Ulan Ude

If Yekaterinburg is the geographical start of Asia, it is in Ulan Ude where you feel on the crossroads of Asia. Some 20% of the population are ethically Buryats – a Mongol speaking nomadic people, native to the region, which is the heart of Buddhism in Russia.
Buryatia is also home to the “old believers”; a bunch of Luddites who refused to accept reforms of the Orthodox church in the 17th century, such as sorting out some glaring astronomical errors, which meant the calender was three months out (presumably they're now celebrating christmas in July).
Our two days here were spent touring buddhist monasteries, having lunch in a traditional Buryat yurt and a rather dull visit to an old believers village. Ulan Ude is also famed for having Russia's (and thus the world's) largest Lenin head.

Irkutsk

They call Irkutsk the Paris of Siberia; which I thought meant the place smelt and the people were rude. The town is actually pleasant enough, with many intricately carved wooden houses, mixed in with fairly European architecture. Of course the main reason tourists get off the train here is for the Lake.

Lake Baikal
It's hard not to talk about this lake in superlatives; it's the worlds oldest lake and stretches for 400 miles, is 40 miles across at its widest point, and reaches a depth of over a mile. It holds roughly 5,000 cubic miles (20 trillion liters) of water – about 20% of the worlds freshwater.

Kirsten and I have differing views of our hike, here's mine:
After some brunch and a clean up, we were given two “4-man” tents for the seven of us (more about this later), and set off with our guide and his son to the hydrofoil. This does the 40 miles from Irkutsk to the lake in a little over an hour, then turns left to Bolshie Koty, where we got off.
Now you'd think hiking round a lake would be easy – being flat and all. However the sides are often very steep, forcing you inland and up over hills (a hiker fell to her death the day after we were here www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/2627512/British-woman-killed-in-Siberian-cliff-fall.html). Our guide lied about it only being 2 hours on the first day, and we trudged for three-and-a-half hours before making camp. The guide busied himself making fire while we set up the tent. This tent had to sleep four (us, Rob and Rachel), so the fact that we could only fit three of the bedrolls in it, forewarned of the uncomfortable night ahead.
After a dinner of noddles, we huddled round the fire as the temperature plummeted (you just don't expect that sort of thing in Siberia). Without sufficient vodka to knock us out, and only enough room to sleep on your side, it was a pretty miserable night – at least the rain held off.
After a porridge breakfast we set off like a band of cold, knackered campers. The route was flatter, but did involve a lot of clambering over boulders, which is trickier with a large backpack.
Towards late afternoon it started raining hard – this was a problem as there's no way not to touch the sides when there's four of you rammed in a two-man tent. However the guide reckoned he could find us a hunt. This turned out to be a kind of outhouse in a village – no warmer than the tent, but dry. So it was with surprise and relief when the guide tracked down the owner and talked us in side. I was so happy, I found the village shop and bought some vodka.

Lake Baikal is certainly something to be seen. It would be good to come back in Winter when the lake is frozen solid (factlet: during the 1904 war with Japan, the Russian lay train tracks across the frozen lake to rush troops to the front).

Kirsten's view: I've never really understood the point of hiking when there are other perfectly viable means of transport such as hydrofoil, charted helicopter... Some pretty views though and it certainly helped us bond with our traveling companions.

Trans-Siberian - Yekaterinburg to Irkutsk

This is a 48 hour leg on board train #10 'Baikal'. Our two-berth compartment has an odd nautical theme, with seal picture curtains, random bits of rope around the mirrors and walls made to look like the deck of a ship.
We boarded at 0418 Yekaterinburg time, having semi-successfully drunk our way through in a Scottish themed pub. My blissful sleep was destroyed by having the Russian eurovision winner pipped very loudly into our room – I stumbled around for 10 minutes before I finally managed to turn it off (Kirsten slept through this with her earplugs).
The trains run to Moscow time, so as you pass through 5 time zones, it's difficult to know what the local time is. This doesn't really matter since you're just reading and waiting for your next delicious pot noodle.
Again we drunk with the Aussies, who'd acquired a Russian cabin mate (Roman). Conversation with Roman was a little difficult as he looked up words in his Russian-English dictionary, but became easier as he got drunk and took a shine to Kirsten's knees. And he seem to master the words to “If Your Happy and You Know It”, much to the annoyance of the provodnitsa, who stood in the doorway like angry matron.
The buffet car lies between 1st and 2nd class, and is open 0900 – 2300, although it's not clear exactly what time zone they operate in. The upshot of this is that Kirsten and I got trapped in 2nd class (Rob and Rachel had bailed earlier due to the overwhelming smell coming from the fish Roman had bought on the platform). This was a great concern as we were separated from our vodka supply; Luckily it lasted 'till the next station, were we did a quick dash down the platform.

Yekaterinburg

Our hiking trip to the Urals was rained off, so instead we joined a trip to a Siberian village. Two hours of suicidal driving later we arrived at this bizarre village-museum. We oohed and ahhed at the village spring, were simply overwhelmed by the 17th century wooden house and when they wheeled out a troop of 7 pensioners to sing at us for 20 minutes we wondered how they could top it – a collection of ploughs down the ages did the trick.



Yekaterinburg is not geared for tourists, so there no hope of an English menu. I was very pleased that I managed to order some borsh, but then had to wave my arms dementedly when she tried to plonk some meat in it.



It actually hasn't stopped raining since we've been here – our train leaves at 4am.

Kirsten's Flashpacker Review:
Hotel Suite (www.uralterra.com/ekaterinburg/hotels/hotel-suite-ekaterinburg/)- Now there are a few basics that I like to have in a hotel, specifically a bed and water. Unfortunately for most of our stay here we were missing the latter. Apparently this is relatively common in Yekaterinburg. The hotel staff tried to make the situation easier by delivering large bottles of water to the room, allowing for the toilet to be flushed and some cursory washing, and sweetening us up with a box of chocolates. However, there constant reassurance that it would be fixed in 30 minutes started to sound somewhat not credible after two days. Other than this inconvenience, the rooms were modern and clean, with all the basic facilitates that you need and the hotel was reasonably well located on Lenin Street within about 15 minutes walk from the town centre.

The Trans-Siberian – Moscow to Yekaterinburg

This was a short (26 hour) leg, so we drunk vodka with the Mancunian couple next door (Rob and Rachel; also sold their house to travel for a year, but went a step further and sold pretty much everything they owned in a car-boot-sale), before moving to the buffet car to join the three Aussies (Ben, Steve and Narelle) for more drinking. The provodnitsa (carriage attendant) seemed to take a shine to me – well at least that's what I took here prodding my stomach as we left to mean.

The view: so far lots of trees.
Things for sale on the platforms: so far a stuffed owl, a set of blue gilded champagne glasses, several chandeliers and pot noodles.

Moscow

We were told that Moscow is only good for vodka and prostitutes; unfortunately I can only vouch for the vodka.



Our 'sleeper' train from St Petersburg arrived at 5am, so there was some relief that they remembered to send a driver. Our hotel was “conveniently” located several miles from the centre of town, and the other side of a dodgy market from the metro station. At least we managed some sleep before our 10am walking tour. This was a three-and-a-half walking/metro marathon tour of the main sights in ever rising humidity. As both Kirsten and I had been to the Kremlin before, and we didn't fancy queuing for two hours to see a waxy corpse (aka Lenin), we did what many middle class Muscovites do, and took our sorry arses to the air-conditioned spender of the European mall. We bought fresh underwear from M&S (I've never been so pleased to be buying pants), and then paid over the odds for a new camera for me.


A quick metro ride took us to one of the main restaurant streets, where after careful consideration, we dined at Hard Rock Cafe, before embarking on the long journey home. I pointed out to Kirsten that the market was no more dangerous than Whitechapel, and she pointed out that that didn't make her feel safe.


We began the second day in a sculpture park, where many of the statues and busts of soviet leaders that once adored town squares, have now been dumped. Next door is Gorky Park – Moscow's answer to Alton Towers. All I can say is the Mount Rushmore ghost train was not worth four quid.


After a Marylebone High Street priced late lunch, we headed to Vorobyevy Gory, which after a pleasant walk up through the woods brings you out next to a ski jump for a fantastic view over the city. There's also one of Stalin's seven skyscrapers up there, looming like the love child of an, um, evil dictator.


Moscow didn't seem any less safe than London, and the metro is easy enough to use. There are a lot of police around, so we (perhaps a bit paranoid) tried to give them a wide berth and not talk in their earshot, to avoid any special fines.








Kirsten's Flashpacker Review
Hotel Irbis (www.moscow-hotel.ru/eng/irbis.php) - Very poorly located hotel, about 10 minutes from metro the other side of a railway line and a dodgy market. Other than that the rooms are typical of a midrange modern hotel. There was a decent breakfast, but be warned they clear it up very promptly at 10am. I would recommend trying to find somewhere more centrally located if your budget allows.

Kirsten's Ballet Review

(Well, I couldn't let Richard write this one could I unless I wanted it to read “some birds pounced around for a bit whilst I struggled not to fall asleep”?)

We went to see this production of Swan Lake by The State Saint Petersburg Theater of Classical Ballet company with some trepidation. As the major ballet companies in St Petersburg and Moscow (i.e. the Kirov and Bolshoi) are on tour during the summer months, it was our only chance to see a performance whilst in Russia and was clearly tailored for the tourist market. Indeed the majority of the audience which nearly filled the small but relatively attractive Palace Theatre were from a Japanese tour group.

Things started badly when they managed to switch the auditorium lights on instead of the stage lights in the opening moments after the overture. There then followed a lacklustre performance by the jester and hunting party. Scene two, and the arrival of the swans, didn't do much to lift the spirits. Now I know that Swan Lake is a pretty miserable work for the corps de ballet as there is a considerable amount of time standing around on one leg, but still I've never seen more vacant expressions on the stage – definitely more bored than bewitched. This was matched with dancing that whilst relatively competent was completely lacking in any energy. The advertising posters proclaim “birds die, but art doesn't”. Unfortunately, this performance seemed pretty dead in every respect.

Act 2, the ball scene, began with with more energy, or perhaps that was the glass of Russian Champagne during the interval taking. The Hungarian dance and Mazurka where probably the high light of the evening, danced with more personality and passion than anything else. Odette/Odile also showed more of sparkle as Odile, although her lack of extension, particularly in the penchée position (where you stand on one let with the other extended up behind you to the celling – yes it is possible!) continued to bother me. Her turns also seemed rather weak which indeed caused problems during the key show piece of the act where she only managing 28 of the usual 32 fouetté (turns on one leg where you flick the over leg around to help you turn).

Act 3 and Prince … fight to save Odette also failed to impress. Russian ballet is famous for the athleticism of its male dancers, which unfortunately was complete missing from this performance.

On a positive note The State Symphony Orchestra did an excellent job. If you are fussy about your ballet, or just bored, I suggest closing your eyes and letting Tchaikovsky do the work. The theatre is also relatively charming with grand gilded rooms in which to sip your interval drinks, although it is clearly not a patch on a grand opera house such as the Bolshoi. Whilst the production did little to capture the magic of a world class ballet the tour parties in attendance seemed to enjoy themselves. In summary, I've seen worse productions... but I think that was in Milton Keynes...

From Russia with love

St. Petersburg – Russia's European face; the Venice of the North. We arrived at 0820 on the over night train from Vilnius. We had to stay up 'till one for the Russian border crossing, but apart from a cursory bag search and the police taking our passports away for a hour (this is normal) the journey was comfortable and uneventful.



After a bag dump and some breakfast we started our three hour guided walking tour, which finished at the Hermitage in the rain. Now rainy days are perfect for art galleries, so we joined the back of the two hour queue as the rain intensified. This place has 15,000 paintings and 12,000 sculptures, so if you spend a minute on each, that's 19 days. It is therefore impressive that Kirsten and I managed the whole place in 80 minutes. You can skip the queue by ordering your tickets online (www.heritage.ru) – I wish someone had told us this beforehand.
This is a big city to do on foot, so the 25 minute walk in heavy rain to a vegetarian restaurant was a killer; Troitsky Most – great food, no bloody booze.



On day two we headed to the supposedly less touristy of the two main suburban summer palaces – Pushkin Palace build by Catherine the Great (and extensively reconstructed following a spot of bother with the Germans). It's reached by taking the metro to Moskovsaya (Moscow Square – worth a visit in its own right), then wandering round for ages 'till you find a minibus going out to Pushkin (we took 545, takes 25 minutes and costs 30r). The palace is a wonderful looking building set in extensive grounds. As there are relativity few non-Russians who are not with some tour group, so we had to join the back of a 30 strong Russian language tour to be herded around the palace and to the Amber room – a room made entirely of amber; great if you like amber, personally I've never understood the appeal.



We spent the evening at the Ballet watching a second rate production of Swan Lake. This was followed by running up a large bill in a swanky 5th floor bar – the bartender just kept filling up my Vodka glass, and apparently it's rude not to down it in one.



The final day started later than planned due to unexplained headaches. We took in Peter and Paul Fortress – tzar Nicholas II and his family are buried here, having been recovered from the bottom of a well outside Yekaterinburg. Crossing back across Vasilyevkly Island there were no less that eleven bridle parties having photos taken in front of the river fountains and Winter Palace.



We finished our sightseeing with an hour long boat trip. This is actually well worth it, as the cliché Venice of the North is not without foundation. English language trips go at 4 from Zelyony Most.



St. Petersburg is a beautiful and expensive city (London prices for food and drink). Three days does not do it justice – you perhaps need a week. One gripe is that all the tourist sights have a Russian and non-Russian price (the latter being ~3 times more), and all these charges do add up.
Of course we failed to lean any substantial Russian, but just knowing the Cyrillic alphabet is a real help.

We are now in Moscow, so will fill you in ASAP.

A short rant about guide books

We used the Lonely Planet for Eastern Europe. It's a weighty tome, as you'd expect from something covering 20 countries. And here lies the problem – it lacks detail. For Vilnius it lists only four bars, even though there are more than ten times that amount.

LP also seems badly out of date, and you get the feeling that they just slap a new cover on every two years, without bothering to do more than a superficial update of the contents; many bars and restaurants either don't exist (closed down?) or are in the wrong place on the map.
In Warsaw we picked a copy of InYourPocket (www.inyourpocket.com) – handy city guides in A5 magazine format, that quite literally fit in your pocket. Apparently these guides now cover all the major eastern European cities, and the Warsaw and Vilnius ones at least were very good, giving dozens of witty, accurate and up-to-date bar and restaurant reviews. They are also far less up-their-own-arse than LP, giving full reviews of all Vilnius' strip clubs, rather than make the snooty assumption that these places are just for saddos. Finally (and most importantly) they are cheap (they were given out free at Castle Inn, and cost €1.5 at Vilnius Tourist Information).

Kirsten's Flashpacker Reviews

New to WhiteCloudTravel.blogspot - Kirsten's Flashpacker Reviews!

In case you are planning to visit any of the places that we have been to, I have added some short reviews of the places we stayed at the end of each blog entry. Hope you find these useful.

Back in the USSR...

...well the former soviet republic of Lithuania. Our Vilnius guide book lists 21 churches and cathedrals, and 13 lap dancing clubs, so the full spectrum of tastes are catered for.



The train from Warsaw to Vilnius was long (10 hours) and uneventful, with the connecting train at Sestokai held for us – this second train had bus style seats, which made the final 3 hours pretty uncomfortable.



We spent the first evening meandering round the southern bit of the old town before stopping to eat at the first Lonely planet recommended place. It would appear that surly service is the norm in these parts, and the waiting staff have developed quite a knack of ignoring you; I had a child sized casserole while Kirsten had an entire pig.



We spent our first full day wandering round the usual tourist sites - the Gates of Dawn in the far south (and near our hostel), via a few coffee shops and on to St Anne's church - a striking Gothic structure. It seems that this is the place to have your wedding photos, and while we were there a couple of monstrous limos pulled up, and spilt out their meringue clad brides, who were duly photoed in various dubious poses. It turns out that they actually do a tour of Vilnius' landmarks and we bumped into the same wedding party several times (whom I'm sure are grateful to have us in his 'n' hers matching EXIT tee-shirts ruining the back of their shots).



From St Anne's we wandered to the cathedral (via some Olympic opening ceremony at a cafe) and up to the upper castle via a funicular - more bridal parties and good views of the old town. We descended and walked up the adjacent Hill of Three Crosses - apparently the local pagans took exception to some Franciscan monks doing a spot of god-bothering and crucified them up here. From here we walked via a third hill to Uzupid - a breakaway republic in the Monty Python sense - it's good that they can joke about these things.



Following a mini pub crawl home, we put on our finery (i.e. the stuff that smelt the least) and headed back out. All I can say is that when you see two grown men doing air guitar to Mr Brightside you wonder why you left home.



Today we just wandered from cafe from cafe (via a small Georgian anti-Russian protest - "Russia not peacekeeper but piecekeeper") and only remembered late afternoon to tick another "must see" of the list. So perhaps the KGB Museum (aka the Genocide Museum) was not a good choice for a rushed visit.

Tomorrow we go to some place with a castle on a lake.



The day trip to Trakai: A 40 minute bus or train from Vilnius (we went out by bus and back by train) gets you to this peninsular in a lake; at the other end of which lies the main draw – a-castle-on-an-island-in-a-lake. While it's pretty enough in its own right, it's out of its depth when compared with Lake Bled. We did the normal tourist stuff: chased some ducks around the islands in a pedalo; got plagued by wasps in a lakeside restaurant; tried our hand at archery; and looked at the usual bunch of old shit inside the castle.
There's another castle and a rare Jewish sect shipped from Baghdad via the Crimea, but the real highlight is the chocolaterie on the way from the bus/train station – their hot chocolate is literally melted chocolate.
If you're in Vilnius for more than two days and haven't been to lake Bled, then this makes an easy and enjoyable day trip. Otherwise just stay in town and drink more.


Kirsten's Flashpacker Review:
Old Market Guest House, Vilnius (http://www.oldmarket.lt/en/) - This recently opened small guest house is conveniently located only 5 mins walk from the station on the edge of the old town. The rooms are smallish but the clean lines for the simple decoration mean that they feel light and airy. Each room has a different theme – ours, the Fish Room, came complete with a rather sad looking Siamese Fighting Fish in a bowl. WiFi in the rooms and a decent breakfast served in your room whenever you want it are a big plus. This place has only just opened so let's hope it doesn't loose its squeaky cleanness and enthusiastic staff too quickly.

B&B Florens, Vilnius – (http://www.guesthouse.lt/english-hotel-style-bed-and-breakfast-florens-in-vilnius-old-town.php) - We booked this place through HostelWorld.com and initially went to the location stated on the website. Turned out they have two B&Bs and we were actually staying in the “boutique” one round the corner. Not sure if this is what we had actually booked or an upgrade but I think it was a good thing as the first place looked a bit grotty. Our place was located just near the Gates of Dawn. We had the Lilly Room, which was large, light and airy and came with air-conditioning, a great shower and WiFi. Again breakfast was served in the room, but only until 10am and it was pretty dull. Major plus for me was a dalmatian was visiting when we were there, but no guarantee the he will be there if you go!

Warsaw

We arrived in miserable weather into Warsaw's truly hideous subterranean central train station. Above the platforms is a warren of dark passageways which smell like the bottom of a rabbit hutch. Through luck, rather than judgment, we managed to pop out next to the right bus stop for the old town. From the bus stop we had our first view of Warsaw's most striking building - the Palace of Culture and Science - Stalin's "gift from the Soviet people". Yes it's extremely sinister (Socialist Realist architecture apparently), but I rather like it, and when I'm supreme ruler of Earth, I'm having something like it as my headquarters.



Our hostel was on Castle Square (Castle Inn - a fantastic place) . The old town, together with most of the rest of Warsaw, was reduced to smoldering rubble following the abortive uprising in 1944. The entire old town was painstakingly restored over many years to its prewar appearance - a photo exhibit outside St Anne's church shows photos taken in 1945 alongside contemporary views from the same location. The two images are photoshopped together for poignant effect.



We started our first full day in the (totally rebuilt) Royal Castle. If you like very grand palaces, with plenty of old painting and no expense spared on the decor, then this is the place for you; frankly after the third gold leaf ornate ceiling, I get a bit bored. The old town itself is delightful to walk around - and if it wasn't so cold and raining, would be a great place to sit and watch the world go by.

Rain or not, we headed back to the Palace of Culture and Science, to visit the viewing platform on the 30th floor. Predictably enough this gives excellent (and very windy) views over the city. Also on the 30th floor was possibly the worst interactive physics exhibition I've ever seen (and these things are normally quite bad). It billed itself as an Einstein exhibit - he'd turn in his grave.

It seems that there are two ways to get to Vilnius - a night bus, or a train changing at Sestokai (I don't know where it is either). While the bus saves time and money, it's apparently not very civilized, so we queued for an hour in the dimly lit ticket hall for train tickets- I'll let you know how the train works out.



Our second morning was spend in the Uprising Museum - this does what it says on the tin, and very well too. Only hunger drove us out (they've missed a trick not having a cafe here), and into Burger King in the ultra modern, curve glass roofed mall, next to the train station.

Late afternoon was spent in truly lovely Lazienki park. This park has red squirrels which are rather shy, as opposed to the crack-addicted gray ones you get in Bethnal Green (and squat in your attic). Again we needed for more time for this than we allowed ourselves, but don't miss this on a visit to Warsaw.

We finished off Warsaw with a nice curry at Namaste - possibly the best best Indian in Poland!

My final thoughts on Poland: lots on nuns and lots of Chopin.

Kirsten's Flashpacker Review:
Castle Inn by Oki Doki, Warsaw (http://www.castleinn.pl/) - This place is amazing! Although marketed as a high-end hostel it is definitely more of a (budget) boutique hotel. Located next the the Royal Castle it couldn't be better located for exploring the old town. Each room is decorated in a different style. As we extended our stay by a night (yes it was that good), we got to see two different rooms. The first, the Cartoon Room, which was a really good size had black and white cartoons covering the walls. As this was apparently an upgrade from what we paid we were expecting the second room, Metamorphosis, to be a disappointment. It wasn't – again it was a great size, spotless bathroom and as you can see from the picture it even had a round bed! Stylish and original decor, great location and the luxurious extras (fluffy pillows, bathrobes, slippers, free WiFi in all rooms and chocolates) make the £60 price tag per night per room seem like a bargain. (Tip: we booked through www.hostelworld.com which might be cheaper than booking directly.)

Auschwitz