Irkutsk

(Ulan Ude - Irkutsk 455km/282 Miles)

Total distance traveled = 5826 km/3619 Miles

I arrived in Irkutsk on 7th August at about 8:30am. This was the first time a train had been slightly late on my trip. I would later discover that the date was quite significant too.

Rain greeted me, but i decided to walk into the city centre regardless. The station being a little further out than most cities, it took me about 30 minutes to get to the hostel. The hostel itself was in a fairly central location and was similar to the others I'd experienced so far - in that it was a converted apartment. Unusually though,this one had two toilets.

The owner said he'd expected me the night before,and I subsequently found a mistake in my planning. My bookings were a day out for this and the following hostel. Luckily they had a room (his was the busyiest hostel yet and the doorbell and phone seemed to be constantly rigning) and he didn' charge me for te previous night. This mistake meant that I also had to contact my next hostel and let them know the mistake,as they were expecting me he same day.

These problems dealt with, I drank a few cups of coffee and chatted with some of the other guests, including Crystal (who I'd met in Vladivostok). After waiting for the rain to subside for an hour or two I gave up and headed out into the wind and rain to explore the city with Crystal. We walked through a huge square and then onto 3 different churches,all very pretty but quite different in style, especially the murals and paintings inside.

The rain finally stopped and we continued looking around, finding a nice little cafe for lunch, some old weapons and army equipment, but failing to find a Russian guidebook. After returning to the hostel, I met a few new guests, played rummy (which I'm sure I've played before, but the rules seemed different), and had a few drinks. Chris (also from the Vladivostok hostel) also arrived that night, but I spent most of the evening chatting to a Hungarian professional poker player, a Parisian guy, a couple from Germany, and a British woman. It was nice to meet another Brit and we stayed up til about 1am,depsite the fact I had a early bus the next day to Olkhon Island on Baikal Lake.

More photos here...
http://s214.photobucket.com/albums/cc250/davingtonsmythe/Japan%20to%20Russia/Irkutsk/?albumview=slideshow

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.

More photos here...
http://s214.photobucket.com/albums/cc250/davingtonsmythe/Japan%20to%20Russia/Ulan%20Ude/?albumview=slideshow

My First Train

I left Vladivostok at 10:30pm on Tuesday 2nd August. Well, 10:30pm Vladivostok time, anyway. The tickets for the Trans-Siberian all have the departure and arrival times printed in Moscow local time. In Vladivostok station too, the departure board had Moscow times and even the clock on the wall. So in fact, using the Russian train system's timing, I left at 3:30pm.

I wasn't entirely sure why this system was adopted. My ideas were that it was to:

* Emphasise the dominance and importance of Moscow in Russia.
* To confuse tourists and make them miss trains, so that they'll spend more money on another ticket.
* To stop people getting drunk before getting on the train. I'm pretty sure that only sober people can work out the train times accurately.

It would seem more sensible to just state the local time of departure and arrival, like when taking an international flight. The fact that the train crosses 7 time zones adds to this confusion. In fact, a Russian working in a hostel I stayed at later suggested tat this was the reason for the system. they thought that it would be too difficult for the ticketing office if they needed to take account of all the different time zones.

I'd chosen 2nd class for all my trains. 1st class was obviously more comfortable (and expensive), but sharing with only one other person meant that if you didn't get along, you were stuck with each other for the duration of the journey. 3rd class was the most sociable, with no separate compartments withing the carriage and more beds. However, this brought me images of excessive luggage, a lack of privacy, and a larger likelihood of being kept awake. With this in mind, 2nd class seemed like a happy medium. There were 4 beds in each compartment, and a lockable door. In my mind, this gave opportunities to speak to people, but also gave a level of privacy and security not available in 3rd class.

After taking a few photos at the station, I showed the Provodnik (male carriage attendant) my ticket and found my bunk. The compartment was smaller and darker than I expected (however it was night!). My home for the next three nights only had dim lights, and my shoulders touched both upper bunks when I stood up between them! I also realised as the train departed, that I had the cabin all to myself. The attendant came and gave me some bedding, so I settled in for the night. Over the next few hours, I was joined by three more people.

First was a Russian guy on his own, who I later found out to be Sasha. He didn't speak any English, but I think I established he was going to Khaborosk (one night away). When I told him my destination, Ulan Ude, he managed to explain that he'd never stay on a train for that long (4 nights).

Next, we were woken by another Rusian guy with his son entering the compartment. The father was another Sasha, who didn't seem to speak English either. I didn't know the boys name, but the next morning he demonstrated his English skill with two phrases, 'Hello' and 'I will kill you!'. Not sure if they're both included on the school syllabus, but i'm sure they'll come in useful in the future. Despite his thick, menacing Russian accent, and his promise to end my life, the 5/6 year old's promise didn't seem to threatening.

During the next morning, his father his father asked me where I was going, a question I was able to guess and answer using gestures and drawings alone. He also gave me a wierd little Russian cucumber (that's not a double entendre). These actions didn't seem to fit with the son's previous threat, so I dismissed the fear of being smothered in the night.

The train has a restaurant, but it's hideously overpriced. I had a quick look and found prices ranged from 300-600 rubles, when in Vladivostok I'd eaten a main course for 150. I'd prepared for this and had brought numerous cup noodle type instant foods (free hot water from a boiler type things (samisvar in Russian maybe)), a bit of bread and cheese, 4 beers, and some water. There are supposedly people selling things on station platforms too, but by 1:30pm of the next full day I hadn't seen anyone. None of the other passengers seem to have aquired any warm or fresh food either, so I guess it's not that I'm looking in the wrong places.....Finally found some when we stopped at a station at 10pm. There were quite a few people selling different foods, as well as some small kiosks. I got a big sausage (ooh-er matron), a loaf, and some dumplings - stodge city! Wolfed down 3/4 of the dumplings and saved the rest for later in the journey.

The little boy in my compartment seemed to be getting a bit restless. His dad was trying to read, but was getting nowhere as the kid was constantly asking questions. I asked his name in Russian, then played a few games in English and Russian with numbers. It didn't quite have the desired effect, as his dad had to keep helping him, but there were a few periods where he was left to read in peace. Anyway, I learned the boy's name is 'Garin', he's 6, and his dad is 36. Gave his dad a beer later too and he attempted to communicate a bit more.

The morning of the 4th I woke up at about 9:30am (Vladivostok time) and had a massive breakfast of cold dumplings, bread, and cheese. All this while continuing to read about Peter the Great. A round 12, I noticed a distance marker 7030km. These relate to Moscow, again showing how Moscow centered the train system seems to be. All along the route there are these signs by the side of the track marking the distance to the capital. The entire length of the Trans-Siberian railway is 9,289lm. However, there aren't just markers each km. Instead, there's one for every 100m. So you see a constant countdown, 9...8...7...6...5...4...3...2...1...7029 etc. So I guess there are over 92,000 signs! It's nice when you have a guidebook and can work out where you are and what's coming up soon, but seems a tad excessive to have so many signs. Must be a bugger to maintain.

As well as the guidebook, each train has it's own schedule (different trains stop more or less, or travel at different speeds) posted in the carriage as a reference point. It's all in Russian, but studying the cyrillic alphabet on the ferry paid off and I can work out most of the names. I've also managed to read words like cafe, univeristy, and calzone as they're all pretty close to English when you read them out. Without studying more Russian vocabulary it'll be pretty difficult for me to get beyond these odd words I think!

More photos here...
http://s214.photobucket.com/albums/cc250/davingtonsmythe/Japan%20to%20Russia/My%20first%20train/?albumview=slideshow

Vladivostok

Total distance traveled = 1722 km/1070 Miles

There seems to be only one hostel in Vladivostok, well with any kind of web presence anyway. Consequently both Chris and I had booked the same place,the 'See You Hostel'.

When booking, the owner had sent instructions on how to get to there by bus or taxi. Arriving in the evening, I probably would've just got a taxi if I was alone to save potentially getting lost on the first day. But the significantly lower cost and the feeling of safety you get with other travellers overruled and we took what was a surprisingly easy bus ride, taking us about 15 minutes out of the city.

This took us into what could politely be called 'a lower socio-economic area'. Run down high-rises and graffiti covered walls greeted us. The 'hostel' was actually a large apartment with two rooms full of bunk beds, on the 4th floor of one of these buildings. It was, admittedly, slightly better than the other buildings surrounding it, but it still had the look of a gang hideout or drug den. Once past the 3 inch thick steel door of the building and into the apartment, the decor looked a little better. The inside of the building was clean, and the apartment itself looked much better than I had expected. The only downside of the hostel itself was the bathroom/toilet. As it was basicaly a flat there was only one of each, meaning there were sometimes long waits in the morning due to the 14 or so people staying there.

Writing this on the train, I've realised that I didn't take any photos of the outside of the building. Maybe I can get one from another of the travellers I met and add it later.

The staff were very helpful, despite the fact that the language barrier sometimes made asking the simplest questions and requests Herculean. One area we seemed to spend a long time on was registration. Russian law states that foreigners need to register their stay in the country. Unfortunately, the laws aren't particularly clear, and recent changes have confused the issue further still.

My interpretation, and one that I had confirmed on an internet forum, was that I needed to register within 7 days of entering the country, and then again if I stayed in one city for more than 7 days. Explaining this to the staff and trying to object to their view that I didn't need to register at all made up most of my communication with them. I'm sure that they thought I was being overly cautious and too keen to line the pockets of the government, but I didn't really want to be on the wrong side of the law, especially in a country like Russia.

After I finally thought I'd arranged to get one of the members of staff to take me into town and register, on the agreed day he was nowhere to be found in the morning. I caught up with him at 4pm, when he told me that the office was only open 10-12pm. As I was leaving Vladivostok that night there was no possibility of registering. This led to another prolonged conversation, mostly using Google Translate (surprisingly accurate in Russian compared to Japanese) about how the mix up occurred, and were I could register in the next 6 days.

Anyway, back to Vladivostok itself. I wasn't particularly impressed, and am quite glad that I only stayed one night. I wandered around looking at old buildings (including Yule Brenner's old family home), memorials, and statues, with another guy from the hostel- Stew. We also walked along a promenade and to a funicular, both of which seemed to be under some sort of rennovation. A number of the buildings were covered in scaffolding too. Apparently there's some kind of exhibition or conference next year, so this may be the reason for the extensive building work. Despite the funicular being closed, we were able to reach the viewpoint by climbing some stairs. I quite liked the Soviet style statues and monuments scattered around the city. They're all very powerful and angular in their depiction. I think most of my photos of the cities are of these kinds of statues!

Also staying at the hostel were a group of Korean travellers. They all spent about 80% of their time hunched over their phones or laptops, or sleeping. I'm not sure if that's a generational thing, something unique to Korea, or a combination of both. I understand the appeal of the internet when travelling to keep in touch with friends and family, plan your travel, and check attractions, but they seemed to be watching TV and music videos most of the time - things they could have done at home without travelling! They didn't communicate with other guests unless quizzed either.

While I didn't think much of Vladivostok as a whole, it was good to meet and chat to the other travellers (Crystal, Chris, and Stew) and learn a bit about their plans and background. I'd also found out that, despite their somewhat menancing facial expressions, once approached most Russian were pretty friendly and helpful. this was something I was counting on in thecoming days on my train journey.

Few more photos here...
http://s214.photobucket.com/albums/cc250/davingtonsmythe/Japan%20to%20Russia/Vladivostok/?albumview=slideshow

Ferry to Vladivostok

(Osaka - Sakaiminato 228km/141 Miles)
(Sakaiminato - Dong Hae 413km/256 Miles)
(Dong Hae - Vladivostok 678km/421 Miles)

Total distance traveled = 1722 km/1070 Miles

In Sakaiminato I got on the Eastern Dream and we set sail for Korea. The company's website had lots of photos and the boat looked better than I had expected. As the journey continued there were a few little things that detracted from the experience. I'm glad I didn't have to spend more than two nights on there, but generally it was alright and was much more interesting than a flight.

My cabin was shared with 7 other people (4 bunk beds). They were mainly Russians in my room, but there were quite a lot of South Koreans on the boat too. I got talking to a British girl called Sara on the boat and we spent most of the two days chatting and laughing at other passengers. I also chatted with an Australian guy called Chris, a few Korean boys on a schools trip, and attempted to communicate with a Russian guy called Andrei.

The website had said there was an internet room on the boat, so it was a bit of a dissapointment when we discovered it had been replaced by a second Duty Free shop. The meals weren't too special either and I ate more out of necessity than enjoyment. There was a bar and a nightvlub too. I didn't try the bar, as it seemed a bit expensive and nobody seemed to go in. The nightclub was fun, in a 'so bad it was good' kind of way. The first night they had passengers singing karaoke and the second night saw some of the crew singing and dancing. The drinks were cheap too, so when there was no organised entertainment Sara and I tried to speak to Andrei.

This was mainly in a mixture of English and Japanese. He spends his time travelling between Japan and Russia working as a delivery driver. He seemed to like Japan, but can't get a visa for more than 3 months - hence the constant travel between the two places. He told us about having two passports (one for in Russia and one for international travel), his wife who stays in Vladivostok and runs a nail salon, him driving 80,000km a year, and the fact that he can fire big guns! Didn't quite get that part, maybe he served in the army. His favourite English phrase seemed to be 'No problem' (obviously in a thick Russian accent. Think James Bond villan). When we asked him what this was in Russian, he said 'Niet Problem'. This is the easiest Russian phrases I've encountered so far.

The Korean boys seemsed to enjoy practising English and seemed to be constantly bouncing around. They demonstrated the dance 'sex on the beach', attempted to dance like Michael Jackson, traded insults with each other, and dished out random compliments. These included 'you look like John Connor', 'Wow, you're very tall', 'You're handsome', and 'Your boobs are like stone!'.

By the end of the trip I was avoiding people attempting to practise English. The conversations quickly went from a fun attempt to communicate to draining and repetitive banal conversations. This had to be done whilst smiling a lot too, so not as to offend people who were doing nothing at all wrong.

We'd been warned by Andrei that the customs process in Russia was very long. It was actually very quick, but before we got there we had to wait for 2 hours on the boat. Maybe this is the normal process and there was some misunderstanding. After stepping onto Russian soil, we changed some money, bought a few postcards, then split into two groups. Those of us who were staying in Vladivostok, and those who were going onto the train. I went with Chris, and we set out to find our first Russian hostel before dark.

More photos here...
http://s214.photobucket.com/albums/cc250/davingtonsmythe/Japan%20to%20Russia/Ferry%20to%20Vladivostok/?albumview=slideshow

Orange dinosaur and military marching music...naturally.