The Time of Troubles 07/05/2009
In 1598 the last of Ivan The Terrible's sons died childless, leaving Russia without a Tsar and leading it into what became known as "The Time Of Troubles". An Assembly was called and the last Tsar's brother in law and advisor, Boris Gudonov, was elected, but he was unpopular and ruled fairly weakly. The vacuum of power created an opportunity for a usurper, the youngest of Ivan The Terrible's sons had been murdered in virtual seclusion many years before under very mysterious circumstances. Suddenly the first of several "False Dimitri's" appeared from Poland, and waiting until Gudinov died, took the throne to joy of most of Russia. The joy was short lived, though, he was quickly outed as a false Dimitri and he and his supporters were murdered (when I took a history class in St. Petersburg, I was told that his body was stuffed in a canon and shot from the Kremlin wall in the direction of Poland, no idea whether it is true, but there is something rather Russian about the idea). And so it went for about 15 years, there was another False Dimitri, actually I think every town probably had one, another war and another setback, until finally in 1613 the nobles put Michael Romanov on the throne, he and his family were able to rule Russia for a cool 300 years, until that next time of troubles... Our Time Of Troubles We enjoyed Chita quite a bit, we had a great guide Maria, it was a small city, perfect for us we could walk around, find the things we needed and be back at the hotel all before dinner. The weather was glorious too, five perfect days of sun. The only downside was that the Internet was frustrating (hence no pictures) and extremely expensive, but hey it's not like you are going to be here for 2 weeks or more, so it was no big deal. We would just head 6 days west to Ulan Ude where we would hopefully get better Internet.
We woke up Tuesday morning and got ready, Maria was meeting us at 9 to ride out of the city with us. We were leisurely packing our bags and getting things ready, Levi was grabbing his bike, which was leaning against mine. SNAP!!! "Oh shit you aren't going to believe this." he said. "What!?" It was one of those moments when you were already suppressing laughter, knowing full well it was going to be something terribly ridiculous. "Well, when I went to pick up my bike from yours, my fender got caught on your rear rack and it appears to have snapped the part of your frame where the rack is screwed in." "Really? Nah, Really?" I went over and sure enough it was a job for a welder. "Well I guess we should text Maria and tell her we will need to find a welder" I said and as I looked over Levi had somehow, like superman, already changed out of his bicycling clothes and into his street clothes. "What?? I don't see us getting this fixed today." "No, Probably not" Miraculously we did get it fixed though, it turned out that there was a garage about a block away, Alex was the owner and his wife Victoria. Alex used to race bicycles and immediately welded my frame back together, the delay was only an hour or so.
And so Levi was forced to change back into his bike shorts "When I smacked my bike into your frame I thought for sure I had bought us another day here, next time I'll use a hammer." "Yeah you were close, I thought we might stretch two out of it" we quipped. We wouldn't be making such jokes for long. We made it outside of the city, a mere 25km out, when we decided we should enjoy the beautiful day and take it easy, "we've earned it, all that gravelly road!". So we made camp at a cafe, and immediately made friends with the Azerbaijan man running an illegal Shashlik (basically shish kebab) stand. His name was Igor and he was very concerned with our camping spot, "many drunks around here, not safe" and he continuously made the Russian hand signal for drinking, drunk, or alcoholic, which is done by flicking your middle finger against your neck as if you are trying to get a vein (if the person is really drunk this can be a hysterical thing to watch, they can even knock themselves over). He took us back to his Shashlik stand, first asking "do you drink?" (insert hand gesture) no I said, Levi said a little. He nodded approvingly and said he only drank a little too, while promptly ushering Levi off for a vodka shot. It turned out that HE was the man he was warning us about, we spent our dream afternoon being held captive at the shashlik stand listening to this man as he proceeded to get black out and berate his son. "Me I may be 45 but I am really only 20, see I still look at girls, look, there is one, but my son here he is 16, what is wrong with him, he doesn't seem interested at all, my brothers son is younger than him he drinks and smokes, he is wrestler too. Hey son!!! go clean the grill I don't want to look at you. See he is crazy, how can I have a son like this, ME" "The cops here don't worry about them, I pay them 400 rubles a month, besides they don't know about (insert hand gesture)" Eventually we managed to escape into the garage of the cafe for the night, barely without getting into a fight with Igor (he no longer thought it was cool I didn't drink, instead thought that I was the reason we were not going to go out and drink more with him, which to be fair might be true, although I doubt anyone would have wanted to continue "partying" with this guy at this point). We woke up the next morning to discover that it was pouring, really raining hard. We decided that there once again was no reason to push it "we've earned it,things are going well, we will wait for tomorrow" Luckily, apparently rain days also effect the shashlik business because Igor and his son didn't show up. We spent a nice off day in the cafe.
We left the cafe feeling quite energized and flew across the open valley in front of us in spite of the winds. We were now definitely on asphalt again and it felt good, we even felt that we were cheating fate as we stayed in the valley as the mountains grew higher and higher on either side of us (the area surrounding Lake Baikal is extremely mountainous). We finished our ride outside a town called Uloty at a truck stop per usual. It was good to get a big day in and we felt good as we set up our tents. A man, whose name escapes me (I'd say it was Ivan, Sergei or Alecksei, but that is just because those are the only names you ever run into here), he was covered in coal, but very jolly, he worked at the truck stop working the coal stove which was responsible for the heat and the hot water of the restaurant and pay toilets and showers (this was the first place which we had been offering real toilets and showers for a small fee, something that we can only hope will continue). We talked for a while, he told us that all the surrounding mountains that we had seen today were filled with coal and the coal which covered him and his workplace was from only 40 km away. He was also an Obama fiend, very excited about the warming of relations between Moscow and Washington.
"Aw fuck your aren't going to believe this." Levi called out while he was locking the bikes up for the night "My rear rack is broken in the exact same place as yours was. Fuck!!"
"Well there is a shinomantage (garage) right here, we can just take it tomorrow morning, they will weld it and we will be back on the road by noon."
We woke up early in the morning, had a big breakfast, packed everything up and headed over to the garage. The guys were more than willing to help, it was to become an almost annoying trait of Russian people we would meet in the next week, if you tell them that you have a problem, they are going to fix it. No one else will do. So as we saw that these men had a slightly less skillful hand with the welder we tried to no avail to say that we would take the bicycle back to Chita. As one man began trying to weld a bolt to where the wheel goes instead of where the rack goes Levi tried "Oh please sir we are going back to Chita anyway, and we know a man there who knows all about bicycles, we can take it there, he has a bigger welding operation." Nothing worked, we managed to dissuade them from welding the bolt onto the wheel well, and with some guidance we were able to avoid too much damage to the bike itself. Eventually they wheeled out the bike with a perfectly crooked rack on the back, it wouldn't hold weight but at least they didn't weld the wheel to the frame or something. Luckily the truck stop also rented rooms, we rented one, threw all of our stuff inside and hopped on a bus back to Chita with Levi's bike. By now we were becoming well acquainted with Chita, we went right to the garage, they seemed quite excited to see the Idiots again and immediately got a good laugh at the weld job of the previous guys. Soon Levi's bike had a matching weld in the back and we were ready to go. Alex and Victoria not only took us back to our hotel by their car but also took us out to eat before sending us on our way.
We were feeling pretty good when we walked back into the hotel room, "boy a lot of people couldn't break their bike, get it welded poorly, catch the one bus back 120km to Chita, get it re welded, have dinner and still make it back to the hotel room in time to get a good rest before the next days ride, I've never met anyone better." It was pretty impressive, only one day wasted. Not bad.
The next morning we again had a big breakfast, packed up and got on the bikes. "ah I think I have a brake problem" says Levi
"Unbelievable! Okay everything off your bike, I'll take a look" It took about 3 hours of me tweaking and tapping his rear brake before "Well I can't do anything about it as far as I can see, but it seems that if you don't use it, it doesn't hinder you so just use the front break."
"No problem" And we headed off, leaving the truck stop around 1 and heading into what appeared to be a rather rough rainstorm, but we didn't care, we had rain gear and we were not going to waste anymore time on this simple six days ride from Chita to Ulan Ude. The thunder cloud was just over-head and we were at that strange point where you are just waiting for the downpour when my phone rang, "Hello Ellery, this is Mariya from Ulan Ude" (the girl we were supposed to stay with when we arrived in 4 days around JUNE 25th)
"Oh Hi Mariya, What's going on?"
"Well I just though I would call and let you know that it is snowing right now here, and it is a bad storm."
"Did you say Snowing?"
"Yes"
"The stuff that happens in winter?"
"Yes snow, I know is strange."
A moment later I told Levi. "Snow?!!? Are you kidding? do you know what day it is"
"I don't actually but I know it is June"
We were still processing the concept of late June snow, when the sky opened up, not only did it start to downpour but the temperature dropped about 20 degrees or so, from a mild day to a day when we could see our breath. (it was actually 20 degrees, the truck stop had a big sign that read the temperature and I had happened to look at it when we left and it had read 19 degrees Celsius and it was 8 when we got back) We raced back to the Truck stop with our tails between our legs and respectfully asked for our old room back (particularly embarrassing because everyone there had told us the weather was terrible . Another day wasted. That afternoon we got a text from our Australian friends, they were in Ulan Ude, "there is about 20 centimeters of snow on the ground here, hot enough for you?!"
"Aw fuck your aren't going to believe this." Levi called out while he was locking the bikes up for the night "My rear rack is broken in the exact same place as yours was. Fuck!!"
"Well there is a shinomantage (garage) right here, we can just take it tomorrow morning, they will weld it and we will be back on the road by noon."
We woke up early in the morning, had a big breakfast, packed everything up and headed over to the garage. The guys were more than willing to help, it was to become an almost annoying trait of Russian people we would meet in the next week, if you tell them that you have a problem, they are going to fix it. No one else will do. So as we saw that these men had a slightly less skillful hand with the welder we tried to no avail to say that we would take the bicycle back to Chita. As one man began trying to weld a bolt to where the wheel goes instead of where the rack goes Levi tried "Oh please sir we are going back to Chita anyway, and we know a man there who knows all about bicycles, we can take it there, he has a bigger welding operation." Nothing worked, we managed to dissuade them from welding the bolt onto the wheel well, and with some guidance we were able to avoid too much damage to the bike itself. Eventually they wheeled out the bike with a perfectly crooked rack on the back, it wouldn't hold weight but at least they didn't weld the wheel to the frame or something. Luckily the truck stop also rented rooms, we rented one, threw all of our stuff inside and hopped on a bus back to Chita with Levi's bike. By now we were becoming well acquainted with Chita, we went right to the garage, they seemed quite excited to see the Idiots again and immediately got a good laugh at the weld job of the previous guys. Soon Levi's bike had a matching weld in the back and we were ready to go. Alex and Victoria not only took us back to our hotel by their car but also took us out to eat before sending us on our way.
We were feeling pretty good when we walked back into the hotel room, "boy a lot of people couldn't break their bike, get it welded poorly, catch the one bus back 120km to Chita, get it re welded, have dinner and still make it back to the hotel room in time to get a good rest before the next days ride, I've never met anyone better." It was pretty impressive, only one day wasted. Not bad.
The next morning we again had a big breakfast, packed up and got on the bikes. "ah I think I have a brake problem" says Levi
"Unbelievable! Okay everything off your bike, I'll take a look" It took about 3 hours of me tweaking and tapping his rear brake before "Well I can't do anything about it as far as I can see, but it seems that if you don't use it, it doesn't hinder you so just use the front break."
"No problem" And we headed off, leaving the truck stop around 1 and heading into what appeared to be a rather rough rainstorm, but we didn't care, we had rain gear and we were not going to waste anymore time on this simple six days ride from Chita to Ulan Ude. The thunder cloud was just over-head and we were at that strange point where you are just waiting for the downpour when my phone rang, "Hello Ellery, this is Mariya from Ulan Ude" (the girl we were supposed to stay with when we arrived in 4 days around JUNE 25th)
"Oh Hi Mariya, What's going on?"
"Well I just though I would call and let you know that it is snowing right now here, and it is a bad storm."
"Did you say Snowing?"
"Yes"
"The stuff that happens in winter?"
"Yes snow, I know is strange."
A moment later I told Levi. "Snow?!!? Are you kidding? do you know what day it is"
"I don't actually but I know it is June"
We were still processing the concept of late June snow, when the sky opened up, not only did it start to downpour but the temperature dropped about 20 degrees or so, from a mild day to a day when we could see our breath. (it was actually 20 degrees, the truck stop had a big sign that read the temperature and I had happened to look at it when we left and it had read 19 degrees Celsius and it was 8 when we got back) We raced back to the Truck stop with our tails between our legs and respectfully asked for our old room back (particularly embarrassing because everyone there had told us the weather was terrible . Another day wasted. That afternoon we got a text from our Australian friends, they were in Ulan Ude, "there is about 20 centimeters of snow on the ground here, hot enough for you?!"
The next morning we once again had a big breakfast and packed up and got ready to face the weather. It wasn't too bad, just a freezing wind and a couple passing showers, we went 40 km before we decided to get out of the cold for the day, we couldn't risk the chance of one of us getting sick on top of our mounting delays. We stopped at another great little family run cafe and watched a dog torment some passing cows for a couple of hours, watched Dumb and Dumber (the similarities are striking) in Russian and went to bed under a little lean-to in the back yard.
We made it to the parking lot the next morning and were starring at the road with fully packed bikes when I looked down and suddenly noticed that once again my rear rack was snapped off and just a tangle of nuts and bolts. Once again we sat down depressed and crest fallen, "well what do we do now?". We decided to head back to Chita and get everything welded one more time. However before we could do that we had to explain to the cafe owner that we wanted to leave our stuff in his cafe and pick it up in a day or two. "What your bike needs to be fixed? My son can weld it no problem!" and before we knew it or could protest my bike was being wheeled off again to be defiled by a bunch of men who may have never even ridden a bicycle. Surprisingly they did a pretty okay job of it, it is a very solid new (old) bolt that I still have attached to my frame, and it is one with a hook at the end (I think it is like a coat hanger) so I can put streamers on my bike if I so desire. However Levi still had a brake problem which I had since realized was due to the weld on his bike, and he was less excited than I about the coat hanger bicycle rack fix so we took off again to Chita "this will be the last time, we will get everything working well and that will be that, then we will ride!"
And that is kind of what happened. We did return to the garage, by now people were getting less excited by the site of us, (one of the guys had acquired a fresh black eye over the weekend and wasn't that anxious to show it off to the Americans) we did get everything welded again, but it took two days, so we spent the night at our old same hotel. This hotel has a group of four Russian babushkas who alternate days there and when the daily babushka opened the door and saw us again she nearly fell to the floor dead, but happy. It took us another day of hitchhiking to get ourselves back to the cafe, so all in all it was a 3 day delay, but at least now we could ride.
And we did, we took off early the next morning flying high, our legs were fresh after all the delays and we went like the wind climbing huge mountains and flying through the valleys. The first night we misjudged where a cafe was and had to sprint for our dinner making it a cool 50km in just over 2 hours, finally finding a small cafe on top of a mountain, with a generator for electricity and one flickering light bulb. In any other case I might have said no way, but the family seemed nice and we had no other choice, we didn't have any food with us really, plus the watching the light dim and beem with the struggling generator engine in the background was kind of fun. We ate a big meal and camped in the concrete parking lot. The next day we again flew along, making some of our best time yet, perhaps we were going to make it to Ulan Ude in okay time after all. That afternoon as we relaxed after a hard ride while eating snickers outside a cafe Levi said "phew boy something is going through me, but I'm excited about it, I haven't had anything wrong with me yet." Perfect. The next morning I asked him how it went "oh I made a few trips to the bathroom last night, but feeling pretty good now."
"oh so like I do now if I eat dairy?"
"yeah seems that way"
We sat down for breakfast and suddenly I realized something was moving through me now too, not good, I had had a weak stomach since my first food poisoning adventure and was always nervous at the slightest growl. I had reason to be, I would be in the outhouse frequently from there on out, while Levi watched from the sidelines. After one trip I came back and spiked my toilet paper like a football player does after a touchdown, "well start clapping"
"Why?"
"Because you are looking at the winner!"
"huh?"
"You know the who is going to puke first on this trip award! I win"
"You puked?" Levi looked crushed, he had obviously been hoping things would pass and we could ride, but vomit isn't a very positive sign.
I did try and ride, we made it about 10 km before it was too much for me, we checked into a hotel and I spent a miserable and feverish 24 hours battling a bad cafe meal. Levi spent the day restless and fighting depression "Sometimes I think it is better to be the person who is sick rather than the person who is sitting around bored". After about the 3rd vomit he recanted his opinion. There is no doubt about it, it was a trying period for both of us, the sickness could not have come at a more disappointing time, after so many delays just wanting to get on the road, instead we were asking at the hotel what time we had to get up in the morning to go back to Chita to the hospital.
We went back the next day on a sleeper train, which it turns out in this part of the world is basically all there is (because of course if you are going anywhere it is probably far far away) which was good, if surprising, for the invalid. We made our way once again right to the hotel, nearly killed another sweet old Russian grandmother and set about our way trying to get one of our many friends (now) in Chita to accompany us to the hospital. It took us two days before someone was free (it was the weekend), but luckily our friend Maria was able to accompany me on Monday to once again the Infectious Disease Hospital in Chita, lucky for me it is the only place they deal with stomach troubles in these cities apparently. Whereas the first experience I had in a hospital here was horrifying but thorough, this experience was horrifying but deficient, no 400 pound babushka to do things to me I am still not ready to share with the general public, no doctor that was kind and courteous and concerned about my condition, no awkward open door stool samples. Instead it was "please wait on that bench, the doctor will see you shortly" when the doctor came into the office every one of the attendants trembled, she was like a screaming teradactile, screeching at everything and everyone. I was terrified like I have never been before, I looked at the old man who was going ahead of me and he too was visibly shaken, she turned to him and beckoned him with her claws...er I mean pen "are you sick or not come on let's go into the room" he looked at me, I motioned good luck and he went into the lair. I've never heard so much screaming in a doctors office, you would think this guy was being interrogated for a crime not a indigestion problem, suddenly he was expelled with his pants around his ankles to go to another room (through the waiting room). It was my turn, I walked in terrified, she couldn't have been sweeter (she had seen my passport) and less helpful, no we aren't going to test you unless you spend a week here, you have no fever now though correct?, just take these pills and everything will be fine. The only thing they did do to me was take some blood, the old fashioned way, cutting my finger and pulling it out drop by drop until they had an entire vial, now I HATE needled but just for the sake of time wouldn't it be more efficient.. oh wait I forgot where I was for a second. So in the end I walked out of the hospital with the same pills I got in Birobidjan, but who knows maybe they will work.
We made it to the parking lot the next morning and were starring at the road with fully packed bikes when I looked down and suddenly noticed that once again my rear rack was snapped off and just a tangle of nuts and bolts. Once again we sat down depressed and crest fallen, "well what do we do now?". We decided to head back to Chita and get everything welded one more time. However before we could do that we had to explain to the cafe owner that we wanted to leave our stuff in his cafe and pick it up in a day or two. "What your bike needs to be fixed? My son can weld it no problem!" and before we knew it or could protest my bike was being wheeled off again to be defiled by a bunch of men who may have never even ridden a bicycle. Surprisingly they did a pretty okay job of it, it is a very solid new (old) bolt that I still have attached to my frame, and it is one with a hook at the end (I think it is like a coat hanger) so I can put streamers on my bike if I so desire. However Levi still had a brake problem which I had since realized was due to the weld on his bike, and he was less excited than I about the coat hanger bicycle rack fix so we took off again to Chita "this will be the last time, we will get everything working well and that will be that, then we will ride!"
And that is kind of what happened. We did return to the garage, by now people were getting less excited by the site of us, (one of the guys had acquired a fresh black eye over the weekend and wasn't that anxious to show it off to the Americans) we did get everything welded again, but it took two days, so we spent the night at our old same hotel. This hotel has a group of four Russian babushkas who alternate days there and when the daily babushka opened the door and saw us again she nearly fell to the floor dead, but happy. It took us another day of hitchhiking to get ourselves back to the cafe, so all in all it was a 3 day delay, but at least now we could ride.
And we did, we took off early the next morning flying high, our legs were fresh after all the delays and we went like the wind climbing huge mountains and flying through the valleys. The first night we misjudged where a cafe was and had to sprint for our dinner making it a cool 50km in just over 2 hours, finally finding a small cafe on top of a mountain, with a generator for electricity and one flickering light bulb. In any other case I might have said no way, but the family seemed nice and we had no other choice, we didn't have any food with us really, plus the watching the light dim and beem with the struggling generator engine in the background was kind of fun. We ate a big meal and camped in the concrete parking lot. The next day we again flew along, making some of our best time yet, perhaps we were going to make it to Ulan Ude in okay time after all. That afternoon as we relaxed after a hard ride while eating snickers outside a cafe Levi said "phew boy something is going through me, but I'm excited about it, I haven't had anything wrong with me yet." Perfect. The next morning I asked him how it went "oh I made a few trips to the bathroom last night, but feeling pretty good now."
"oh so like I do now if I eat dairy?"
"yeah seems that way"
We sat down for breakfast and suddenly I realized something was moving through me now too, not good, I had had a weak stomach since my first food poisoning adventure and was always nervous at the slightest growl. I had reason to be, I would be in the outhouse frequently from there on out, while Levi watched from the sidelines. After one trip I came back and spiked my toilet paper like a football player does after a touchdown, "well start clapping"
"Why?"
"Because you are looking at the winner!"
"huh?"
"You know the who is going to puke first on this trip award! I win"
"You puked?" Levi looked crushed, he had obviously been hoping things would pass and we could ride, but vomit isn't a very positive sign.
I did try and ride, we made it about 10 km before it was too much for me, we checked into a hotel and I spent a miserable and feverish 24 hours battling a bad cafe meal. Levi spent the day restless and fighting depression "Sometimes I think it is better to be the person who is sick rather than the person who is sitting around bored". After about the 3rd vomit he recanted his opinion. There is no doubt about it, it was a trying period for both of us, the sickness could not have come at a more disappointing time, after so many delays just wanting to get on the road, instead we were asking at the hotel what time we had to get up in the morning to go back to Chita to the hospital.
We went back the next day on a sleeper train, which it turns out in this part of the world is basically all there is (because of course if you are going anywhere it is probably far far away) which was good, if surprising, for the invalid. We made our way once again right to the hotel, nearly killed another sweet old Russian grandmother and set about our way trying to get one of our many friends (now) in Chita to accompany us to the hospital. It took us two days before someone was free (it was the weekend), but luckily our friend Maria was able to accompany me on Monday to once again the Infectious Disease Hospital in Chita, lucky for me it is the only place they deal with stomach troubles in these cities apparently. Whereas the first experience I had in a hospital here was horrifying but thorough, this experience was horrifying but deficient, no 400 pound babushka to do things to me I am still not ready to share with the general public, no doctor that was kind and courteous and concerned about my condition, no awkward open door stool samples. Instead it was "please wait on that bench, the doctor will see you shortly" when the doctor came into the office every one of the attendants trembled, she was like a screaming teradactile, screeching at everything and everyone. I was terrified like I have never been before, I looked at the old man who was going ahead of me and he too was visibly shaken, she turned to him and beckoned him with her claws...er I mean pen "are you sick or not come on let's go into the room" he looked at me, I motioned good luck and he went into the lair. I've never heard so much screaming in a doctors office, you would think this guy was being interrogated for a crime not a indigestion problem, suddenly he was expelled with his pants around his ankles to go to another room (through the waiting room). It was my turn, I walked in terrified, she couldn't have been sweeter (she had seen my passport) and less helpful, no we aren't going to test you unless you spend a week here, you have no fever now though correct?, just take these pills and everything will be fine. The only thing they did do to me was take some blood, the old fashioned way, cutting my finger and pulling it out drop by drop until they had an entire vial, now I HATE needled but just for the sake of time wouldn't it be more efficient.. oh wait I forgot where I was for a second. So in the end I walked out of the hospital with the same pills I got in Birobidjan, but who knows maybe they will work.
Ulan Ude
It had now been over 2 weeks since we set off on what was supposed to be a 6 day trip, it was like a bad episode of Gilligans Island. It took us 4 more days to reach Ulan Ude, 3 of riding and 1 rest day for the recovering Elman. We had thought that Blagoveshchensk to Chita would be the most difficult part of the trip and that after we reached pavement again we would be smooth sailing across Russia, we learned our lesson almost immediately. I've never been so happy to reach a city, not to mention my excitement about reaching the World's largest Lenin head. Strangely even after all our days off and no riding we reached Ulan Ude and felt like we had really earned a rest.
Ulan Ude is the capitol of the Buryat Republic, another Russian autonomous region. The Buryats are the original peoples of the region, and give the whole area a very Asian feel, we spent our days going to Buddhist temples and being surrounded for once with people who aren't Russians. The history of the Buryat and other native peoples of Russia is often likened to what happened to the Native Americans in the US, and certainly there are some similarities, especially to the northern people like the Yakutks, but for us the Buryat Republic has been the nicest place we have been yet (perhaps because of where we have been the last few months). When we entered Ulan Ude we immediately met foreigners, people simply travelling Russia by train!!!! We met a French family travelling by home made RV from France to Mongolia and back, sounds wild and fantastic doesn't it, well let me just tell you what their family consists of, two 6 year old twin boys, one 4 year old girl, one newborn and we think there was actually another kid there too, but we couldn't keep track of them all long enough to count. They said that it was slow going because no matter how early they got up, they could never get everyone ready to go before noon, which considering that "go" just meant sitting in the super RV and looking out the window is terrifying. It made travelling by bike seem like a cake walk, food poisoning or no food poisoning, which i guess was just the kind of thing we needed to see.
ellski
