:  To Take Notice of Warning - The Slippery is Crafty - sign outside shopping centre


Forget the Arafat siege, Beijing is at war. Conflict is everywhere.

An army of cranes have invaded the city, and are battling against the flatness of the place. The sun is fighting the smog to try to fry the people of the people's republic. (30C today - I laugh at your British Spring). And if you ever wondered who would come out on top if the greatest fighters had at it, your curiousity need go no further. Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan and Jet Li were okay. But last night, in a random bar in BJ, a secret lurking force was revealed. Number one in China, the Shaolin master himself showed a few moves. After spending a while batting off young women (not boasting here, but people seem to assume that a round-eye on his own in a bar writing a book is a sex tourist), a generous man, whose name sounded like Wang Wei (suspiciously like Wrong Way, and have you ever thought that Tianamen Square sounded a bit like Chinaman's Choir) made himself aware to me. He was actually a bit tasty, his swollen girth masking a surprising flexibility - he could quite happily kick the atoms on the left side of my swaying nose, and demonstrated many different ways of disabling people (mainly a long suffering barman). Not only could he disarm the pen wielding barman, but he encouraged a young woman to have at him with a carving knife, and dispatched her too. A little unfair given that she can't have weighed more than about 7 stone.

The barmen was seemingly unused to serving drinks - perhaps he was just a sparring partner in a white shirt that Wang Wei dragged around with him. I gleaned this after asking for a vodka and coke. Much scratching of heads and conspiring with cohorts. I demonstrated that it was normal to fill a tumbler with Stolly and stick a slice of orange and some ice in it, and pointed to the menu which showed the price of a shot of vodka, and started swigging and swaying, chuckling to myself. From batting away young women and martial artists, I was then set upon by the manager. One of the rejected women had told the manager about my vodka stealing antics, and he came to make ammends. Shouting cheers and forcing me to neck the tumbler (hey, no skin off my nose pal, I've just escaped Russian Alcoholics Anonymous), I was then obliged to down wine, beer and anything else (free for some reason - strange revenge indeed).

There was quite a crowd gathered by this point, so to distract attention, I started haggling about the price of a massage with the young lady who grassed me up. The art of haggling, as I see it, is to not actually want what is on offer, and show a take it or leave it attitude. Luckily, I didn't want what was on offer, and I got the price of a massage from 200 USD to about 35 USD, before a crotch-grabbing pimp negotiator arrived on the scene. Luckily for him, it was his own crotch he was grabbing, as I had a skinful and the teachings of Wang Wei at my disposal, and I was quite frankly invincible, a reincarnation of Genghis Khan crossed with Arnold Schwarzenegger's bigger, stronger brother.

Suffice it to say I escaped a fate worse that syphillis, and took myself to the Blind Man Massage House to nurse my hangover on this day of rest. Well, my pain inflicter was a man, but he wasn't blind. Strong though. Capable of inducing nausea with two fingers to the spine of any prone victim. Let alone a victim also suffering from a night of violent boozing. Blind Man Massage? Looking at my hair in the mirror this morning, I reckon all the blind people got lost and ended up shearing hair in the streets.
posted by Garreth at 12:16 AM

3/30/2002

:  Most unusual food in an internet cafe so far: Warm, triple-decker sandwich. One side strawberry jam, one side minced pig. Nice

I decided I was thinking about decisions too much today. This led me to make a rash decision to see what happened. Some kids on the last leg of the train journey had mentioned that barbers shops are often knocking shops. So as I passed a badly toothed old giffer at a street stall today, I watched as he appeared to be chewing bits of wood. His stall was just a cart with some hair-clippers and a towel on it. "Right, haircut time" I decided, and before reason could intervene, I had haggled the geriatric gutter-barber down to one dollar, and sat upon the stool of fear.

The experience made me at once think of my uncle's lesson in parking-by-sound. This involved ferrying him and some of his drunken pals in a windowless van with no mirrors. To park, reverse gear was selected and steering was guessed until the van made a noise due to some pavement furniture or another vehicle. Today's haircut had a similar lack of mirrors, but a good deal of sound on my part when the clippers strayed somewhere I didn't fancy.

Post haircut, I checked myself into a real barber to survey the damage. Which could well have been a knocking shop. And the damage is moderate.

posted by Garreth at 5:16 AM

:  Worst dumpling of the month: some kind of pig donut, served in the night market in Beijing. With piss weak beer.
Least meaty dumpling of the month: some weird green stuff dumpling fried by a street hawker. They are great chaps, the yellers at the night market; they just holler and whine until you look at them, and then they give you the chance to buy dumplings (hurrah). While they are cooking them, they shout "Doggy!" at you, and laugh.

posted by Garreth at 5:05 AM

:  Best reply of the day: "Do you have email address?" The reply was to my now standard response to people hawking or touting things, which is "No thanks, I'm only interesting in drinking and girls". This is used all too often now that the city is crawling with 'art students' who want to sell you their work. Out of curiousity, I have accompanied a few such 'art students' (with a remarkable grasp of English), and seen their galleries. It's a standard tourist trap; the deal is that they try to get you into the gallery, saying things like, "We are going to display Chinese art in Europe and want your opinion", and once trapped, they see "Which painting you like, we need your opinion", then they single it out and try to sell it to you. A couple of tactics are used: one is to look really sad (they are struggling through art school), another is to tell you how brave and clever you are (?)

The best thing is, they are Chinese, and therefore terribly polite. So you can get them to do things for you. I got one girl to guide me to (Mini-)Mao's Mausoleum, another to get me a taxi to a place full of bars, and a third to interpret my difficulties with a bank teller. It's great! Whereas taxi drivers look at you blankly when you demand to be taken to somewhere that serves booze, 'art students' are bound by courtesy and their knowledge of English to help you. Free guides! And when you start trying to knock them back by asking for "drink and girls" or "drugs and sex", an 'art student' will sometimes give you her email address.... the mind boggles.

Though I may have to give up on Chinese beer. The stuff I have managed to source so far is piss weak, and however fast you drink it, it won't get you drunk. I reckon you could use it as a 'nicorette patch' type approach to hangovers. It's distantly related to real booze, but will rehydrate you. Looking for hard liquor later....

posted by Garreth at 5:02 AM

3/29/2002

:  8000 km by train. That's gotta hurt. and indeed it does. But from my 'junior suite' I am numbed from sensation. Though there is a 'blind man massage' centre somewhere in Beijing that I fancy trying. Must have really big brail on the pavement outside so they can find their way to work. Hohohhoho.

Shout of the day: "I'm lost. Can you help me?" Resulting in connection to 6 different non-english speakers at the hotel. Mind you, I just let loose an 'aaarggh' and people looked at me as though I had said something profound. However, when I try to say 'shei shei' (thank you) they just seek help from English speaking co-workers to translate. I just want to say thank you. Aaarrggh.
posted by Garreth at 3:51 AM

:  Break for the border - a tale yet untold... (aka flight from the bogeymen)

Don't you just love it when you decide to splash out on a cheap hotel, and they upgrade you to a junior suite? Two televisions in two rooms? What do they think I'm going to do with two at the same time?
posted by Garreth at 3:34 AM

3/27/2002

:  Man with preference for synthetic clothes + farm full of hairy beasts = hairy man.

Doesn't emplain why I still smell of yak though.
posted by Garreth at 5:40 AM

:  Worst Guide of the trip so far: A 42 year old Mongolian hippy who agreed to show me the Buddhist monastery in UB. The one the commies didn't obliterate when they killed 10s of thousands of monks, and shredded a thousand Mongolian temples. Once inside, as I marvelled at all the depictions of people being hung by their own entrails, and fat 4-headed dudes having fun with young girls, I started to ask him questions about the various gods. His reply - "I don't like Buddha, I'm an atheist" On pressing him, I got "I forgot". Top banana.
posted by Garreth at 5:27 AM

:  If you miss the panto season in Britain, and are disheartened by the lack of Bobby Ball and Les Dennis in your lives, try the Russia to Mongolia border crossing by train. It lasts about 6 hours, and is hysterical. Cheap Russian goods are blatently smuggled past first the Russian search of the train, and then the Mongolian search. But to keep up appearances, perhaps for the benefit of us tourists, a ridiculous play is acted out.

Things I saw smuggled in my 4 berth cabin included about 1 cubic metre of blister packs of drugs (don't forget to read the label), 15 blankets, 10 cartons of cigarrettes, and maybe a few sacks of potatoes. But there might not be duty on taters. Hiding places were sometimes devious - stuffing cartons of fags under my seat when I wasn't looking, and sometimes obvious - on the floor under the noses of the customs officials.

The Mongolian smuggler puts a tick in the 'tourst visit' box on their customs declaration, and presents this to the customs officials who they are on first name terms with. Doubtless she ticks the same box every time on the twice weekly train journey. A flurry of SMS messages are sent between consipring smugglers, especially when a new customs official arrives who is not in their employ. This official ruthlessly ferrets out all of the goods, and lays them on the cabin beds. A little conspiring and a brief visit into the cabin which is used for 'duty payments', allows the goods to be restashed.

Me, I was smuggling dollars. And I got away with it, even though I omitted to get my entry declaration stamped on arrival in Russia. My secret weapon? Being genuinely clueless. The Russian customs woman told me to change my exit declaration to say 'travellers cheques' rather than 'cash'. And then she threw away my entry declaration. Kind of ruined the whole effect.
posted by Garreth at 5:12 AM

:  Unusual form of communication of the day: Mongolian mobile phones. These are mobile, but attached to a person. And they are the size of a regular desk telephone. From the 1970s. These white behemoths have a little arial, and there bearers are summoned by drivers of cars and pedestrians alike. If it's a car driver who wants to use the phone, the bearer will pass the handset and undertake dialling, and collect payment when the call is done. In the UK, Orange used to pride themselves on customer service. But they never dialled the number for you. Mongolia - 1, UK - 0.
posted by Garreth at 4:59 AM

:  Countdown in Mongolia

"Free Bowels and a Constipant Please Carol"

I'm a self proclaimed hypochondriac, so it should come as no surprise that I decided to take a 3 day course of antibiotics while I was in the countryside. I figured I'd be away from booze, and could drink as much fluid as necessary to help the antibiotics cure all of my imaginary ills. (The countryside being one large toilet, and allowing you the privilege of writing your name in the snow as the whim of your bladder chooses) The toilet was actually one of the 'festival style'. The ones you get at any multi-day music festival, where the revellers build a pyramid of pooh that you can squat above, like a veritable god of waste, straddling a totem pole of dung. Which might possibly have glowsticks still lodged in it, depending on what shenanigens have been occuring in the opaque plastic phoneboxes that shield the occupier from the harsh view of lines of anxious women.

So as the days passed pleasantly down on the farm, and the course of antibiotics were taking effect. Imaginary rashes disappeared, ear infections dissolved, and all manner of ficticious itches, maladies and dibilitating viruses were vanquished. Also pleasant was writing my name on the snowy hillsides to announce my presence to the countless 'spy satellites' which are doubtless looking for me night and day. Although the writing loses out a bit in the night. I was pleasantly surprised to also find that in 3 days I had no need to recourse to the use of the poop pit. Although it was said in the songs of legend which described my visit, 'that a trumpeting would eminate from his ger which resounded through the whole valley'

On returning to the stinky city, I decided to change my flight details, and in a rumage through my rucksack for the 'plane tickets, I happened upon the contra-indications of the Lepramozide which I had been dutifully necking. Immediately I went to the side-effects panel - the breeding ground for doubt in the mind of the hypochondriac. "Dizzyness" - yes I felt a bit dizzy now I thought about it, "dry mouth" - gee, I had been kind of thirsty; the list went on.

Flipping it over, I discovered that I had been taking anti-diaarrhoea tablets. So in a flood, back came my original maladies, plus the side effects, plus a strange feeling that tomorrows train journey to Beijing may be quite eventful...

Always read the label kids.

posted by Garreth at 4:43 AM

:  I like Mongolia. It's good. It's dusty as hell - zilch humidty, and the elements are at best unkind and unpredictable. Two nights ago, I was freezing my butt off in a tent. Today it is sunny (it's sunny most of the time - except at night) and positively above zero. Quite clement for the time of year as you might say. Apparently it is +7C. Awesome.

It's hard to describe the driving style, but at least the 'roads' have a line down the centre in the 'city'. Not that it matters much to the motorists, who hardly see the thin white line as a recommendation even. The only people who would respect the authority of the line are the lemming like pedestrians. They sprint to the line in an effort to cross the road. Then, depending on traffic conditions, they might peg it over to the other side, or more likely, step foreward and back across the line. It's like some huge game of frogger, where they keep dodging traffic which from both directions as it more or less ignores the line they are using as a lillie pad.
posted by Garreth at 4:35 AM

3/26/2002

:  Facts for the visitor to Ulan Bator / Mongolia

• It's dirty. So said a Japanese road builder I met on the train in. He sits behind big dirty machines all day. And he thinks UB is dirty. Which it is. Soviet coal burning power stations corner the city, and you can see them belching black smoke as you come down from the mountains into the smog filled basin.
  
• The currency is the TogRog. Where they have a note which is worth about 1 pence
  
• Talking Mogolian, as less than 0.2% of the world does, sounds like a surpressed sneeze, a strangled gasp and someone preparing to spit
  
• Hawking and Spitting are popular, given the foul dusty conditions, though traditional sports are said to include wreslting and archery
  
• Even with women
  
• Even american women.
  
• Mugging people seems quite popular too. At least that's the reason our cheery Korean landlord gives for carrying a lead pipe in his pocket. He generally is pleased to see you. It is not a long pipe.
  

• A ger is a felt lined tent, in my case in a valley
  
• Mongolians love animals.
  
• You can ride 10 year old donkey/horse beasts to help round up livestock. These horse beasts look quite tired
  
• Anything that can be made of parts of animal probably has been by a Mongolian farmer
  
• Buddhism is popular
  
• They make vodka out of milk. Really. Don't be surprised when they shove a cup full of vodka at you. It's like sweet strong wine
  
• The top buddhists used to make a pipe out of the thigh bone of 18 year old virgin girls. Britney beware. They may make an exception if you tour here. Though with around 40% of the population below the poverty line, I doubt many bona fide CDs of yours have been bought here. Actually, why would anyone buy bona fide Britney? All her songs sounds the same. Must be getting old. But they do. Whiney, inane drivel.
  
• Fat and milk feature heavily in the diet, but it it is f cold here at times.
  
• Burning wood in a stove in the middle of your tent seems dangerous at first. But then when the night sets in, you start heaping in the wood yourself, ignoring the burning sparks that fly off the crackling faggots. *
  
• Pies are awesome. Absolutely ace. Although the contents don't invite too much investigation, they fill you up a treat after a morning on donkey-back, or climbing small mountainlets.
  
• You may get to feeling a little rustic, as your own personal body-guard doggie takes up the bark from the neighbouring compound's dog. You might lie back and feel secure and content after a simple day of farmyard activities in very fresh air, in a snow smattered valley.
  

3/24/2002

:  Mongolian kids are cute.

Volunteer army of the day: US Peace Force cramming out UB Guest House
Ease of spending money in Mongolia: hard. guest house is 4 USD per night
Number of Mongolian words known so far: one
Cost of a 45 km bus trip: 30 pence

posted by Garreth at 6:51 PM

3/22/2002

:  Great money-making scheme: You've seen wakeboarding? Western Europeans like to party, and they like snowbaording. Russia has a train which costs you about 65 quid to travel 5000 km through the snow. So you tow a party load of rich young Western Europeans on snowboards behind the Trans-Siberian Express. And you let them party. Which it's hard not to do. I tried explaining the scheme to the Olympic Football team, but they couldn't see it working. Something about falling off and not being able to catch up again. Rescue snowmobiles, that's what I say.
posted by Garreth at 3:50 AM

:  Easy Taiga - A short play synopsis

The players:

The Russian Olympic Football Team. Well they were actually a sound bunch of engineers, but they favoured the red white and blue tracksuit as their cabin wear. Alex, Maxim, and Nikolai were the key characters, with support from half a dozen other people who were returning to the eastern Russia after a diploma course in Moscow. Salt of the earth types. In their early and mid twenties. People you could quite happily get locked in a train carriage with for 8 hours at a time. Which was lucky.

The Russian Olympic Veteran Shouting Team. In their forties, these people included a Russian Army Officer in a strategic rocket command unit who had been partially blown up by an anti tank mine during one of his two tours in Afghanistan, and Nikiloai II. Characteristics include refusing to believe you can't speak Russian, and shouting words at you until you feign comprehension.

An Olympic Wrestling Team from Parts Unknown. Favouring dark blue tracksuits, these included a gaggle of Sergei, and a few others, one of whom was a bare-knuckle, head butting and wrestling combatant.

Steven Seagal. Well Sasha actually. In that he was a cook on the train, and was ex-forces having fought in Chechnya recently. A thoroughly kind spirited guy if truth be known, and exhibiting a remarkable tolerance to alcohol.

The alcoholic Alex II, who had a case of 24 vodka bottles for his 6 day journey. Often to be found staggering and mumbling, and chuckling in a shambolic kind of way.

The English Man Renowned for his lack of Russian language ability.

The play is set in Russian, Pictionary, and Ionary (when there was no pen or paper for pictures), but has been translated to English text.

The sets:

The play is set during a 80 hour period in March on a train from Moscow to Irkutsk.

The set includes 2 cabins with two pairs of bunk beds each, and a small fold down table. Each cabin is decorated with at least one inebriate person passed out at all times. One cabin is home to the Olympic footballers, the other to The English Man and Nikolai II.

A dining car - simple tables set up in a carriage in the middle of the train, with a table of produce to be bought. This includes booze, fags, and chocolates.

There is also a small part to play in the toilet / washing area. It has a hole in the floor for drainage, a toilet in which waste can exit onto the tracks, and a small wash basin. With lukewarm and cold running water.

The smoking scenes are set in an unventilated, unheated space with locked windows at the end of each carriage. They smell of smoke. Alot. Considering all of the cast but one are heavy smokers.

There are segways in the corridor running past the cabin, with two attendants for each carriage of 9 cabins, and station platforms covered in ice and snow, at which the train pauses for between 5 and 30 minutes at a time

Beer is drunk constantly. From the minute the characters wake up, to the minute they fall into a deep snoring slumber. The only times the characters are without beer is when they are necking vodka, and smoking.

Scene I - You liyke dreeenk RRRashan Wardka?

Needless to say, this is a scene in which our hero, The English Man, is rescued from The Alcoholic by the Football Team. They drink vodka late into the night to celebrate, and invite our hero for lunch the next day. The Footballers actually do speak some English, so much showing of photos, shouting "Penis!" ensues. Not that there are any photos of Penis, just in case you wondered, although numerous poloroids are taken.

Scene II - The English Man Gets Way-laid

Not wanting to go empty handed to lunch with the Footballers, our hero goes to the restaurant carriage at about 11am to get vodka to take. The scene ends with our hero in bed at about 4pm, having not succeeded in leaving the restaurant carriage with his vodka unopened, or indeed with any vodka in it. The two things seem to be synonymous. Open Bottle, Empty Bottle. Lunch is soup made with a cup full of boiling water from the carriage samovar. (old boiler. tended by an old boiler, Irene, and a helpful young attendant, Ulle) Steven Segal gets threatened by An Alcoholic due to some mix up about Chechnya.

Scene III - Lunch Happens Finally

This scene is set in the Footballers cabin. It starts of with a very generous feast with includes Salay (lumps of pig fat), bread, noodles, smoked sausage, bread pockets filled with mashed potato, blinis filled with tofu (allegedly), and anything else brought from one of the crones hawking stuff on the platforms. One thing leads to another. The barriers of language are mysteriously and temporarily transcended. Conversation topics include:

• Big Penis (a natural evolution from 'Not having seen your wife in 3 months')
  
• Macroeconomics and Russian policy (sometimes high-falluting, sometimes 'Putin says "Fuck You Danivostock"')
  
• Strategic Rocket Unit deployment
  
• Tattoos and the army
  
• more disturbing was a tendency to want to drive the Japanese back into the sea, and to shoot all of the Chinese in Russia
  
• Russia having a forested area 5 times the size of Brazil.
  
• diving in -30C water necessitating the use of vodka before and after each descent
  
• taking a sauna in a woolly hat necessitating the use of vodka during the birching therein (there were photos)
  
• the state of the nation in general
  

:  Stuck in Siberia with nothing to do mid-week? Looking for misadventure? Go to Stratosfear. I did. Apparently.

Detectives are peacing together the evidence of what appears to be a string of related incidents in Irkutsk. So far they have come across the following:

1. The chief suspect woke up in a different hotel to the one his rucksack was in
2. A round of beer and vodka costs around 2 quid in Stratosfera
3. There were pistachio shells scattered liberally around the drawer next to the bed of the chief suspect, and MTV blaring from the t.v.
4. Stratosfera shuts at around 4am on Friday morning which must have been about - 12C to -18C
5. The suspect was not wearing any glad rags when he woke, nor were any to be found in the hotel. Just the kind of scummy travelling clothes and boots that mean people look you up and down shaking their heads when they see you in nightclubs.

Stratosfera is protected by anti-vehicle girders, as you can see on one of the photos above. It has everything you need in a modern Siberian nightclub:

• ten-pin bowling
  
• a restaurant
  
• many bars and many many many bar staff, one of whom I saw sprinkling salt (?) on slices of lemon and eating it.
  
• flashing lights and music
  
• cliched pimps who model themselves on Vinnie Jones in herring-bone jackets and maybe a tasteful cream polo neck top
  
• a bulletproof security team of about 5 or 6, who from time to time wander onto the dancefloor, looking moody
  
• a metal detector, which the security team were convinced was detecting cigarettes I didn't have in my pockets, and ignoring the metal belt buckle I kept showing them, each and every time it set the alarm off
  
• women dressed like Sue Ellen in Dallas - sparkly or shiny tops straight from the catwalks in Paris. A few decades ago. When the cleaners were sweeping the runway after the shows had finished.
  
• the european union stillettoed ankle boot mountain being trotted back and forth on the dancefloor to pulsing music
  
• the obligatory Asian business man staggering around in a nice suit, acting like the kid at the fair that is choosing the goldfish his mother will be flushing down the toilet tomorrow
  
• the over-sensationalised much-maligned Russian 'mafia'
  
• a Subaru Impreza parked outside next to the obligatory SUVs
  

:  Random street purchase of the day: Something resembling a pastie, turning out to be an onion donut.

Strangest thought of the day: Has anyone noticed that Hollywood Hulk Hogan is also a Triple-H? (Good to see that Rock beat Hogan and that turkey Jericho has been ousted from the top by the real Triple-H

Most shocking thing of the day: Static electricity from the bearded man who takes your coat at the restaurant I take my 'business lunch' each day. Business lunches in Russia are where you get 4 courses for about 3 quid at nice restaurants. And unlimited use of the toilet. Which can be handy.

The thing about toilets over here, is that you can never tell whether they'll be a hole in the ground outside, or a luxury compartment. and then there's the toilets on the long train journeys. They are thoughtfully locked at stations, and when passing through large built up areas. Which can mean uncomfortable leg crossing after a day of beering it up.
posted by Garreth at 1:05 AM

3/21/2002

:  Arse. It's 1 degree colder now. And the guy to my left is beyond torture in his use of the information super porn-way. He is brazen and unashamed now. In fact, he's just printed out a few things out, and rushed outside. But he's been replaced by another teenage surfer of the world-wide-wank.

Shite. It's now -7 C. It really is quite cozy in here.
posted by Garreth at 5:49 AM

:  Not managed to brave icy cold real world outside of internet yet. The chap next to me is looking furtively at 'Teen Heaven' or somesuch site. Every time I stop typing, he closes the window on his latest photo. I think I'll stay another 5 minutes and torture the little chap.


Useless fact of the day: Apart from Papa Lazarou, I have not seen a single black person in Russia in the last ten days.
posted by Garreth at 5:40 AM

:  Challenges for the day: Find japes and high-jinks in a nightspot in Irkutsk. Try to figure out where I dropped off my camera film. Pluck up courage to leave the nice warm internet cafe, and peg it over to the hotel to get into my glad-rag for early evening action and adventure.

Feeling of the day: too cold to ingest any liquid.

Question of the day: why has my hair become straight? What happened to it on that train ride?




posted by Garreth at 5:17 AM

:  People often ask me, "Papa Lazarou, is it cold in Siberia in March?"

Well ask no more, little ones, for here is all that you need to know.

According to legend, the air has very low water content, so humans don't notice the extremes of temperature on their exposed skin so strongly. An exception to this would be if they were moist, e.g. they hadn't dried their hair before they rushed off late to work with a corking hangover, or they were perhaps sweating due to running for the last skidoo into town. Now though it may have been -14C yesterday in Irtutsk, for example, legend has it that you wouldn't feel it.

After waiting for a bus to Lake Baikal for more than 6 minutes, children, you may feel the urge to hop into the first taxi that passes, and try to recover basic motor functions during the 40 mile journey in the motorised Lada-oven. You would be easy pickings for such drivers, who must see icicle-like tourists in distress quite often. Bear in mind that the taxi drivers car will have a blanket over the engine to keep it warm, and a piece of wood blocking out the inhuman air from the radiator to avoid any cooling of the engine. And it's got exploding petrol inside.

If you get to Lake Baikal, the world's deepest lake, you might learn of the Golonkaya - a hardy fish which lives at a depth of about 1.5 km. The depth keeps it well away from the frozen surface of the lake, and the fact that it's body consists of translucent fat must help it fend off any chills. When was the last time you saw a fat tuna?

Gloves that may stave off the worst of a winter in Stockholm, will not suffice in their appointed task. Human fingers in these so-called 'thinsulate' gloves will appear to be detached from the hand, as sensation is lost in about 10 minutes. After finding a way to reheat these fingers, you will need to put your fingers back into the gloves, and the gloves deeply into your coat pockets, if you are to retain full use of your hands.

With your hands safe, you can focus your attention on your teeth. There's no point worrying about your toes. Forget them - sensation won't return for a good few hours. Teeth, however, are a separate matter. It suddenly makes sense. You've seen locals eating Cornettos and Magnums in the snow. It all clicks. When your teeth are at minus three, ice cream is probably a safe way of thawing them out without cracking them. From there you can move to liquids, and you are on the road to bringing your teeth up to warm drinks, and a full recovery. Bypassing the ice-cream would probably result in a loud crack, and a spray of enamel shards spewing forth from the frozen incisors.

And as for not feeling cold, that's utter bollocks. Papa Lazarus has been out and about on his rounds at 10pm, when it was only -8C, quite warm for the time of day. Wearing all of his clothes, he couldn't stop swearing at the wind blasting his face. Set up offshore development centres in Siberia. The kids would be greatful to be warm and inside. They're my wives now.
posted by Garreth at 5:09 AM

:  Facts for the visitor to Irkutsk:

1. Hotel Angara is the posh hotel for business men and their entourages. It sells out of single rooms, so all the dreams of jacuzzis that you may have had on a long train trip will cost around 70 quid a night
2. Hotel Arena is cheap and pleasant, and right next to the circus.
3. There don't appear to be any bears in the circus in winter. Or any animals being tortured at all. No ravenous pitbulls, performing goldfish, nada.
4. The internet cafe is not in the basement of any sex shop, as might be described in your guide book. Frantic searching has revealed no sex-shop at all (to date)
5. It is in Siberia. Midweek nightlife includes live singing to a karaoke track by a stout lady with a blonde mullet. The tracks appear to have been concocted from snippets of Pet Shop Boys, A German Oompah band with no Oomp, and Stock Aitkin and Waterman's late 80's sound effects. It's actually quite catchy, but the words are hard to pick up. And the songs seem to demand the vocal range of Mariah 'Crazy as a Fishcake' Carey
6. There is a war memorial in the form of a burning flame. Young girls and boys in army uniforms do ceremonial duties. The footwear is far from uniform, and it is entertaining to see a couple of 15 year old girls trying to goose-step in platform boots. In fact you could probably sell videos of it to a niche market. They are knee high boots after all.
7. Buying international train tickets is easy, from a multilingual lady (some say she speaks French, but she definitely spoke the Queen's finest to me) who is enormously helpful.
8. The internet can be had for as little as 0.6 roubles a minute
9. There is a 3000 tonne ship, the Angara moored nearby, from a time when there was no train line around lake Baikal. The ice-breaking ship took the carriages onto 3 tracks on its deck, and then forced its way to the other side of the lake quite unsuccessfully, due to very deep freezing in winter, and very rough water in summer storms. The Angara was part assembled in Britain. Hurrah!

posted by Garreth at 4:26 AM

3/20/2002

:  Today: Irkutsk
Feeling: A little Grimey. (Not like Aisha, just like a man who hasn't seen hot water in a few days)
posted by Garreth at 5:58 AM

:  24 hours in Moscow is very much like watching a 1970s television set; at times it is monochromatic and clunky looking and it seems kind of Kitsch. There's the desire to make it look better by fiddling with the contrast - contrast between rich and poor, and cold and hot. By the end of the evening, your vertical hold has gone for a burton.

Moscow is fab if you have dollars to burn, and you like sleaze, debauchery, and surrounding yourself with 7ft tall supermodels. Perhaps London is too, if you know where to look. Turning to the Moscow Times for some recommended clubs leads you to Jesto, where Sushi, models, and DJs are funky. Interestingly, it is free to get in, but the paper warns of 'face checks'. If a scabby tourist with eyes pointing in different directions by midnight can stumble past the lightly armed soldiers at the door, then the face-detector must have been set to stun, not kill.

A rakish grin accompanying a request for a Moscow Mule might not go down too well with the barman. In fact, things may turn worse when a request for vodka with ginger follows the Moscow Mule refusal. The barmen will instigate some sort of 'throat check' when the 'face-check' may be too easy. The only way to appease is to replace vodka and ginger with vodka and beer. And more vodkas and more beers.

To make the clubbing experience complete, go to Club XIII, if possible, by Lada. With stunning women sitting alone at the bar at Jesto, the barman may think you are crazy for asking him to scribble down the address of this 'Club XIII'. It probably wouldn't be worth trying to explain that it is a little perturbing to see the shady man come up to these stunning women every 15 minutes that they are alone, and point out various unattached gentlemen in the bar. So go to the next club, described best as debauched, by Lada taxi if possible (avoiding the club's own car - anyone that would run a gas-guzzling Dodge Intrepid outside of the US has to have their contrast adjusted).

A 'face check' again is in order, and the entrance fee will be raised according to how much the lady at the door thinks your veertical hold is out of wack, about 25 quid for heavily spirited Ginger folk. Try not to argue if she by chance miscounts your notes, as the gorilla bouncer, straight out of the bouncer role in Who Framed Roger Rabbit is standing close by. After negotiating the stairs of this amazing building - Ryabushinsky's house - you will notice that the bar prices are ridiculously high. To avoid pissing away any more money, and safe in the knowledge that you are wiped out, grab a seat and watch the debauchery. A red velvet curtain serves as a David Lynch style door and is patrolled by a neckless bodybuilder in a tuxedo. Careful observation will see the door issue forth many scantilly-clad beauties. Wealthy looking men will make up the traffic going the other way. More ladies will exit in their underwear. Some men will be refused entry.

A good way of staying out of trouble is to eagerly engage any tall single woman who approaches. Keep her talking on topics such as:
'Britney Spears'
'Satan'
'That bouncer over there is Beelzebub working the doors of hell'
'How do you teach someone the word understand'
'Oh you are only 21 years old, I see'
'A career in the government'
'correct use of the word sheepish'
'you come here seldom?'
'oh they are all 'working' behind that velvet door are they'

This kind of distracting tactic, when used on someone with whom you don't overlap too much in language, can keep you from spending any money for up to 3 hours. Making excuses and leaving alone is a talent that you will probably pick up on the fly. Try lines like 'Is that Concorde over there?', or 'I am tired' and make a run for it before the bouncers / toothless bodyguard types catch you.

Then wake up in the morning or afternoon, and look around the place you are staying, at the grizzled old women on the street corners hawking a bag of rice, or 3 apples in the biting cold. There isn't any contrast control.

posted by Garreth at 5:10 AM

:  Diet to date: things on menus with pictures + things so short I can pronounce them. ( e.g. a particular kind of hot dog that has crispy stuff and gerkins balanced precariously on the top)

Today's run in with the food police involved a gargantuan struggle with a 'no pictures' cafe menu looking for any word that I recognised. The Cyrillic alphabet is taking me ages to get used to. And I'm a stubborn arse at times. I was determined not to repeat my 'point and guess lucky dip food episode from St. Petersburg. 4 minutes in to the tussle, I had spotted a set of salads, but there was going to be no rabbit-food for this Ginger Khan. After about 15 minutes and a sheepish order of fanta, I spotted a word that was in my crappy Berlitz phrase book. It was beer. Hurrah. So which of these sections corresponds to food, the lovely looking dumplings that other Siberian warriors seemed to get delivered. I finally found dumplings hidden in a few other words. But what else? 20 teeth grindingly infuriating minutes into the battle, I went for a new tactic. A rash move involving spotting unusual looking letters in the 'cooking styles' section of the phrase book, and then find them on the menu. I went for the 'eff' symbol as a last resort. And got 'stuffed'. So it was xjxjxjxjxjkxjxj 'stuffed' zvxvxc. OK. So what is the zvxvxc bit that it's stuffed with? Hmm. Looks like 'ess', 'pee', 'eeee', 'are', 'emm'. Sperm. Nice. By this time I was thoroughly hacked off with the whole affair.

A bit of pointing at the dumplings and the xjxjxjxjxjxjjjkkx stuffed with sperm later, I was finally fed. Sperm turned out to be cheese. No idea what part of the dog went into the xjxjxjxjxjxjjjkkx that surrounded it though. Nice.

posted by Garreth at 4:46 AM

:  Best book donated so far for long journeys: Lord of the Rings (big shout out to East Side Rachel)

posted by Garreth at 4:42 AM

3/15/2002

:  Challenge of the day: Find the world's biggest blini, the Kremlin, and a ticket to Irkutsk. To infinity and beyond

So there I was on Thursday night, wandering past these preparations for a festival near Red Square. There was a large video screen and it looked like they were getting things set up in the rain. Hence the plan to go see things on Friday. It was described as a 1million dollar knees up, billed by the major as 'a new festival - Russia's answer to the Carnival in Rio'. So I was pretty excited. Except that it was on the Thursday. I had walked past in as it was in full swing. They'd made a 1 km long pancake strip. The guiness book of wankers said that this didn't count as it wasn't circular, so the record remains held by a mob from Rochdale. That's a lot of eggs wasted. Although the bonanza-blini was given to '6000 partygoers' according to one gazette. Yet another paper claimed that there were only around 125 people present. Not sure if they counted me twice as I was wandering around.

One great source of information is The Exile, which covers such things as international women's day in an enlightening way (give her the gift of anal). I had previously thought I had been enlightened by Stefanie in the Distillers - learning it was "women's day" not "ladies' day" as the lady/woman in the excellent Russian Visa consultancy had told me.

posted by Garreth at 4:54 AM

:  Staying at: Travelers Guest House Moscow - not too bad - cheap and cheerful (unless you wake the nice lady at reception up by arriving at 7 am) Full of 'travelers', but don't let that put you off.

Most interesting advice of the day: Bonnie Senteno - try to avoid hooking up with people you know in foreign countries, so that you can convince people that you work for the US Home Security Team and are hunting terrorists known to be infiltrating their country.

Most information found out from a stranger while waiting at a bar: petrochemicals, -50 C, Siberia, divorced 8 years ago, 18 year old daughter, 47 subjects in a degree, fine-art business plan, Moscovite living in Finchley. All over a small glass of coke. Maybe I just ask lots of questions.

Illness I'm convinced I have today: Hypochondria. Finally I have been diagnosed as having a proper disease, using the Whitely test
posted by Garreth at 4:40 AM

:  Moscow is sick
It feels like the city is trying to force a fever on you. One minute there's wind and rain and general arse-numbing chills (and blister-numbing which is handy). The next, a department store like Gum thrusts you into a tropical heatwave. Then out into snow by the flashing lights of a Casino. Then maybe a trip on the monumental metro and off with the hat and scarf, undo the coat, and try to move slowly to avoid the steam.

Had dinner with a friend of a friend of a friend last night, the beautiful and charming Oksana Kondratchuk at the Pushkin Restaurant. Top food, top company. A big shout out to the Patrick Keatinge and Oksana V Dembitska massives for setting it up. My chance to chat about Russia and the Ukraine and have wodka and blini during blini week (Maslenitsa). Maslenitsa is a celebration just like pancake day - a chance to fry all of your fat and rich foods, and then cover them in sugar, and scoff them guilt free. It's funny how you perceive a country is by reading a guide book, and then get chance to shatter all of your preconceptions when you meet people. Oksana is a true ambassador, and has put my ideas about uzi-toting lunatics to rest.

posted by Garreth at 4:37 AM

:  Sleeping with Russian Ladies - Part I

News just in. This remarkable pastime, favoured by Russian men and American cold-war spies alike can be yours, and it can be safe. On Tuesday night, I think I was just a little unfortunate, and that's why my shoulder hurt so much in the morning. I think she was Russian, as the other men in the 4-berth compartment on the overnight train from St. Peters to Moscow would occasionally talk to her in Russian. You could probably avoid the shoulder pain by not performing herculean tasks of bunk-bed-vaulting - or by avoiding the top bunk. And when I say sleep, I didn't actually get much of that in the 8 hours on the train. Waking up in the tropical heat of the little room (little if you are six foot tall and like to sleep with your body straight) at every jolt and stop, wondering where on earth you are. That first thought of the morning or middle of the night. The bootstrap process in which you catapault your mind into conscious thought. Who am I? Where am I? Who is snoring?

Of course, the Russian lady I am referring too is the number 25 train. Any trainspotters out there would appreciate the big hunk of metal I spent the night with. Whinging aside, it was a corking experience, and it is with some sadness that I learned of the increased speed of trains to Irkutsk from Moscow - allegedly 4-5 days in the my guide is now a mere 77-86 hours.

Great lyrics of the day: Failure by the Swans

posted by Garreth at 4:10 AM

:  Location: Moscow Cafe Max - the only god damn internet cafe this nerd can find
posted by Garreth at 3:32 AM

3/13/2002

:  Facts for the visitor to St. Petersburg:
1. Russians used to be sent to Siberia for taking snuff. And they used to have their septums cut out.
2. Young Peterites look lithe and hearty to the casual visitor
3. Peterites like eating ice-creams in the snow.
4. It's beautiful in March. Except for the grey slush everywhere. Young Peterites are schooled in ice walking so that even when old and crooked, they can speed along the iciest of paths dodging hapless tourist gimps, offering to hold their hands when they stumble.
5. There are a fair few 'English' pubs serving fish and chips. But not as many as in Skeggy or Malaga.
6. Breaking ice on the pavement is a job for women. They have big iron rods which they pound into the ground, wearing headscarves and oversized facial skin.
7. Certain museums are closed on a Wednesday.
8. Gostiny Dvor is the city's hottest place. Which means you have to get virtually nekked to pass any time in there, and walk very slowly to avoid passing out. It's a multi-story shopping centre. Which sells jeans
9. Hotel Oktyabrskaya is okay - a single room with TV and own bathroom costs around 40 USD
posted by Garreth at 11:53 AM

:  And to prove how much I don't care about me, my readership (though I know my mother will read this, because that's the kind of patient stalwart she is) here's a list of unrelated facts about my day. I'll leave the disclaimers out from now on.

First proper injury: From a dislodged Canadian Flag badge - thanks Heidi
Biggest barrel of the day: Artillery Museum
Most closed museum on a Wednesday: Peter and Paul Fortress
Craziest Taxi of the day: Some flipped out Russian who took me on two wheels to the Aurora
Largest Chicken Kiev of the week: 300grammes at some random O'Bolloucgherty's pub. Maybe that's why Russia has banned import of US chickens. Maybe they are all superchickens. Or perhaps it's some kind of tit for tat thing about the US having trade restrictions on steel imports. And Russia dragging itself kicking and screaming into the WTO based on spurious data. Opinions are divided, not just on the proper size of Chicken Kiev (me) and joining the WTO (Russia). Those little Kievs you get from Tesco are a fair enough size, but that means you can eat two if you are a greedy American, or restrict yourself to one. And besides, good old Bernard 'Eco-warrior' Matthews had those mini kievs for the turkey lover who just wouldn't switch to chicken, and wasn't sure of their portion preference.

posted by Garreth at 11:28 AM

:  Some useful thought on how to write good weblogs is well written to its own rules. But then again, any TV Evangelist espouses a self-consistent world view. And then goes off and does what they want when no-one is looking. So this is my diary, my aide-memoire. Go and hug trees if you don't like reading it. Or better yet, don't read it.

A particularly relevant question in the above article is:
"Do readers really want to know how miserable you are? Yes. But they’re going to want details, the precise odor of your room, why you haven’t showered in a week, or how exactly somebody broke your heart. One–liners won’t suffice."

So, there was a bathing last night, due to a bunch of babooshkas noticing the odourous, plugless wonder in room 3115, and donating him not one, but two plugs.

There.



posted by Garreth at 11:24 AM

:  Bought some jeans in Russia. Oh the irony.

Internet cafes are great places to warm up.

Top Tip: Don't buy those cheap crappy padlocks at the airport from one of the carousels which also has inflatable travel pillows. Not only do they jam shut, they can be prized apart by thick-fingered Russians.

Well I be able to go 5-10 days cold turkey from the internet in Siberia? Or just 5-10 cold days? I'll miss seeing little Russkis playing CounterStrike in internet cafes.

posted by Garreth at 11:13 AM

:  There's something hugely satisfying in my new ability to stand silent for five minutes looking at menus without being compelled to order food by the previous uncomfortableness of such silences.

And then ordering something random. Turned out to be salmon and shrimp, a pleasant surprise.

For me, it's the little things that I find most wonder and interest. Sure, there's lots of dull grey, overcast skyline, and history a-plenty to write home about, but I like the fact that you can convince a big fingered, large-handed brute of a security guard to prise open one of the padlocks which has jammed on your rucksack. And all the while he'll be chuntering on in Russian, grabbing at bits of metal with ferocious strength, and I'd just be making funny noises and nodding alot. And it's the most amazing feeling of communication.

It's like being a child again.

posted by Garreth at 5:25 AM

:  Lager and chocolate. The stuff of dreams. Only because I haven't figured out lager and pies yet. Or wodka and pies.

Smell: Luckily my socks smell of boot, and my feet smell of sock. Which smells of boot. Which still smells of leather. Not sure how long the dead cow aroma will mask the regular smell of feet trapped in the same boot for weeks at a time.
Blisters: in the region of three, unless the major blisters merge into a huge landmass. Blister techtonics in action.
Sink Plugs: two

Saw Le Corsaire at this flash ballet house, where everyone else wasn't wearing boots or combat trousers. Sod all the faffing about phoning ticket agencies, just march up to the door just before it opens and accept an invitation from the first tout whose patter matches the belief you have about russian and foreigner tickets. Managed to get in to a pretty bonza seat. And in no time the international language of waving your arms and attempting to mend the camera of the person next to me had a conversation struck up. I was going to keep quiet but then I thought what would such famous engineers As Scott H.R. Crawley and David Element Farmer do in such a situation? So vaulting out of the box and producing such tools and resources as I could muster, my Russian neighbour and I set about the unrepentent Pentax.

A few flashes and a hearty bar of chocolate later, the camera was still struggling, but the general consensus was that we had given it our best shot. Oh and there were some skinny folk spinning around on stage too. It was like there were a few superstars who would do mind boggling numbers of turns on one toe, while there was a majority of fluffers who just filled in colour and general shape shifting duties in the background. Which was nice. As was the synchronised / rhythmic clapping at the end. Oh and it had a character called Gulnara in it.




posted by Garreth at 5:14 AM

3/12/2002

:  Language is hard. Especially if you have to translate character sets, and you are learning from a book. I am up to hi! and thankyou so far. And I just forgot 'hi!' again. Russians are so good at speaking Russian. It really is a sexy language to hear. (Even when not from the lips of the 8 foot tall ladies who work at the hotel. No not that kind of ladies. I was quite relieved when there weren't any such ladies at the hotel bar when I woke up dehydrated and hallucinating at 4am today, and went in search of sustinence more hearty than the Cadbury's cream egg I had scoffed before I passed out. No mafia types either, or soldiers in the bar.)

Had some kick ass flying dreams last night. must try hang-gliding. These followed my fighting plague (isn't everyone terrified that their health is going to fail them in a foreign land?) dream, and my 'oh my god when will these hallucinations stop dream' Quite vivid.

Familiar London last weekend before departure. Abuse body, sleep as little as possible so as to cram in as much chimping and gibbering with chums as possible. Wake up in cold sweat on plane. Confused, jet-lagered.

Check in somewhere.

sleep for 18 hours.


Different part was wandering around in the snow. Instead of on autopilot, having to be super aware of every odd letter on the street signs.

I thought I had a huge result with my 20kilo backpack, when I saw a metro station that in my 'simplified Cyrillic' looked like Mockbar station. And it had a McDonalds next to it. So I assumed I was in the middle of town. But no. apparently there is significance to the letters I can't put a name to yet, and I was 6 stops and a change from where I wanted to be.

but that didn't stop me taking 9 stops and 4 changes to get there, oh no. I was getting my value out of the metro. Which is great. The stations are better than the hotel lobbies in most US hotels. Yet the hotel rooms, aren't as enticing as the subway in New York.

another top tip. Don't eat a curry in the Fire Station near Waterloo in London. It's shit, and you I could make better out of a packet. And if you've ever tasted one of my tuna, pasta, vinegar, lemon, sweetcorn, chile, minced beef dishes, you'd be terrified at the idea.






posted by Garreth at 3:07 AM

:  Ye gads.
Where: Hermitage in St Peters.
Eating: hot chocolate with a spoon
Thought for the day: With a sharpener you can make a needle out of a pencil
Smell: developing, like overripe fruit
Days since hot water: 1
Top tip: Don't forget to bring a universal bath plug for Russia. Then you can indulge in the lukewarm brown water in the hotels. And catch Giardia if you swallow any
posted by Garreth at 3:04 AM

3/09/2002

:  Come meet me in Peru on August 3rd 2002. There will be machu pichu inca trail hiking, canooing down the Amazon, wrestling polar bears etc.
posted by Garreth at 10:12 AM

:  Get shedded with colleagues in Hammersmith Pub - check

Thanks for all of the gifts / nice words / advice / zambucha. I had never drunk a Bacardi Breezer before. I snuck out on the pretext of using my phone to grab a crafty chip buttie. Eating is cheating, I know, but at least I didn't get caught.

Any rumours about me falling asleep at / in the urinals in Smollenskis are false. I was in a comfy stall.
posted by Garreth at 10:09 AM

3/07/2002

:  Invite people to have a quiet drink in a pub. er.

First choose the pub.

Right:
Does it have an early morning licence for dockers - Check
Is it near Canada Water - Check
Does it have a Dickens room - Check
Has it ever won first prize in the fish awards - Check


OK. To the grapes we go on Saturday March 9th.
posted by Garreth at 10:26 AM

:  Learned three words of Spanish - Tomaremos el avión esta tarde
posted by Garreth at 10:00 AM

:  Piss-up organised near to a brewery - Check
posted by Garreth at 9:59 AM

:  Itinerary ?

2002-03-11 London to St Petersburg
2002-03-30 Beijing to Tokyo
2002-04-05 Tokyo to Bangkok
2002-04-08 Bangkok to Phnom Penh
2002-04-11 Phnom Penh to Singapore
2002-04-15 Singapore to Brunei
2002-07-03 Brunei to Kuala Lumpur - no idea why I'm going here - I think I saw some giant pagodas and thought it looked fun
2002-07-06 Singapore to Guatemala
2002-09-02 Lima to London - via Sao Paulo - how convenient.

posted by Garreth at 4:52 AM

:  Britney Spears is an anagram of Presbyterians - Check
posted by Garreth at 4:52 AM

:  Itinerary badly rushed with a hangover in Trailfinders - Check

posted by Garreth at 4:52 AM

:  Mongolia visa? Check - piece of piss this one
China visa? Check - lots of queuing - get to the London embassy before 9am to avoid the agents with 150 passports.

Delusions of writing excellence and that this will be a fascinating read - Check

posted by Garreth at 4:51 AM