sofasurfers

All aboard the Vladivostok Express! I’ve had to pull out my China guide early, as my cabin companions are a young Chinese couple. So far i’ve only grasped ‘hello’, ‘what’s your name?’ and ‘thank you’ - not enough to confirm that they have traveled from Moscow, but they seem fully literate in the Russian practice of sharing all one’s provisions (here an egg, some melon and an apple). Or perhaps one can also hope for such kindness in China…

So I’m at the Mongolian border where I see that the 20-odd british cars - a mini, a black cab - that I spied on my way out are still waiting in no-mans-land, with their ‘London to Ulan Bator Rally’ stickers on them. And still no drivers in sight. Maybe they were impounded… I remember reading about their departure in the Evening Standard - the Mini as I recall had a red phone box on its roofrack. Maybe it is now somewhere on the Mongolian Steppes. Anyone know what happened to the drivers?

I located the right library (do you know, i’d been waiting there the day before, to be told, “Oh no! Not this one - you need…’), and was taken out to the hills by the librarian’s 9-year-old son. This turned out to be a spot of extreme public transport surfing, as like matches in a box, we were rattled to bits by the lurching bus. Frayed nerves were soon soothed by a six-hour sesh of child therapy - yes, four cherubic, twinkly-eye Mongolian children clambering upon me, playing the  recorder (me and them: London’s Burning of course), and feeding me chocolate. We all lived in one room, my bed the carpet, and I thought to myself: imagine the smokiest pleasure of a one-room family Ger ever working at home. I’m now Russia-bound.

1. Irrepressibly energetic

2. Over achievers

3. Instinctive international diplomats

So i’ve just returned from meeting the 20 year old ‘International Relationships’ student, Narka for a drink. She had to pop off to a TEFL exam. I had to have a sit-down.

“I want to go to Europe and bring the energy that I collect there back to Mongolia. Europe has clean streets and educated people I would like these things in Mongolia. Oh I am so happy to meet you!”

Despite this being her very first Couchsurfing encounter, Narka is a natural - patriotic yet open minded and of course possessed of all three LCDs. Or - given that she is the cutest ting ever - a fine Miss World candidate. Photos soon promise!

[Ollie adds with irrepressible jealous energy: blog post sent via SMS and the power of the wind from a ghengis khan unicorn]

“Three days in a semi-nomadic ger,” I boasted!

Ahem. I lasted one day.

So Plan A was to stay with a German woman who has married and bred with a Mongolian man. In the ger. But the day before, I learnt that Fraulein had gone off on her nomadic wanderings, leaving just her husband and offspring. “Fine!” I thought - how interesting. I can ask her husband about all matters Mongol. I can play with the kids. I can toast my toes on the in-ger stove. Things didn’t go quite according to plan when I realised that he neither spoke German or English. I was shown my ger, the stove was lit, and the door shut behind me. The fire went out. I went out. “Knock, knock!” (Not a joke). I walked into his house, feeling a little short-changed, feeling a little like a dog put out in his kennel, and now feeling like a stray dog begging for scraps. You see, I didn’t go couchsurfing for free accommodation, but for the couchsurfing spirit - for human warmth, for an exchange of ideas and cultures, and - certainly at this stage of my journey - for company. So then we have this amusing, silent struggle, as I sat in his kitchen in the warmth, refusing to go back to my kennel, him and his children in his living/bedroom (the sum total of rooms in his house), studiously ignoring me. I finally retired, not before nibbling on some dry bread that I’d brought with me (yes, dinner), only to be woken up at 5am by a dream that I was surrounded by howling dogs. As I woke, I realised that, yes, I was surrounded by howling dogs.

I checked out this morning, and thanks to Ollie, organised another host, who lives in a “traditional Mongolian house” (whatever that is; I never found out). “Yes” he says, “I’d be happy to host you. Meet me at the Public Library where I work.” Ah - instructions sound so simple until you actually try to follow them. So I asked many people where the Public Library is. “There are many public libraries! Which one?” Oh. A meta-analysis of results take me to Ulan Bator’s central library (the winner of my survey, with four votes). I wait at the prescribed time. I wait beyond the prescribed time. I look quizzically at newcomers to the scene, waiting for some kind of recognition in their eyes (I am, after all, the only white girl in town). But no. No show. Onto Plan C - the guidebook. Yes, for tonight, I confess, I shall be paying for my accommodation. But actually, it almost feels like a homestay. My host, Bolod, a deeply gracious and kind man, has made me tea, offered to do my washing (finally! the first this trip!), and sleeps in the room next door. I seem to be sharing my room with an English girl called Rose (Rose and Fleur - sweet!) and an American but they also seem to be out at present. Meanwhile, I have arranged to meet with a local Mongolian couchsurfer tomorrow, who would have put me up had her sister not given birth four days ago. So to cut a non-story short, the curiosities continue, on- and off-piste.

Footnote. I have just met ‘Rose’. Actually, it’s Roland. Ha ha ha.

So tomorrow I am going to Mongolia. For like three days. I know. But three days (in a semi-nomadic ger) = better than no days. I am sadly without BlackBerry still, and only with my Russki mobile, which may well not work in Mongolia. So think of me sipping on fermented camel’s milk, because I won’t be able to tell you about it at the time. I should be back online in Ulan-Ude by 31st October, but then only to hop onto a three-day train to Vladivostok. Three days?! Yes - for not only is Mother Russia a very, very large woman indeed, but her trains are also exceedingly slow.  I will try to sms some blog haikus enroute.

One of the very great joys of couchsurfing is that you get to live like a local. It’s like the three Spanish firefighters said, “As tourists who can’t speak the language, when we are hungry we can only look for big hamburger signs because it’s all we understand. But here, you actually get the chance to discover how they eat.”

So for breakfast yesterday, I was fed sheep soup. Nose-to-tail sheep soup. I endeavoured to devour all, but didn’t get very far past the innards (have pictures - will post). Yes, floating lumps of white bulbous fat, layers of digestive organ linings, tendons… And later that evening, my lovely host (for she is) showed me a video of a sheep being ‘prepared’. By which I mean said sheep is being restrained on its back by my host’s four friends, its stomach sheared, and another friend slicing into the sheep’s chest. “Unlike muslims who drain blood from their meat, Buryatians keep all the blood of an animal,” she explains. “So he’s slicing into the sheep to access a major artery which he will rip, to kill the sheep. It doesn’t contain so many nerves so it’s less painful, and quite quick.” Fortunately, the video stops short of this point.

And the provenance of said sheep soup? Yes, that’s right, said sacrificial sheep. “I bought it from the countryside because it was cheap (about GBP75) , and because sheep from this area are very tasty because the climate and grass are very good.” I’m still thinking about that artery though - isn’t it messy, I ask. ”Any blood that spills is collected in a bowl, mixed with milk and salt and put into an intestine to make blood sausage,” she adds.  So not unlike black pudding, then.

How many Spanish firefighters does it take to change a wheel?

No it’s not a joke! Nor is it the start of the story. It’s about halfway through a tale that begins at the railway station of Ulan-Ude, where I am met by my fifth host, the 25-year-old Buddhist Buryatian Zhenya, and her current guests (her first ever couchsurfers, it turns out - three Spanish firefighters). We go home, quickly dump my stuff, and get straight back in the car to meet her friends for dinner. Now Zhenya doesn’t have her driving licence, so when it came to parallel parking, all four of us were on hand, with the ‘bit mores’, ‘right hand downs’, ‘STOP!!’. But we were a bit too slow - she had punctured her tyre on a metal spike. ‘Don’t worry!’ chorus the three Spanish firefighters. ‘We can fix this!’

So how many Spanish firefighters does it take to change a wheel? More than three evidently. They were quickly pushed aside by a local who had the new wheel on in no time. We went in to celebrate with a Chinese meal, where I got to tell my perfectly relevant joke…

Me: Did you hear about the two Spanish firefighters?

Them: No

Me: They were called Hose A and Hose B

Them: Oh

Me: You know! Like Jose?! No?!

Unfortunately, my perfectly relevant joke was somewhat lost in translation.

Anyway, it turns out that the Buryatian way to welcome new friends is even more alcoholic than the Russian way (we had five consecutive vodka toasts in the back of her friend’s car, and there were no ‘nos’ about it - and that was just the very beginning), and saw us all rolling around drunk until 5 this morning in a nightclub. So drunk that I woke up still with my contact lenses in (so REALLY drunk) and fully clothed. And somehow I managed to mislay my BlackBerry - I remain hopeful that I can find it as I didn’t take it into the club with me…Anyway, I have a Russki phone which I can be reached on - 007 (like James Bond, see?) 916 648 4071 if you need me urgently (you do need me urgently, don’t you?! Oh say you do!).

It struck me that you may - or indeed very well may not - be wondering about the man with the gun. For he was also our young doctor in Novosibirsk (and our fourth couchsurfing host), where suddenly even more pressing matters - such as malfunctioning limbs - came into play.
Needless to say, it was one of our very first questions: So what’s with the Kalashnikov?
“It’s a filter.”
Against what?
“There are two types of couchsurfers: those who judge on first impressions, and those who are more open-minded. There are too many couchsurfers who just say how crazy and wild they are.”
Right-o, we say, with pointed blandness. But where’s the gun now?
“The photo was taken during my military training. I only had to do it for three weeks because I’m a doctor. I don’t know how to use it - I’m a pacifist.”
Somehow though, the presence of the gun never quite left him. With something of a gaming addiction, he would take to his computer before bedtime, playing Russian convicts on the run, or a Siberian version of the demolition derby: “I’m off to crash some cars,” he’d say.

Trans-siberian update: after a “meat”-and-rice doughnut for breakfast courtesy of my berth buddy with the improbable black nylon bob-length wig (really!), we’ve just stopped at Irkutsk, Siberia’s capital located at the foot of Lake Baikal. It’s about to get scenic - at last, a clearing in the seemingly eternal spruce taiga. 7 hours till my stop, Ulan-Ude, the capital of the autonomous Buddhist republic of Buryat. My host, Zhenya, is pictured in her profile wearing traditional national dress - I can’t wait!

Ollie update: doctor’s orders to rest up. I’m presuming he’s in hypersleep.

So I’m now on my train journey from Novosibirsk to Ulan Ude - we left at 1am, it’s now 3am and we arrive on the afternoon of the 24th - it’s a good 1,000 miles.. I say ‘we’ for I have made some new friends. So I walk into my berth to find two burly middle-aged russkis on the bottom bunk - Ollie and I have been travelling second class (4-berth), taking the top bunks so our nickables are less nickable. I enter my first solo journey a bit anxious. But the signs are not all bad. There’s no vodka on the little table for starters - just a box of Lipton Taste of London teabags and some sugar cubes. ‘Chai?’, says one, gruffly. ‘Da!’ And so begins a most unlikely yet cockle-warming friendship. Exchanging my increasingly clammy dictionary between us, from top bunk to bottom bunk, I learn that Sacha (the Defender, as he calls himself) drives a truck and comes from Dikson, a port on Russia’s north coast. Does my mother not worry about me? Well, I explain, she’s off on her own adventure, to Antarctica. It’s in our genes. How long are you away? Do you have a Kazakh dictionary? I’ll buy one. Do I like the countryside? Would I like to be a visitor touristski to Dikson? Da! In summer maybe. You get the picture - that cultural curiosity and a genuine sense of humanity keeps us up long past bedtime. Perhaps I’m being naïve? Possibly, but given the earnestness of dictionary examination, and the long considered pauses before asking, ‘but what about…?, this feels more like fatherly concern (have you eaten? Have these wafers! No thanks. Have these wafers! Ok!).
If nothing else, being on my own has seen me speak more Russian. In two hours than in the rest of the trip put together. Off to bed now, feeling not so alone.*

* That I am so puzzled by my berth buddies’ instinctive hospitality strikes me that it’s me (a sorry product of London) who is uncivilised here; Londoners don’t behave like this because it’s each man for himself.

Losing things is the occupational hazard of any traveller. As lessons are learnt from treasures lost, no vessel of public transport is left without a cursory glance backwards to scan for personal effects that have strayed from one’s hold, no couch bid farewell without peeking at its underbelly. But last night I lost the most valuable companion of all - the one that I would forsake all others for. Yes - sadly, so sadly - Ollie has had to fly home for urgent medical attention for his leg. So while I feel like I have lost a limb, Ollie has gone home to look after his.

You see, up till now, Ollie had been stoically striding forth despite akiing off a mountain in February, breaking his leg in 10 places, requiring a titanium plate and pins to be fitted. He’d come travelling with the blessing of his consultant and plenty of pills and resourcefulness, regularly elevating his leg and cooling a large swelling upon it with anything remotely cold…. Here a mineral water bottle on the Trans-Siberian from Ekaterinburg to Novosibirsk - our (my) current location and Russia’s third largest city (large enough for Putin to be visiting today, no less - I passed by his police protection motorcade in a tram this morning). Anyway, back to Ollie…

It was obvious that he needed to get his leg checked out. With some serendipity, our fourth couch - in Novosibirsk - happened to belong to a newly qualified doctor, who works at an ‘emergency station’. And so, last night, we went to Russian A&E - not because we believed we were necessarily in an emergency, but because our doctor knew this was the most efficient route.

So, while I waited within a tableau vivant of rather un-vivant Russians (mostly male, with mostly alcohol-related concerns) groaning and grumbling, wretching and wailing, Ollie had his swelling punctured. Eventually he returned to the waiting area, in just his pants and hiking boots - his trousers and any colour in his face both departed: “I have to fly home.” Suddenly it was an emergency - his wound was infected and there was a chance that his bone could go that way too. So at 7 o’clock this morning, Ollie flew to London - of course, not without his eternally sunny spirit. The last bulletin before he took off read: “The air stewardess just had to rip a hidden can of beer out of the hands of the man on the plane seat in front of me because he’s drinking before take-off. He looks like Rumplestiltskin and she looks like Sharon off Eastenders. Quite a tug of war. Niet. Da. Niet. Da…”

Quite how sunny things will be without him remain in the hands of future couchsurfing hosts - I am utterly bereft, but at least I won’t be alone for long… We were blessed to have caught Ollie’s infection so quickly. I am trying to channel Ollie’s optimism and working extra hard on the travel karma, and of course, sending all that　ｉ　ｈａｖｅ　ｂａｃｋ　ｔｏ　ｈｉｍ　ｆｏｒ　ａ　ｓｐｅｅｄｙ　ｒｅｃｏｖｅｒｙ．　Ａｎｄ　ｎｏｗ　Ｉ　ｈａｖｅ　ｄｏｎｅ　ｓｏｍｅｔｈｉｎｇ　ｔｏ　ｍｙ　ｃｏｍｐｕｔｅｒ　ａｎｄ　ｎｏｗ　Ｏｌｌｉｅ　ｉｓ　ｎｏｔ　ｈｅｒｅ　ｔｏ　ｈｅｌｐ　ｉｎ　ｍｙ　ｂｌｏｎｄｅ　ｍｏｍｅｎｔｓ！！！！

So why don’t we see many people reading newspapers in Russia? “The most common news in Russia is rumour,” says Polly. “During the Soviet Union, people couldn’t get information, so the only way was through rumours. The most common thing was to meet in the kitchen and talk about politics where you’d be absolutely sure that no one would go to the government and tell them. It still exists now – people don’t want their brain to be – what’s the word? - pressed?”

Subtitle: Political Incorrectness is Perfectly Preserved in Russia

“I don’t like Turkish people – they’re lazy and stubborn”

“I don’t like Italians because the men stare at Russian women like we’re prostitutes”

“The warmer a country is, the more stupid the people are”

“The philosophers of Ancient Greece and Rome were the last Greeks and Italians to do anything intelligent”

“Women shouldn’t carry heavy things – men should do this for them. It’s very unhealthy for women to carry things before they get pregnant”

“Women make bad drivers. They find it very difficult because they are able to do lots of things at once where men can only do one thing, so they find it easier to concentrate on the road”

Polly isn’t due to arrive until 5pm the day after we arrive, as she’s been on holiday with her parents in a “rather fashionable” hotel in Turkey. We spend the morning in an internet cafe, couchsearching in China, but Sasha and her friend Albina (really!) want us to get home just before 5pm to be part of the surprise – they’re blowing up orange balloons, slicing oranges into segments (orange being Polly’s favourite colour), and carpet-bombing a pack of Post-its onto Polly’s breakfast table into a shape of a giant… can it really be?! Surely not! “Da!” says Sasha, “It’s a ‘pennis’!” Err, why? “It’s our fantasy!” she giggles. We are all to sign it. Who is this girl, I wonder to myself, to get such a homecoming after just a two-week holiday? Yet another example of Russian open-heartedness? And the “fantasy”? Hello Ollie!!!

And so we wait for Polly… Eventually, a glossy black Range Rover with blacked-out windows pulls up outside her kitchen window – given that we are surfing in the smartest flat yet (think Malmaison hotel suite decked out in Ikea), albeit within a standard-issue Soviet building. My eyes lock onto the car in anticipation. Sure enough, out pops an impish girl wearing oversized, tomato-red Rayban Wayfarer-esque spectacles and looks up to her apartment – I wave to her, she waves back (ironic that we as her guests are here to welcome her home). Next, she’s back in her flat, all the girls are hysterically screaming and jumping up and down, the rat is scooped from its cage and positioned onto its accustomed spot on Polly’s shoulder, and The Polly Show begins – what is to be a three-hour soliloquy on Life as Polly. With a slide show and everything. Edited highlights next….

Latitude: 56 degrees North Longitude: 60 degrees East

As the train slows down coming into Ekaterinberg - the town where the last Tsar and his family were murdered by the Bolsheviks in 1918, and some 1,814km and 30 hours from Moscow – my heart speeds up. We’re due to meet Sasha. We know nothing about Sasha except that she doesn’t speak much English (her confirmation sms reads, “O, yeah. I,m meet your of course!”), she is about 20, and she is not a couchsurfer. She is the friend of Polly, our third Russian couchsurfing host who happens to be on holiday still. And – obviously – we have no idea what Sasha looks like. We scan the busy Friday platform for young Russian girls.

It’s a redundant task – immediately outside our carriage is a pretty young girl who could be none other than Sasha, on account of a pink, a yellow and a green balloon that she is coyly holding in the air. She sees us, we see her, and suddenly we all quite naturally find ourselves giggling together in a group hug. After a near-on physical wrestle between us and her over our bags in her insistence to help, plus a non-starter conversation about “Polly’s mother’s wife – her mother’s wife? Her mother’s wife? Da? Da?” and concomitant exchanges of quizzical looks, we head to the tram stop for the next leg, much sign language, dictionary (or “diary”) reference, and confused, yet eager communication…

As we’re packing up our possessions that have ricocheted around our host’s high-rise apartment, it occurs to me that, as a host now on his 14^th set of guests, Max must have something of a collection of objets oublies. “Ach yez, cluck cluck cluck,” he says, convulsing in laughter (as he is prone), “It’z like a muzeum here, cluck cluck cluck. I have towels, I have trousers, I have toozbrushes…. cluck cluck cluck.” Well, maybe we’ll bequeath something to the British wing –we say in jest, we hope.

Another thing that occurs to us is that it’s hard to be selfish as a couchsurfing guest. We are in a major hurry to leave Max’s place as there’s lots we have to do before we catch the Trans-Siberian Express to Ekaterinberg – like going to MacDonalds (for its free wifi, honest), buy a new camera (we didn’t break one, honest). But Max won’t let us go until he has burned a disc on his computer – he won’t say what it is.

Juzt 10, maybe 15 minutes, guys! And I can copy your photos?

But Max, we really can’t….Ok, sure - here’s our smart card.

Ollie and I exchange looks with bitten lips – it’s impossible to say no to someone who took a day off work to take us round Moscow but time is really tight and we are already late. ‘Yes’ is easier than ‘no’ in this instance. Finally, it’s finished, and Max presents us with a copy of Ryazonov’s Joke of Your Life film with English subtitles - the Russian film shown every new year about how easy it is to confuse one Soviet apartment block with another (a recurring theme for us, it turns out).

And, as we later discover, we have indeed bequeathed my microfibre towel and Ollie’s gel pack for cooling his broken leg to Max’s museum - happily if unwittingly traded for the film.

Is this another joke on us, or simply the extent of boundless Russian hospitality? Our host already has a permanent couchsurfer (his jobless friend), who presumably has first dibs on couches, so here we are, squeezed into the 7ftx7ft kitchen. See - it’s just us, sofabed and kitchen. Not an inch of floorspace for anything else. Apart from our host’s wall-to-wall smile in the morning (NB: we quickly learnt it’s the latter - cf joke vs hospitality). (FB)

And here - finally- is the evidence.

Go on - have a jolly good laugh

“When you come out of the Metro, you’ll see a supermarket, then we are house 36…Please be there at 8am as I have a very hard day.”

And so these were our instructions for our second Moscow couch. Simple, surely…

Ha - of course not. Who could foresee how vague this might be until arriving there… Until too late.

So, metro - check. Supermarket - check. Time check: 8.10 (small whoops). But House 36? House even? We are entirely surrounded by row upon row of dirty white Soviet housing blocks, all set back 100m on both sides of an uncrossable dual carriageway. We trawl up and down, squint this way and that. Not a single house number to talk of. We text our host for another clue. The blocks are so far off the road, the ground floor isn’t visible and we don’t know which side of the road we’re supposed to be on. It’s a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. Laden with all those rocks in our rucksacks, we quickly surrender to our £1.60/minute call charges and call the host - it’s now 8.45 (big whoops). He gives us our next instructions (but isn’t that the sound of a man freshly woken? No wonder no response to our text). Finally we make it into his 7th floor apartment where he at first seems surprised that it took us so long to find his place, only then to recount a much-loved Russian film by the director Ryazonov, with a title that seems to translate roughly as The Joke of Your Life, where a drunk Russian mistakes a Soviet flat in St Petersburg for his own Moscow pad, as the addresses coincided, the appearances coincided, and even the interiors coincided - this mistaken identity as a result of Soviet homogeneity is something of a national joke, apparently. And today, it’s on us. (FB)