Naadam Festival - The Mongolian Olympics

Naadam is the reason why I came to Mongolia when I did. It's the biggest event in the Mongolian year, celebrating the 'three manly sports', wrestling, archery and horse racing, the legacy of the culture of Chinggis Khan (that's Genghis to you and I) and the Mongolian Empire. I'd seen snippets of it on the television at home, but I thought if I'm coming all this way I may as well coincide it with the cultural climax of their calendar, and so planned the initial stages of my travel to allow me to attend this event.

Naadam began with a parade from Sukhbaatar Square to the Central Stadium, cavalry carried the Nine White banners, which are made from horse hair and today are a symbol of the traditional Mongolian state. 

We turned up in a damp Sukhbaatar Square at 9am, to wait for the military band to start playing and the opening ceremony to begin. The band played a repetitive tune, but one I enjoyed and reminded me a little of the Star Wars music, and I was humming it for the rest of the morning. The cavalry and band left the square and paraded to the Central Stadium where the games were being held. I turned into press photographer mode and left my friends and bolted down the street, looking for vantage points to shoot the parade from, as the police and public lined the streets making it near impossible to get a clear shot.

I rejoined my new friends along the route, having ceased shooting the parade once I'd snapped myself into a sweat, and we ambled along to the stadium. The vicinity around the stadium was awash with activity and excitement, a bit like a football stadium at home but without the rivalry, today only one team was playing: Mongolia. We found our wooden seats and waited in the open air stand for the opening ceremony to begin. The cavalry ceremoniously delivered the Nine White Banners, and the brass band played the same tune I had enjoyed earlier, before dancers, performers and singers took to the centre of the arena to entertain the swollen crowds of Mongolians and tourists.

The opening ceremony of the Naadam Festival in Ulaanbaatar's Central Stadium.

Just like home: the spectators are forced to shelter under umbrellas as a short shower drifts overhead.

The opening ceremony lasted a fair while, it felt like an hour but I actually have no idea of the time it took. There were performers in traditional clothes carrying what appeared to be a huge cauldron, dancers performing a Mongolian horse dance and comical moments of lip-synced pop songs. I wasn't sure what half of it was meant to symbolise but it was great to see nonetheless. The whole ceremony did feel a little disjointed for me, it got lost in places and lacked a crescendo, so much so I wasn't sure when the ceremony was over and the tournament was about to begin. It would be unfair to be too critical of things I don't really understand, but I think I could have choreographed a tighter tapestry of cultural ceremony.

Once I was clear the actual wrestling was underway, it was fairly entertaining, with at first the wrestlers performing an eagle dance with their arms outstretched, before handing over their acorn shell shaped hats, to who I assume were the judges, and then beginning the hunched over grapple. However once I'd seen a few matches, it felt like I'd seen them all. Some were over very quickly, as it didn't seem to be organised by weight categories, there were gargantuan behemoths against weasely midgets like myself, who of course lost. Matches began with a ceremonial dance and were over as soon as any part of the opponent touched the ground, other than their arms or feet. There were several matches taking part on the field at all times, and it was a knockout with up to a thousand contestants taking part over the two days, so there was a lot of wrestling to get through. By chance I'd met up with my friend from the train, Lenka, who happened to be sitting near me, so we went to get some lunch in the many food stalls situated outside the main stadium. They were all serving the same thing, a type of mutton and fat filled pancake that was fried and looked a bit like a pasty. It tasted as good as you can imagine: not that great, but I dipped it in soy sauce and ate the lot. We returned to the wrestling to watch for a while, but to me it wasn't that exciting from the stands as a spectator sport. We were about to leave to check out the archery nearby, when I thought, 'fuck it, lets try and walk down from the stands and walk down to the floor of the arena, the worst they can do is tell us to go back'. Amazingly, we were unchallenged and walked through the pit of wrestlers. We were able to watch up close, and posed for a few photos with them. I was able to get a bit closer for pictures of the action, and then Lenka and I decided to try and walk a lap of the entire stadium before leaving, just to see if we were unchallenged. None of the police or officials said a word to us, so we had fun walking around and exploring and getting up close and personal with the events, before exiting to have a look at the archery.

Wrestlers chatting before taking part in the action.

A wrestler, in speedo pants and acorn hat, chills out before grappling with another half naked man.

A few stretches and lunges are in order before taking part in proceedings, to stretch the muscles as well as the pants.

If any part of your body touches the floor, other than your hands and feet, you've lost. This blokes arse is about to meet the grass. He lost. 

Some of the younger wrestlers: credit for taking part, but they didn't stand a chance.

Can you ring me back, I'm just doing some archery?

The archery was situated in a small open air complex within a small stand just a hundred metres from the wrestling. Lenka and I pushed our way into the complex, the crowds were throbbing and it was not so easy to see the action taking place. The best view was from the side, as from within the stand all you could see was the back of the archers heads. At first I thought it was a health and safety nightmare, as at the end of the range were dozens of judges scoring the contestants. I wondered how long it would before someone took a arrow straight in the face, King Harold style. Then I looked closer and the arrows were not tipped with sharp points, but they had a dull rounded head. Mild disappointment ensued. The targets were not the circular targets that I am familiar with, but what looked like (without my glasses) a collection of stacked wooden blocks, to hit and knock over, a bit like cans at a funfair. There women taking part as well, this is the only part of the competition that women are involved in, and they shoot from about 10 metres in front of the men. It was fun to watch for a while, but again, the entertainment was not sustained for a spectator uneducated in the arts of what I was witnessing. Nevertheless it was an enjoyable atmosphere and the people watching was as entertaining as the competition, and the skill of the archers was very impressive. I quite fancied having a go myself, but alas I could not find the registration tent and my blagging abilities are sadly not yet extended to the Mongolian language.

There are ten people in a team and each gets four arrows each to hit the target

The arrows have a rounded blunt tip for safety reasons - but I still wouldn't want to be hit in the face with it.

Although not officially part of Naadam and not one of the 'three manly games', there is another traditional Mongolian activity taking part on site during the festival: ankle bone shooting or shagai (not the Jamaican singer). It was a little bit like darts, and I actually found this the most entertaining sport to watch during the day. Contestants sat on tiny stools that ought to be only for children, and held a small wooden plank, less than a foot long and a few inches wide, with a groove carved into it. The men would flick a carved ankle bone, nestled into the wood, with the intention of hitting another bone position on a box-cum-table like object a short distance away. For some reason I found this the best to watch, the target to hit was tiny, maybe as big as a hard boiled sweet, yet they seemed to manage to clatter their projectile into almost every time. Also during the games, the spectating team members would sing this long, drawn-out, flat note, that didn't alter in pitch or rhythm, and reminded me of an intimidating visit to Millwall's New Den.

The men aim at a small bone target sat about 5 metres or more away.

The men flick their ankle bones. Not a euphemism.

The spectating team members sit either side of the target area, encouraging their team mates.

I left the festival late in the afternoon, and walked for thirty minutes back to the apartment where I'm staying. Later that evening I went with my Australian friends to the theatre to see a Mongolian orchestra perform. The orchestra was combined of almost purely Mongolian instruments, apart from a flute and a triangle, and I'm not sure which nation will claim that as their own. The predominant instrument was the Morin khuur, a type of two string violin, which is sat in the lap and played with a bow, and decorated with a horse's head at the nape of the neck. The music was truly beautiful. It conjured images of huge open landscapes that demand freedom, the rhythm was reminiscent or a horse galloping freely, and the melodies made me fondly think of lost loves. There was also traditional Mongolian throat singing, which is mesmerising both in wondering how it is performed, and in the beauty of such alien sounds. After the concert I met some of my train friends for some drinks whilst they were still in town. When the pub rang the bell for last orders, we decided to try and find somewhere else for one last drink. Most places were closed as it was a national holiday, and after ten minutes of wandering down dark streets we found a doorway that said karaoke above it. We pushed the door open and made our way down a creaky staircase into a quiet and dated hallway. I wasn't sure what we had walked into, having never been in an establishment like this before, but soon we heard some awful singing in a foreign language, so assumed we were in the right place. We went into a large private room, and ordered some beers for the Mongolian who appeared, and spent the next two hours singing atrociously to various pop and rock classics. I'd never done karaoke as an adult before, as I am perfectly aware of the horrendous tones of my voice, but I was really enjoying it and quite willing to keep the microphone and howl another tune when no one else wanted a turn.

Horse racing on the Mongolian steppe.

The following day we were up very early to take a bus out of the city to where the horse racing was taking place. This event was the third and final part of Naadam which I wanted to witness. The road out there was pretty bumpy in places, but I was informed it was once of the best and newest in the country, as most roads didn't actually exist, but are just well worn routes. The traffic was heavy, and the two lane carriageway overspilled into the oncoming two lanes, so it became a four lane one way road. Any oncoming vehicles were forced to drive in the dirt at the side of the road. The site where the event was taking place was huge, and there must've been nearly 100, 000 people there. It reminded me a little of Glastonbury, but without the music and with plenty of horses. We wandered about and got our bearings as huge crickets and grasshoppers sprung up about our feet and hung and buzzed in the air. I was hungry so wanted to find some light breakfast. I had a deep fried hot dog on a stick, which was warmed up in a microwave and tasted as disgusting as it sounds. I couldn't see anything else on offer at the time. The crowds were huge and I only saw about 40 Westerners all day. It wasn't long before I lost the group I was with, as I had darted off to take some photographs of assembling Mongolians on horseback, who were gathering around a large LCD screen to watch the race in progress. The races themselves are categorised by the age of the horses, and are up to 30 miles long, so take some time. Interestingly, or bizarrely, the jockeys are between the age of 5 and 13, yet the races are much more about the horses than the children on top of them. It would be strange if the biggest sporting event in my society, say the FA Cup Final, was the Chelsea Under 8s against the Manchester City Under 8s. It would also be pretty shit to watch. The skill of the jockey is not what is being tested, it is the skill of the horse. I did see one dead horse close to the finish line, which presumably died after a heart attack after being flogged by a boy for nearly 30 miles. Some of the jockeys rode bareback, which must've been incredibly uncomfortable on their young arses, and many looked incredibly fatigued as they crossed the finished line; some slumped over as if they had an Apache arrow lodged in their back.

Men gather to watch the results on the big screen.

At the front the spectators are sat on the floor, those at the back are sat on horses to get a better view of the screen 

I received plenty of cool stares as I made my way through the crowd.

Everyone is glued to the screen as the horses approach the finish line.

The winners, accompanied by a herd of 4x4s, approach the finish line.

Horses, ridden by jockeys as young as 5 for up to 30 miles, race towards the end.

Initially I stayed a few hundred metres from the finish line, as the side of the race track was packed with locals, all jostling forward. I knew it would be uncomfortable, my pockets would be in danger of having hands rather than wallets in them, and I would not be able to see a thing of the action. I thought it would be nice to get some wider shots, to show the whole scene with the horses galloping in, the crowds packed in down below, and the traditional Ger tents in the distance. Once the winners and leaders of the pack had crossed the finish line, most of the locals left to go and do something else. I then made my way down towards the stands where you could watch the horses coming in, and climbed up onto the wooden platform with the remaining Mongolians. There were hundreds of horses taking part in each race, so I knew I would be able to get close up shots of some finishing the final furlong. I didn't care whether they were in first place or 201st place, it made no difference to me.

The boys whip their horses over the finish line.

Some of the stragglers struggle towards the end of a long race.

You can't flog a dead horse. Clearly.

There were two races being held that day, and typical Mongolian style both were several hours late. In between the races I wandered about alone having earlier lost the friends I was with, and enjoyed people watching and soaking up the atmosphere. There weren't many tourists at all, sometimes I went for half an hour without seeing a European face, and I did feel quite alone, but I liked it. I got some quite cold stares from some of the men on horseback, when I nodded or smiled back I received nothing in return, but a few others greeted me and smiled and gestured for me to take their picture. These are usually the most boring pictures. I went down to what looked like from the distance a market area, which upon closer inspection was a huge dining area, all serving from what I could tell was exactly the same food. The deep fried meat filled pasty-shaped pancakes I had eaten the day before. I meandered through here, before eventually bumping into some people from the group I was with. I latched onto them as it was only a further hour before we were due to leave, and there was no chance in hell I was going to find the minibus we arrived in. Surrounding the event was a sea of vehicles parked chaotically and without any landmarks, and there was no zoning so it wasn't like I would be able to find D6 or whatever.

A view of one side of the event - the market looking area is a food city, all serving the same untasty food. 

Wild wild east - a couple of cowboys ride through the restaurant town.

The horse racing seemed to be a social event as much as an interest in the sporting results.

Hooves kick up dust as a horseback boy racer speeds through the spectators. 

There were a variety of different fashions on show, including mine.

Many people arrived to the event on horseback, though they were not racing themselves.

The dust was everywhere, kicked up by hooves and heels alike, and clung to my clothes and throat.

Arriving in Mongolia

I arrived in Mongolia on Sunday 8th July, almost delirious with sleep deprivation, having gone about forty hours without catching forty winks. I intended to rest up for a few days before the Naadam Festival started on the Wednesday, and so I didn't plan anything hectic but just gently easing myself into the city. I think I experienced a minor culture shock when I arrived in Ulaanbaatar. I have been to places very different from what I am used to before, but I don't mind admitting I felt slightly rattled on the first day, and the lack of sleep probably didn't help. Myself and the two Swedes from the train, Lukas and Christian, walked into the city centre from the train station as it was too early for either of us to arrive at the different places we were staying. Immediately leaving the station, Lukas stepped on a drain cover which wasn't fixed and the city swallowed him up to the knee, taking a big bite out of his shin in the process. The traffic was chaotic, and crossing the road was like playing chicken on a busy motorway with drunk drivers, though it has since become a more enjoyable adrenal experience. As I was waiting to cross a road, I could smell burning and suddenly the bin I was stood next to burst into flames like a brazier. These are just a few of the experiences which burst my Trans-Mongolian train bubble of leisure.

The Parliament building, Sukhbaatar Square, Ulaanbaatar.

I'm staying in the city centre with three great girls from Australia who are living here for a year to work in the NGO sector, one of whom, Jess, is a friend of my friend from London, and they've kindly let me colonise their sofa for my time in the city. They've been fantastic in helping me to settle in to life in UB, and things would have been so much harder without them. Jess managed to source tickets for the opening ceremony of Naadam, and the process seemed to be like trying to get a highly sought after Christmas present on Christmas Eve, but brilliantly she managed to get hold of a few.

I spent the three days before Naadam relaxing, writing the previous blog post, gently exploring the city (though I haven't walked far), and catching up with friends I made on the train. I spent two evenings with just Georg; we went to a swanky hotel bar on the 23rd floor of the biggest skyscraper in the city centre, which gave us excellent sunset views over the city. We also had dinner, I stuck to steak rather than risk the Mongolian cuisine, having not been persuaded by the unfavourable reports of the food. We were also joined by the Belfast guys one evening for some beers and tumblers of vodka, just for old time's sake.

The view across Ulaanbaatar from the bar on the 23rd floor at sunset. 

I feel much more at ease in UB now, having spent a few days here, though I feel like a computer having to have a security programme running at all times in the background of my brain for any potential dangers. I've seen a few fights since arriving, the first was between Australian miners, the other between Mongolians. Two people I know have been victims of theft from their bags since I've arrived too, so vigilance is a must. That said I've walked home alone late every night having been socialising in bars, and not encountered even a shiver down my spine, luckily it's been fine for me so far.

Wandering around Siberia in my pyjamas...a journey on the Trans-Mongolian railway

The Trans-Mongolian railway is the first half of the Trans-Siberian railway, and instead of continuing to Vladivostok on Russia's Pacific coast, the train branches off into Mongolia, before continuing to Beijing. The 6304km of rail track between Moscow and Ulaanbaatar takes 5 days to travel, and it's one of the best things I've ever done, and I don't even really like trains.

Chugging through a Siberian dawn.

The train departed Moscow's Yaroslavsky station at 9.35pm on Tuesday night. I arrived at the adjacent Metro station with just under an hour to spare, and emerged confused into the late daylight. There are three rail terminals all on the same square, but I had heard that Yaroslavsky station was an architectural wonder, so I chose the prettiest building and crossed under the road to that one. Although I didn't really know what I was looking for, I wasn't able to find any clues that I was in the right place, so after 10 minutes of walking around, I asked someone who gestured that the station I was looking for was the other side of the road. I hauled my baggage back the way I had come from, and eventually found myself in the right station, in a right sweat. It still took some time to find where in fact I was meant to go, and I spotted someone with a Marks & Spencer's food bag, so chose them to be my saviour. It turned out he was from Suffolk, was also called Ben and was also taking the train all the way and then the boat to Japan. Selfishly, this slightly annoyed me, as it really pissed on my thought that I was doing something quite unusual and adventurous, as the first person I met was doing the same thing and even had the same name. Annoyance aside, together we figured out where our train was, and turning the corner to find it we saw a swarm of backpackers, excitedly buzzing down the platform.

The train waiting to depart Yaroslavsky station in Moscow. 

My room mate - Jon Kelly.

I found my carriage and boarded the train problem free, and in my compartment was a Londoner called Jon Kelly, who was taking the train all the way to Beijing, to meet his wife and young son who had been living there since March. We were clearly both excited about the journey upon which we were about to embark, and chatted frantically about our plans and who we were as the train pulled out of Moscow. We had hardly left the suburbs when the vodka was cracked open, and as we toasted our journey we were joined by some of our neighbours, a group of four from Belfast. It wasn't long before we had finished our two bottles of vodka, and then more was produced, as we all got to know each other and celebrated the start of this little adventure. We were joined by other travellers from the train, Georg from Germany and Lenka from Slovakia, and we chatted until the grey light of dawn crept into the carriage and the alcohol crawled through my blood.

I woke up feeling ok, considering the amount of neat vodka I had drunk the night before, and enjoyed the ride through green countryside and dusty towns. We stopped in big cities such as Perm and Yekaterinberg for 20 minutes at a time, where I wandered on the platforms and topped up my supplies from the kiosks. I spent the afternoon watching Russia roll by the window, my head out the window like an excited dog in a car, nervously ducking in through instinct when an approaching train roared past, just leaving fragments of the countryside glimpsed through the gaps of the passing wagons, before the landscape was glued together once more.

The Chinese train, racing through Russia towards Beijing.

Lots of the way was forested, pine and birch trees were the wallpaper for the day.

Buying supplies from the kiosks on the platforms - beers, noodles and cigarettes.

Photo opportunity - riding into a Russian town.

That evening I went to check out the restaurant car, with Georg the German, Lenka the Slovakian, and a new person, a middle aged Danish chatterbox called Jeanette. I ordered some food; fried potatoes, chunks of unknown meat and melted cheese, and when it finally came I wolfed it down but I could have eaten four times as much but the price was prohibitive. We stayed drinking beers and chatting in the restaurant car until we were kicked out by the glum Russian waitress who wanted to close it for the night, and so we joined our Belfast neighbours for more shots of vodka and beer. Lucy, a Northern Irish girl, insisted I wear some of her clothes as this was in fact the Tranny-Siberian railway, I obliged after almost no persuasion. I went to bed drunk again.

The next morning the landscape had changed, and I could have been forgiven for thinking I was somewhere close to home. The flat, swampy ground stretched out to the horizon which was dotted with distant trees, and the small and dispersed settlements resembled the Paddy shacks which litter the Fens, where I grew up.

The flat and featureless land, with a hazy horizon lined with trees, looked lots like home.

Houses made from weathered wood and patchwork corrugated roofs lined the railway.

We stopped in a city called Omsk, with a grand old station and more supplies were bought on the platform. My diet for the next few days would consist of spicy noodles, purchased at the stations and cooked with the hot water provided from the boiler at the end of our carriage, supplemented with whatever else I could purchase: bread, biscuits and tomatoes. A few hours later we stopped in a place called Balabinsk, and the entire town and countryside for countless miles beyond, was trapped in a cloud of foul smelling smoke. Everything was shrouded in this dirty, brown, tar smelling duvet of pollution, and the sun was just a faint orange orb, hanging in a sky the colour of faded newspapers. At the station I walked up on to the footbridge to get a good look around, but the view was limited due to the pervading smoke but I could see an Orthodox church, complete with golden onion domes. The town felt quiet and a little miserable, as if sadness was hanging in the air, as well as pollution.

Balabinsk - dirty smoke seeped through everything, and a line of new army trucks sat on the tracks adjacent to ours, we speculated they could be heading to somewhere like Syria.

The golden domed Orthodox church, seen from the footbridge over the tracks.

A woman, arms laden with supplies, crosses the tracks at Balabinsk.

Later on, towards the evening, the train strained to a halt in a place called Novosibirsk, which before planning this trip I hadn't heard of but it's Russia's third most populous city, with well over a million residents. The city only exists due to the Trans-Siberian railway crossing the River Ob, which itself is the world's seventh longest river. The booming growth and industrialisation of Novosibirsk led to it becoming nicknamed the 'Chicago of Siberia', but it's actual name translates as New Siberian City. The city's centre was full of tall high-rises with neon crowns, and the outskirts filled with industry and a vast dock area, the distant cranes resembling wading birds, feeding from the waters edge. I went into the station for a look around and see what I could purchase, I got a few looks from badly dressed Russians as I was wearing pyjamas, which I wore for the entire trip, but comfort was paramount. I was amused by the thought that I was wandering through Siberia wearing nothing but my pyjamas. When I returned I found a mother and daughter, travelling from Kazakhstan, were quietly making themselves at home in my compartment. I was both at once disappointed to have lost the luxury of extra space, but also pleased that my journey across Siberia wouldn't be spent with purely Europeans. Our new guests were nice enough, very polite and rather timid creatures, but as time wore on I become annoyed, not by their presence, but by the relationship between the mother and daughter. The daughter was 20 years old, but when German Georg first saw her he assumed she was about 8, so to say she was young looking was an understatement. She was quite a pathetic character, who said she was an architecture student at university, but spent her days writing in a tiny princess notebook, refusing to make eye contact, and allowing her mother to cuddle her all day and tuck her up into bed at night. I enjoyed observing them, but I did get a bit wound up by the dynamics of their relationship.

I spent that evening in the Northern Irish compartment, again drinking vodka and beers with the same social crowd, and we absorbed a few more members to our group. A Swedish double act and two slightly quieter students from Wiltshire. We were all crammed into the one compartment, with a few more floating in the corridor or moving to and from the end of the carriage which links to the joining carriage, where we were allowed to smoke. It felt a little bit like we could have been in a play. There was a limited stage set, and a cast of characters each with their own stories and performances. I went down to the restaurant car, where I had been told a traveling Russian folk band were rowdily singing. There were no songs to be heard by the time I arrived, but I chatted to some Dutch travellers before the Russians, presumably having seen my big camera, gestured for me to take their photo. Afterwards I returned to our carriage to continue the socialising and merriment, discussing everything from love to politics, God and parents, before going to bed in a misty dawn which rushed by my window like white ribbons.

Pouring back the vodka in the Belfast cabin.

Two members of the Russian folk band.

The ghostly dawn eerily streamed by the window as I went to bed.

When I awoke we were already stopped in a station, in a Siberian town called Ilanskaya. I rubbed my eyes onto the platform, and bought some bread, tomatoes and cucumber to supplement the diet of noodles. I spent the day writing my diary, which I hadn't touched since Moscow, making green tea from a cleverly improvised brewing pot made from a water bottle and idly chatting with my fellow travellers.

The Kazakhs went to bed very early, partly because our body clocks were on different times. We were on Moscow time, which the train operates on, but they got on at a station in a time zone three hours ahead of Moscow. Also, because the train is constantly heading east, into the night, it gets darker earlier every day, but the night is still the same length of time. It was confusing at first, but once you accepted that time didn't really exist on the train, it didn't matter. We went to the restaurant car for a few beers, and the Russian band were playing and singing. It was great to sit and listen to, and it made some great video too. I stayed in there for quite a while chatting to different groups of people as the Russians sang song after song. After another beer, I gained the courage to move over to a group of three pretty French sisters, travelling with their Larry David look-a-like father. When it died down in there, I moved back to our carriage where I knew there would be a party in full swing, and to my surprise the French showed up and the dad produced a very welcome bottle of vodka. We all got drunk together and I enjoyed the conversation of the night. In the early hours we stopped at a place called Irkutsk, on the shores of Lake Baikal, and Lenka and Jeanette departed the train, and we all sang songs on the platform before taking some group photographs. Back on the train, the evening took a turn for the crazier, when Lukas the Swede decided he wanted a new tattoo, so Belfast Lucy produced a sewing needle and bottle of ink, and proceeded to give him a line down his finger, prison style. We rounded Lake Baikal at dawn, and some salted fish was purchased through the window when we paused somewhere. We all went to bed drunk and our hands stinking of fish.

Andre, the Russian folk musician playing his accordian.

The grumpy Russian waitress serves the band a coffee.

One of the Russian folk singers who liked having her picture taken, with a Chinese train guard.

Smoking on a station platform.

The band performing in the restaurant car.

Drunken singing on the platform.

The tattooing by dawnlight begins. 

The next day the landscape had changed once again, and it was starting to look much more like how I imagined Mongolia to be. Voluptuous hills rose out of wide river valleys, and rocky outcrops pierced the lush green. Everything looked more dramatic, including the sky, and all the passengers spent the day watching the scenery unfold before them.

Wide river valleys took us closer to Mongolia.

Lukas, with his new tattoo, watches the landscape as Mongolia draws closer.

One of the Kazakh men in our carriage enjoys the views. Note the gold teeth.

This was also the day we left Russia and entered Mongolia, so we had a few hours wait on the Russian border, whilst passports, visas and customs were all checked. Stern border officials boarded the train and checked all our documents, men with torches searched the nooks and crannies of our carriage, presumably for stowaways, and an Alsatian was led through the train. In the UK an Alsatian is more of a security dog, not a sniffer dog, so I'm not sure if this was for show and security, rather than to look for narcotics and explosives. Whilst we waited at the border station in Russia, there was time to wander the streets close by and visit the grocery shops, but a heavy rainstorm quickly ushered everyone back onto the train.

Travellers spend their remaining Roubles in a shop in the border town.

Swedes Lukas and Christian wait on the platform for all the passports to be checked and stamped.

The night before some new people had boarded the train at Irkutsk, so I spent some time chatting to them. I spent a while talking to Annie, a 19 year old Californian with a sunset smile, on a trip with her younger cousin and grandmother. The same process of passport and custom checks was repeated once we entered Mongolia, so a lot of the time was sat going nowhere. We hadn't got far into Mongolia when the sun sank below the horizon, hiding the landscape from view. I went to the bar with a few others for a beer, to spend my final Russian Roubles. I was close to leaving when two Dutch people I had met previously turned up with half a crate of beers, and we stayed there chatting and drinking until the early hours and the beer was gone. I returned to my compartment, chatted to the Swedes for a bit who were up and could not sleep, before deciding to see if I could get an hours shut-eye before we arrived in Ulaanbaatar. In my compartment, the Kazakh women were already up and applying their make up, and the father kept popping in and out, and despite the fact I appeared to be sleeping, he didn't seem to understand the concept of whispering. I was listening to my iPod, and observing the women's rituals through one peeping eye, out of curiosity. As soon as I had closed my eyes, the Chinese conductor started shaking my leg, telling me to get up. I got up, knowing I would not be able to sleep, and joined the rest of the passengers at the windows in the corridor, watching the Mongolian sunrise and our approach into a hazy Ulaanbaatar. With chimneys of industry pouring out white smoke into a yellow dawn, we passed many traditional Mongolian Gers (tent houses), before the train pulled the reins on the diesel engine and the journey for me was complete.

Mongolian dawn - approach to Ulaanbaatar (UB).

On the platform in UB, from left, Swedes Christian and Lukas, Belfast Paul and Helen, German Georg, Jon from London and Belfast Lucy and Paul.

Thoughts on Moscow...

Before deciding to take the train from the UK to the Far East, I had no real desire to travel to Moscow, or Russia in general, it just wasn't on my list of places I particularly wanted to see. I'd unfairly imagined Russia to be a grey, drab place, smelling of damp old basements with everything draped in an unpalatable misery. I was also slightly paranoid of my personal security, wary of imagined threats that had seeped into my brain without any logic or reason. For proof of my paranoia, before I pulled into Moscow on the train, I managed to repack my rucksack so that my camera bag could be hidden inside, and not display it on the street. I had already tried this in Peterborough and thought it was not possible to rejig the jigsaw of packing, but paranoia made it possible. Cautiously stepping out into the Moscow midnight, my nervousness was immediately washed away, when instead of the grim looking gangsters or gypsy tricksters I had somehow conjured in my head, all I saw were Kindle reading and iPad swiping hipsters, smoothly moving through the night. I felt a little embarrassed and ashamed that I had judged a city before stepping foot in it, and I can honestly say I never once felt threatened or wary of anyone during my very enjoyable four day stay.

Moscow felt like a large European capital from a parallel universe. Modern glass towers, concrete high rises, old nationalist monuments, little crooked back streets, sleeping churches, a smart and efficient Metro, with lots of wifi and technology integrated into the city. It felt familiar but alien; alien because of the near unreadable cyrillic alphabet, and the inability for me to communicate verbally with almost everyone I came across. The Metro was fast, clean and cheap, and some of the stations were architecturally beautiful, more like grand theatres than Soviet built transport hubs.

A Moscow Metro station, complete with chandeliers. 

Russians rarely seem to smile, they can come across as dour and relentlessly stern. Fucking miserable some might say. I can't even recall once hearing laughter on the street. I don't think I received one smile or innocuous acknowledgement from a stranger on the street. On the few occasions where I made some conscious public gesture of politeness, such as holding a door open for someone, I was never even offered a glance in return. Perhaps years of communism where the individual was not really recognised has made the Russians this way, or perhaps it's something more ancient that has left them as cold as their winters. I am sure I am being pretty unfair to a nation who's individuals offered me hospitality and generosity; but there is something about the Russian psyche that definitely differs to that of western Europe.

I found that Moscow certainly competes with the other capitals of western Europe with the amount of wealth on public display. There were more iPads being read than newspapers on the Metro, and more Kindles than those physical, old fashioned books that people used to read. The wide avenues in the city centre, were a dangerous race track filled with Range Rovers, Italian sports cars and top of the range BMWs, all accelerating angrily towards a more prosperous Russia. I walked through districts filled with snooty shops of the elite of European fashion. I dared browse a Gucci store, and although not into labels, I was impressed with the quality of the items, having never really studied them in any detail before. For a second I was drawn to and tempted by a deep crimson jacket, but if I bought it I would have had to have returned home and not continue with my trip. I left and bought a Big Mac instead.

Aside from the financial wealth of some of Moscow's citizens, is the attractive wealth of many of it's female inhabitants. The throngs of beautiful women who decorate the city, their looks a stark contrast to the generally sombre demeanour cast about the place. So much so, they almost feel inappropriate, like dirty thoughts at a funeral, or perhaps they have evolved this way to offer a respite from the tiresome monotony of the collective show of public misery. The escalators in the Metro stations, were a fine and steady paced way of showcasing the city's queens. I thought it was a bit like the conveyor belt in the Generation Game, but instead of a washing machine and cuddly toy rolling by, it was finely sculpted tits and arse. And as they say on those occasions, "Well I came with nothing, and I'm going home with nothing, but I've had a great day out."

Couch Surfing in Moscow

Rocking up to a stranger's house in the middle of the night, in a dark neighbourhood of a foreign metropolis, might not sound like a good idea to many people, but couch surfing was a great way to start my trip and was full of benefits unavailable to me if I had opted to stay in a hostel.

Masha, who works as a storyboard artist, along with her housemates showed me incredible hospitality and made my stay in Moscow so memorable. I had my own personal tour guide, my own bedroom, my own set of keys, friends if I wanted them and freedom when I needed it. I felt more like a temporary housemate than an intruding guest, and all from the kindness and generosity of strangers. 

Masha and her cat.

I'd recommend couch surfing to anyone with the confidence to throw themselves into the deep end, it's a great cultural exchange and was also a great way of saving a few Roubles in Russia's most expensive city. I learnt a lot about Moscow, a city which previously I knew precious little about, and I hope I helped improve Masha's English, as this was one of the underlying reasons that drew her towards accepting foreign strangers in her home. The language barrier was a minor issue between us, with some miscommunication, and her eyes would dart like nervous minnows through a broken stream of conversation, meaning jokes were harder to crack, and were generally met with blank expressions. Despite this, and the fact that my Russian is non-existent, (apart from the four words I learnt during my stay which helped me navigate many social interactions during my short stay in Russia) we got on very well considering we were two complete strangers suddenly living together. 

My most memorable experience that couch surfing provided me, was our midnight cycle around Moscow, which you can read about in my previous blog post.