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quasars on the radio
Today I'm in Beijing. I am still having a fantastic time. I am still saying 'wow' every five seconds. Forbidden City tomorrow, Great Wall on Sunday. I never realised Mao had such a huge wart on his chin. Anyway,
Bolshoye Goloustnoye village
September 15-17
I don't really know what to say about staying at Lake Baikal. None of the best bits involved many words. (But - as I read back over this torrent of verbiage - not knowing what to say has never stopped me in the past, has it?)
Coming off the train in the sleet, all fragile and hungry, we were met by the Russia Experience driver, who took us down forest dirt-tracks (cracked slate and yellow mud with little rivers in it) for two headlong hours. He played chicken with oncomers, hurtling at them and honking the horn till they moved over to the other side of the road, whichever side that happened to be. He'd laughed at Ivan earlier for wanting to sit in the one seat that had a seatbelt. But it was a blissful journey despite the crazy driving and the bouncing up and down and the hunger, even despite my expectation that as soon as we got there we'd be hauled off on a hike around the lake in the rain. Why? Because we were further and further Away. Because of the fizzing and popping on the AM radio almost covering up the voice of Annie Lennox, coming from a different world. And because IT SNOWED! The guidebook swore blind that it would be ten to twenty-four degrees in Siberia in September, but still the snow came. I stared at the flakes chasing each other down in spirals between the trees and filling up the woods until my eyes hurt.
The village is tiny, a straggle of little wooden houses situated a) out on the edge of the lake and b) a couple of centuries ago, except for the single one sprouting a satellite dish. I laughed when I heard that 'Bolshoye Goloustnoye' means Big Goloustnoye (the local river) and that there's a Little Goloustnoye somewhere else. It has no running water, but inside the izba house where we were staying, they do comfort and hospitality like you wouldn't believe. The hike did start out pretty grim - the snow had turned back into nearly horizontal, freezing rain and I hadn't brought any waterproofs. But I had central heating from the wonderful breakfast Tamara, the homestay owner, had waiting for us when we arrived. (Real, clean, honest food, thank god, not fly-blown train crap.) I'd spent a couple of hours warming up under the duvet in the wood-panelled bedroom. I was ready to take it on - to not wuss out - but I didn't expect it to be much fun. I was wrong. The rain and the wind eased off, I warmed up from walking even though my trousers had turned into a sort of wet-suit, and the woods were beautiful. Stupidly bright autumn colours, Crayola colours, the sort you'd think were Photoshopped if you saw them in a picture. Pinecones had tumbled all over the ground. The air was sweet and funny little ripples ran in all directions over the surface of the lake, as though its skin was twitching. Further on we walked by the shore of the lake, climbing over blackened tree trunks fallen there in the last brushfire, marvelling at how clear the water was, and skimming stones. Or rather, the others skimmed stones and I failed to skim stones. We laughed at washed-up lake sponges, long and knobby like ET's fingers. They're the reason the lake water is so clean.
We had lunch in a gazebo at the lakeshore - omul, a fish that lives in the lake and nowhere else, which was delicious though I don't see why they had to float it in nasty clear soup. The clumping effect had started happening and we were sharing the homestay with a couple from Berkeley in California and three other backpackers from the train after ours. At lunch we asked Alek, our slightly chilly but professional guide, questions about the lake (it's 2km deep, with another 8km of sediment below that; it's on the junction of two tectonic plates which are drifting apart, so one day it'll be part of the ocean, but for now all kinds of creatures live here and only here). Also, in a moment of cold-induced madness, I tried to get people to sing the Scout song about the boa constrictor. I can't imagine why now.
Later there was the banya. Oh my. Just before dinner Alek escorted me up the village to 'Gala's household'. It wasn't a long walk but my fingers went numb anyway. I'd never really warmed up after the hike. But then. Picture this. You are outrageously filthy from four days on a train without a shower and then five hours of hard hiking. You feel sticky and greasy, like the train food has become part of your skin, and your muscles are aching, and you're bloody cold into the bargain. Then - ah. You sit in a hot wood-panelled room with a furnace full of hot stones (they claim it's not a sauna, but it's not much different). You bake and you bask, feeling your pores evicting all the crud, and then you mix hot and cold water from barrels in a basin and pour saucepans of it over yourself, and then you bask some more. I wasn't thinking of anything as I basked. I was just one huge sigh of relief.
I floated back outside in a cloud of cinnamon shampoo, honey and jasmine shower gel, and invincibility. The thing about the banya is it turns you into a superhero. For the next half hour I was Flame Girl, immune to cold. I beamed at (presumably) Gala, an aproned farm-wife who was chopping wood in the yard, and said 'kharasho' (good - one of the words I only remember because of A Clockwork Orange) and she beamed back with a mouthful of gold teeth. I walked back through the village in the silent dusk. All I could hear was the odd dog barking, or a cow mooing at its family's gate to be milked after a day's wandering around on the hills. I'll be back there later, in my head, when I need to remember what peace feels like. And after dinner, and Baltika beer, and games of Cheat, Shithead and Trumps with the other travellers, I wobbled upstairs and collapsed into a night of easy, deep, normal-time-zone sleep.
Real horrorshow.
*
Tomorrow: Bangin' nightlife of the village! Boy racers! Bookcrossing! Being trapped up a hill by dogs! Mysterious dancing clouds! And - I hope - many pictures.
Bolshoye Goloustnoye village
September 15-17
I don't really know what to say about staying at Lake Baikal. None of the best bits involved many words. (But - as I read back over this torrent of verbiage - not knowing what to say has never stopped me in the past, has it?)
Coming off the train in the sleet, all fragile and hungry, we were met by the Russia Experience driver, who took us down forest dirt-tracks (cracked slate and yellow mud with little rivers in it) for two headlong hours. He played chicken with oncomers, hurtling at them and honking the horn till they moved over to the other side of the road, whichever side that happened to be. He'd laughed at Ivan earlier for wanting to sit in the one seat that had a seatbelt. But it was a blissful journey despite the crazy driving and the bouncing up and down and the hunger, even despite my expectation that as soon as we got there we'd be hauled off on a hike around the lake in the rain. Why? Because we were further and further Away. Because of the fizzing and popping on the AM radio almost covering up the voice of Annie Lennox, coming from a different world. And because IT SNOWED! The guidebook swore blind that it would be ten to twenty-four degrees in Siberia in September, but still the snow came. I stared at the flakes chasing each other down in spirals between the trees and filling up the woods until my eyes hurt.
The village is tiny, a straggle of little wooden houses situated a) out on the edge of the lake and b) a couple of centuries ago, except for the single one sprouting a satellite dish. I laughed when I heard that 'Bolshoye Goloustnoye' means Big Goloustnoye (the local river) and that there's a Little Goloustnoye somewhere else. It has no running water, but inside the izba house where we were staying, they do comfort and hospitality like you wouldn't believe. The hike did start out pretty grim - the snow had turned back into nearly horizontal, freezing rain and I hadn't brought any waterproofs. But I had central heating from the wonderful breakfast Tamara, the homestay owner, had waiting for us when we arrived. (Real, clean, honest food, thank god, not fly-blown train crap.) I'd spent a couple of hours warming up under the duvet in the wood-panelled bedroom. I was ready to take it on - to not wuss out - but I didn't expect it to be much fun. I was wrong. The rain and the wind eased off, I warmed up from walking even though my trousers had turned into a sort of wet-suit, and the woods were beautiful. Stupidly bright autumn colours, Crayola colours, the sort you'd think were Photoshopped if you saw them in a picture. Pinecones had tumbled all over the ground. The air was sweet and funny little ripples ran in all directions over the surface of the lake, as though its skin was twitching. Further on we walked by the shore of the lake, climbing over blackened tree trunks fallen there in the last brushfire, marvelling at how clear the water was, and skimming stones. Or rather, the others skimmed stones and I failed to skim stones. We laughed at washed-up lake sponges, long and knobby like ET's fingers. They're the reason the lake water is so clean.
We had lunch in a gazebo at the lakeshore - omul, a fish that lives in the lake and nowhere else, which was delicious though I don't see why they had to float it in nasty clear soup. The clumping effect had started happening and we were sharing the homestay with a couple from Berkeley in California and three other backpackers from the train after ours. At lunch we asked Alek, our slightly chilly but professional guide, questions about the lake (it's 2km deep, with another 8km of sediment below that; it's on the junction of two tectonic plates which are drifting apart, so one day it'll be part of the ocean, but for now all kinds of creatures live here and only here). Also, in a moment of cold-induced madness, I tried to get people to sing the Scout song about the boa constrictor. I can't imagine why now.
Later there was the banya. Oh my. Just before dinner Alek escorted me up the village to 'Gala's household'. It wasn't a long walk but my fingers went numb anyway. I'd never really warmed up after the hike. But then. Picture this. You are outrageously filthy from four days on a train without a shower and then five hours of hard hiking. You feel sticky and greasy, like the train food has become part of your skin, and your muscles are aching, and you're bloody cold into the bargain. Then - ah. You sit in a hot wood-panelled room with a furnace full of hot stones (they claim it's not a sauna, but it's not much different). You bake and you bask, feeling your pores evicting all the crud, and then you mix hot and cold water from barrels in a basin and pour saucepans of it over yourself, and then you bask some more. I wasn't thinking of anything as I basked. I was just one huge sigh of relief.
I floated back outside in a cloud of cinnamon shampoo, honey and jasmine shower gel, and invincibility. The thing about the banya is it turns you into a superhero. For the next half hour I was Flame Girl, immune to cold. I beamed at (presumably) Gala, an aproned farm-wife who was chopping wood in the yard, and said 'kharasho' (good - one of the words I only remember because of A Clockwork Orange) and she beamed back with a mouthful of gold teeth. I walked back through the village in the silent dusk. All I could hear was the odd dog barking, or a cow mooing at its family's gate to be milked after a day's wandering around on the hills. I'll be back there later, in my head, when I need to remember what peace feels like. And after dinner, and Baltika beer, and games of Cheat, Shithead and Trumps with the other travellers, I wobbled upstairs and collapsed into a night of easy, deep, normal-time-zone sleep.
Real horrorshow.
*
Tomorrow: Bangin' nightlife of the village! Boy racers! Bookcrossing! Being trapped up a hill by dogs! Mysterious dancing clouds! And - I hope - many pictures.
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thank you for sharing all of these wonderful experiences.
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