The Kremlin & Lenin

Pictures: Craig's

Our first Moscow tourist site was the Kremlin. It's not hard to spot this massive clump of buildings in the city centre. The security for getting in however, was tighter than most airport screenings; no bags, no cameras (without a special sticker), and a full metal detector arrangement. 300 Rubles each ($10), a frisking, and we were in.
The building construction dates range from 1400s through 1600s with interior decorating to match. Everything was grand, fancy, and religiously based. 'Onions', as we dubbed them, draped in gold paint, topped all the buildings. It was all intriguing; filled with so much history. You can read all about the history of the Kremlin on Wikipedia ;)

The following day, we went back to the Red Square, this time to check out Lenin's Mausoleum. We lined up in a long line (it's only opened from 10-1, Tues-Thurs, Sat-Sun) and were thoroughly frisked again before going into the building. It's quite dark and filled with guards protecting the embalmed body encased in glass. His body is frequently wiped down and dipped in paraffin wax so he looked like plastic. It was all very creepish, but definitely worth it (FREE!) and memorable.

Moscow Metro

After using the Seoul Subway system for a year, I was interested in using the Moscow Metro. Due to some rigorous hostel searching in Moscow when we first arrived (Lonely Planet's getting an email from me...), we became very familiar with the metro the first day in the city.
At first glance, it's a bit darker and older looking, but at certain stations, Craig and I would just stand in awe at the amazing architecture that was all under the city.
I read somewhere that the first station was built in 1935 and most of the earlier stations were built deep, designed to double as a bomb shelter. The escalator going down to the subway took forever, but then you have time to enjoy the artwork.

I've now become a little familiar with Cyrillic, so I could eventually read the names of the subway stations, but I quickly started to appreciate how Korea has all the subway stations Romanized under the Hangul.

I find Seoul subway to be cleaner, but nothing compares to the unique and historical artwork that is in the stations in Moscow.

Train to Moscow (86 hours)

We're catching the train to Moscow at 4:20pm today (Sept 22) and arriving September 25th. This is the longest train ride of our journey. We won't be posting for at least 4 days...

UPDATE:
Phewww! That was a long ride!

Unfortunately, when we bought our tickets, the train was nearly full and we ended up in separate 'rooms'. My roommates consisted of 3 Russians (one married couple and a 20-something girl). All pretty normal besides the cat the girl brought.


Mary started with 3 construction workers, that smelled something terrible! They got off at one of the stops and were replaced by two Russian boys in their 20's. They enjoyed their drink and wanted to share, so we indulged them with a few shots of vodka, but mostly left them on their own - they couldn't quite handle their own medicine, passed out, and later vomited on the floor; another nice smell in Mary's compartment. This didn't deter them since at 7 am the next morning they were back into the beer!


The final roommates that we had the pleasure of meeting (I joined Mary's room by this time) were a Russian couple that could speak some English (Andriy and Helena). Our guess was that they were run-aways wanting to get married but the girl's parents wouldn't allow it. They were both odd, but the guy was the weirdest of the two. He went on about being a singer 10 years ago (he was at least 10 years older than Helena). Helena did a lot of translating since she knew more English. Both were very friendly and they bought some wine for us all to share. He offered cigarettes to us, but we said we don't smoke; so his question to us, "Why not?". We gave him some stuff about lung cancer, smelling bad, yellow teeth, etc. In Canada at least, most people, even smokers, know that smoking is unhealthy - not this guy. He tried to explain to us that smoking helps your brain remember how to breath, something about yawning in there too, and a bunch of other garbage. He was thoroughly convinced it was good for him. We couldn't argue much because of the language barrier, so we gave up and labeled him a nutter.

Our 6 year anniversary was held on board the train Baikal; pot noodles celebrated the occasion. We told Helena and Andriy as much, and early the next morning (4:00am) when all were sleeping (except Andriy since he "only sleeps 2 hours a day"), he gave Mary a gift for us...see the photo below for our 'new' serving tray (conveniently forgotten on the train). At that time, he also quizzed her on her knowledge of the Ural Mountain anthem; he was shocked to learn Mary didn't know it - fortunately he didn't try to sing.

When we got to Moscow, we had some trouble finding a place as we wandered the city for 5 hours before settling at the Traveler's Guesthouse. More to come on Moscow later.

Lake Baikal

Pictures: Craig's / Mary's


Our first day in Irkutsk was a tiring day of finding ATMs, exchanging money and buying tickets to Moscow without knowing more than 3 words of Russian.
The next day we took a tour of Lake Baikal with a group from the Hostel. It's the deepest fresh water lake in the world (and we thought the Great Lakes were big...). Craig and I were accompanied by Tuomo (a fellow from Finland) Ollie, Scally, and Ruth for a train trek to the southern tip of the Lake. We had a Russian guide, Oksana, for the hike from the train station to the Lake and walked along the old train tracks that followed Baikal.


We were amazed by the beauty of the Lake; and even though it was quite cold for September, we enjoyed the hike, lunch, and views that we experienced yesterday. It was a tiring day though and an even more tiring train ride home - not arriving back in Irkutsk until 11pm. It's amazing what positions you can sleep in when extremely tired......

Train to Irkutsk (36 hours)

Pictures: Craig's
Although we bought our tickets at different places, prices, and times, it turned out that Scally and Ollie were in the same room as us. Ruth was a little ways down the carriage, but hanging out in our room was no problem.


The ride was made shorter with great company, a bit of vodka, and card games. We tried several games including a version of Crazy 8's, an Irish game called 25 with the most convoluted rules that Scally had to make a chart of the card hierarchy, and we eventually settled on Diminishing Whist (sp?).


A huge portion of the trip (12 hours) was stuck within the 20km area around the border. The actual customs and searching didn't take so much time, but we just sat there on the tracks, two carriages without an engine, waiting and waiting and waiting. It was a little torturous at times when washrooms couldn't be used. And even when washrooms could be used at the station, they were appalling, no disgusting, no...there is no word that truly fits the state of these washrooms - think the movie Trainspotting - the scene with the worst toilet in Scotland!

Anyway, we arrived safely together, found a hostel (turns out to be the same hostel that Matt chose since we found his entry in the guestbook) and arranged a trip to Lake Baikal for the next day...

Terelj National Park - The Ger Camp

Pictures: Craig's / Mary's

After a night in the UB Guesthouse (thanks for the recommendation Matt), Craig and I left at 10am to Terelj National Park, about 80km from Ulaan Baator. We had planned on staying 2 nights in the Ger Camp, which would include 4 hours of horseback riding and meals.

It was beautiful weather when we got there, 20 degrees; enough to give both of us a slight sunburn on our faces by mid-afternoon. There were 6 of us from the UB Guesthouse that would be sleeping over that night and going horse riding. Unfortunately, Craig and I had to wait til 5pm to go riding due to luck of the draw and lack of horses. By 5, Craig and I could see that the horses were tired, but the Mongolian Guide was determined to get those horses to go for one more ride that evening.


Craig and I got on the horses and before I could even get my balance, my horse starting running straight for the stall, where they would stay for the night. Unfortunately the roof of the stall became shorter and shorter as we quickly ran into it, forcing me to lay back on the horse and roll off it. I don't remember much of the incident except that I hit the side of the stall and ground hard - and ran out as quick as I could before being ran over by the horse.

I ran to the Ger to inspect my wounds - and I was cut up pretty badly. Both my knees had deep cuts and I could start to see bruises forming on my arms, tights and butt. The Mongolian Guide ran up and in broken English asked if I still wanted to ride, but I could barely sit down on the bed, let alone get back on a horse.

My bedtime came quickly due to my desperate need to rest my beat up body. Craig and I shared the Ger with a German man, named Thomas and the 3 of us had a terrible time trying to fall asleep. The Mongolian family's dog barked half the night - then we felt the presence of mice running around inside the Ger. Thomas had left some dinner on the table and the mice helped themselves to the leftover food. If that wasn't bad enough, the 3 of us woke up to extreme cold. We heard what sounded like rain hitting the Ger, but when we looked outside, we were shocked and horrified to see that snow was falling, quite heavily.

Craig and I are used to snow and cold, but we had left most of our warm clothes back at the Guesthouse - thinking we wouldn't need much more than a long sleeved shirt. So for 3 hours, Thomas, Craig and I huddled together in the Ger, playing card games, until the Mongolian family came up with warm tea and dry fire wood. We told them that we all wanted to go back to Ulaan Baatar that day.

By noon, the van came and all 6 of us headed back to Ulaan Baator. We just wanted to get back to our warm jackets and buy warmer clothes for the unexpected snowfall. After we got back to the Hostel, I saw what damage the horse had done to my body. Bruises the size of fists covered most of it. I soon learned from other backpackers that I'm not the only one who had fallen off the horse in the past couple of weeks. Many people had fallen off and returned with dislocated knees or broken wrists. I realized how lucky I was to walk away from the incident with just a body bruise.

The rest of the day, Craig and I walked around Ulaan Baator, bought our tickets to Irkutsk, Russia, and met up with two guys from Ireland, Scally and Ollie, and a girl from Wales, Ruth, who were all taking the same train to Irkutsk the following night......

Train to Mongolia (30 hours)

Pictures: Craig's


We've got some high speed now and can finally catch up (I'm not uploading all pics since they charge per megabyte). In our last couple days of Beijing we met a nice couple (German this time); Claire and Maxim. They are doing an around the world trip, much grander than our piddly 3 month journey :)

We hopped on the train early in the morning to travel from Beijing to Ulaan Baator. This was our first experience in a sleeper train. Four bunks were in each room, a narrow hall on one side of the carriage allowed walks to the bathroom and to a hot water tank. Our roommates were a married Mongolian couple (I can't recall their names since I could barely pronounce them correctly when I heard it). The woman was a linguist; she could speak Mongolian, Russian, Spanish, and English. She told us she worked for the UN as a translator. Her husband spoke Chinese and Mongolian. They were a cute couple and he seemed to make her laugh a lot. We had some good conversations learning about each other's country. When the husband had something to say, she would translate for him. When a train attendant told us something in Chinese, he would translate to Mongolian for her, then she would translate to English for us - quite the game of telephone.


The views from the train were spectacular as we passed through innumerable types of terrain. We found blue skies and clean air as we departed Beijing; cities are so dirty.


Customs/Immigration woke us up in the middle of the night to do the whole passport and declaration thing once we hit the border. It was fairly painless except for being woken up. The part that did cause some grief was the changing of bogies (train 'wheels'). Mongolia has wider tracks than China, so it's not a simple transition. We were clanked around in our carriage (we chose not to get off for the hours the change would take). We were pushed into a giant train garage, where once positioned, we were lifted off the Chinese bogies to roll under the Mongolian ones. It was a neat process; unbelievable they do this every time a train goes through.


We arrived in Ulaan Baator (UB) early afternoon. We knew we wanted to go to UB Guesthouse so we started to walk; by shear luck, a woman (later known as Bobby) came up to us with a sign that said "UB Guesthouse". She took us to a taxi which drove us to the hostel (this was incredibly lucky for us, because we would never have found it otherwise). The guesthouse was cozy with folks from all over the world. Laminated sheets outlining strict rules for the hostel were plastered all over the wall. Mr. Kim, owner of the hostel, was a Korean man with a gusto for business and pleasing his customers. He quickly got us settled and explained the city layout; warning us not to go out late at night alone. Through him, we arranged a trip out of UB for the next morning...

Tai Chi and Botanical Gardens

Pictures: Craig's (see the last pics in the set)


First, a big HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Mary! Unfortunately, no cake could be had for a proper celebration...instead we did as Matt suggested, waking up bright and early (5:30) for a visit to the Temple of Heaven. This time, it was a different atmosphere; surely we were the youngest in the park by a margin of at least 30 years. Everybody was partaking in some sort of activity, such as Tai Chi, fan performances, dancing, jogging, sword practice, stretching, hacky sack like games, badminton, tennis (with no nets), back scratching on trees, coughing up phlegm, blowing noses (minus tissue), yelling to exercise the vocal chords, playing cards, and every other imaginable 'hobby'. It was quite surreal; much like a giant retirement home where activities are organized for its inhabitants - but these were all voluntary and it was refreshing for us to see such conscious efforts to stay fit. We felt a tad out of place and a little like we were encroaching on these peoples' morning escape from the busy bustle of Beijing. But we stayed long enough to get a good feel for this daily routine (without joining in as Matt had the courage to do), until tour groups began showing up and hawkers started trying to sell us more of the same post cards.

Pictures: Craig's / Mary's

Later in the day, we grabbed a cab to the Botanical Gardens of China to see what it had to offer. It was much like other parks with the standard temple, but more flowers and a greenhouse. Not terribly exciting, but nice to get fresh air outside of central Beijing's smog blanket.

Biking Beijing

Pictures: Craig's / Mary's


Friday, we rented bikes for the first time. It's the perfect way to get around Beijing if you can find a comfortable bike (Mary's seat was a little hard). Biking amongst the traffic is not as daunting as it might seem. There are bicycle lanes everywhere and in the busy areas, the bike lane is as wide as three car lanes. The only problem is that buses share the bike lanes when they need to stop at a bus stop; which can lead to some squeezing situations.


We biked to the Lama Temple and wandered around leisurely. The temple was full of tour groups, all with their red or yellow hats. The palace was complete with an 18 meter Buddha, carved from a single piece of sandal wood - the official Guinness record was posted outside.


Then we biked to Jingshan Park, which has a great view of the Forbidden City...if it's not smoggy - but the weather has changed for the worse and visibility is poor. It'll be nice to move on soon, hopefully finding more blue skies.

Summer Palace

Pictures: Craig's / Mary's

Link to Steve and Rachel's post for the day.

After a tiring hike along The Great Wall on Monday, we decided to relax for a day at the Summer Palace. Many emperors of the past used this park as a way to escape from the 'oh so tiring' administrative life and the summer heat.


A cab ride there and a quick walk through the pagodas, we found a cozy, grassy area, near the water to lay back, rest, talk, and play a little rummy. Steve and Rachel reminded us of the long forgotten rules and we played out a few lucky hands ;)


We stayed until the sun went down...

Thursday, just Mary and I went back to the palace for another relaxing day and to see some areas that we had only caught a glimps of in the dark. It wasn't quite the same without Steve and Rachel who've continued their trip in Shanghi, they'll be missed...

The Great Wall

Pictures: Craig's / Mary's


Oh what a wonder! Words can hardly describe this place and the pictures only provide so much justice. We avoided the tourist trap section of the wall (Badaling), opting instead for a hike from Jinshanling to Simatai. We were rewarded in excess as we walked this 10 km section of the wall, through 30 watchtowers, up and down the steep and stony path. It took us just less than 5 hours to complete the hike (we took our time to enjoy the scenery).


A bus from the hostel took us to the area where our hike was to begin. It took us 3.5 hours to get there. The bus was quite uncomfortable, seats were folded down the middle and had no support above mid-back, making sleep impossible. The drivers here are relentless on their horns - honking when overtaking, being overtaken, about to hit or be hit by another vehicle. The drive there and back were the most unpleasant parts of the trip.


Once released from bus, we had to walk through some bush for half an hour. Along the way, we 'picked up' the locals (rather they attached themselves to us). They decided on their own, that they would follow us to Simatai. For half of the wall, they were very friendly telling us about parts of the wall, counting the towers for us, and pointing out the half way point. When we reached the half way point, their manner changed drastically to that of a pushy sales person. They were trying to sell us t-shirts, drinks, and scroll pictures of the wall. Of course, we wanted none of it; one, because we don't want to carry anymore across the globe than needed and two, because it was souvenir junk. The only thing they provided that was useful, was drinks at nearly every watchtower along the way - which we bought happily. Fortunately, they stopped following us after the half way mark; we can only imagine what the touristy sections are like.


Despite some uncomfortable buses and local hawkers - nothing could overshadow the spectacular views of The Wall and surrounding countryside. It was a great relief to escape the city for a day and enjoy this truly magnificent wonder. According to the Chinese: 不到长城非好汉 "You're not a real man if you haven't climbed the Great Wall."

P.S. You can't see the wall from space; that's an old myth propagated even in textbooks.

History about The Great Wall at Wikipedia

Chinese Acrobatics

Pictures: Craig's

Saturday night (Sept 3), we arranged a trip to see the renowned Chinese Acrobats. We met at the tourist information booth and the 4 of us were guided around the corner to the theatre (rather needless considering the location, but we did get a large discount for being part of a 'group').


The professional twisting and bending was most impressive along with the tumbling and balancing. Other parts were rather comedic with flailing of floppy 'knives'.

Forbidden City

Pictures: Craig's / Mary's

After some difficulty getting to the Forbidden City on time (it closes at 4pm), Craig and I finally explored it on a busy Saturday morning/afternoon. Tiananmen square was blocked off for the past few days due to celebration ceremonies for the 60th anniversary of "Chinese Victory over Japanese aggression" and it's been difficult to get to the Forbidden City without having to take a number of back roads and alternate routes.

Since the skies have been bright blue and the sun has been shining everyday, my skin has suffered from the 10-2 sun. I bought some sunscreen here which I forgot to bring. I didn't realize that in the process of protecting my skin, the cream had a whitening agent in it, which gave my face and arms a scary ghost-like look (therefore few pictures of me on this day - I forbid Craig to get the camera close to my Casper the Friendly Ghost face).

The City itself was quite impressive. A lot of pagodas and a lot of construction going on (probably due to the upcoming Olympics). There are supposedly 800 buildings within the City, but Craig and I only explored a total of 10. I'm so impressed by the amount of room that the city and the Temple of Heaven takes up. It's refreshing to know that China didn't destroy everything historical in this city.

BTW, some facts I've learned about China since my stay: 1) Chinese sunscreen can have SCARY ghost-white effects on your skin. 2) Banks are open on Sundays. 3) The roads have street names (which Korea doesn't have), therefore making things a lot easier on Craig and I while exploring Beijing.

Temple of Heaven (Tiantan) Park

Pictures: Craig's / Mary's

A 30 minute walk brought us to this huge park (in this area, everything seems huge - compensating for height maybe?). Anyway, we spent most of the day walking around the park during another perfect day.


Some history (copied from a brochure):
The Temple of Heaven was the place where the Emperors of the Ming and Qing dynasties would worship heaven and pray for bumper crops. The northern part of the outer surrounding wall is semi-circular in shape while the southern part square, a pattern symbolic of the ancient belief that Heaven was round and the earth square. The double surrounding wall separates the temple into two parts - the inner and outer temples with the main structures in the inner one, covering a space of 273 hectares in all.


More info on the Temple of Heaven at Wikipedia

Tiananmen Square

Pictures: Craig's / Mary's

After a great sleep on our bunks, we had an amazing western breakfast in the hostel restaurant. Eggs, French toast, sausages, juice....yum. The best breakfast we've had in a long time!

Our first goal for the day was to get some Chinese yuan so we could repay Steve and Rachel. We found the Bank of China without much trouble and did the exchange. Weather was perfect, although the winds did pick up a lot of the sand lying about and throw it in our eyes. This was our first daylight view of Beijing, and it's huge! The streets are even larger than in Seoul...6 lanes in each direction. The traffic is a mix of cars, buses, and even more bicycles. Most people seem indifferent to us, not many stares, but those that are trying to make money give us lots of attention, always yelling 'hello'. Trying to sell watches, Maoist bibles, personal tours, etc. Saying 'No thanks.' is automatic now when someone approaches.

The second goal was to secure our tickets to Mongolia. En route, we skirted around Tiananmen Square and the entrance to the Forbidden City. We had a bit of trouble finding the Beijing International Hotel which contains CITS where we wanted to buy our tickets; but some help from a friendly hotel porter and we found it - tickets purchased for September 13th, 7:40am!

We took a taxi back to the square for a closer look and a bite to eat. McDonald's was the nearest restaurant that the taxi driver stopped at, so we gave into temptation.

Afterwards, we crossed the street and toured Tiananmen Square. It was a great first full day in Beijing.