Swimming in Siberia and drowning in Mongolia

You'll have to excuse me if this post isn't up to my usual (poor) level of English. My brain is frazzled after a night sampling the Beijing clubbing scene (bizarre to say the least), and a day tramping around in the baking humidity and smog of China's capital.

So much traveling, so many experiences - there is a danger it will turn into a blur unless I write some of it down.

Irkutsk is a sleepy, messy, tumbledown city; a ragged collection of soviet blocks, and charming whimsical old wooden houses, with an almost continental feel. The buildings appear to be slowly sinking into the ground, as if the whole city is too exhausted to protest. Walking the tree-lined avenues, it's sad to see a number of houses recently burned to the ground (apparently under sinister, government related circumstances), and indeed a further historic house mysteriously caught fire during my short stay. The river through the city, which widens to enter lake Baikal, has a charming little island, with an abandoned open-air concert venue, reminiscent of a miniature Sydney Opera house.

I took a bus to the lake, and staying in a charming Dasha, run by a sweet middle aged woman. My room was adorned with old soviet posters, a giant sized painting of Lenin, and an old record player, complete with 1960's 7 inches of patriotic Russian marching songs.

The next day I walked into a small village on the side of the lake, and took a short boat tour from an old man with and aging but capable skiff. Later I ate smoked Omul (which only lives in lake Baikal), and swam in the freezing but crystal clear water. I semi-deliberately missed my bus back to town, and stayed the night in an actually rather fancy hostel (my first indulgence of the trip). In the morning I took a fantastic old Hydrofoil back into the city.

The train from Irkutsk to Mongolia was crowded entirely with Mongolians, with the exception of my couchette, which contained a wonderful Spanish couple, Pedro and Eva. They were traveling non-stop from Moscow to Ulan-Bator, and were looking forward to a shower after 5 days in the train.

The Russian border crossing took 8 hours, the only relief being an impromptu shower from a man washing his car beside the station. Afterwards the landscape through the train window gradually changed, with birch trees giving way to barren plains, dotted with Yurts.

Ulan-Bator is a strange city - part Metropolis, part slum, part campsite. The people are well dressed, but it is immediately clear that you are in the 3rd world. Almost immediately after arriving, I set off with my new Spanish friends on a two day excursion to a traditional Yurt camp in the nearby national park (eg a simulacrum of traditional Mongolian life - ecotourism if you will).

We trekked and rode tiny protesting Mongolian horses across the plains, and on the second day rode for 4 hours through the most incredible freak rain storm. The rain continued through the night, turning our cozy Yurt into a sauna, as the cental wooded stove heated the tent to boiling temperature, and dried our sodden clothes strung from the decorated roof supports.

We spent a last day visiting ornate but somewhat shabby Buddhist temples in Ulan Bator, and walking through the ramshackle slums, filled with children playing improvised games in the caked mud paths, and older men playing pool on outdoor tables. The next day I left my hostel early and boarded the contrastingly smart and efficient train to China...