Across the Sleeping Land: A Journey Through Russia

By Michael Pears

Being mugged at knife-point by a friendly taxi driver; suffering from frostbite on various appendages; being mauled by some of the many ravenous stray packs of dogs which roam the nation; attending weddings, hunting expeditions and beauty pageants - discover these and more mis-adventures which befell the author during his 10-month jaunt across the largest, most intriguing and exasperating country in world. Unearth for yourself the untold joys of Russia's very own International Women's Day, Maslenitsa and New Year's Eve celebrations, in a journey which stretches from Vladivostock to Murmansk, and takes in the history, architecture and customs of over 30 towns and cities en route, and includes a special detour section through China and Mongolia.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trafford Publishing
• Release date: Oct 2, 2007
• ISBN: 9781466957398

Michael Pears

Mike Pears is a tutor of Urban Theology and Mission at Bristol Baptist College. He also works with Urban Expression.

Book preview

Across the

Sleeping Land

A journey through Russia….

(with some brief notes about Mongolia

and China).

© Copyright 2005 Michael Pears.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval

system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,

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ISBN 978-1-4120-6608-2

ISBN 978-1-4669-5739-8 (ebk)

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CONTENTS

Foreword

Mongolia

China

Vladivostok :

Khabarovsk :

Chita :

Ulan Ude :

Irkutsk :

Listvyanka :

Krasnoyarsk :

Tomsk : TOMCK

Novosibirsk :

Omsk : OMCK

Tobolsk :

Tyumen :

Yekaterinburg :

Perm :

Kazan :

Nizhny Novgorod :

Vladimir :

Bogolyubovo :

Vyazniki :

Suzdal :

Kostroma :

Yaroslavl :

Rostov Veliky :

Pereslavl-Zalessky :

Sergiev Posad :

Moscow :

Tver :

Klin :

Veliky Novgorod :

Train Journeys

Asino :

Banya

The Wedding

Hunting

Shashlyk

Saint Petersburg :

Vologda :

Arkhangelsk :

Solovetsky Islands :

Murmansk :

Monchegorsk :

Petrozavodsk :

Epilogue

Foreword

Having suffered the great misfortune to have once watched an episode of the most terrifying children’s TV program ever aired-the Czechoslovakian production known to eternity as The Singing Ringing Tree-a program which was single-handedly responsible for inflicting upon my generation several severely disabling psychoses which blighted what was supposed to be the happiest days of our carefree youth, and which inculcated in me personally a deep-rooted and irrational fear of bizarre psychedelic subterranean lighting effects, snow, foreign languages and garden gnomes-(all of which conspired to make my time as a winter sales-assistant in the Under-Ground Bunker Disco and Garden Centre in Prague a particularly traumatic experience)-1 had always been reluctant to travel any farther East than Norwich. Nevertheless, several years ago, owing to a particularly perverse twist of Fate, I had become infected with a desire to visit the once great epicentre of Soviet World Communism after developing a passion for the short stories of Chekhov, and had even intended to travel there. However, on reaching the high street travel agents, I accidentally asked for a ticket to Mumbai (Bombay) instead of Moscow, and hence ended up spending five months in India by mistake-which was something of an oversight on my part, but nevertheless, an interesting experience.

Still, onward and upward as the poets say, and in the dense heat of July 2002, armed only with a few phrase books and a lousy sense of direction, together with a cassette of Ian Dury’s greatest hits to fall back on in case of emergencies, I eventually found myself on a train bound for Moscow.

Sadly, since the days when my literary hero Chekhov had been at his writing desk, (1860-1904), at a time when a gentleman abroad needed nothing more than a sense of adventure, a thorough knowledge of his duty to the Queen and a stiff upper lip in the face of whatever sticky situation Johnny Foreigner might throw at him, a great deal of progress, (i.e. two World Wars and an Iron Curtain), had been made, and those tourists intent on heading for the arms of Mother Russia can’t even make it across the English Channel today without a vast array of tickets, visas and official invitations to back them up. This lamentable situation has recently been made even more complex following the disintegration of the old Soviet Union in 1991, as today it has become necessary to have another, entirely separate set of visas just to travel through each of the satellite states that surround the dominant epicentre of the great Motherland; and accordingly it was here, at the Belarussian border, that I encountered my first problem.

Having planned my trip meticulously, I had of course ensured that I came well equipped with a visa which enabled me to travel through this country into Russia-but as I intended to leave Russia via a different route, I had not provided myself with a visa which permitted me to cross back out across her borders home into Europe. Several sets of border guards, clearly confused and concerned by this state of affairs questioned me very suspiciously. Why was this? Was I a spy? Was I a terrorist? Or worse still, was I employed by McDonalds?

I carefully explained my proposed travelling arrangements to those concerned, but the perplexed guards merely tuttutted and shook their heads. Several more sets of guards came to look dubiously at the foreigner, (every-one else on the train was Russian), and shake their heads at me too. Eventually however, I managed to persuade the border authorities that it really was just a tube of toothpaste and not a consignment of raw opium or Semtex, and to everyone’s relief-my fellow passengers included-our train was finally waved through.

On arrival, Moscow itself was a bit of a disappointment-there are now Christian Dior shops all over the place and I seemed to have arrived in the middle of a vast Coca-cola promotion, as all over the city, young brightly-dressed vendors carrying usherette-style trays around their necks were approaching all-comers with a view to enticing them to purchase their exciting product-so that in short, Moscow really could have been just any other European city.

In a slight departure from the dreary globalisation of all-encompassing department stores and American drinks companies, inside the onion-domed cathedrals of the metropolis, ladies wearing colourful headscarves, were busy queuing up to kiss the sacred icons-but even here, the aurora of an ageless calm devoutness was shattered somewhat, when one young lady forgot to switch her mobile phone off, and the timeless religious rites were shattered by the annoying squeal of the latest must-have ring-tone.

Back outside, Gorky Park, with its range of funfair-style amusements, rides and roundabouts had a strangely familiar feel about it-with noisy kids eating candy floss, and the smell of sparks from the dodgems, it could just as easily have been Spanish City or Blackpool Pleasure Beach-an illusion which was heightened when the rain began. Of course, there’s always St Basil’s Cathedral-a sight for which nothing in the West can prepare the discerning visitor-except perhaps Euro-Disney?-with its domed towers rising above Red Square like so many gaudy icecream cones drizzled with monkey blood. But in truth, that’s about as different as Moscow gets. The Russian people themselves are a very tough and enterprising bunch of economic survivors, and with the collapse of Communism, every street corner and subway was now bustling with kiosks and stalls selling copies of the latest Britney Spears video or Sophie Ellis Bextor CD-so you can see that freedom isn’t necessarily a good thing-and along with music, fashions too have changed, such that teenage boys now wear baggy skateboard outfits and manage to look just as scruffy as their western counterparts; while for every woman under 40, (and in a genuine tragedy, even some who have long since passed this mark), skirts are unheard of, and the only thing to be seen in is a pair of spray-on, skin-tight trousers or jeans-the tighter the better seems to be the rule-although this produces a rather unfortunate side effect, as Moscow now sports more V.P.L. than the judicious tourist would care to shake a stick at.

Having spent a couple of weeks viewing these less-than-desirable attractions of the city however, it was but a simple operation to then partake in that most traditional and thrilling of Russian hobbies-spending an enjoyable morning, day and evening queuing up to buy a train ticket-before I once again found myself out on the rails-quite literally.

Mongolia

Since I first mentioned my intention to travel to the fabled land of Mongolia, several people, including the horrified receptionist at my hotel in Moscow, have asked me: Why Mongolia? What’s there? Why are you bothering?, and other encouraging comments, designed to bolster my enthusiasm for the nation. In reply, I like to think that this snippet from the official Mongolian website helps to shed some light on my attraction to the delights of this enchanting country:

…. visitors should be aware of.. the possibilities of contracting hepatitis A and B, as well as rabies, cholera, meningococcal meningitis, tuberculosis and amoebicdysentery. There is also a small risk of Plague …. .

Yes, the Black Death is alive and well in Mongolia, and on arrival, visitors can almost feel the excited rats and marmots scurrying to meet the new guests to their country, in order to generously share out their quota of fleas amongst the new arrivals, in a charming display of old-fashioned hospitality, so sorely missing from the hustle and bustle of the modern Western world. I’m surprised that Judith Chalmers hasn’t been here to do a month-long special.

The other hidden charm of Mongolia lies in the expedition to get there. Of course, those of a weak disposition could just fly there straight from Heathrow: but that’s just plain (or is that plane?) cheating, and the real way to journey to this country is to take a leisurely six-day jaunt across Russia from Moscow on the Trans-Mongolian Railway-a pleasurable excursion which involves being shaken violently up and down and from side to side in a stock of ancient train carriages that even the pernicious shareholders of Railtrack would have been forced to condemn as unfit for human usage ten years ago, while eating and sleeping with three total strangers in a compartment the size of a portaloo. Except in my case-when there were three and a half strangers, as myself and two Danish students were joined by Dashka, a Mongolian trader of questionable sobriety, who had seen fit to bring along his six-year-old son, Nyamka, for the ride.

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As well as filling our compartment up with more than the requisite personages, Dashka also annexed virtually all of the allotted luggage space in our cramped confines, as he was engaged in the professional business of smuggling car engine parts across the border from Russia-at least he told me they were car engine parts-1 don’t have a degree in engineering, and consequently, for all I know, his boxes and crates of heavy steel and copper cylinders could well have contained vital pieces of equipment which were needed to help construct Mongolia’s nuclear capability-but what I didn’t know wouldn’t hurt me-that at any rate, was the story I was mentally preparing for the border guards, and one to which I intended to stick, be the diplomatic fall-out never so great, nor the torture chambers at the frontier never so well supplied with redhot pokers.

In addition to his clumsy containers of dubious metallic components, Dashka also took the liberty to fill our compartment with a series of shell-suits, (which came in a variety of head-ache inducing neon colours), and he would jump out onto the platform each time the train pulled into a station and start selling these wares to the locals, in order to earn a little extra cash on the side, as it seemed times were hard in the international smuggling business. His son, Nyamka however, scoffed at such lowly ambition, as the true spirit of Chinggis Khan still flowed through his veins, and who consequently wanted nothing less than world domination-or failing that, to destroy as much of our carriage as possible-and you’d be surprised just how much damage a six-year-old boy can achieve in six days when he really puts his mind to it.

Things were going well for the first five days, as the Danes and I got on famously, and even occasionally helped Dashka in his platform sportswear transactions, before tucking him up in the afternoons and evenings when his love of vodka unfortunately got the better of him. However, on the afternoon of day five we reached the Russian border, and it was here that things took a decided turn for the worse.

Alert readers may remember the border guards at Belarus, (I know I certainly do)-the ones who came in to stare at me and shake their heads?-well, it transpired that they had been so busy gawping at the foreigner in their midst, that they "accidentally forgot’ to stamp my customs declaration form in the appropriate place, which meant that officially I had not brought any money or possessions into Russia-and so consequently now, I was not permitted to take any out either. I say that the Belarussians "accidentally forgo f to stamp my form, because it later came to light that the same thing accidentally also happened to number of other European and American passengers on the train. In fact many had been told that they did not need the form stamped and had been waved through the green channel with not a care in the world, such that the more cynical amongst them had begun to suspect that the whole thing was a scam, designed to rob them of their hard earned dollars-a conspiracy theory which I can neither prove nor refute; all I can say is that I was actually there, and that I know what I believe to be the truth of the matter.

Naturally, faced with this disquieting development viz my worldly belongings, I was somewhat reluctant to abandon all of my clothes and currency in Russia, as such a manoeuvre might prove a tad inconvenient during the rest of my travels, and I was on the point of raising an objection or two to this proposal when the burly customs officer, who had boarded the train and stood menacingly blocking the doorway of our compartment while informing me of this state of affairs, beckoned me out into the corridor of the train, before leaning in close to my ear and muttering in a conspiratorial voice of broken English: You have a big problem. It will cost $100 to fix it, or you will be on the street. At which point he motioned violently towards the station platform and I knew what he meant. It was the sort of experience that Judith Chalmers wouldn’t tell you about, and my heart began to sink. Of course, it may well be the case that, although personally entirely innocent of any charge, thanks to the lack-lustre diligence of the Belarussians, I had legitimately incurred a $100 fine-or then again, it may have been the case that the wily officer was simply trying to exploit my situation and enhance his monthly salary-all I can say is that I was actually there; I know which of these options I believe to be the case, but you, gentle reader, must make up your own mind.

In the event, I felt that 100$ was a bit steep, baring in mind my already limited budget, and consequently I declined the officer’s kindly help-which meant that I was hastily removed from the train and held under armed guard until it had pulled away into the evening sunset, when I was graciously permitted to sleep on the concrete floor of the station’s waiting room.

If all this sounds a bit depressing and disheartening, it was-but at least I was not alone in my suffering, as it turned out that eight other passengers had also refused to be helped. Indeed, just to show what a small world it is, one of my fellow refuse-niks was born and bred in Darlington and had studied psychology at Durham University while I had been employed there.

The following morning, greatly refreshed from a sound sleep on the cold and dirty floor, we all tried to buy new tickets for the next train into Mongolia, (there were only two per day), in order to continue our journey, only to be informed by a stern-looking lady ensconced in the bulletproof ticket booth, that there were no such tickets available. At this point, far from being discouraged or bitter, our spirits were high and we were in a generous mood as each of us decided to make a contribution towards the Voluntary Organisation for Democratic Kapitalist Advancement-(VODKA for short)-which the ticket woman accepted gratefully on our behalf. Now as luck would have it, just at that very moment, the ticket-seller, whose face had hitherto been sufficient to curdle milk unaided, almost began to smile, as she suddenly remembered that in fact there were tickets available for the next train-a fact which had entirely escaped her memory until then. There may be those amongst you who feel that we nine helpless foreigners had been cynically forced to bribe a railway official in order to avoid spending another night sleeping on the station floor, but such strange co-incidences do occur-witness the citizen of Darlington above. All I can say is, I was actually there, and I know what I believed happened, while you, gentle reader, should make up your own mind.

And so it was that I rejoined the next train later that day, and arrived to sample the Bubonic delights of the

Mongolian capital, Ulan Bataar, 24 hours later but wiser.

So, you’re in the middle of the Gobi desert, there are five of you plus a driver, in a van with a leaking radiator. You know that water is running low and you’ve been told that the nearest well is two days away. What do you do with the remainder of your water reserves? Do you: 1) carefully try to conserve the precious resource in the hope that the six people will each have enough to drink and still be able to nurse the van through to the well? Or do you: 2) wait until there is no-one else around, pour it all out into a bucket, and then use it to wash your hair? I suspect that your answer to this conundrum will largely depend on whether you are: a) a man, or b) one of the other type.

One of the hazards of travelling alone is that occasionally the solitary tourist needs to join a group of other travellers in order to share costs; and to this effect, I agreed to hire a van and driver with two other men, and also, regrettably, two of the other type-and this is where the problems began.

There will no doubt be gentlemen readers out there who, at some point in their life, have been mis-guided enough to take the apple of their eye away on a camping trip-although even when this seemingly agreeable venture is to be carried out somewhere as relatively civilised as say, the Lake District, within minutes the said gentlemen will no doubt have begun to realise that their apple has turned rather sour, faced as they are with the cruel and daunting prospect of having to walk possibly as far as 20 yards to the nearest toilet, which in itself is something of a crushing blow, but when it subsequently transpires that there is also a complete lack of electrical sockets for them to plug their hair-dryers into, and that there may be insects, or even worse, spiders present in the Great Outdoors, such foolhardy gentlemen are soon forced to realise the egregious errors of their ways, and are compelled to conclude that the whole camping idea was a huge mistakefrom the moment of its conception onwards. Let me take this opportunity to assure such gentlemen, that going camping in the Gobi for twelve days with not just one, but two of the other type, was a mistake of an even greater magnitude.

Of course, the fundamental trouble with the other type lies in the fact that as soon as they receive a set of perfectly clear instructions or guidance of any sort, they suddenly become acutely dyslexic. Our instructions, for example, clearly stated that it was to be a camping expedition. But somehow, the other types understood camping to mean a string of conveniently located 5-star hotels. We were also quite clearly told that we would be in the desert-and surely implicit in this notion is the glaringly obvious fact that the desert is something of a hot and dusty place, and that, in the course of driving through such a terrain, a certain amount of heat and dust was likely to be encountered-and so accordingly, the two other types complained constantly about the heat and the dust. As any fool knows however, at night, temperatures in the desert can drop considerably, such that it can even become quiet chilly-causing the two other types to constantly whine and grumble about the cold. But in mid-morning and in the evening, the temperature is just nice-thereby forcing the other types to complain that the track we were driving on was too bumpy, that their hair was going frizzy, and that the sand dunes clashed with the colour of their eyeshadow…..ya-da, ya-da, ya-da.

The two men I had joined up with foolishly wasted their time trying to placate the other types, while I valiantly ignored them-1 ignored them that is, until the hair-washing incident above-at which point, I gave them my full attention-for several long minutes.

It’s quite difficult to describe the strange and beautiful Gobi-the word itself is just Mongolian for desert-although they then go on to differentiate between a further 33 types of desert-which may explain why trying to pin down the Gobi is such a problem. For a start, most of the surface sand has been stripped away by the constant winds and deposited as large sand dunes in the south (the largest in the world), and theremaining surface is a compact of small pebbles and stones which give the ground an almost completely black appearance, with the feeling of a disused quarry. There are tufts of grass growing up through the stones, and occasionally areas of turf which wild (and domestic) bactrian (two-humped) camels and horses graze upon; but just to prove that eking out an existence in this semi-scrub wilderness is still a hazardous affair, every now and then the landscape is broken by the sight of that old Hollywood cliche-a large carcass stretched out on the arid ground, with its ribs pointing up towards the unforgiving sun. Eagles of various types also abound; circling and swooping, but mainly just resting in whatever shade they can find, while small grey jerboas (a type of rodent, a bit like a gerbil) are everywhere, with their holes peppering the rough tracks, (there being no formal roads out here), with the occasional herd of ibex (a type of gazelle), or a few grey cranes taking flight. Like the ground, the butterflies in the Gobi are also black.

Eating in the Gobi (and indeed in Mongolia generally) is of course, something of an experience in itself. On our first night, we caught and ate a marmot, (a big gopher-like rodent), which was quite pleasant, tasting like a very game lamb. (One of the other types was a vegetarian, while the other one refused to eat it having seen its cute face-but as this meant there was all the more for me, I can’t really pretend I cared). Other interesting items on the menu were provided by the nomadic ger families we encountered on the way, (a ger is a large round felt tent) and these included airag-fermented mare’s (horse) milk (which tastes about as pleasant as it sounds); dried yak cheese (another one to avoid), and the very pleasant cow and garlic stew. Observant readers will notice that I said cow rather than beef’-Mongolia is a harsh place and waste is not tolerated, so almost the entire cow goes into the pot-liver, kidneys, intestines, brain, lungs, you name it-and I must say, it all tasted very nice (no, really), although some of the textures were a bit unusual. I caused a bit of amusement when, having tackled a kidney, I delicately put aside the various tubes, the hard centre and the connective tissues attached to it-surely the best part?" the family smiled at me as they munched on a bit of heart and aorta.

Temperatures at this time of year (late summer) hover around 50°C through the day, (I had taken the precaution of bringing an electronic thermometer with me in order to record just such interesting facts and figures), but because there is almost no humidity, this feels like a very pleasant 25 or 30°C-and this, of course, is the danger. At night however, it can plunge down below freezing point (we even managed some hailstones at one point), and because of the contrast with the day, it can often feel even colder. Another aspect of the Gobi that’s hard to communicate is the sheer size of the place. The scrub wilderness stretches away in all directions to the horizon, with just an occasional range of purple mountains in the distance, such that it’s possible to drive for five or six hours and appear not to have moved anywhere, as apparently the same bit of scrubland is still there rolling away to some similar looking purple mountains on the distant horizons. This illusion of seemingly unlimited space is increased by the fact that the Mongolians themselves have no notion of land ownership, (they are largely nomadic), and so there are no boundaries or fences to divide up the landscape and act as mileposts-there is just the Gobi and the turquoise sky, which at night, is perfectly clear and is excellent for star gazing-the Big Dipper is particularly bright and prominent at this time of the year, while the whole of the delicate Milky Way arches in a shimmering veil overhead. Such contrasts and points of beauty were of course lost on the two other types-but we finally managed to persuade them to cease their constant whining, when, after four days of hard driving, a dust storm blew us into a town. The town consisted of a satellite dish and a shop. The shop sold Mars bars and chocolate biscuits. Enough said.

At certain poignant and eye-watering moments in a football match, the sympathetic commentator will be left with nothing to do but wince and say: "Don’t rub them,

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a ger camp in the Terelj region

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the in-house entertainment kicks injust count ‘em," and this phrase had been playing on my mind quite a bit, after spending a couple of days horse-riding through the beautiful Alpine-like scenery of the Terelj region, just to the north-east of the capital. I had never ridden a horse before; and I’m still not sure that I’ve ridden a horse yet, but I did manage to stay on the beast for a surprising percentage of the time-although this, as it happens, was perhaps my down-fall, as it would have proved to be less painful in the long run just to fall off the animal and walk.

There may be those amongst you who are regular horse riders back in England, and you may wonder what all the fuss is about-riding a horse is a perfectly comfortable affair you may think. But, gentle reader, I must remind you that you ride with the luxury of a padded leather saddle to cushion all of your jogs and jolts: in Mongolia they scoff at such notions, and instead make their saddles from wood-a material which would be uncomfortable enough on its own-but the singular design of a Mongolian saddle also ensures that there’s an up-right section behind the rider to stop him from sliding off back-wards, together with an upright section in front of him, just where he would least want an upright section to be.

Needless to say, several hours of enduring such madness had left me some-what ….ahem….tender. Still, looking on the bright side, I had no plans to start a family in the immediate future (sorry mum), and Odbilick, my guide, assured me that in four or five days time, I was almost certain to regain the full use of my legs.

While out (enjoying?) such outdoor activities, we often stopped at the odd isolated ger or two for refreshments. At one such improvised road-side greasy-spoon, we feasted on the national dish of buuz-steamed mutton dumplings-which were exceptionally good; and, never one to hold back on the unstinting praise where unstinting praise was due, I told my host as much.

You like them? he replied. They were made by my daughter. She will make a good wife. Are you married? he asked with a knowing glint in his eye. Now at this point, ever the dashing chevalier, I became a little concerned with the situation, and unfamiliar with all of the subtle ins and outs of Mongolian etiquette, I began to worry whether, by accepting her food, I had, in some way, compromised the girl, and as such, was I now bound by ancient Mongolian custom to marry her on pain of death? I had, after all, nibbled on her mutton dumplings-not the type of situation of which the well-mannered gentleman cares to boast-and accordingly, I began to assess my options. The girl in question was young and pretty and a good cook to boot-all the desirable qualities the discerning man-about-town could look for in a wife. She also had the added bonus of not being able to speak English-of course, in time she would learn the lingo and be able to nag with the best of them-but the first two or three years of marriage would undoubtedly be absolute bliss. The romantics among you however, will be disappointed to learn that a part of me kept hearing Cliff singing Batchelor Boy and so I declined my host’s kind offer and he accepted my decision with all good humour. (History does not record the young lady’s feelings on the matter).

Back on the horse-trail, the lovely scenery was enhanced by the fact that the leaves on the trees were now turning colour. The birches were dappled with orange and yellow, while the blueberry bushes around them had already turned russet and dark purple. The craggy mountains which augment the whole area are themselves each dotted with huge grey granite boulders, worn into curious shapes by centuries of weather, and now also brightly decorated in all manner and shades of lichen. Underfoot, the black peat was hollow and dry, ready to receive the winter rains, while the whole ground seemed alive with noisy grasshoppers, some in vivid blues and reds, and everywhere marmots and weasels played in the hazy golden sunshine, while at intervals along the landscape, pyramids of small stones and logs had been erected into ovoos, (an outdoor shamanistic altar, which is used to offer up gifts and prayers to the local deities), with stunning electric-blue silk scarves fluttering from them in the breeze.

Back in the dusty capital, Ulaan Bataar, I was staying with the family of my guide in their 1960’s Soviet-built flat, as we had become good friends on our trip. Of course, theydidn’t speak a word of English, but looking on the bright side, this at least meant that my Mongolian was coming on in leaps and bounds.

The family possessed a small black and white TV, and like homes all across the globe, they enjoyed watching soap operas, with their favourite being the every-day story of a family of circus contortionists. At one point, the youngest boy in the dramatic televised story ran into his room and began to cry, and I wondered whether this was because he couldn’t get his left leg behind his right ear properly. I was informed by my friends however, that his theatrical show of tears had in fact been occasioned because his on-screen parents were splitting apart-an unfortunate turn of phrase given that the positions his mum and dad were currently assuming were enough to cleave any normal human being in two-but I knew what they meant. As well as our daily diet of television, my host family were also very keen to see me eat-as much for the show of daring and bravery that I put on, as from their deep-rooted obligations of lavish hospitality. In order to elucidate this a bit further, I should perhaps explain that we lived on a diet of sheep. We had sheep stew, sheep soup, sheep with rice or with noodles, sheep dumplings (as above) and, sometimes, in order to break the monotony a bit, just sheep on its own. Astute readers may have guessed from the above menu that Mongols are very distrustful of vegetables-in fact they are convinced that such non-animal products are positively harmful, to the point that Mongol children are warned never to eat up their greens, and just as in the West we all know a few apocryphal tales of hardy individuals who smoked 90 cigarettes a day and drank a bottle of whisky before breakfast every morning, and lived happily to be 108, (and even then, they only died when they were run over by a bus), so too in Mongolia everyone knows a case of a friend of a friend who once ate a carrot-although, of course, he died a slow and painful death when he was only 27. My hosts however were well aware of the western fascination for these undoubted killers, and to this effect, in the interests of maintaining a balanced diet, towards the end of each meal, I was ceremoniously presented with a boiled potato. The younger members of the family looked on in open-mouthed awe at my bravery as I laughed in the face of Death and ate the root vegetable, while the older members of the clan shook their heads and tut-tutted at the foolishness of my certain suicide.

Vegetarians who may also be thinking of visiting Mongolia should not despair however, as this year, every 50 yards or so along the central streets of the capital, fruit and veg. stalls have appeared, selling everything from bananas to turnips, (I recommend the water-melon). I can’t imagine that they do much local trade, but while I was there, the western tourists, whose bowel systems had ground to a standstill faced with the meat-only Atkins-type diet of the nation, certainly seemed to be keeping them in a healthy profit.

I mentioned this piece of tourist-related news because the government here was busily preparing to launch its much-vaunted Visit Mongolia 2003 campaign, in an attempt to attract a bit more foreign currency into the indigenous economy. The locals however were more sceptical about such advertising expense-if people have money and want to see the Gobi, they will come; if they can’t afford it or don’t want to see Mongolia, they won’t-was their argument, and was difficult to disagree.

For my part, if the gods are willing, I shall certainly return to this scenic, and as yet un-spoiled, country, in future years; but sadly, my visa was at an end, and the delights of China awaited me across the border, on a short and stimulating 30-hour train journey, in which one toilet was shared by 32 people, and even then, this basic facility was locked shut for eight and a half hours at the border, as China has had the good sense to run all of its trains on a different gauge wheel-bogey to the rest of the world, and consequently the W.C. is out of bounds while the entire rail-carriage, with all passengers still on board, is hoisted up on a mechanical lift, and a new, narrower set of wheels fixed in place underneath it, ready to ride the rails of the great People’s Republic.

China

Those of you who are old enough to remember 1979, will no doubt be able to recall the greatest cult TV sensation ever to have hit the small screen-the (confusingly Japanese-produced) version of the epic Chinese myth, Monkey.

The story revolved around the young monk Tripitaka, and his overland journey to India in order to bring back copies of the Buddhist scriptures that China did not as yet have. He is aided in his travels by Zhu Bajie (Pigsy), the white Dragon Horse, Sha Wujing (Sandy), and of course, the irrepressible Sun Wu Kong-the Monkey King. The original saga is known as Xi Yu Li (Journey to the West), and although the myth itself is well known, not many people realise that, like most folktales across the world, the story is in fact based on a true account of the Tang-period monk, Xuan Zang (596-664), who really did make a journey on foot, through China, across the Himalayas and into India, where he gathered various Buddhist sutras and returned with them to the ancient Chinese capital Chang’an-modern day Xi’an. The emperor of the day, Taizang, was so pleased with the monk’s efforts that he had a temple and pagoda (a tower) specially built to house the precious scrolls, and this temple-the Small Goose Pagoda-still stands today, just south of the city. It was my own pilgrimage to this touchstone of myth and reality which had originally drawn me to China, and although, when considered strictly as a piece of architecture, the pagoda itself may today appear a bit shabby and run-down, especially when compared to its sister structure, the Big Goose Pagoda, (just two km away, sited in the temple to which Xuan Zang originally belonged, and hence from where his journey began), for me, this very faded and dilapidated atmosphere certainly added to its charm.

For example, the very upbeat and touristy Big Goose Pagoda was so smartly painted and its plaster work so smooth, that the whole thing could easily have been built in 1990, and its grounds were full of tour parties of Chinese and Western visitors, while the out-buildings, which had once served as quarters for the monks, had now been converted into souvenir shops-none of which really helped the modern visitor to picture himself in the quiet confines of a devout and ancient temple. By pleasant contrast however, I was the only visitor to the grounds and lush bamboo gardens which surround the Small Goose Pagoda-originally constructed in 707 AD, but which lost the top two of its initial fifteen stories in an earthquake, and so now only stands at around 45 metres tall. Inside, a strong sense of history still pervades, as the original brick-work has been left exposed, so that discerning visitors can touch the Tang-dynasty masonry on all sides, while the narrow wooden staircases are dimly lit with only a 60W light-bulb on each creaking timber landing, (and on two of these, even this meagre lighting wasn’t working, leaving me to grope around in the dark, in search of the next stair-well up).

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If these surviving pagodas were the only two tourist attractions Xi’an held, I would probably have been the only western visitor to the place, and would doubtless have enjoyed my stay all the more, as I had done at my first port of call in the Republic, the friendly and lively coal-mining centre of Datong, just over the border from Mongolia, in the North of the country, where the cheery locals are only too happy to shout out Hollow! at any passing foreigner, as they cycle past on their way to work in the mornings. But sadly, (from my point of view at any rate), in 1974 , two peasants were digging for a well, when they accidentally happened upon the now world-famous tomb of Qin Shi Huang, guarded over for all eternity by the massed ranks of clay warriors known as the Terracotta Army. In his own day, Qin’s, (pronounced chin), main claim to fame was the fact that he was the first ruler who managed to unify the disparate warring states of ancient China to become its first Emperor in around 200 B.C.-indeed, his name is why we in the West now call this country Chin-a, (the Chinese themselves call it Zhonggou). For me personally, the Army was something of a disappointing experience, as the swarming hoards of frenzied tourists congregate in an air-craft hangar, and are kept a good 20 yards away from the soldiers themselves,letfthe Yungang Buddhist Caves outside Datong (begun 453 AD)

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the Small Goose pagoda in Xi’an (707AD)

squinting off into the gloom in a vain attempt to try and make out the personal, life-like and individual face that each clay warrior is supposed to posses. Having previously seen a couple of TV documentaries about the tombs, which took the viewer right up in amongst the soldiers themselves, I certainly didn’t feel that I had gained anything extra from seeing the figures in real life, while the local tourist board’s billing of the Army as the 8th Wonder of the World was a long way short of anything amounting to accuracy. Of course, in the wake of the discovery of the tomb, an entire Terracotta Army business has now sprung up in and around Xi’an, turning this once charming and anciently walled city into the biggest tourist trap this side of Venice, and accordingly, hotel prices have shot up, as has the tourist-weary savvy of the local traders and restaurant owners, so that while in other cities across the country, or even on the trains, I was received with great hospitality and generous friendship, in Xi’an, such manners and kindnesses have been forgotten, to the great detriment of the region.

Still, the real China and its wonderful people was only ever a train ride away out of Xi’an, and in my next port of call, Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province-a district famous for its spicy food-my liking for China was suitably rekindled, as the chilli inspired cuisine was more than reflected in the friendly warmth of its citizens, and this, together with my love of Sun Wu Kong (the Monkey King), soon buoyed up my spirits once more. Everybody now: Born from an egg on a mountain top ….

When I mentioned to friends and family back home that I was about to travel China-wards, several people asked me if I was going to see the Three Gorges before the infamous dam was built. No, I replied confidently, I’m not going anywhere near there.

And so, true to form, after a few days spent around thequickly developing town of Leshan, which, amongst other things, is home to the biggest stone sculpture of Buddha in the world, (7imetres tall, with work on the carving beginning in 713AD), I found myself taking a leisurely six-day journey on a slow boat across China, (I’m sure there’s a song in there somewhere), travelling along the third longest river in the world, the Yangtze (3,900 miles), and, of course, passing through the Three Gorges. (Indeed, Sichuan Province, where I boarded the boat, literally means Four Rivers, as it’s here, in this mountainous region, that four of the nation’s great waterways have their spiritual or geographical starting points).

For the first two days of the trip, I travelled third class in a cabin with seven others, as far as Yichang, on what was basically a tourist barge, as almost everyone on board-Chinese and foreigners alike-were there on holiday to see the majesty of the Three Gorges. The Yangtze itself is a dirty yellow colour, and is quite narrow for much of the way, being surrounded by steep limestone cliffs, some of which tower above the boat and are covered in whole forests of fir trees. The scenery is impressive enough, but very similar along the whole of the route, and in truth, can get a bit repetitive-although just before the Three Big Gorges, in a seven-hour detour from the main course of the river, are the far more delicate, subtle and dramatic backdrops of the Three Lesser Gorges, along which the water is a beautifully clear turquoise blue, so that it becomes easy to view the fish and crabs living along the river bottom, while frogs and large butterflies play along the shallow sides, as the vertical cliffs in places almost threatened to crush the tiny tour boat, as we squeezed through seemingly impossible gaps between them, and overhead, large monkeys threw twigs at us.

Back on the main boat, while passing through the Three Big Gorges, we passed the bleached and bloated body of a dead man floating downstream, causing everyone on board-including a good many of the crew members-to come over and stare at his buoyant remains. However, I regret to say that we didn’t stop to fish the grizzly cadaver out of the water: It’s quite common along this river, was the general and somewhat unfeeling comment, passed by the knowing regulars.

At Yichang, I swapped the tourist boat for a river bus and a three-day journey on to Shanghai. On this trip, unlike the tourist-friendly lure of the Three Gorges, I was afforded the privileged position of being the only foreigner on board-a detail which meant that virtually every other passenger came to have their photos taken with me, because, and I quote: Your nose is so beautiful-a fact which seems to have entirely escaped the population of Europe. My uniqueness also ensured that throngs of fellow passengers were on hand every time I entered the ship’s canteen-as they were keen to see if a foreigner really could use chopsticks-and I’m pleased to report that for my part, I was able to keep the crowds thoroughly entertained, not only with my mesmeric ability to use the local cutlery, but also simply from the fact that I am left-handed-the Chinese as a nation completely lack the gene which causes this phenomenon-and loud gasps escaped my captive audience when one of them asked me to write my name down for him, and I did so while holding the pen in my left hand. Where did you learn to do that? they asked in awestruck wonder.

As well as these acts of mass amusement, I was also glad to see that my fellow passengers kept alive the ancient maritime tradition of hacking up their expectorant all over the decks and smoking voraciously for the entire journey. Smoking is a popular pastime in China, with some enthusiasts even managing to smoke while they are sleeping-and I’m sorry to report that both of the above habits are not exclusive to the men-folk of the nation. These minor irritants were as nothing however, when compared to certain parents’ insistence on teaching their children to urinate all over the deck-not over board into the river where it wouldn’t matter-but all over the decks themselves where I was trying to stand and take in the views. This is also regrettably a common practice on dry land, in the streets of China too; and indeed, most toddlers of the nation come specially equipped with crotch-less trousers and underwear in order to further facilitate this procedure.

However, every cloud has a silver lining as they say, and I suppose I should really be thankful for this small mercy, as the boat came supplied with only one toilet per deck. There were 54 cabins on each deck, each one containing 8 beds. On top of this, there were between 40 and 50 peasants sleeping rough on the deck floors, (amongst the pools of phlegm and urine), who also shared our W.C. Even this might not have been too bad if the toilet on my deck was open and functional: but it wasn’t, and so we were all obliged to share the toilet on the deck below with all of it’s passengers, and after three days of this, I could certainly see the sense in teaching your children to use the decks instead.

The peasants, (they call themselves peasants, it’s not just me being rude), as well as providing a human carpet and obstacle course for the deck floors, could also often be relied upon to provide other forms of entertainment for the rest of us passengers. One man, for example, thoughtfully brought along two sacks tied to each end of a longish bamboo pole, both of which were full of geese, which provided all concerned with endless hours of amusement as they had formed the endearing habit of honking and squawking at five ‘o’clock every morning and thereby waking us all up. Not that we cabin-paying travellers could get much sleep anyway, as we were all officially woken at 6:45am each day, with a rousing selection of tunes in praise of the many merits and virtues of Chairman Mao-and you’d be surprised at just how many of these there are. Also occasionally, a Chinese pop song would be played too, and twice the resident in-house DJ had the temerity to play Celine Dion singing My Heart Will Go On. Whether the Chinese were aware of the significance of playing this song on a boat, I couldn’t tell; but I’m of the opinion that no-one who plays Celine Dion can be entirely innocent, and I suspect that the DJ had a very dark sense of humour-and indeed, this rather disturbing Titanic theme was further heightened at several points during various safety drills, when the entire crew went about their duties wearing bright orange life-jackets-while no such equipment was available to us mere passengers.

Not that an ice-berg would have stood much of a chance on the Yangtze, as, even at this time of year, (October), the temperature was still around 28°C through the day, and just dipped below 20 at night, all of which, combined with the humidity rising from the river, (not to mention the man-made humidity rising from the boat decks), made it quite a sticky and uncomfortable journey.

One day in the canteen, not being able to read any Chinese, I pointed to some of the chalk markings on the black-board menu, at which the chef-the wonderful one-legged Mr Zhu-nodded and produced a plate of noodles and meat with a few chillies, some peppers and onions. It was very nice, although I wasn’t sure what type of meat it was. Now of course, the secret of enjoying any meal while abroad is-if it tastes nice, don’t ask what it is, just eat it and have done-why spoil an otherwise perfectly good dinner? Accordingly, towards the end of my meal, I tried, with my limited Mandarin, to find out what I had been eating. Was it pork?-Mr Zhu smiled and shook his head. He told me what it was-but in Chinese-and it was a word I didn’t know. Mr Zhu put his hands up beside his ears and mimed some horns. Oh, I said, it’s goat?-No-Cow?-No. At this point I resorted to my small dictionary, but the word we wanted wasn’t there, and our communication in Mandarin was at an end. Luckily, Mr Zhu also spoke Korean: unluckily, I didn’t, so we were back to square one. Finally, the redoubtable Mr Zhu hobbled back into his office and returned moments later, quite bizarrely, with an old Christmas card. On the card was a picture of Santa Claus hugging a reindeer. He pointed to the reindeer and then at my plate-so it appears I had been eating Rudolph for lunch. Quite how reindeer meat had found its way into China, let alone into the canteen of our rusting vessel, I’ll never know-but I suppose I should just be grateful that he didn’t point to Santa.

After Yichang, and the huge foundations and structures of the proposed hydro-electric dam, the Yangtze widens considerably, so that often, with a little fog obscuring the horizons, it became impossible to see the shores at all, giving the appearance that we were sailing on a flat brown sea-an impression which was heightened by a brief sighting of two of the river’s rare freshwater dolphins-and slowly this vast, and still important economic carriageway, swept us along through Hubei province and the Anhui region, past the ancient capital of Nanking, before finally depositing its burden into the Yellow Sea, in Jiangsu district, 6,400 km from its origin in Tibet, at the old colonial port of Shanghai, where I too, made my exit.

Arriving at Shanghai at night, it’s easy to see why the Chinese are so keen on building hydro-electric dams all over the place, (including of course the edifice currently underway which threatens to submerge the Three Gorges), as the waterfront alone at Shanghai must use more electricity-with its advertising signs, floodlights and spotlights sweeping the skyline, not to mention the various coloured lighting and laser displays that are there just for fun-than the entire output of the National Grid back home. Indeed, trying to take photos of some of these neon wonders, I had a hard time attempting to convince the auto-flash on my camera that it was in fact night-time, and not high-noon as the lighting conditions may have seemed to suggest.

Night-time apart however, there’s not really much to see or do in Shanghai-the city itself is the main attraction, with its towering sky-scrapers dominating the streets at every turn; but the designs of these monsters are now so bland and international that if you ignore the fact that all the street signs are in Mandarin, Shanghai doesn’t really feel very Chinese at all. It’s true of course, that behind the ultra-modern glass and steel facade of the city, glimpses of the grand old colonial buildings still peep out, (following the Opium Wars in the mid 19th century, Shanghai became a trading base and an important sea port for the British, French and Americans-indeed, the name Shanghai just means by the sea), although these now gently crumbling relics have long since been abandoned to the poorer citizens of the region, while in their wake, all the ethnic hustle and bustle of the Chinese street markets and noodle-sellers still continues. Away from these more traditional centres of commerce however, huge bright new shopping centres have sprung up, as well as giant twenty or thirty-storied arcades, each of which are known, (quite justifiably), as cities, and which each only sells one type of product, such as mobile phones or Stanley tools, while outside, the streets too are often set up such that each shop along its length will only supply one specialist type of merchandise, with streets for example which only contain bookshops, while others sell cosmetics or pianos-all of which is very handy for the shopper who is keen to hunt out a bargain and who wishes to compare prices without the hassle of walking too far; but I imagine it to be a bit of a nightmare for those who happen to live in the street that only sells suitcases, and who are thus forced to traipse right across the other side of town to the street which sells shoes should they happen to require a new pair-or worse still, those who find themselves in need of a wholesome and hearty meal, but live in the street which is populated only by outlets of McDonalds.

Despite these pleasing anomalies however, the overall and lasting impression of Shanghai is that its sterile streets could easily belong to any city in the world: it’s rather like a huge international airport-clean but characterless-while trying a bit too hard to impress, sporting as it does the world’s 3rd tallest building as well as its 1st and 3rd longest suspension bridges.

It’s a pity that I didn’t particularly take to Shanghai, because I arrived there at the start of a National holiday, and consequently was stuck there for a week. (If you’ve ever had the pleasure of being stuck in a traffic jam back home on a bank holiday weekend, then you will be able to appreciate that when 1.6 billion Chinese all go on vacation at once, pandemonium ensues and it becomes impossible to buy train or bus tickets to or from anywhere). Perhaps because of this festive increase in population, (although I think it’s the norm), the streets of Shanghai also come equipped with special traffic police on duty. These power-crazed individuals are not there to control cars, bikes or any other road users however: no, they are in place to ensure that the city’s thousands of pedestrians adhere strictly to all of the regulations involved in walking

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the Shanghai skyline

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public transport Chinese stylealong its pavements-and woe betide anyone, tourist or local, who accidentally walks down the wrong side of the path, or tries to cross the road when the green man is not showing, as these guardians of public safety will quickly descend and unleash the wrath of Hades onto such urban delinquents, blowing their whistles for all they’re worth and angrily waving their yellow flags-as I found to my cost when I risked life and limb trying to cross the road and thereby move out of lane into the face of the on-coming massed pedestrians, to buy an ice-cream, in an attempt to cool off from the hot, very humid and overcrowded metropolis. Indeed, at one point, around noon one day, it became so excessively tropical that I seriously began to consider rolling my shirt sleeves up and loosening my tie-although thankfully in the end, sanity prevailed.

Moving on from the steam of Shanghai, I eventually managed to secure a ticket and arrived in Beijing with just enough time to see the Great Wall. At this point, it’s certainly worth quoting Richard Nixon’s thoughts on this, the most famous of all Chinese achievements-if only because it begins to make the current incumbent, Mr. Bush, look like an intellectual giant:

This is a Great Wall and only a great people with a great past could have a great wall and such a people with such a great wall will surely have a great future.

Thanks Tricky Dicky, that’s …er…..great. Yes, our

American cousins certainly know how to pick their leaders. The wall itself is everything you might expect of it, being a quite astonishing feat of engineering and planning, as it stretches 6oookm across the north of the country; and when the suitably amazed visitors have finished admiring the construction skills involved in the project, the scenery along either side of the wall-built, of course along the tops of hills and mountains-is every bit as spectacular too. (The irony is however, that the wall in fact never did its job, and China was invaded on many occasions-Chinggis Khan, for example, simply bribed the guards and got through).

Most of the 9km section that I walked along (from Jinshanling to Simatai) is still the original un-renovated wall, built between the 14th to 16th centuries during the Ming dynasty-(the ones famous for the vases)-and it’s still possible to visit the tombs of two of the thirteen Ming emperors who are buried in and around Beijing. This includes the tomb of the charmingly named Ding Ling-who, because of the dynasty he belonged to, is thus known by the