Techno Travel

This trip has really demonstrated to me the prevalence of mobile technology. The first people I met in the Moscow hostel were a British couple waiting for some visas to come through. She was tapping away at a laptop and he at his smartphone. They explained that their choice of hostel was partly as they knew this once had reliable Wifi.

I hadn't really thought about this, and was planning to leave my Blackberry at home to avoid racking up a huge bill. But what you have to do, the man explained, is to switch off the mobile data function and connect using the wireless function, wherever there is a wireless network. This is basically free, and you can send and receive emails and do some limited browsing of the web for nothing using your own device.

I've done this a lot. For example, I'm writing this on a train in the middle of Mongolia, and when I get to somewhere in Beijing that has WiFi, probably the hostel, it will automatically be uploaded to the blog via email.

Someone asked me before I left if I was taking a laptop. It seemed like a silly idea to me to take a computer backpacking. But I would say about half the people I've met are travelling with a laptop, usually a nice small one of some kind. All they need is WiFi and they have all the functionality they would have at home - for nothing. Most people have some kind of smartphone if not a laptop. Typically all the sockets in the dorms will be full overnight with devices charging up. I feel less worried about theft when I can see that everyone else has better gear than I do.

To think that when I first went abroad, we used to write letters home and put them in the post. When I told my student friend in Omsk, Alexandra, that I was planning to send some postcards, she looked horrified and said "That's gonna take, like, a MONTH!" (I sent them anyway). On our Gobi trip the Dutch couple had to return early because of an eye accident (he's okay now). Within an hour of arriving back at the hostel after the trip, most of the group had already found each other on Facebook, exchanged emails and stories, and arranged to meet up for dinner.

Internet cafes start to seem like more trouble than they are worth when you can simply get a wireless router and everyone will visit your cafe to use their own devices. You can take advantage of open wireless networks also. In Listvyanka, some British students were staying at the same hostel as me. We ended up in the same place for dinner, and on the way back one of them detected a WiFi network in a hotel we were walking past. Within seconds he was having a face-to-face conversation with his girlfriend back home - for free using Skype. I'm probably behind the times, but I think that's pretty amazing.

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Nine days around Mongolia: Impressions

The first impression was of emptiness. Mongolia is huge and has a population of under three million so much of it looks untouched. We were driving past fascinating rock formations, mountain ranges, lakes and constantly varying types of vegetation all the time. Maybe California looked like this before the settlers got there. The natural environment is all there is, so you can really see it. The Gobi Desert used to be a sea, and it did really feel like we were driving along the bottom of a huge dried-up lake.

Next impression: variety. We saw grassland, thinly-vegetated flatlands, red-rocked semi-desert, sand dunes, mountains, gorges and stream-filled lush valleys. From the intense dry heat of the south we drove into the mountains and found ourselves in cloud, where, after almost a day of continuous rain, it really started to feel like Wales. We had the stove on in our mountain ger, while in the desert the heat radiated up from the ground and we were leaving doors and flaps open to cool things down.

Next is lack of infrastructure. For the whole trip except a day and a half we were on dry tracks, not paved roads. The road from Ulan Bator to the Gobi's main town in the south is not paved: there is no road as such. Driving through the mountains was just like trying to off-road a jeep directly through a valley: we were fording rivers frequently, and the bridges that did exist looked pretty rickety.

I was expecting the gers in remote areas to be very basic. But I was surprised that the Gobi town, Dalanzagdad, didn't have any plumbing system at all. Most of the town consisted of fenced compounds each containing two or three gers, a dog and a latrine. Plenty of space was required between the latrine and the living quarters, so the compounds were quite big. There was electricity from overhead pylons, but apart from some downtown buildings (including the public showers that we visited) no running water or sewerage. The whole thing had the feel of a shanty town where people might have just come in from the desert and set up camp. It all looked very closed: if you looked down a street you just saw a dirt track and fences running continuously down each side. Very little in the way or signs and landmarks made navigation very difficult.

Having said that, we found by accident that we were in Dalanzagdad for the annual Nadaam festival, and this was a lovely colourful affair. The whole town was there for the opening ceremony and parade, many in traditional Mongolian dress, and everyone in really good spirits. We saw the three Mongolian traditional sports - wrestling, archery and horse racing, the skills that enabled Genghis Khan to conquer most of the continent. There was a big music concert in the evening featuring some famous Mongolian singers. People came to watch from miles away, some arriving on horseback. That's a great way to ensure you get a good view. And all that in a town with no plumbing. Pretty good stuff.

Finally, the people. I was with two Dutch people (they're everywhere!) two Finns and a German, and it was fun. We would be given a ger to ourselves next to the host family's ger, and we usually had a chance to say hello although conversation was limited! Our sturdy little van which got us through some incredibly bumpy journeys was looked after by our driver Tsomo, who gave it a clean inside and out every night to battle the dust. It appeared that he had to change three of the tyres in the first two days, something that didn't seem out of the ordinary. He and our cook, Zula (not the right spelling) slept in the van each night while we had the luxury of the tent. Zula conjured up a hot filling meal every lunchtime as we parked by the wayside in the middle of nowhere. And she did a lot more than cook, acting as a guide a lot of the time also.

I would say that Mongolia's the most different place I've been. As well as its vast open spaces and natural beauty, it has a culture that's really unique, and has retained its identity despite being sandwiched between the two giants, Russia and China. I thoroughly recommend it to anyone who can get by without a flushing loo.
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Mongolia - UB

Ulaan Baator gets a bad press in the backpacker guide books, but I don't find it too bad. The food is great - proper Western cheesecake, coffee, burgers, pizza, and most other things you could want at bargain prices. It's compact and easy to get around. There are some interesting museums. I went to the International Intellectual Museum yesterday, a unique place showcasing Mongolians' skill with wooden puzzles. One man in particular has developed hundreds of them, and it was he who set up the museum. A man of many talents, he is also a painter and many of his paintings are in the museum, including portraits of its sponsors. There's a rather idiosyncratic collection of other objects, including dolls, face masks (one of Michael Jackson) childrens' toys and chess sets of all shapes and sizes from around the world. The Mongolians think that chess may have originated in Mongolia, and are keen participants in the International Puzzle Party, an annual convention of puzzlers and gamers. Some of this has had practical applications, for example in assembling a ger (Mongolian word for yurt). My favourite puzzle had two pieces of bone on a piece of string. Traditionally, a bride had to solve the puzzle on her wedding day to prove she had sufficient intelligence, or the wedding was off. Talk about a stressful situation.

Pickpockets are a problem, and there are constant warnings and disclaimers about personal property everywhere. I caught someone trying to open the zip on my bag as I was waiting to cross the road (and that's another challenge!) I was so annoyed I slapped him in the face. He just stood there and laughed.
A strange encounter, hopefully not to be repeated.

UB is a real centre for travellers, as this is where you land if you want to explore Mongolia. Get into a small group to fill a jeep or van, and off you go. There is hardly any infrastructure - roads, let alone public transport - so doing your own thing would be next to impossible. My hostel sees a constant turnover of guests from early morning to late evening, usually picked up from the train station and shipped off on a hostel-organised tour straight away to make space for more guests. Our group of six all arrived on the same day at 6am and set off on a tour the following morning. As we were waiting to leave, one of the group returned to his dorm to get something he'd forgotten. There was already someone asleep in his recently-vacated bed. This frenetic activity only happens for the summer months when it's possible to drive the unmade roads.

I've spoken to loads of people doing or just done the same trip as me, and have picked up loads of info and ideas for China. I'll be getting on the early morning train to Beijing tomorrow, so time only for the dinosaurs in the Natural History Museum and one more piece of cheesecake.

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Gobi Desert Photos

I'm back in Ulan Bator after nine days travelling around Mongolia. Some pictures above. More on the trip later!

Photos: Omsk, Lake Baikal

From the bottom up (as they loaded in that order for some reason): me in Omsk, view of Siberia scenery from the train, Listvyanka old and new, a small part of Lake Baikal.

Photos: Suzdal etc

Suzdal, Yekaterinburg, train station stop with train attendant and traders on the platform

Two and a half thousand kilometres: Omsk to Baikal

After a wet day in Omsk, the weather improved and I could have a proper look around with help from Alexandra, a language student studying in Krakow I met on the train from Warsaw. The city doesn't really have sights as such, but it's a big place and has some nice open spaces. I found out later that the Estonian I met who also stopped in Omsk found the weather so grim he went to the cinema. Most films here are dubbed, so he picked something where it didn't matter if you couldn't understand the words - the latest Transformers film!

From there to Irkutsk was 40 hours on the train, the longest stretch with two overnights. It was pretty comfortable and I chatted to a PR manager from Perm on her way to a holiday on a boat at Krasnoyarsk. That sounded like a nice east Siberian city with a river and mountains on all sides, and I was sorry I wasn't stopping there. Next time!

It was a good journey with the landscape gradually becoming hilly and the route more winding. Wooden Siberian houses with brightly painted window frames look like the cottages out of fairy stories.

Arriving in Irkutsk in the morning, I thought this seemed a really pleasant city with tree-lined streets and wooden houses here and there. It's where a lot of intellectual Russian exiles ended up, and does have a cosmopolitan feel with a few reminders that it's not far from Mongolia and the Far East.

I wasn't stopping though so made my way across town via a two-and-a-half hour stop in an internet cafe (slow connection). Waiting for the bus to Listvyanka I met three British lads, two of them medical students, who were staying at the same hostel as me. They were having a whale of a time, but I'm glad I never found myself in the same carriage as them!

Listvyanka is the biggest settlement on Lake Baikal (see Ten Facts about Lake Baikal for population sparcity). It's a traditional village of wood houses, dirt tracks and fenced plots for vegetable growing, with the addition of a waterside strip in fast development with huge gaudy hotels and tourist complexes. Most of the tourism was geared up for Russians with only a few foreigners in town. Having said that, my hostel was invaded the second night by a party of Czechs who had just finished a tour of Baikal.

The hostel was a strange place. It looked like an ordinary house which had been converted into a hostel by amateur DIYers using anything that was lying around at the time. My room (I was enjoying a room to myself, a rare treat) used to be the kitchen. The mattress consisted of two bedding rolls just like the ones you get on the train. Still, everything worked after a fashion and the cool nights were a relief - the first time so far I needed a fleece.

I spent much of the three days there walking along the edge of the lake, taking photos trying to capture its size and strange thick liquidity. I was also indebted to the British students for telling me where the best and cheapest kebabs were to be found!

I made my way up to a viewpoint, where I bumped into a British woman who lives in Beijing (teaching horse riding at the International School). I also visited the Baikal museum where, after making a bit of a fuss about having to pay more as a foreigner then finding the displays were only labelled in Russian, I got my own mini guided tour from an English speaking guide. It's a fascinating place.

Then back to Irkutsk for a few hours to explore some of the monuments, the regional museum, an odd Soviet-style pancake cafe and a very western cafe bar serving club sandwiches. At 9pm the temperature display at the station read 29 degrees, explaining why I'd been feeling a little worn out!

Now on the train heading for the Russian-Mongolian border. Unlike the other trains, this one is full of tourists with English the main language heard. I'm sharing a carriage with three Belgian boys from somewhere near Bruges. It's good to compare notes with fellow travellers. More from Mongolia later!

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Ten facts about Lake Baikal

1. It's the deepest freshwater lake in the world (over 1,600m), and the biggest in terms of volume with 20% of the world's fresh water supply.
2. The surface temperature reaches 12 degrees Centigrade in summer. In winter, it freezes hard enough to drive across it. But the core of the lake remains a steady 4 degrees all year round.
3. People used to think that there was hardly any life in the lake, but in fact there is a large variety of different species because the water is highly oxygenated. 80% of these cannot be found anywhere else. The main barrier to exploring the lake has been its immense depth.
4. The lake is 80km wide at its widest point, and over 600km long.
5. Lake Baikal pushes the seasons back by around a month. In its immediate area, summer doesn't arrive until August while November is warmer than in nearby Irkutsk.
6. Lake Baikal is on a Tectonic fault line - that's how the lake was formed. There are frequent low-resonance earthquakes in the area.
7. The water from the lake is meant to be safe to drink because bacteria are eaten by some fish, crabs and sponges. I didn't see anyone doing it though!
8. If everyone who lived alongside Lake Baikal joined hands in a line, it would stretch for 200km, around a tenth of the circumference of the lake. If the same were done for Lake Michigan, the line would go around the lake eight times.
9. When the Trans Siberian train line was first built, it was considered too difficult to build a line around the edge of the lake, so passengers used a ferry to cross the lake and got back on the train on the other side. The Circumbaikal railway was built in the end, but these days it doesn't form part of the route and is only used by tourists.
10. Lake Baikal has the second highest visibility of any lake or sea: you can see down to about 40m. Only the Sargasso Sea has better visibility, where you can see down to about 60m.


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Yekaterinburg in the rain

Having some trouble accessing my emails which is a bit of a problem, as I don't know how to let people know I've updated the blog without that! Wherever there is a wireless network, I am receiving emails on my Blackberry, but it's not so easy to send to an address book that way. I am sure I'll figure something out!

I wasn't counting on having problems with compatibility - thought it was the world wide web! but maybe not so worldwide.

Anyway, the first few days have gone well. London to Cologne was fine, well, better since I was for some reason sitting in Standard Premier on the Eurostar which meant I got a "light meal". Wish I'd known that before I'd eaten my M&S egg sandwich. The train from Cologne to Warsaw was very late so I didn't get to look round Warsaw, but it was a miserable day anyway.

I shared a tiny compartment with two other women from Warsaw to Moscow. One of them lives in Omsk, where I'm stopping off later, so hopefully I can meet up with her, if I can remember where I wrote down her phone number.

Moscow was rainy when I got there, but I found the hostel okay, and it was a nice one. I met an English couple who had big plans to travel the world in a landrover, but it sounds like they fell out with the driver in some remote part of Russia and had to change their plans! They had been staying in the hostel a week waiting for visas to come through.

I've been to Moscow quite recently before, so apart from a journey on the metro to pick up my train tickets from the agent, I didn't stay. I got a bus to Suzdal, which is a lovely town not far from Vladimir, which is where the Trans-Siberian passes through. I thought I would be getting a train to Suzdal via Vladimir, but it turns out there weren't any. That means I've missed out a leg of the Trans-Siberian, but never mind.

Spent a really nice evening and day in Suzdal, mainly just looking at churches and wandering around along the river - it was a really hot day (glad not to be in Moscow!). In the afternoon, got myself to Vladimir station via a very rickety and very full local bus, and got on the train to Yekaterinburg.

I have to say I was really impressed with the train. The Warsaw to Moscow train wasn't that good - very cramped and airless and not many facilities. But the train from Vladimir was great - lots of space in the compartment, air conditioning, a "providnitsa" (attendant) who kept everything clean and looked after us, bedding and towels, and the samovar for making cups of tea and coffee whenever. I went to look at the restaurant car but didn't use it this time. I think that's the first time I've been in a restaurant car!

There were a couple of English speaking people and a few Russians getting off and on, so had a few monosyllabic conversations. Had a good night's sleep, and a few snoozes during the day when the scenery became monotonous. But it was very pretty, as we passed through the Urals which are lovely forested mountains with lots of rivers. I also saw the white obelisk which marks the boundary between Europe and Asia.

I arrived in Yekaterinburg at about 9pm last night (after losing 2 hours on the journey). Had no idea how to get to the hotel and the taxi drivers were going to charge 500 roubles (over a tenner) - seemed a lot for about a kilometre! So I went back to the railway information point and she told me which bus to get (for 18 roubles). And the driver handily told me where to get off. It's initially quite intimidating when all the signs are in Russian, but the guide book has all the Russian and English names, and a guide to the Cyrillic, so it's all decipherable.

The hotel is very strange. The lobby is very nice, and when I went up to my floor it looked very nice also, carpeted, etc. But when I went into the far corridor where my room was, it was much more sorry looking. I will take a photo of it and post it when I get myself a bit more together! The guide book did say that it was an insight in Soviet style tourism, and it was just about the cheapest room they had, so I was prepared. Also, the toilet is at the end of the corridor and the shower is on a different floor altogether! It was closed last night so I had to wait till this morning. All very interesting. The one good thing is that I don't have to check out until 9pm which makes things a lot more convenient.

I'm enjoying wandering around Yekaterinburg. There are a lot of open spaces, park areas, a nice waterside walk, and museums, although these won't be worth going in unless they have English. I certainly feel quite unusual being a foreign tourist here. I've met a few other travellers so far but certainly the Trans-Sib isn't over-run with them.

It's quite cool and rainy at the moment, which is quite a relief after the heat (although I've just heard a clap of thunder so maybe not so good!). I'll be leaving here this evening and arriving in Omsk tomorrow morning, where I have a homestay booked.

I will try to sort out email to let you know this is here! In the meantime, lots of love to family members, and to everyone else cheerio!

Tracey