnoyarsk. It seemed like we passed by village after village, some with beautiful woodwork on the houses and rich black soil in their turned over gardens. Cabbage, it seemed, was the major crop still in active harvest. This did not seem like an isolated place at all, but part of a larger community. We would climb a bit and the valleys and ridges of green and orange would suddenly open up on one side, while the houses seemed to fit perfectly with the landscape...

Krasnoyarsk is the jumping off point for taking a train south into the Republic of Tuva, part of the Russian Federation, but only just. Ever since reading Richard Feinman's "Stamps from Tuva", I've thought of this place as sort of the ends of the earth, but the Trans-Sib edges fairly close to the border at this point - probably the closest I will ever get.

By the afternoon, we had passed the halfway point for the rail between Moscow and Beijing, and overnight we rolled through the middle of Siberia and crossed the Angara River in the early morning light into Irkutsk.

Trans-Sib Part One: the people you meet

2009-09-19T04:56:00.000-07:00

5,185 km from Moscow and nearly 4 days on the "Rossiya", we pulled into Irkutsk this morning - it was a fantastic ride, one I almost didn't want to end. This particular train is one of two that runs the classic route from Moscow to Vladivostok - another 3 days and I would have been in the very far east of Russia! How to even sum up the trip across Siberia?

I was riding a bit on nerves, showing up at the Yaraslovsky train station in Moscow - I hadn't seen a single backpacker on the metro in 2 days, nor at the hotel either, so was a little relieved to run into a gentleman sitting among his bags on the platform as the sun went down and we waited for the sign to show our departure points- it turned out he was taking the #4 train (the Chinese train that runs from Moscow to Beijing, that I hope to ride partway), but it was great to talk travel plans and preparation and what the weather in Mongolia would likely be. Talk about first inspiring person of the trip: he was laid off and is taking his severance pay and traveling for 8 months- he is Finnish, and is traveling by train to China, where he will buy a bicycle and ride through China, SE Asia, and then try and get his bike to India, for another 2 months of riding around. He is keeping a blog, though not much on it at this point: http://blogs.kilroytravels.fi/tahkis/home

I think this is one of my absolute favorite things about traveling, especially on routes that attract grandiose plans and downright crazy intentions - the people and the stories are so inspiring and wild and out of the ordinary. I had no idea who might be sharing my compartment for the long ride, so as our platform number lit up, I was scanning the crowd of Russians and the few backpackers and wondering... Each train car has its own "provodnik" - usually a woman - who rules the car for the duration and dictates according to whim. Our provodnik gave me a compartment number and I bulldozed down the aisle with two rucksacks and a bag of groceries. As I stuck my head into the tidy blue 4-berth room, a slight blonde Russian woman looked back at me with quickly disguised horror when she realized her companion was a somewhat grubby backpacker... a few minutes later, another girl, about my age with short wild brown hair and two backpacks of her own stepped in and we worked through introductions:

Irena, originally from Vladivostok now living in Chita (next big city east of Ulan Ude, about another day beyond Irkutsk) and returning from visiting her family in Moscow and St. Petersburg. She's tiny, with expressive blue eyes, little makeup, and doesn't look her age of 49. Her English in minimal, so in the beginning she and I mostly speak Russian. My other companion is Mariette: French, 27 and just quite her job at a design firm in Belgium to ride across and into China, then down to Vietnam and a year in Australia. She spent an exchange year in Arkansas, but still speaks with a quasi Brittish accent that is pretty damn cute. When the two of us began gabbing away, Irena's eyes get big and she wanted to know how Mariette speaks so well. This is the beginning of 4 days of multi-lingual communication that is just sooo much fun - sometimes part charades, part invented dictionary and part smile/nod.

We were in a family car of all Russians - 3 different families at least. I think most backpackers were on the #4, which has something of the "party train" reputation. Although sometimes I felt we were too mellow for the great occassion of crossing Russia, I am glad to have had the experience with less of a tourist aspect. On our first night, Irena brought out a bottle of Cognac, which became more ceremonial in the evening than a means to get drunk (not so much some of the Russian men on the train, especially a military officer next door, who was pretty heavy on the beer for most of the trip). Between the three of us, we covered work, family, love, divorce, solo travel and Russian trivia, and were content with our own social bubble. The time passed much more quickly than I thought it would, with our communal picnics (of bread, cheese, sausage, chocolate, and fruit), drinking chai, reading, writing, staring out the window at the country, and then back to talking again. On our last night, we all exchanged contact info and Mariette and I teased Irena that she would be happy to have a peaceful compartment again once we left. She teared up just a little and said: I am very happy to have met you in my life. Which almost made me tear up- I feel I have been so lucky to travel in this company.

I did not have a specific plan for a place to stay in Irkutsk my first night, so I went with Mariette to the hostel she had planned, and we spent some time today fighting a brisk wind and snowstorm and are now back at the hostel, where there is the classic traveling scenario: a few fellows from Sweden that will be taking 4 months to end up in Nepal, a pair of guys from Manchester who will be following the trans-mongolian route with 3 weeks in Mongolia, two Swedish women I haven't yet had a chance to really meet, and all of us wanderers talking plans over a bottle of vodka and plate of veggies and sausage while the storm keeps blowing outside...

Irkutsk morning

2009-09-18T17:08:00.001-07:00

Had a great time on the trans-sib, more soon... We hit an early
snowstorm this morning, I think it will move on again soon, but the
view as we walked from the station to the hostel was very Siberian :)

Last minute

2009-09-15T03:57:00.001-07:00

I had all sorts of things to write about- red square yesterday, going
to the bathhouse and taking a banya, Russian style, and the morning
walk I had today, not to mention some funny metro stories, but I am
running low on time and have to settle for poaching random wireless
with my phone- not so speedy with the one finger typing...

It is a beautiful fall day here, I've been walking a lot in the city
center area- so much history here, and of course so much more grand
and imposing than my memories. This city has such a lot of paradox,
it is fascinating- I think I would struggle to explain even if I could
really type! I wish I had more time to really explore, especially
away from all of the big sites- all of those funky corners and
forgotten relics of everything this place has seen.

I leave tonight on the train to Irkutsk, Which will take about 4 days
with no real stops (20 minutes at most stations). Curious who I might
meet, what kind of dynamic there will be, how much booze should I
bring with me, the important stuff, you know. I can't wait to really
experiance just how enormous this landscape is- the leaves are
starting to turn here, so I'm hopeful for some fall color in the
boreal forests...

If I chance on some real Internet tonight I'll write more, otherwise I
am off to run around the kremlin for a bit and then get supplies and
head out for the station. Paka!

Sent from my iPhone

Blini!

2009-09-15T01:40:00.000-07:00

With mushrooms. Soooo good. Must figure out how to attach more than
one item per iPhone email...

Red Square

2009-09-15T01:38:00.000-07:00

Hanging out with V.I. Lenin for the afternoon...

Back in the USSR (former)

2009-09-14T00:58:00.000-07:00

Well, lest you think that Mother Russia welcomed me back to her bosom with open arms... I can somewhat grumpily report that Sheremetyevo airport is every bit the horror it was 11 years ago - only this time, I was fending for myself. As you arrive in Moscow, the first thing you notice is the stampede down the stairs to Passport Control, which is a smallish room, no services, and a low, waffle-iron type ceiling that flickers flourescent spotlights. As I realized later, the smart people are the ones that literally run to be first in line, because if you are not at the beginning, everything else is total chaos. Russia has a passion for queing up into various lines, which I think must be holdover from the Soviet era - if you don't stand in a mismanaged line for at least an hour, it doesn't count.

So, 2 hours later, I finally made it through, with no less than 3 red stamps, to the baggage claim area, which by this time has the luggage from 4 different flights scattered all over the floor. At this point, the fun really begins with the descent of the Russian airport mafia (I am so not kidding). I suppose I was mentally unprepared for what I knew was likely to happen, a scam around every corner, starting with the "porter service" who tried to funnel me right into the waiting taxi vultures. I had anticipated the difficulty of getting all the way across Moscow to the hostel in the evening, and had arranged for a driver to meet me there. But of course, after a 3 hour delay, I was scanning all of the signs in vain: there was no one to meet me. If it had been during the day, I would have just dove into the process of catching a bus to the center of town and then taking the metro, but it was now 9:30 at night, and I just was not feeling ballsy enough. The taxis originally tried to charge me 5,000 rubles for the 60 km drive, which is about 160 US dollars. After approaching the "informatzi" booth and asking for a map and help dialing the hostel number, a completely unsympathetic troll looked at me from under her heavily made-up eye-lids and couldn't be bothered to help. A kind gentleman, who also was part of the taxi vulture crowd, offered to try dialing the hostel - but all we got was a series of beeps. This really made me nervous, since i would hate to go all the way across the city to a place that wouldn't let me in for the night. (I looked at a lot of places to stay in Moscow, this one was recommended and also arranges for visa invitation support, etc., and is one of the less prohibitively expensive places to stay - but at this point, I was thinking it was not such a hot idea, unfortunately, part of the process is to pay the first night up front. It is an understatement to say that finding reasonable accomodation in Moscow is not easy).

I decided finally I would have to bite the bullet and take a taxi, because by now it is 10:30 pm and I am really not going to chance public transit. It took some tears to negotiate the price (some of which were real, more from anger than anything) but we got it down to half of what they originally told me. Still an astronomical amount, but unreasonable charges every once in a while in order to save my sanity are built into the budget. More or less.

I had a great driver (although driving on the roads of Moscow may be even more frightening than driving the streets of Beijing. It is metro for me from here on out) who only had a few words of English, but it was amazing how much Russian came back during the hour drive. I've been speaking very little English since, just making my way along with a halting vocabulary. I almost always preface by saying "I speak bad Russian" which makes people smile. I take pity on the solo traveler entering this country with not even the basic language skills, it has so far saved my bacon many times over.

It is rather amazing and surreal to be back here, some of it is so familiar, from the synthetic pop to the smells of cigarette smoke and perfume- walking around the neighborhood this morning at sunrise, just taking my bearings, I watched people sweep in from all directions toward the metro station, the rush hour to work. There are many kiosks around the station, so I had my breakfast pieroshki and tea and was happy. The hotel/hostel has turned out to be a great value, with the most unexpected thing being a wonderful bathroom, complete with tub and amazing hot water. There is no one in the other room, so I am enjoying the space and solitude before the long train ride. I am still waiting on my official registration (one more process in the beaurocratic cog) but it should come through by noon, and then I am off to the city center for the day. The next post should be much less rant and more about what it was like to be back at Krasnaya Plochadz (Red Square). Dobra Pazhalovat!

Beijing dinner...

2009-09-12T20:27:00.000-07:00

Weee! Wireless. Here is a pic of just some of the dishes we had last
night :)

First Impressions: Beijing

2009-09-12T17:26:00.001-07:00

I was up at sunrise this morning, internal clock completely scrambled
and the horns and bustle outside on the street a different urban alarm
to my rural ears... I don't think that the people in this neighborhood
believe in sleeping in on Sundays, and I definitely didn't want to
stay in bed on a beautiful, warm sunny day! I am right by a canal
that apparently hosts a type of farmer's market on the bridge in the
morning - people with their vans and small trucks and motorized
tricycle-wagons selling fruit and corn, pomegranates (of which I
stumbled through my first yuan transaction and bought 4 by mistake)
and baskets and even a man with 4 small birdcages - the birds much too
small to eat, so I suppose he must be selling them as pets. It is
total chaos, of course, with bicycles and taxis and pedestrians in the
middle of the road, with no real concern for collision (something I
noticed last night as well, the sort of intricate dance that is
involved in driving/crossing the street/navigating the crazy mix of
traffic here).

With all of the hustle of the roadside market, I didn't realize at
first that a network of side streets went back into courtyards and
tree-lined avenues, pleasant shade and peace on an already hot day...
I had a lovely walk through this area, watching everyone turn out for
breakfast outside at the venders (selling fried bread! also had to
have some of this. yum) and plastic tables in front of sidewalk cafes.
There were a number of elderly people gathered in one of the parks
for what looked like group morning kalisthenics (sp?), and other
solitary folks that were down on the different platforms over the
canal, stretching or just sitting and having a quiet thought. At one
point I passed two old women that were perfectly in sync practicing
the routine of Tai Chi. It made me wish I had stuck with that class
for longer than 3 weeks! On one of the avenues, there were remains of
the classic courtyard homes, some in rubble that were being tidied up
- wrought iron fences all along the sidewalk and park benches in
between - all with people sitting and taking in the morning. One
older man alone with a set of prayer beads, quiet.

When I flew in last night, it was to the vast and lonely international
terminal that was built for the Olympics, and the sun was setting in
golden light through the infamous Beijing smog. I think we were the
only flight to go through immigration at the time - I was sweating
bullets because of the quarantine station. I've been fighting a cold
for the past few days, and was nervous about the automatic temperature
sensors, sure they would find something wrong with me and stick me in
quarantine as a possible swine flu carrier. Luckily I rushed on
through, past the indifferent officials wearing face masks, who just
gave me a red stamp and sent me on for the next stage.

My best luck of all was having an old friend living in this city - he
was actually part of our region for the Russia exchange, and we joked
about having a mini Nizhny Novgorod Oblast reunion. Almost all of us
from that area have caught up now via facebook, and so Luca and I had
planned to meet up when my train arrived. With this unexpected long
layover, he was kind enough to offer to meet me at the airport and
help me get set up, the wonderful thing about having friends around
the world! His girlfriend Yin is super sweet and speaks better
English than he does - they took me out to dinner at a rather nice
place, but I am soooo glad they were there to order. We had a feast!
Chinese fashion, we all had small plates and then ordered several
different dishes to share. And oh, the cuisine is fabulous. I knew
it wouldnt be the same as the MSG laden greasy American version, but
the flavors and variety were way beyond my expectations. Too bad I
don't have wireless, otherwise I would upload a photo. There was a
mushroom/bamboo dish, eggplant in yummy fish sauce, roast duck,
cucumber & pickled egg salad, a spicy sechuan peanut dish, dumplings,
and the most exotic dish was chicken feet - which I tried, and liked.
It took us about 3 hours to finish dinner, dessert, and tea.

This is getting very long, so I should just post and go eat my
pomegranates :) I leave this afternoon for Moscow (a city which is
far less intimidating than Beijing) and will be there until the
evening of the 15th, when I board the train. I hope this uploads all
right, I couldn't access the site (I have a feeling that the
government has blocked it, just like facebook) so I'll email it in.
More soon!

Jitters

2009-09-11T08:49:00.001-07:00

It's a beautiful morning in Portland, even in the airport. PDX is
almost an old friend- the first time I flew to Russia from this
airport, it was in the pre-9/11-security era, and my extended family
turned out at the gate...and then were there with balloons and signs
in Cyrillic when I returned.

Now I'm sitting at the gate alone, with a good case of the travel
jitters, that strange, non-caffeinated edge that is somehow related to
"fight or flight" adrenaline. So much planning up to this point, but
now just anticipation of all things possible once I step on this first
plane... And in less than 24 hours I'll be in beijing.

The Fine Print

2009-09-09T23:52:00.000-07:00

"Insurance? That's for pessimists" -Out of Africa
So, I am taking out travel insurance for all of the usual things that might happen on adventures, and reading the fine print I had to laugh at this:

Specific policy amendments for residents of Alaska

The certificate to which this rider is attached is amended as follows:

In the section entitled What this certificate excludes, the exclusion related to terrorism is deleted.

Huh. So does that mean that somehow Alaska residents are perceived to have 0 risk from acts of terrorism? Or that we are so obviously targets that the insurance company has decided that exclusion of protection is simply not an option? I am so confused.

In other news, I've had adventures already with the fine print for my Air China flight from Beijing to Moscow - apparently they changed to a winter schedule last week, canceling my flight and booking me on an earlier one. Too bad I wasn't scheduled to arrive in Beijing until after that flight left... After much nail biting and strong feelings of anger and aggression towards the travel company that the airline advised me to use, I am now rebooked on an earlier flight out of the US. Friday morning instead of Saturday morning. Scrambling has begun. All part of the Joy of Travel. Oh, and there is about a 20 hour layover in Beijing. I'm going to be taking a lot of airport photos...

Testing...

2009-09-07T19:33:00.001-07:00

The fun technology that lets me send emails with a photo from the
iPhone right to the blog! Did it work? Photo of my perfected roll-
packing strategy ~~below~~ um, above...

я помню: Russia 1998

2009-09-03T14:49:00.000-07:00

Old photographs from my American Field Service program in Russia, 1998. The first photo is of the 8 international students traveling by train to Nizhny Novgorod region. I went on from NN to Zavolzhie, tiny town on the Volga.
2nd photo is of my extended Russian host family, in our kvartira (apartment).
3rd photo is of the main road in Zavolzhie, at the corner of the outdoor market in winter, with a babushka selling basic goods.
The next two photos: one of my favorite adventures in the Russian countryside - in the fall, the entire town (or so it seems) goes out to pick mushrooms (gribi) in the forest. My host sister and I with our basket of mushrooms, and the drying rack in our kitchen full of the harvest.
Last photo: AFS Russia students in Moscow, just arrived.

I'm in!

2009-09-03T09:59:00.000-07:00

Passport just made it through the Chinese Consulate! After the nail-biting experience of getting the Russia visa approved, this one was a casual 3 day wait... but still. Now some overnight fedex action, and I'll be 100% certified to travel...

Tidbit: Baikal watershed & mining

2009-09-02T12:22:00.000-07:00

Check out: the Tahoe-Baikal Institute: http://www.tahoebaikal.org

A friend of mine facilitates their Summer Environmental Exchange Program, and they do a lot of great work!

I'm reading their policy briefs on the Baikal area, and have been struck by some of the similarities between the Bristol Bay/Pebble Mine natural resource wars and the somewhat less-than-glossy far east version.

Baikal is well known as a unique and incredible area, more than 20 million years old and the earth's largest freshwater source (as much water as the Great Lakes combined) - Baikal was added to the World Heritage Site list in 1996 as "the most outstanding example of a freshwater ecosystem" and has an enormous amount of diversity, especially considering that over 1500 species are endemic: "the Galapagos of Russia." The watershed area for Lake Baikal is just slightly smaller than the area of France, and crosses the international border between Russian and Mongolia ("Lake Baikal Watershed" TBI policy brief).

The watershed also has some pretty incredible mineral and energy resources, with a minimum of oversight and regulation (and some messy international politics), resulting in relatively unchecked development. Until recently, the Baikal Pulp and Paper Mill (BPPM) was the best known point source for pollution actually on Lake Baikal, but lately more attention is focusing on mineral extraction in the watershed, both in Russia and Mongolia.

Many mines are operated illegally and still use inefficient and antiquated methods involving cyanide and mercury. Gold and copper deposits in Mongolia have spurred a "gold rush" in the sub-watershed of the Selenga R., which supplies 50% of the water to Lake Baikal. Described in this article: http://www.pacificenvironment.org/article.php?id=3003
The same website has another article about a local environmental group, the Buryat Regional Organization, that has successfully stalled the development of a lead and zinc mine outside of Ulan Ude: http://pacificenvironment.org/article.php?id=2895
And, bad news about the BPPM re-opening after refusing to convert to a closed system. If you are the petition-signing type, here is an action item:
http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/608/t/425/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=27804

I'll save my rant about developing the giant open pit Pebble Mine at the headwaters of Bristol Bay for another day...

In the spirit...

2009-08-31T14:52:00.000-07:00

Some gypsy-punk-balkan "Wonderlust King" - Gogol Bordello
Doesn't it just make you want to dance?

Fun Facts Part I

2009-08-31T14:16:00.000-07:00

* Taken mostly from the Lonely Planet "Trans-Siberian Railway: A Classic Overland Route" and Lonely Planet "Mongolia"

-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

я приподю - I prepare

2009-08-27T19:50:00.001-07:00

Good news yesterday: my visa application is officially through the Russian consulate (after the requisite 11 business days when it was presumably scrutinized for possible delinquency of human character, terrorist inclinations, or just made into copies in triplicate to fuel the cranky remains of soviet bureaucracy). At any rate, they've decided to let me into the country... which I was a little nervous about, considering the complexity of the application. Now I'm just waiting on approval from the Chinese consulate (no visa needed for Mongolia) and I'm almost there!

The idea: long time coming. The travel bug hits hardest in Kodiak midwinter, when I first started researching, but I've wanted to take the Trans Siberian railroad to Lake Baikal and Mongolia ever since spending six months in western Russia during high school... I'm really looking forward to eating lots of my favorite russian foods - pelmeni (siberian dumplings) and black bread, to dusting off my fading russian language skills over a glass or two of vodka in the dining car, and to finally crossing all that wide expanse of world - by train, by horse, by rusty jeep, maybe even by camel.

The Route:

The Trans-Mongolian, also known as the Peking Express, route of the Trans-Siberian Railroad, 7,855 km total from Moscow to Beijing.

(The Red Line is the Trans-Mongolian route, to get a closer view, click the map)

Originally, I wanted to do the epic overland route from Moscow all the way to Singapore by train, as shown on this map:

Someday, but not this time.

The Itinerary: Lots of research, very little definition. The great thing about traveling solo is the freedom to be a bit of a vagabond. This is what I know so far:

September 13: Moscow
September 15: Board the Trans-Siberian Railroad to head East
September 19: Arrive in Irkutsk and spend a few days exploring Lake Baikal area

Then: to Ulan-Ude and some exploration of a local Buddhist monastery and the Buryatia culture. Catch a local train or the Trans Mongolian down to Ulan Baatar, capitol of Mongolia. Spend a week hopefully in the countryside, possibly at another monastery and at Ger (yurt) camps in the north or central area of the country.

Last week: catch the last bit of the Trans-Mongolian train into Beijing, check out the Forbidden Palace, Great Wall, and try not to get hit by a bus while bicycling through the historic hutongs. Will meet up with an Italian friend from the Russia exchange, who is now studying business in BJ. Flying out of Beiing on October 11.

This blog: I have no idea if I'll be able to maintain it while traveling. It may be just a few text entries, possibly an iphone photo or two if I can get on wireless... the difference in technology since I've last traveled is so changed that I don't know what to expect - a satellite dish outside a nomadic Mongolian ger wouldn't surprise me in the least.