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Well, it's day 33 and my promise to update the blog more frequently obviously didn't come through in the end! We just arrived in Hong Kong yesterday from Beijing and I'm in the shorts for the first time! It's about 20c or so so there'll be no more woolly hat and gloves from here on!
So the last time I was writing, we had just arrived in St Petersburg and I still had respect for Thierry Henry as a person. Little did we know that we'd be leaving Russia 6 days later in possibly the most depressed state either of us have ever been in. Many sleepless nights have been had since with discussions aplenty, and we're just about getting over it now!
So what can I say about Russia? Certainly unlike any country either of us have ever been in and not in a good way either!
We found the Russian people incredibly unwelcoming and unhelpful from the moment we got there. If you weren't paying extra 'registration fees' just to enter a different city, you were keeping an eye out so that you wouldn't bump into any police who are well known to be extremely corrupt often taking passports off tourists and looking for bribes to give them back!! Thankfully we didn't have any dealings with them.
We started off in St Petersburg and spent a few days there and hit the usual tourist sites- the Hermitage (one of the biggest art museums in the world) and the Peter and Paul fortress. Everything was within walking distance and was relatively inexpensive (although tourists had to pay more than the locals!). It was pretty boring stuff really probably due to the fact that there was a real lack of english translations in the museums and we would have preferred to be watching a sunday league match than looking at a bunch of paintings, even if they were by 'Picasso' and 'Van Gogh'. Funnily enough, we spent quite a while looking for Picasso's work in the spanish art section but apparently he's french- who knew? I suppose we learned something anyway, but in my opinion he's very over-rated, sure I could have done half that stuff meself!!
On to Moscow we went with the faint hope that we'd be greeted with friendly smile! The Russians were having none of it though and we found out that if a man smiles when he is meeting somebody for the first time or when he's doing business it's a real sign of weakness and they generally lose all respect for you so I'd say our big happy Irish heads weren't going down too well! Red Square was the first port of call with most of the main tourist spots based around here. St Basil's Cathedral, Lenin's Mausoleum and the Kremlin were all hit along with the Great Patriotic War Museum which was just a few metro stops away. If I can say one good thing about the russians, they know how to run a metro! The museum was interesting enough as it gave their opinion of their of what happened which was in stark contrast with what the Latvians were saying when we were in Riga's occupation museum! Alas Elvis and the lads didn't make it across the Mongolian border, no doubt due to some questionable visas!!
So after watching 'Le Cheat' in Paris, we caught the trans-siberian the next day. Five days later we'd arrive in Ulaan Baatar (UB as it's known in the back-packing community!)
You'd think five days on a train would be a pretty boring experience but in fairness, the time flew by and you'd actually be pretty relaxed by the end of the whole thing as your day generally involved lazing aroung, looking out the window, reading books and listening to music. You'd meet plenty of characters as well and none moreso than the three Cameroon lads who were on the same carriage as us. Their plan was to go to Mongolia for a whole month to 'purchase electronics'!! Something very dodgy was going down anyway and nothing more dodgy than their taste in music. If Elvis (their ringleader of sorts!) wasn't listening to some mad African music, he'd most likely be blasting out the Westlife tunes- he had all the videos on his phone and all and knew all the words!! He found it fascinating that I didn't like them and he used to ask me as serious as anything "they can sing good,no??" Funnily enough we met a Mongolian fella on the way to Beijing who was also into his Westlife. Who would have thought they're big in Cameroon and Mongolia!
We arrived in UB expecting snow and temperatures well below zero but we were actually met with blue skies and sunshine. It was cold when the sun went in alright but nothing like we had expected. We checked into our hostel that morning and before we knew it we were on our way out to Teralj National Park which was only an hour outside UB. Mongolia only has a pop. of about two and half million and it's about three times the size of France! UB is home to a lot of the population while the rest is scattered around the country generally living nomadic lifestyles. Most of them live in 'Gers' (sort of a large tent) and when we went to Teralj we got to stay in one of them for the night. We went horse riding and hiking during the day in the mountains which was pretty cool and got to sample some mongolian cuisine and all which is actually pretty nice, other than the dried camels milk which they chewed on 'as a snack'!
We headed back to UB the next day to find that most of the museums and stuff were closed due to a swine flu outbreak apparently. So we hit the local bar which was apparently 'Irish' but there wasn't a guinness tap or even anything green in sight! I suppose your wondering what the local brew here is since I haven't mentioned one in a while, well it's Chinggis, named after their most famous son- Chinggis Khan. A pint would set you back about 1.20 euro and it goes down quite well!
All in all, Mongolia got the thumbs up from us. There was loads of interesting stuff to do, nice food and the people were really friendly.
Beijing was next on the list after an over night train from UB. We'd been here before a few years ago so we'd seen most of the sights. The Olympic Stadium wasn't there last time so we went to see that and then went back to Tiananman Square. We went to a different part of the Great Wall this time (Jinshanling) and did a 13km hike along it which took us the guts of 5 hours. Other than that, we picked up a couple of things in the shops, I got a mini laptop (which I'm writing this on at the moment!) and we picked up a couple more books at the foreign language bookstore (Bill Bryson's 'Down Under' which is thoroughly enjoyable so far!) A pint bottle of Tsingtao set us back about 80 cent which is a lot in comparison to the 20 cent we were paying a few years ago!
All in all though I can't say enough about Beijing, great food, loads to do and as Fr Ted said, the Chinese themselves- a great bunch of lads! Undoubtedly some of the friendliest people you can meet.
So we're here in Hong Kong now after arriving from Beijing yesterday. We went to the horse races in Happyvalley last night with an english and an aussie bloke whom we met on the train. Unbelievable race track which was surrounded by skyscrapers all the way around, a bit different to the race tracks back home! I had no winners though I'm afraid but I didn't really understand what was going on with their betting anyway. Went for a few pints after as well but have yet to find the the local brew if there is one at all!
I promise the next blog will be sooner! And we'll stick up some more photos once we get to Hanoi.
Henry
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Michael Good stuff lads. Can't believe you didn't enjoy Russia. Or maybe you just didn't enjoy the people!? Hopefully now that you've got the mini laptop, updates will be more regular!