Tuesday 16 August 2011

Ulan Ude

(Vladivostok - Ulan Ude 3649km/2267 Miles)

Total distance traveled = 5371 km/3337 Miles

Most of my time on the first train had been spent reading a biography about Peter the Great. I'm not sure how much smaller than a normal page the pages of a Kindle are, but this book has about 16,000 pages! To put it into perspective, War and Peace has 26,000 Kindle pages. I'm not sure i'll get through that on this journey. In addition to the obvious space saving that ebooks offer, another feature of the Kindle has been pretty useful. I didn't realise when I bought it that you can access the internet. For free. Anywhere with 3G, or other wierd systems that I don't understand, like EDGE. Anyway, basically it's meant that during the patchy coverage on my train trip i've been able to check emails and a few Russian words (didn't get a phrasebook, duh!). It uses a lot more battery than just reading, but there are always the plug sockets in the corridor of the train for a quick recharge.

My next stop was Ulan Ude. I only have one night in Ulan Ude, but arrive in the morning and have quite a lot of time the next day too. Towards the end of this train journey Sasha was looking through my guide book. He showed me where he lived, and also offered to show me where the hostel was. It looked pretty easy to find, but I accepted anyway out of politeness. I shoudn't have bothered really. It was about 34 degrees when we arrived and he took me along a very indirect route. It took about twice as long as when I was leaving and found the station under my own steam!

The hostel was in a nicer looking building. It still had a steel door for security, but the building was much cleaner and in a nicer, more central area than Vladivostok. I arrived just before midday, and was greeted by the owner in his dressing gown - Dennis. The hostel was another converted apartment, and so only had one toilet and one bathroom for about 16 people. It was much bigger than the last one though. There were quite a few people around and I had a quick chat before heading out to explore the city.

Ulan Ude is relatively close to the Mongolian border, and so it seems more ethnically diverse than Vladivostok. The city was quite small, but very clean and had some quite pretty areas. There was a large marching square, a massive statue of Lenin's head (the biggest in the world, although I'm not sure how many Lenin heads there are around) in the centre of the square, and a few fountains around too.

After heading back to the hostel and chatting a bit more, I went out for food with a few other travellers. Viktor (Spanish, but spoke with an American accent), and a couple of dutch travellers (Amy and....uh...forgot his name...bugger!). Amy was a nurse, and her friend worked for the government (192cm and built like a brick shithouse. Very friendly though). We wandered around for a while, then settled on a mongolian restaurant in a Yurt (basically a tent). We ate Posi (pronounced like a small cat), which were like little meat dumplings that you bit, sucked the juice out of, then ate. Sitting around chatting about travelling, we finished our food then moved onto drink. As the evening developed we ended up sitting outside, drinking beer near a fountain. We also met a local girl after we tried to crowd her and make her give up her seat. Rather than moving, she struck up a conversation and drank with us. As we drank more, members of the group dropped off until it was just me, the dutch guy, and the local girl drinking beer and eating sandwiches in Subway (beer in subway!).

The next day I was rudely awoken by a massive group coming into the hostel at about 8am. Eventually I gave up trying to go back to sleep. In the morning I went back to subway (no beer this time) with th edutch couple for some lunch, then went to a temple on a hill within the city with an Israeli guy called Aviv. The temple was OK, but I was more impressed with the view. Later Aviv made some Israeli dishes for us (with olive oil made by his family which he carries with him!). We sat around and chatted with a few other guests and had a few drinks while I waited to go for my train. They were all really nive people and it helped to remind me how much of the fun of travelling rests with the people you meet, not just the places you visit.

Later in the evening I left and caught a night train to Irkutsk. The company couldn't be more different. I was joined by a Russian woman in her 50's and two drunk Russian guys. The atmosphere was cold to say the least, so I just went to sleep, helped by the lack of sleep fromt he night before and the beers I'd had at the hostel.


Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)