hi everybody!

due to limited webspace here I moved my whole blog to another provider: you can find all old posts as well as all new stories on this adress: http://east-wards.blogspot.com

Aaaaaand: you'll find photo-galleries there :)
to start with I made a gallery of Russia as well as one showing the various dishes I had so far :)

and a new story about my trip to Gobi and my last days in Ulaanbaatar should be out soon :)

It is really difficult so start talking about Mongolia after Russia. This was already my third time in Russia, which made it a bit familiar to me – even if I hadn’t in the Asian part so far which is definitely completely different to the European part (people- and landscapewise). But Mongolia is still completely different to Russias Asian part even though the Buryat people are ethnically related to the Mongolians, and speaking Russian sometimes helps a lot in Mongolia...
Well, we (the two French girls I got to know in Ulan Ude – Sylvie and Gwen – and me) went to Ulaanbaatar by bus which was a great decision: it is not only nearly 4 times cheaper than the train but also wastes far less time at the border (1h50min in our case instead of approx. 7h with the train – no joke!!). Driving on the road we quickly got an idea of how our trip to Mongolia would be like: great landscape all the way long!!









However, entering the capital we felt really quickly that we wouldn’t like it... We stayed two nights, using the day we had in the city for the organisation of our trip and a short sightseeing tour to the main square, the main road and the monastery, which was unspectacular apart from the really amazing statue.

The people in the capital were not really nice or open (well, I guess capital cities or big cities are often like this). What really annoyed me personally was the traffic: a complete mess where everybody is only hupen all the time. As a pedestrian you really have to take care, because cars would for sure not stop: a few times I got nearly hit by a car... Everybody says that in Russia drivers wouldn’t pay attention: bullshit!! you put your foot on the pavement in Russia and the cars will stop for you! But don’t expect that in Ulaanbaatar!


The atmosphere in the hostel reflected a bit what we had already read in guides before: everybody writes and says that it is difficult to travel in Mongolia by your own and that you should rather take an organised tour or rent a jeep with driver. Both options are cheaper the more people join is so all the other backpackers in the hostel are either trying to make you join their tour or their jeep-trip. Everybody is on the look for his own tailor-made tour, and believing this bullshit (that you can only travel in Mongolia with tour-operators or jeep+driver) they end up with having the same trip like everybody else... and this competition for travel-mates really poisons the whole atmosphere.

All three we really didn’t like this attitude and agreed upon leaving UB as quick as possible: So already the next morning we were sitting in a crowded bus, only with Mongolians, on the way to Kharkhorin. Without even being asked the woman next to Gwen passed her her telephone: her daughter was renting gers in Kharkhorin where we stayed the upcoming night! The woman – like all other Mongolians we met afterwards – was really nice and helped us a lot!

The next day we went on to Tsetserleg: we knew approximately at what time the bus from Ulaanbaatar would pass so we would just stop it and hop on. This bus was completely overcrowded: all seats were taken and moreover loads of stuff (people seem to buy loads of stuff in the capital to get over the winter...) was packed in the corridor. We as well had to sit in the corridor in the beginning till other people were getting off...

The time on the bus passed really quickly and the kids on the bus sitting near us were happy to have some entertainment after having on this bus for hours… I must say, the rides on the busses made us seeing and understanding so much of the country and the people than a trip with a jeep somewhere! Furthermore: not speaking the language doesn’t hinder you of getting in touch with people!

In Tsetserleg we finally stayed for 3 nights, going to the hot springs Tsekher on the second day with a really nice taxi driver, that would drive us all the way through the great landscape to the hot springs and back. He would always stop for us when we wanted to make photos of the great landscape and of all the animals and the gers. And I am now proud of speaking a few words in Mongolian: I can say cow, horse, sheep and snow (yes, you could see the snow on the top of the mountains...) – I should put “Mongolian – intermediate level” on my CV :D

All in all I really enjoy my trip to Mongolia so far and am really happy to travel with two really great girls who have the same idea of travelling like I have: without using tour operators but trying to organise everything by ourselves and getting in contact with the locals as much as possible. However, tomorrow we are off to a few-days-tour to the Gobi-dessert with jeep and driver, which is really the only way to travel there... Looking forward to this as well!

I was leaving Irkutsk in the evening with a train to Ulan Ude, where I first didn't wanted to stay but catch the early-morning bus to Ulaan Baator (which is in fact up to 4 times cheaper than the train…). Unlike for all my other traintravels I decided to travel on плацкарт (plackart – 3rd class) this time, and made me regret not having taken these carriages more often: in comparison with 36 beds in a compartment-carriage there are 54 beds in plazkart: the 4-person-compartments are open and there are 2 more persons sleeping where in a normal sleeping-carriage would only be the corridor. The good thing is, that everything is open and you are not only in contact with the 3 others in your compartment, but can see who else is in the same carriage. However, I do admit: this train was rather empty - I can imagine, that it is not super-comfortable when there are really all 54 beds taken...

I started talking with the man opposite of me – Evgeniij, a 60-year old buryat man from Ulan Ude; and he ended up phoning loads of his friends for me in order to find out about when and where the bus to Ulaan Baatar would leave. After all I decided to stay in Ulan Ude for one more day and take a bus the following day – which was the best decision I ever took!

Upon arrival the man offered me to stay at his flat what I accepted with pleasure – knowing already what Russian hospitality means :) Arriving there he would of course cook a typical buryat dish for me: буузы (buusi). He was really happy seeing me eating soo much (and those who know me know that I can really eat a lot ;) ) After lunch he organised that his nephews would drive us downtown where they dropped me so I could walk around the city by myself and organise my bus ticket.

I was lucky to arrive at the main square with the worlds biggest
Lenin head perfectly in time to see how a big group of children was repeating a dance performance for the promenade that was supposed to take place one week later for the 345th birthday of the city (happy birthday Ulan Ude!)

However, buying a busticket turned out to be nearly impossible as all the tour agencies were closed on Sundays… With loads of luck I found one open agency – and even there the woman was just about to leave. With my ticket in my pocket I happily walked back to big-Lenin...

...and bumped into two french girls (well – you’d always recognise tourist, won’t you??), who also wanted to get a bus to Ulaan Baatar the next morning.
So: us three back at the travel agency – phoning the woman who had left in the meantime and making her come back (great!!!) – buying bus-tickets for the girls – going for a drink – organising our trip to Mongolia that we decided to do all together – yessss ;)

Back „home“ my friendly host had already prepared dinner – and was again really happy seeing me eating so much – I am a good guest not rejecting any food! After that we went together to the two nicely (kitsch) lightened fountains of the city where Evgeniij – even though he by himself is from Ulan Ude – had never been before by night!! So he thanked me as well for that!


So now I was leaving Russia this morning with a smile on my face, loads of great impressions on my mind and the big wish to come back and do the whole transsib again!

so now I am sitting in Ulaan Baatar - which is btw all but not a nice city - and with the two french girls we gonna leave tomorrow to Kharkhorin (somewhere in the countryside)... but more about Mongolia in a future story ;)

A bit shorter than first planned but fully successful was my trip to the beautiful island Olchon on the Baikal lake. After a 6-hours trip with a small Marshrutka and a ferry I arrived in the 1200 inhabitants counting capital of the island "Khushir" and checked in in "Nikitas Homestead", a hostel which is - thanks to Lonely Planet - populated with many foreign back-packers.

The island itself is quite sandy and dry but still really beautiful - just get some idea of it (travellers from Scottland told me that it looks exactly like this over there...):


a ger near the lake




buryat-tradition: you can find loads of trees all covered with coloured bands (couldn't find out what this tradition ment though...)



So of course I spent a lot of time walking around and drawing.
However, what I really wanted was taking a bath. But I got rather desperate regarding the outside-temperatures knowing the lake itself is - due to its incredible depth - supercold throughout the whole year anyways...
There's a saying that if you take a bath in lake Baikal 25 years will be added to your life - who wouldn't want that??
And I got them!! hoooraaayyy!! I was really lucky when walking around the beach I discovered a movable Banya!

Oh yes, Russia, the land of extremes: hot banja and then freezing cold bath in the lake! and this again and again - loved it! :D

On the second day I rented a mountain-bike in order to see a bit of the islands inland and forests. I will definitely try to do some mountainbike trips in the future again to get a better condition - how embarassing: I had to push the bike when the hills were too steep :/
The nice girl from the hostel had prepared a lunch-pack for me. But when I was sitting in the middle of the forest two wild dogs running up to me let me know that - by eating away my two cookies - I had eaten enough sweet stuff
the last days... (I was quite happy when they left shortly after though...)
Yes, all in all it was a really nice bike-trip as the roads were definitely more interesting to ride on than our asphalt-streets (there is not one single asphaltstreet on the whole island...)

Still I decided to leave after 3 nights due to the fact that it was the end of the season on the island: still sunny but cold and windy weather and Nikitas homestead, which in summer is said to be overcrowded, being rather empty. But there were still enough travellers to spend the evenings with as Olchon is like a small oasis of calm (there is no noice except from a car sometimes and the barking of the dogs) where travellers are taking a rest before or after their trip on the transsiberian. All the people I got to know were all really nice: some of them were travelling in the same direction as I am, some in the opposite. So I was lucky to get a lot of information about Mongolia, which I am now really looking forward to discover!

So, on the third day in the morning I left beautiful Olchon Island again - good bye красавица!

After a bit of city-hopping I will leave for Olchon Island on Baikal lake tomorrow morning. I am sooo much looking forward to it, as the lake is not only considered to be really really beautiful but what is more I will stay there for around a week, which will give me some rest... because last week has been rather exhausting, as I didn't stay anywhere longer than 2 nights and topped with the quite cold and windy weather I got a bit sick. Nevermind...

So, I will give you a short introduction into the cities along the transsiberian railway-track that I've seen:

Kazan
After Nizhniy Novgorod, that I left one week ago,
I arrived really early in the morning in Kazan, the capital city of the Republic of Tatarstan. All the street signs are written first in Tatarnese and only then in Russian. The percentage of Muslims in Tatarstan is quite high compared to the rest of Russia - and this is what makes the city in fact so interesting: the impressive "Kul-Sharif-Mosque" in the Kremlin.
After spending some time in a creepy station-café I walked to the city center to see all the historic sights. But to admit, well, I was really impressed by the Mosque and the whole Kremlin. The main street could be beautiful, if it wasn’t completely under construction. But after all: I saw more or less everything after 2-3hours – and this trying to be really really slow… That’s where travelling alone show’s its disadvantage: sometimes you are in fact alone and this can be boring in a place where there’s not really that much going on… So I was quite happy to hop on the train in the evening to continue to Ekaterinburg.

Ekaterinburg

(That's the Church on the blood - the place where the Bolsheviks killed Nicolai II, the last head of the Romanov-house (and last tsar) together with his family)
Ekaterinburg somehow remembered me of Warsaw – on the one hand you can still see the Soviet influence everywhere, on the other hand the city obviously tries to be modern.



There are many bars and the main road is lively full with people. I really liked the Beatles-memorial - that was an insider-tipp I got from a guy I got to know in the hostel in Moscow: isn't it nice??
However, I again only stayed one night which was enough considering that I was only visiting the city alone, and went further on my so far longest trip on the train to Krasnoyarsk, that I already summarised in my last story.

Krasnoyarsk
As my friend Olga, who is from Krasnoyarsk, was just at this time visiting her parents I had decided to stay there a bit longer than just one single night. I was really happy that I could stay for 2 nights in her mothers appartment and could again enjoy Russian hospitality.


They dedicated the whole Saturday for me: After great breakfast (guess what… yes, of course! delicous selfmade Bliniki) we went all together for a hiking-trip to the nearby Stolby-ressort: a montainous region with really impressive stones from old Volcanes, and after that to Divnogorsk, a nearby really sweet town on the border of the Yenisey-river and finally to hydroelectric dam, that covers the "back of the 10-roubles-note." (check the link!)

Even though I spent a bit longer there, going to the cinema (so proud of myself: I understood almost everything!!), walking around a lot, chatting with Olga and her family, time was running out fast as well and I saw myself quite soon on the train again - direction further East: Irkutsk.

Irkutsk
Irkutsk is considered to be the "Paris of Siberia". Mhm, well. To admit: I don't know why. With it's old wooden houses it is definitely beautiful,

but Paris of Siberia?

Rather Vienna of Siberia :D considering the fact that it has a really typical Viennese Café with our dear Strauss inside, marble-tables, Julius-Meinl-coffee (served on a plate together with a glass of water!) and of course Apfelstrudel ;)


After this city-hopping I would say one rule about Russian cities (letting appart Moscow and St. Petersburg):
you've seen one Russian city, you've seen them all (same goes for churches, wouldn't you agree??)

Appart from the very special sights in each town they are all the same: they all have a quite lively main-street, old Stalinist administration buildings and loads of sad concrete buildings, old marshrutkas, they really do all have a Lenin-street, a Karl-Marx-Street and a Dzherzhinsky-street (founder of the KGB - freaky that they still honor him in every town) and of course you will find a Lenin-statue in each town - showing you the right way!!

I left Nizhniy Novgorod on Monday in the very evening taking a night-train to Kazan. And even in this very first night in typical Russian train in a compartment with other people I realised why everybody is so excited about travelling with the transsiberian railway: it is definitely the people that you meet in the train compartments who make the journey so exciting!
Because the view out of the window is usually quite nice or interesting, however, doesn't change so much between Moscow and Vladivostok...


In my compartment from Nizyhniy to Kazan were 3 men, they all turned out to be soldiers. After only one sentence from me they realised that I was a foreigner (well, I can't hide my accent I'm afraid...)
They invited me to drink beer with them, taste some of their Russian колбаса (sausage) and didn't stop asking me questions about where I am from, why I was travelling the way I was (it is in fact freaking people out that I am travelling all by myself... not to talk about the reactions when I admit, that I am in fact travelling like this for a year...) - and why I chose to travel through Russia, how my impressions were, and so on and so on...

Also the other people I met on the trains that I took between Kazan - Ekaterinburg, Ekaterinburg - Krasnoyarsk were really pleasent and it was nice talking to all of them!


However nice it was chatting with them, I will unfortunately never see all these people again... BUT: I got to know a girl from Canada who is not only travelling like me (alone, for at least a year, all over the world - thank God at least somebody who completely understands me and doesn't think either that my parents are mad letting me leave like this or that I am a freak...) but also more or less on the same route!! Wohooo!
We agreed to meet on the baikal lake as she was continuing on this very train to Irkutsk while I went off in Krasnoyarsk... And we might as well continue travelling together to Mongolia - we shall see ;)

But how is it then to travel on a Russian train??

Russian trains are in fact really cool and not icky as you might think.
I was only travelling in coupé (which are 4-bed-compartments - other options are CB (2-bed-compartments) and плацкарт (open carriages with beds)) which is in fact really comfortable: you have enough space for the luggage, a quite big table, the space between the beds is big enough to sit up straight and
the beds are long enough and comfortable.

In every carriage are 2 toilets (well, traintoilets are always rather disgusting...) and - this I love! - a boiler for hot water! great!

The strictly looking, but usually quite nice (at least the ones responsible for my carriage always were...) проводница (train attendant) provides you with clean dishes, bed-covers, and with food and drinks if you need it.

The trains stop quite often, in some bigger station for up to 40min. So you can easily go on the platform and buy some food or drinks for the upcoming hours on the train, as there are usually small stands on all platforms, that provide you with the most important products.
So all this all - including my nice game - made even my longest trip on the train (32h) between Ekaterinburg and Krasnoyarsk really nice.

finally my first update!
I'm at the moment sitting in a McDonalds (even if I don't like their food, I like their free Internet-policy...) in Kazan trying to figure out how best to resume what has happened in the last 1,5 weeks....

London

As I had booked my trip through a London-based agency, I had to start my trip there. But instead of just going there from one airport to the other I decided to stay there for 2 nights. A friend working there was so nice to host me, go for some beers with me Saturday night and show me his favourite pub on Sunday, before I had to head on on Monday morning...


The whole day of Monday (15th of August) I in fact spent traveling - through London to get to Heathrow, than on the plane, moreover a time loss of 3 hours between London and Moscow (don't worry, I'll catch this time up during my trip between Fidji and LA...) and then from the airport there to the hostel, where I finally arrived quite late in the evening.

Moscow - Москва

Same like in London, I had already been in Moscow, so I spend my time just walking around with my dear friend Mikhail instead of sight-seeing. And we finally managed to finish our photoproject, started last year in September, with photos of us in front of all 7 + 1 Stalin-buildings "Seven Sisthers" :)


My 2 days in Moscow were nicely filled: a lot of walking around, chatting with my friend, great hot sunshine, beer on the riverside and a live Rock-Concert in a pub (with small children jumping around headbanging... no joke!!)... but still I have to admit that Moscow and me - we won't get friends. So even though I was sad to say goodbye to Mikhail (thanks for everything! It was great seeing you again) I was happy to leave the city on Wednesday night.

Nizhniy Novgorod - Нижний Новгород

Россию умом не понять (you can't understand Russia with your mind): on the only train ticket I had bought in Austria I had the bed number 37 in a 36-bed-containing wagon - mhm... well, I was then sleeping in the customs office cabine. Or at least I tried to sleep which didn't really work out :/
Arriving the next morning at 6:30 completely wrecked I was warmely welcomed on the platform by my former Tandem partner Marina and her newly wed husband.


There is one thing all guides to Russia say, that is definitely so true! the hospitality of Russian people is endless!!
So it was no question for Marina and Tjoma to invited me to stay in their flat during my stay in Nizhniy even though everything was still under construction there and even they didn't have a bed so far. We all slept on the floor.

Thanks to Marina I couldn't only get an insight into the life of young Russian couple, but also into loads of very typical Russian traditions: starting with a rehersal of the folklore group she is singing with...

(this photo is from my stay in Nizhniy 3 years ago, however it is the same folklore group)

... continuing with a stay on their Datscha during the weekend.
What's a Dacha some might ask?! Well, most of middle-class Russians (or lets say all except the Nowie Russkie - the new-rich Russians) usually live in rather small but cosily equipped one- or two-room flats in quite ugly concrete buildings...


...but!! they all have a Dacha: a small house with garden on the countryside.


On the weekends all cities empty as everybody is driving to the Dacha to relax during the weekend, do some gardening, eat and drink with neighbors and relatives and enjoy a nice hot баня (banya) :)
And I got an insight into all of this!
The trip there was - well, lets call it interesting - as the car we went to the Datscha was more or less falling apart :)
But just after arriving there we went straight to some relatives where fresh шашлык (grilled spit) and самогон (self-made vodka) was already awaiting us. The evening we spent at some other friends place with even more шашлык, more vodka and singing traditional songs!


The next morning I woke up by the nice smell of freshly made блины (typical Russian pancakes) Marinas mother was preparing for us all for breakfast. But not enough of typical Russian - just after breakfast we went for a tour in the баня (banya)- the typical Russian-kind sauna.

Oh yes, thank you so much Marina! I really really really enjoyed my stay in Nizhniy so much thanks you to you!!

(BTW Nizhniy is the last station on my trip that I knew from before, everything afterwards is completely new to me! - but I will tell you about that in my upcoming stories!!)

today I was wondering, if I didn't have too much time to plan my trip.
yes, of course it is nice to have enough time to think about everything... but does it really have to be everything??

I had time to read through loads of blogs and forums about big travels and with the security information provided on these blogs I got the impression, that the whole world is super-dangerous, everybody will only want to steal stuff from me, even if I hide all my money and credit cards in my underwear...

oh, and of course: I had time to check which different kinds of diseases I could have in which parts of the world... horrible! Now I have the impression of being a walking pharmacy

so, yes, the last days here were definitely too much. too much time to think about what else I might need - and even worse: enough time to buy these things ;)

and today I spent some time just making my backpack lighter by getting rid of stuff that I do NOT necessarily need on my trip, as tomorrow is THE BIG DAY!!

voilà: me with my packed backpack: 60l-volume on the back (16kg), 20l-volume in the front (8kg)...