Fleeing the scene or making a strategic withdrawal

I am finding that the difficulties of communication and understanding, exacerbate the difficulties of day to day living, and the difficulties of making and implementing travel decisions. All these difficulties act as emotional amplifiers, feeding back on my initial reactions, no matter how inappropriate they might be.

So I arrived at Xinghai at about 16:30, after a journey of some 9.5 hours. I saw what seemed to be the one and only hotel as we drew in. Gathering myself together as much as I ever can in these circumstances, I emerged from the bus with my hand bag, and my shopping bag, and ferreted out my rucsac from underneath the bus. While putting this on I was being approached by one of the drivers of one of the newer cars that were parked round the bus station (about half a dozen). My reaction was he was touting for business and I did not want to know. In retrospect this was almost certainly a mistake - the fact that he was trying to earn a dollar, did not mean that he was trying to rip me off; nor that he was not providing a valuable and useful service. I have learnt subsequently that most long distance travel is done by these private hire cars. None the less the start of an emotional positive feedback circle headed off at a gallop into the wild blue yonder. While dealing with this perceived wheeler-dealer, somebody made to take my bag. This added to my feelings of being beleaguered and under attack. My defensive posture was now entering overdrive. As it happens, the guy trying to take the bag was either trying to help, or it was his form of begging. As usual hindsight makes clear the most murky of situations.

Then the interesting start with the hotel I described earlier. And then I explored Xinghai.

A one horse town. Trouble is that before I arrived they had got the horse out of town. Or it had died and they'd never had the gumption to replace it.

By this time, the resources I might use were down to: the hotel staff - Tibetan speakers with either very poor (most of the staff) or mediocre (the manager) Mandarin; a selection of Chinese sentences carefully constructed, by the travel agency in Xining, to aid me in getting to the Buddhist monastery that is the feature  of visiting this town. There were a number of small shops - grocery and food bars mainly - Tibetan or Uighar run. There was no cellphone signals of any description. The cars that had been there earlier had now all gone, so the whole town, was a suitable set for a Clint Eastwood western - except that there was no tumbleweed blowing along the street.

So I approached the hotel desk with one of my pre-prepared questions "Could you help me arrange for a car to go to the monastery?" I know this was understood because the receptionist's Mandarin was sufficiently poor, that he had to spell out the written question, character by character, and I could hear the manager, tucked away in a corner, assembling his efforts into the original question. Came to the end, and the manager's response was immediate and final. No. I don't know whether it was just bloody mindedness; whether this Tibetan was going to have nothing at all to do with some weird foreigner using Chinese; or she was just incompetent. So now stuck in the town, not knowing how to find a means of transport to my intended destination, nor how to get out of town by sunset, partner - sorry Clint, wrong script. I retired to bed and to ponder. Over the next few hours of wakefulness, I came to the conclusion that the way I was trying to do things, was just not working, and I was going to have to come up with other methods. I further came to the conclusion that I needed to retire back to a known base - where I knew I could get at least some level of support. Also I came very near to making the decision that not only would I retreat back to a known base, but then use that known base to bail out from the entire trip and return to the UK. I've only been at this trip for slightly less than a month, but this is the second time that I have come close to a decision to call the whole thing off, on the basis that I can't do it.

None of this was helped by the recurrence of my one health issue - at each new place I've arrived at, I have developed what I think of my short term fever. This is a fever that does not seem to do much - except cause me to radiate what seems like immense amounts of heat. I don't sweat or anything like that, just lie under the bed clothes and glow. This lasts for about eight hours and then just goes away. It is usually accompanied by a slight runny nose, and the sniffles, again for no more than eight hours. This time, rather than runny nose, and other very minor symptoms, I developed a chest cough, and what my mother, a Registered Sick Child Nurse before I came along, used to describe as a rubbishy chest. In other words a pulmonary infection which develops a bad cough designed to remove the junk that accumulates on the chest. This has now lasted five days, and it is only last night, when I awoke at 2 O'Clock, that I realised I have finally turned the corner on fighting the infection off. I have improved substantially over the course of today.

As I didn't know what time the bus went back to Xining, I made the assumption that it would leave for Xining at a similar time that the bus from Xining had left for Xinghai - ie at 07:00. So I shot out of the hotel at 06:00 to find (or not find) two things. Firstly I knew the bus depot was within about four hundred yards of the crossroads on which the hotel stood, on one of the four arms. Could I find it. could I heck. Then I realised that there were two or three cars gathered at the crossroads. The driver of one of them approached me and asked, via phrasebooks, electronic translators, a good deal of head scratching between us, and eventual light dawning, whether I wanted a journey to Xining. I accepted. Then the passenger for whom he had been booked, a senior NCO in the Border Defense Group of the PLO joined us, and eventually we set off.

I did of course display my quintesential British nature during these negotiations. The driver showed me a figure of 300 Yuan, which I took as a quote, rather than the starting point of a bargining session. I learnt later that the other passengers (we picked more up en route, again pre-booked) were paying between 50 and 75 each. Even so, the cost I had accepted was only 6 times the bus fare to Xinghai, which struck me as a bargain.

We mosied along, stopping early for breakfast at a noodle bar. It has been so long since I used them that I had forgotten the distinction for the gesture asking how much chili you wanted in your breakfast noodles; and how wide a noodle you wanted. As a consequence I ended up with virtually no chili (result); and vermicelli like noodles (side effect).

When we got back to Xining, I went back to the travel agency, and they, among other things, recommended a different hostel, closer in to the city centre. I turned up here, and have been here ever since. But that is for the next report in this never ending tale.

Hello, Tibetan Plateau, I'm back

On my third attempt I ended up at 07:00 on a bus headed for Xinghai - a town actually on the Tibetan Plateau. Once the bus left Xining itself - a massive city, I'm tending to believe the 8.6m population estimate - other statistics became apparent. For the last 10 days of so, Xining has held the dubious distinction of having the worst air quality index among all China'a major cities - a difficult challenge, but one that Xining has been up to meeting. As we started to gain even a little altitude the air quality was noticably improving.

Seeing things for the first time on this trip, was like a parade of "Welcome Back" flags. Starting to climb onto the plateau: the first sight of snow on the mountains: the ascent up what I thought was the pass, but turned out to be the false pass onto the upper part of the lowlands: the first herd of yak: the first herders on horseback: the first Kham men - quite distinctive in their height, their colouration, their looks, their costume, and their fierce countanance: the first prayer flags: the first stupa: the road into the pass proper: the very first touch of greening of the landscape: the landscape itself - no vegetation more than a foot high: the first permanently snow covered mountains (not entirely sure about this - as far as I remember the permanent snow line is at about 6000m - these lumps may have been a little lower than this and still not lost their winter snow. The pass onto the Tibetan Plateau itself. The increase in altitude - the bus had started at 2200m and by the time it was up on the plateau we were at about 3400m. My estimate for the pass was that it was comparatively low - probably only about 4000m. Of course not all the welcome back flags were positive: I had forgotten just how what a long winter in the same clothing; the same bedding; and no washing can do to establish the personal charisma of (for instance) the person sat next to me on the bus. Also the Chinese control, in the form of roads; check points; communication networks; regular guard detachments and PSB compounds, lies on the land like a barbed wire corset.

And so on we travelled to Xinghai - a total distance of 270km. The fare had been the stunningly high price of 53.50Yuan - about £5 for this jouney on a local, regular, twice (at least) daily route. Arrival at Xinghai proved it to be the protypical Tibetan town - a crossroads, the four arms of which each have buildings on both sides running for about a kilometre in the appropriate direction, and then stopping. There only seemed to be one hotel, which evidently had to register foreign aliens so long ago that it had forgotten how - judging by the fact that the forms they pulled out as examples related to people who had stayed in that hotel in 2003. Equally their idea of fulfilling the requirements of the PSB were to copy my (necessarily empty) exit form, over my personal details, and then getting me to fill out the copy three times by hand, with incomplete information. Then an argument about the room rate, which they had claimed as per room, then when it came to hand over the money, claimed it was per bed (and there were two beds in the room). Finally the room itself. As I am not a good enough writer to fully describe the memorable features of the room; a representative sample will have to do. The electric kettle did not work, and there was no service to provide boiled water. This may sound trivial, but such a source of water is often the only way of finding potable water in these parts; and travellers expect it to be provided, and constantly on hand as such a source. It's a bit like finding a body under the bed; being told it's alright, it's only Auntie, we haven't got round to dealing with her yet. While an exaggeration, it is much less of an exaggeration than I would wish. Then, in the land of prophecy, it is often taken as a bad omen, when the telephone broadcasts through its speaker, the electric noise being made as the cables connecting the phone to the mains, move about under their own volition.

A study in frustration

I am now substantially into my third day of trying to move on from Xining. Today I got as far as the bus station, presented my carefully gathered and prepared script in Chinese requesting the bus tickets for a sleeper bus; and was prepared to follow up with questions designed to get me information about where and when it left and other such details. I was met by the blanket refusal - not possible. No indication of why. Possible reasons include:the bus don't go there from here; the area is closed; the area is closed to foreigners; it doesn't run until the roads are clear of snow; I was asking for the wrong location (a possibility, because I had made one mistake on the ordering of locations on my itinary); or I don't have a flying saucer licence. So now I am back to the cycle, oft repeated with variations, of garnering information; liasing with the tour operator to try and get tickets and tour round bus stations, taxi operators; and lunatic asylums - the last looking for a place to lay my exploding head.

Last night I had a reminder of a question that I find frustrating, because I don't know the answer to it. Why is it that otherwise liberal, cosmopolitan, tolerant, non-prejudiced, people find it all right to be attrociously racist when it comes to the Chinese; expressing sentiments that in other circumstances would be viewed as more racist than the views of the National Front? The attitude seems to be "oh, its all right, it doesn't count as racist because it's only the Chinese". I had an example of this not long before I left on my travels; and last night a repeat of such views from a fellow guest at the YHA - a Swede no less.

Now for the unexpected

I have not yet abandoned the minimal support provided by a few people, like tour guides, who speak some english. Most of the people I am encountering day to day have no English, and my Chinese is very basic. From here on though, I will be moving into areas where very few people speak Chinese; nobody speaks any English; and where I have no Tibetan at all. The stress and strain of working in such a foreign environment is much greater than I anticipated. It turns every encounter, no matter how trivial, into a major exercise. Have I got sufficient words from the phrase book to set and recognise the context in which something is being said? What exactly is it I am trying to do right now? What do I need to have as an absolute minimum to succeed in what I am doing and how will I recognise when I have got that minimum? When you apply this to getting a taxi into town; finding something to eat; arranging tours; sorting out the areas to go to; and how to get to them; indeed to everything, then the wear and tear soon starts to mount up. Throw in my timidity in the face of the unknown and something has to give. At present, the thing that is giving most is eating - I have never found it possible to eat very much when travelling, irrespective of cuisine, or lack of it. On this trip so far, I have been spending so much time trying to sort out things, that I keep forgetting to eat. Still it is good for the figure - in three weeks of travelling I have lost 6kg.

As the difficulties are only going to grow from now on, and though I have yet to gain any of the benefits I am looking for from this trip, I have started to question whether I can do this, or whether I would be better off considering a fallback position - such as employing tour operators to arrange tours for me to at least give me the support that local knowledge will provide. It is proving far, far harder than I thought it would be; and I do wonder if wimpiness is the better part of discretion.

The end of the beginning

This morning presented me a wonderful surprise. When I awoke, and looked out the window, we had travelled overnight to "my" China. We were passing through an area of highish mountains falling sheer and direct into a series of lakes. Think the Lake District stretched in scale and elevation; the valleys replaced by lake - there was no lakeside on any of the lakes; and sharpened up on a unimaginably improbable whetstone, to make all visible edges nice and pointy and sharp. The population of this area is 8-10 times what it was 20 years ago. This growth also includes the station we came in from - Xining West. This meant that the Youth Hostel I booked into; advertised as less than one kilometer from the station, is now some 16 kilometers from the new station. Also, neatly, the city boundary does not include the new station, so taxis are off the meter. A freelance guide latched onto me at the railway station, and guided me through by local bus to the city centre. He was obviously hopeful of further employment, and indeed I have his card still, but he did give the impression of being a bit of a chancer, and I am intending to contact the agency I have been in contact with in the UK.

My entries are falling behind my real-time. This entry is for the 21st, but who knows when it will be posted? I have now completed all that part of my journey which was pre-planned and booked, except for the trip between Bangkok and London, which I will not be using.

The answer is out there

Taxi to Beijing Station West and then the train to Xining. Beijing Station West (Xidan) is a vast, busy, modern station serving a huge throughput of poeple. As far as I could tell, I was the only Laowai (foreigner) there. I certainly was the only foreigner on the train. This made me contemplate what makes a person or place alien.

For the railway staff, at the station and on the train, it was the unfamiliarity of the paperwork. The chinese have internal passports, but the also have additional permits. Whether these are residence permits, travel permits or transit permits (I don't know) they are taken at least as importantly as the passport. One of the staff at the station seriously inspected my passport, then chose to study in detail my, now expired, Russian visa. I think this was because he had missed the Chinese visa, and the Russian visa was the only other thing in the passport that sported a communist star. Anyway after a detailed perusal of this visa, he declared himself satisfied, and we went out seperate ways, basking in the mutual glow of knowledge of a job well done.

On the train, when they came to inspect passports, the attendant on my carriage looked at my details page; started studying it and then passing it to other passengers; obviously trying to answer some specific question from my detail page. It was only when I approached her again, that she thought of asking me the question, which was simply what nationality I was. Once that was cleared up, I then learnt that I was the only foreigner on the train, because the attendant had obviously spread the word to her fellow guards, and was obviously gaining a cachet from having such a rara avis on board. This time it was not my paranoia as in the Russian episode. I know this because for about four hours people would approach the attendant and have a conversation which featured at least one question about Yinguai - Englander; then the passenger concerned would saunter, ever so casually, past my compartment, taking a good long look at me; and then on the other side of the compartment break into an animated conversation again featuring the word Yinguai.

For Beijing there are at least two things that makes it alien as far as I am concerned. Their taxi service has never picked up on the idea of radio controlled taxis; so you either have to queue at a recognised rank - at a railway station for instance; flag one down in the street; or telephone to see if there are any at the central office. This makes such a difference to how to make use of taxis, and as somebody who has relied on radio controlled taxis for most of his life, a difficult change.

Then, I had forgotten (deliberately placed in the box marked "Not wanted in Mind - ever") the sheer unmitigated experience of Beijing's multi-hole, squatter, very public (no partitions), public toilets. Always take your own toilet paper.

Chinese TV also provides its fair share of alienness. As Chinese TV is dealing with a multi-spoken language population unified byt he written language; virtually all programs are subtitled; have a station logo displayed; a program logo; and for news and current affairs a ticker tape type of display plus weather, time and stock movements. This does not leave a lot of screen real estate for the actual program. If you add in the fact that red is a good luck colour so all stock market and share price rises are shown in red, while falls are shown in green and you start to have a degree of confusion.

While not very profound, I am suggesting that it is these small differences that mark out alienness rather than the big things. Little Endians vs Big Endians.

Tips For The Techy and Tetchy Traveller

1. The first thing a traveller should learn to say in any foreign language is "Where's the toilet?"
2. The first thing a traveller should learn to recognise in any foreign language is "He/she/they ate it!"
3. Pray that you never need to apply tips 1 & 2 simultaneously.
4. Pack light

  4.1 This is the mandatory tip to pack light. This usually takes the form: lay out everything you need to pack, and all the money you are going to take. Now throw away half the packing; double the amount of money. My version is: pack as light as possible, and rely on getting the things you need, and consumables, enroute.
  4.2 My packing list may follow at a later, as an example.
  4.3 Stuff sacs, and compression sacs really improve the quality of life for everyone within earshot of the luggage packer.
  4.4 Use hotel laundry to save on your packing - at least in China.

5. Only aim to do one thing a day.
6. It is always worth getting on friendly terms with hotel housekeeping staff; restaurant greeters; and reception staff.
7. Resign yourself to being out of communication with friends and family; or if keeping in contact, prepared to spend a lot of time, money, and effort to sort it out - there will be a separate tips, concerning only communications.
8. The combination of some background work in the language of destination, combined with a phrase book, is synergistic - my results are much greater from the two combined, than they would be for each individually.

Applying some of these rules:
Rule 5
Monday was arriving in Beijing, finding my hotel, and settling in.
Tuesday was sorting out onwards tickets, getting laundry back, finding out about Wi-Fi, and generally finding out a little about the neibourhood - local convenience shops, supermarkets, metro stations, and exploring within and just without the city block I am located on.
Wednesday, I caught up with a couple of sights that I haven't managed previously - the ancient astronomical observatory, and the Lama Temple. At least that was the intent. I had guessed that the Lama Temple was Buddhist, and was the temple used by earlier Dali Lama's when meeting with the rulers of China. When I got there the big attraction seems to be the newly reopened Confucian temple. I do find this disturbing - what has Confusius to do with temples. Also, given the resurgance in Chinese political life of the new Neo-Confucianism, I find it in theory valuable and capable of providing valueable insights. In the event I could not summon the energy to go round this temple, whatever it is, and contented myself with getting a SIM and a meal.

Rule 4.3
I have three 2.5 litre stuff sacs; a 5 litre one; and a 7.5 litre compression sac. So the total number of things to pack in my rucsac is 10 - five stuff sacs; first aid kit; wash kit; pair of light trainers; and security net.

Rule 4.4
Chinese hotel laundry is wonderful. In Beijing, it is no longer ridiculously cheap, but it is still very cheap. I have just had all my dirty clothing laundered (about 75% of the non-cold weather clothing I have with me) for under £15. Done in 9 hours, and comes back neatly folded, packed in individual cellophane bags, and perfect. I have never had any problems with any of my laundry at a Chinese hotel over a period of 20 years and multiple hotels in multiple locations.

Notes
My packing list, which is about double, or even triple what I would have liked it to be is attached. A substantial reason for a lot of the excess is the place, altitude, activity, and season I am going to. I will be at 3500m+ for most of my stay in China, on the Qinghai Plateau, or in Himalayia. I anticipate doing some trekking. Spring does not arrive in this area until June, and I know from previous trips, that temperatures at altitude can, over a 24 hour cycle, range from -20oC to 20oC. I need cold weather clothing and this constitues one third the excess weight and two thirds the excess bulk. The other part of the excess is my gadgets - computer, smart phone, camera, MP3 player, and gadget to ensure I can do secure authorisation on my bank accounts. This is two thirds the excess weight and one third the excess bulk (technology is wonderful). I do regard this trip, as all my trips, as an opportunity to take photos, so it is a little difficult to see how I could have cut down on this, without abandoning the opportunity. Equally, for some strange reason I determined to keep in (one-way, for the most part) communication with everyone, and hence the other gadgets.

What is the Mandarin for "Monday, bloody Monday"?

Out of the Gobi desert into China and the mountains

Finally arriving in China, and Beijing, I reflected on the shocks that await the unwary (and the wary) traveller, that I have encountered so far. The first was on booking into my hotel in Moscow (10 days ago!) and having a bath. There then followed that lacunae when one realises that there is a live, large, insect in the (just evacuated and emptied) bath. There is that knife edge of wondering - did I bring that in from my last means of transport? - Metro for me - or was it there previously? Did it share a bath with me or not and why have I only just noticed?

Then there is the jolt on arriving at Beijing Railway Station (the main one) to realise that it is eight or nine years since I was last in China. Since then, China has enjoyed massive growth for each of those years, and has held the Olympics. I am ascribing the absolutely stunning change I observed to these two factors. Amazingly, it appears that - at least on one day at one railway station in Beijing - the Chinese have learnt to queue - for taxis if nothing else. I was in the queue for a legitimate taxi, rather than a gypsy one, for about three quarters of an hour. During that time I observed queue behaviour that would do justice to a bus queue in Clapham. In the 45 or so minutes, there was only ONE fight between would be taxi passengers.

The taxi driver delivered the next blow. Lulled by the substantial, but imperceptible, skills of the railway attendant, I had gained the impression that my Mandarin might have a very restricted vocabulary, and that my pronunciation might well be laboured and slow, but that it was fairly correct. Faced with a cabbie, it rapidly became apparent that my pronunciation was so slow and laboured that the effect was exactly the same as if deliberately mangled. However, after three goes, and a look at my hotel voucher (printed in English) we were in business. Then the only thing left was finding the hotel. Beijing is a very big city; the last I heard, it only has nine ring roads, and even having an address is no guarantee that one comes off the right ring road exit. Again, a saving grace - the voucher had the hotel phone number on it, and he used this to obtain directions.

Then to the hotel, to face the sinking feeling when the hotel denies having a booking for you; and does not recognise either of the two company names printed on the Airmiles hotel voucher. The day was only saved by the hard work of the duty manager, plus a bit of serendipity on my part - spotting in the very (very) small print of an internet produced voucher, a company reference that the hotel (sort of) recognised, and was able to track back within their systems to the company, and then forward to the booking.

Just one final piece twist of the knife of traveller's woes. There were no rail tickets waiting for me, for my onward journey to Xining. This is the situation that arose on the Trans-Mongolian Express. On the first or second full day onboard, I received an email saying that Mastercard had blocked my payment for the tickets. This was after the same thing had happened when I went to pay for the tickets in England, and resulted in (supposedly) Mastercard lifting the freeze; me having a long talk with the security people at my credit card who informed me that:
1 I had triggered an extra alert on the security front, because my card had been used over the internet, to purchase long distance travel in a foreign country (and one a very long way away).
2 They would release the payment.
3 I was best advised to give Mastercard my itinery (which I did), as a way of ensuring that this would not happen again.

So when the travel agency re-presented the credit card voucher ten days before I am due to travel (the earliest the tickets can be booked in advance) the same thing happened again. I spent some hours on the train, and spent about $50 dollars on connection charges, for both data and voice calls, to get it notionally sorted. I am in possession of confirmation from the travel agency that they have received my payment and that they would be delivered today to the hotel. So of course no tickets. I am not a completely happy bunny, and my vocabulary (in any language) about Mastercard security would set fire to the Channel at 8000 plus miles (only joking, the Channel is safe in my hands).

And this was Monday.

So what happened to yesterday?

I was a little surprised to see that I had apparently done nothing yesterday; no pictures, notes, memories, or whatever. I am reliably prompted by the ways of the world, and by past history, that yesterday did actually take place - it was not cancelled or if it was no-one told me. I just have a void there, with nothing to mark it distinct or special. This is the case even though we actually passed through the border into Mongolia. This inevitably took time; whilst immigration did its thing and customs searched our compartment. At least we were spared the hassle of luggage searches, an imposition reserved for the hard sleeper end of the train. Both the Russians and the Mongolians seem to work on the same principles for customs officers and immigration officials. A very large majority of them were women; in smart uniforms - all starch, knife edge creases, and impressive badges and decoration; many of them exceedingly attractive; trained extensively in sternness and the searching look; and generally very tough cookies. One gets the impression that they have been trained to deliver the same level of intimidation as that felt by Russian aviators in Afganistan - who prayed (sic) that if shot down and survived; they would not be handed over to the women.

I have taken very few pictures on, or from the train. I also realise that I have not really described the journey or the train. The causes are similar. It is a VERY long train journey - our 6th day so far and counting. There are all the normal limitations of photography from a train. The windows and doors are locked. The windows are all dirty. Reverse panning to counter the movement of the train is extremely difficult, especially in one wants to avoid the framing of the picture arbitarily curtailed by the frame of window or door. Yesterday and today we have been passing through Mongolian scenery (and now parts of the Gobi Desert). I love the Mongolian terrain, though I am not sure why. It is fairly monotonous; is a large terrain (though smaller than some); mostly rolling hills rather than mountains; very little scrubby, apparently dead vegetation; colour scheme, a limited palette of sandy gray and brown; an empty landscape; the most frequent sight, groups of bactrian camels - about three of four groups of around 15 animals per time, then lone horsemen, separated from each other by scores of kilometers; and very little else. But it is strangely attractive and has its own virtue. I would not count it in my top three terrains in the world, but it's certainly up there in the top ten.

The infamous samovar complete with engineering drawings.

The carriage I am in is a very well appointed carriage - a genuine first class, now the Chinese rather than the Russians are running the train. The compartment is two berthed, though since Ulaan Baator I have had it to myself. Wider than previous standard berths, with plenty of storage space under the bottom bunk, and over the door. The compartment has its own little shower room, which sounds a little grander than the reality - bathroom fittings in communal use do tend to get into, and stay in a rather manky condition. The whole carriage is fitted out in polished wood, carpeted throughout with high qualityy fitted carpet, with an attendant (as all the carriages do). It has a drop through toilet at either end, and next to the attendant's compartment is the world famous samovar. The carriages are heated by a coal fired boiler to produce either steam, or hot air (not sure which, though I think it the former). The samovar is just tacked on the back of the hot water boiler, thus ensuring (while the fires are in, which they are not for border crossings) a continual supply of boiling water.

Time and Space

The view above goes on for miles and miles; hundreds and hundreds of miles; and days and days. This induces a peculiar sense of space - the train seems to be endlessly travelling through the same spot; as though it were suspended in space while time unrolls around us.

Time by contrast is a never ending source of interest, concern, and conversation. This is generated by the fact that the train, officially, runs on Moscow time for its entire journey. This is uncompromisingly signalled by the one clock on the train. The printed timetable on the carriage wall splits the journey into Moscow time (GMT+4); Ulaan Bator time (GMT+8); and Beijing time (GMT+8). The locals; provision sellers, and some of the train staff who work only a stretch of the line; resolutely stick to what is obvious and natural - local time. As we are traversing one time zone every 24 hours or so, this generates quite a lot of confusion. Add into the mix that some of the passengers have their clocks set firmly on Moscow time; some on their destination time (Mongolia or China); and some individuals are still on the time zone of their home town - be it Rio de Janiro; London; Amsterdam; New York; Moscow; Ulaan Bator; or Beijing and you can see there is plenty of scope for misunderstandings, debate, and conversation to occupy the journey. Everyone tends to look at the timetable to find out where we are (as I write this we are just approaching Irkutsk). Stops are about every four hours or so, so by the time you have discussed (in multiple languages) the time as you approach the station; discussed it again on the station; and discussed it as you leave the town, it is time to start all over again.

Packing and paranoia

I find it a little alarming when I come to my first major repack, to find that everything fits into my luggage first time, and with space to spare. As it took me three goes to get everything in originally, and my luggage was extremely full, it made me wonder what I had left out, and where the things I had left out had got to. My luggage has been losing weight from the outset, as I got rid of guides; copies of tickets and official documents; and tickets. I did find one pair of dirty socks and a pair of dirty pants that I had overlooked. The bulk of the improvement turned out to be mere practice.


Am I paranoid, or are they really out to get me. Yesterday on my return to the hotel, I became convinced that I had become the object of official observation. I saw what could be a series of unrelated coincidences, but that cumulatively, made me come to this conclusion. First, after checking my list of cyrillic signs I needed to look out for against one of the lists of destinations on the Metro, I emerged from the CCTV shadow of a large pillar to see a man with clipboard and radio, pantomiming to one of the CCTV cameras. The way I interpreted the pantomime was "its OK, he was just checking a sign". As I was the only person who had been checking a sign, and the only person who had been static for a period out of sight of a CCTV camera, I started to wonder. Then, when arriving at my interchange station, a man with a radio seemed to be taking an excessive interest in me. As I overshot my station by one stop, and had to swap platforms to return to my real stop, the same thing happened at the swap over station. Then, at my destination, the babushkya at the foot of the escalator saw me, and immediately got onto the phone while keeping her eye on me. I was at the time separate from other groups of people, and her actions as I passed were distinctly different from those while other people passed. Finally, at my hotel, there just happened to be a man waiting in the lobby, who as I approached started to talk on his mobile phone and then took the lift with me to the top floor, but did not get out of it at my floor.

As to why I might have fallen under suspicion, I suppose I had given lots of potential reasons. When leaving the Kremlin I had entered the Metro at what I thought was an interchange including the line I needed, but turned out to be a different interchange one stop away from mine. To find this out I had gone down to one line, then back up, and down again to another line. Then I had gone to a Metro map and spent some time building my list of cyrillic signs to look out for. I descended to the original line I had visited, checked the signs, and caught a train to the interchange I needed. In leaving the Kremlin, I had put pieces of my camera in my anorak pockets, so they were bulging. I was visually distinct - wearing a bright red fleece under my anorak - and darker skinned than nearly everyone. Bright colours are not a feature of dress for the travellers I saw on the metro. Also I understand that dark skin is associated with Chechnyns, and there is an understandable suspicion of such people.

Or I didn't fall under suspicion and I was making a pattern out of unrelated behaviour. Still made me wonder.

The tourist bit

I spent today touring the Kremlin and Red Square. The morning started out very well - snow and melt gone from the pavements; sun shining; and a good day for sight seeing. Afternoon it started raining. The picture is the confection that is The Cathedral of St. Basil, at the end of Red Square. The Kremlin is large and impressive - imagine The Tower of London, five times over, amalgamated into one site. Then add in five copies of Westminster Cathedral, one of Westminster Abbey, and a couple of the larger pieces of architecture on Whitehall, and you have the general idea. The novelty of gilded onion domes does pall fairly quickly, and I did not find the internals of any of the buildings particularly fascinating. St Basil's cathedral was another matter. I paid the extra money to legitimately take photos inside. The results really surprised me - it is kept very dark in the cathedral, partly from the architecture of the place, and partly to protect the icons - the photos are much clearer than the view, and they also show the prime principle behind Orthodox religious art - the very exact placing of light to illustrate the metaphor "Jesus - the light of the world". I am very pleased with the results. Red Square is a fascinating place - the architecture is varied and stunning. All the publicity round the area suggests that first sight of Red Square will inevitably be a "Wow" moment. As always I was perverse - it is splendid, and the architecture is much more interesting - compared to Tienamen Square I was surprised by how small it was.

Restarting travelling tomorrow by catching the Trans-Mongolian Express in the evening. Judging by the train journey here, I will not be posting any updates for the whole time I am on that train, so the next time you hear from me is likely to be in a week's time..

Travel broadens the mind (and narrows the wallet)

In a new country, everything is strange, and forces me to learn many lessons, and to change my habits, rapidly.

I appreciated this when I started thinking that great entertainment, and even fine art, was represented by different fragments of multiple showings of a dubbed version of Casper, the Friendly Ghost. This was the best background that Russian TV could offer.

I had not realised how lazy about foreign languages, and reliant on tour guides and organisers, I had been until forced to rely on my own resources for everything I do. I have been aided by using a Russian phrase book (thank you, Lonely Planet), and today learnt how to say 'hello', 'thank you', and 'green tea'. I went shopping in a nearby shopping centre for groceries, and had a very light lunch there. The waitress was very patient and very helpful with the linguistic fumblings of a complete idiot. Trying out a few words in the language of a new country does seem to generate a friendly response.

One of the things I had sorted out as part of my planning was to arrange my communications - phone and internet - in what I thought was the cheapest and most efficient manner by purchasing an international SIM and preloading it with enough money to cover most, if not all, my trip (five months). This has already provided many lessons. First of all I have to reenable the data connection and SIM PIN every time I use the card. Getting this sorted out has taken me two countries (The Netherlands and Russia), a phone call to the SIM provider service desk, and multiple attempts. I do now know what I am doing in this respect. In addition I have found that I need to completely control how my phone links to the internet - no "always on" data connection; establish a connection only while I need one, and not a second longer; and to be aware at all times of exactly what I am doing with the connection. In spite of these lessons, loading the pictures yesterday completely blew away all my pre-loaded money. I had converted the pictures in my usual way from the camera. This was not a good idea - I need to apply all the size optimisations I know about for publishing to the web. What this means for this blog are that I need to publish less frequently; I need to include fewer photos; and those photos I do include need to be optimised to a very high degree.

I have also learnt that Russia is still very much a cash economy. Most places do not take plastic. In addition my hotel will not put a meal onto the room bill (the first time in any country I have ever experienced this) and required actual roubles. Only some of the ATMs accept Mastercard or Visa - most seem to be a domestic money transfer network only. Eating in a hotel is always expensive, but the cost of meals in Russian hotels seems to be expensive even by those standards. So I had to get out more cash to cover many of the things I had anticipated paying for by card.

Other lessons of the day: going one stop on the Metro, shopping, and then returning by Metro to the same station caused me to get lost. The exit from the northbound line, and that from the southbound line emerge in completely seperate buildings, seperated by railway lines, major roads, and different layouts, car parks, and connections to other places. Addresses in Moscow have a twist that I was not familiar with. The number on the road leads only to the city block, not to a specific building. The buildings in a block are then numbered in an arbitary manner (order they were built?). So my hotel is 41 whatever road, building 7. Just to make life a little difficult, the building number is not printed on any of their publicity material. Then the buildings are very large scale with many, unlabelled doors. This is how I visited my first Russian surgery - the door I went into first when trying to enter my hotel.

Sleepers, snow, and sign language

You CAN change the wheels on a train

Leaving Amsterdam, I was pleased to find that I was in my compartment alone. I had anticipated having to share it. This was fine until 05:30 in Berlin, when the other occupant of the compartment got on, and I had to rearrange all my gear so two of us could fit in. The timing of the journey was such that I didn't see any of Germany, and very little of Poland. Over the border of Belarus they carried out an operation that I knew took place; but that I still found totally odd. They changed the bogies on the train from the standard European gauge, to the bigger Russian gauge. This involved separating out the carriages; removing the couplings; replacing the couplings with Russian ones; lifting the carriage off the bogie; wheeling the small bogies away and the larger ones in to position; lowering the carriage; and reassembling the train.

From the border of Belarus onwards, there was snow on the ground, and external temperatures were varying between 0 and 5 C during daylight. Most people left the train at Minsk, so the run from Minsk to Moscow was a much more relaxed process.

Moscow was mostly as I expected, for initial impressions. Though I knew the Russians use cyrillic script, I had not anticipated it acting as a "false friend" in terms of recognition. Anyway I got to my hotel using a combination of patience and perserverance - not speaking the language; not recognising the script; not knowing anything about Moscow or Russia. It just took about two and a half hours, rather than the 20 minutes it would take now I know where I am going and a slight idea of how the Moscow Metro works. The stations are as deep and as splendid as I had heard, and are very obviously the only form of travel suitable for a complete neophyte like myself.

Communication is a wonderful thing

Two minutes after my last post, the train I was on came to a halt, due to a freight train in front of us having broken down. After a delay well in excess of an hour, the rail company decanted all the passengers for the boat at Ipswich, and ferried us by taxi to Harwich. We arrived at the boat at about 23:45, half an hour after check-in had nominally finished. I had booked dinner on the ferry, and this is the first time ever that I have had a main, three course meal after midnight. A brief night's sleep, in a very comfortable cabin, and onto Amsterdam. I arrived in Amsterdam at 10:30, and will be leaving it at 19:00 for Moscow. As I live on the canals, and see quite enough of boats, what was the first thing I did in Amsterdam - that's right, go for a one hour cruise round Amsterdam harbour and its surrounding canals seeing the 100 points of interest.

Amsterdam bridge detail

The really splendid Amsterdam Centraal railway station

It was interesting. Then much of the afternoon trying to get my brand new, fully charged international SIM card to acknowledge that there is an Internet. I finally succeeded in this, as you can see from this blog. Now onto Moscow - having solved the problem of getting enough carry on food for two of the three days the trip will take which don't have a buffet car. Such car is added only at the far side of Poland. A tricky little problem but now sorted.

The journey begins....

I am finally on my way. Today has given me the promise of novelty - I am currently on the train to Harwich, a place I have never been to; to catch the ferry, and I have never been on a large ship before; - a new view on familiar ground - I have travelled from Aylesbury to Cambridge via Milton Keynes by road many times, but rarely by bus, which has a much higher seating position than a car - and regrettably familiar sensations - the variety of minor glitches that have already shown themselves. I had made checklists; backup provision; checked things against my lists; and given myself thinking time to check for things I had forgotten. So how was it that three quarters of the way to Milton Keynes, I realised I had left the one absolutely vital item on the boat, and moreover I had not got any backup for this one vital item (a data key, loaded with information about the financial arrangements I have made). So nothing for it, but to arrive at Milton Keynes; go back to Aylesbury to pick it up, and return to Milton Keynes. Fortunately I always allow plenty of leeway when travelling. Then I got to Cambridge to find a fact that had totally passed me by; there is only one train (the boat train) to Harwich from Cambridge, and that ran at 19:43.

The well known tourist attraction - Cambridge Rail Station

So I have spent the period from 16:00 to 19:45 at that beautiful and well visited tourist spot of Cambridge Station. Now en-route to Harwich I suspect I will get there too late for my pre-booked dinner. Ah well, they say worse thing happen at sea .......WAIT A MINUTE ......Isn't that where I am going tonight? ARRGH. Throw in the fact that it rained for the first time last night since I completed the long and complicated job of repairing my upper, glazed hatch, and the rain showed up the fact that the repairs aren't as good as they need to be - there are still minor leaks into the boat.

Also my luggage, at 21kilos, and 2 pieces, is heavier than I would have liked, and less wieldy. It seems unavoidable, given that I need clothing suitable for cold and high altitude conditions; plus I like my gadgets - like this netbook I am writing this on.

So I might say this has been a mixed day, with a fair selection of ups and downs. But it is really nice that I am now travelling, after so much planning and preparation. I also enjoy travelling for its own sake.