sofasurfers

[This is Ollie here. Hi! Everyone]

Well, it’s been just over a month since Fleur set-off with me (can you believe it? just over a month… 8,000-odd kilometres and a few not so odd kilometres… public speaking, panda testicles, our man with a gun, sleeping with a rat (no pun intended!)… lots of new friends, 3 or 4 new languages and now a new travel buddy - all of this and she’s only just half way through).

And I can’t believe I’m having to read it all from home!!!

Especially since I’ve just uploaded all the pics from our first moments in moscow. I could have shed a tear, but instead Fleur’s blog keeps my eyes much happier than that

And so without further adoo, click here to see the pics from when it all begun:

Moments from Moscow: Click thumbnails to load the photo story.

Go Fleur! I miss you! We miss you! Couchsurfing loves you! Kazakhstan needs you! 

[Cheerio all, from Ollie]

So it seems that my replacement BlackBerry and UK sim were deemed by
the local customs to be highly suspect, and so I never received them.
I do have a Chinese mobile, however: +86 150 1144 2562 and I
understand you can send texts to me for free via Skype. When I land in
Kazakhstan (hopefully on 19th November until 30th November), I will
(hopefully) be back on my Russki phone (+7 916 648 407). Or of course
I am on email, but much less reliably so.

So it’s bedtime, and I’m just performing my ablutions in the bathroom of my host’s Soviet flat in Vladivostok, when first the doorbell goes (I ignore) and then I hear a knock at the bathroom and some Russian babble. I’m only brushing my teeth at this stage, so I unlock the door, and my host’s mother (for she lives here too, along with her teenage son) rushes in, locks the door and sits on the toilet. It’s utterly unclear whether she’s hiding from the person who has just rung the doorbell, or whether she is in fact in need of the toilet. I turn my back and ‘busy myself’ with the pearlies to save her modesty and conceal my smirks. The sound effects quickly reveal that it’s a matter of the latter. I brush harder. Then up she gets, flushes the toilet (though it doesn’t flush properly), and leaves. “Is this normal?” I ask Stasia the next day. “Well, it’s not so normal, but many Russians have to share their bathroom and toilet between a whole family.” And now couchsurfers.

Hitchhiking in Russky Island

Hitchhikers and couchsurfers exist happily in the same Venn Diagram. There is also a massive young hitchhiking movement in Russia. When I explained to Stasia, my new St Petersburg friend here in Vladivostok and inveterate hitchhiker, that thumbing a lift in Britain is a long shot these days, on account of our fear of baddies, she replied, “Yes. Apparently only Poles and Slovaks pick up hitchhikers in Great Britain.” (I felt some amount of national shame.) Anyway, so there we were – Stasia, another Russian couchsurfer called Nikolai (who was from the Altai mountains and actually staying in a hotel in Vladivostok on a business trip, and who used couchsurfers to find instant friends on the ground) and I, on Russky Island, in the Sea of Japan off the coast of Vladivostok (bear with me here!)… somewhat stranded because we’d missed the bus. “Let’s hitch!” I venture, feeling like I could ride on the coattails of someone who knew what she was doing.

And so she did – while I futilely (that looks wrong) stuck my sore thumb skywards, Stasia calmly flagged down a car rather like a policeman would – palm held flat and vertical in the international sign language of “Stop”, and then raised up and down in the code of “Slow down – now!” We were quickly picked up by Alexei, someone who’d lived on Russky Island all his life and whose job was to cart sand around to construction sights. And no, he wasn’t a military man – he just liked a bit of camo. Why am I laughing so much? Because I’m in the midst of saying, “Please! Camera further away from me – please!”

So delighted were the Police by the sight of the Skoda that they invited us up to their Police Dog Training Centre, which happened to be close to the fortress. Perhaps in their drunkenness, they overlooked the fact that this centre was in fact a restricted zone, so when we wandered up into the compound (a forbidding-looking redbrick institution where a Hammer Horror location manager might luck out), our ‘friends’ were nowhere to be seen. It didn’t matter! We’d been invited! So up we strolled, to be confronted by an plain-clothes female police woman (curiously attired in cropped trousers, sheer tights and apricot socks over the top). Somehow she wasn’t very happy to see us. To compare her appearance and behaviour to that of an angry poodle though would of course be thoroughly childish, but she barked and yapped away in Russian. But we’d been invited! So blissfully ignorant as to her orders, we strolled on – the dogs were just ahead of us!

She tore up to the ankles of the Skoda driver and nipped away at them (actually, she pushed him with both hands and the full force of her Russian form). But it was OK! We could see our new drunken friends by the kennels so we continued to feel fully invited. We had a 1969 Skoda, after all! And, indeed, our facetiousness paid off, as our friends pacified her, and I stole this photo of the dogs

You may think this has little to do with couchsurfing, but what it confirmed to me is that you can parachute into a land all alone only to find that instantly you have a gang. No one really minds that this is a gang of strangers – we are all bound by a common sense of adventure and a will to find new friends. It also confirmed that when on landing, you have to expect to hit the ground running – in fifth gear.

Footnote
“Do you know what Continental Europe thinks of Britain?” asks Mikhail, the Skoda man. No… “The joke is that, as islanders, you are all inbred. Meanwhile in Europe, we have been having this great party, where all nations ‘get friendly’ with each other.”

Now this belonged to two other couchsurfers that my host had corralled from other hosts around the city: Martin and Mikhail from Slovakia and the Czech Republic respectively – and their Skoda, driven all the way from The Czech Republic. The Skoda was our lift up to the fortress (six of us in all, in two shifts). And so, perched atop another guest’s lap, we headed for the fortress, only to be stopped by the notorious Russian police… Not, however, in hot pursuit of some pocket money for them in the form of a speeding bribe, I mean fine (no chance in the Skoda), but, in fact, in hot pursuit of the Skoda itself – which they seemed to think was the most hilarious thing in the world ever. So hilarious that all jumped out of their car to film, photograph and laugh at this antique creature. Now they were off-duty, so it’s completely ok that they were all sideways with beer. (and indeed still drinking it, in plastic pints.

Skoda and couchsurfers: Nikolai, and orange-clad girls (another couchsurfing similarity - I think it must be about being brave enough to wear orange and stay with strangers). The bespectacled one is my host, Natie.

Vladi Police: Off-duty drinking policemen looking and laughing at the Skoda’s rear engine

So this was the highly anticipated Ambassador’s Reception at
Vladivostok Del Mar (blue seas! Speedboats! Water sports!). My most
able host, Natie, is the city ambassador for Vladivostok, and even
before I had pulled into its historic station ( the end of the line of
the world’s longest railway), it was obvious that Natie deserved her
stripes. “I have a plan to organise visiting Vladivostok Fortress for
a few couchsurfers this afternoon,” she had texted. “Would you care to
join?” With my travel guide informing me that this fortress – built in
1910 with some 1.5km of tunnels – is “really hard to find” and that
“visiting on your own is very difficult,” I gladly signed up.

Vladi Del Mar: taken from the train

Rally cars stuck and stranded on the Russia / Mongolia border.

Sheep soup before [Ollie adds: remember the tale of the slaughter video?]

Sheep soup afterwards [Ollie adds: well done Fleur... but you didn't lick the bowl!]

“The Kennel” [Ollie adds: makes you cold just looking at it]

Fleur’s rail friends [Ollie adds: I'd like to add a comment on the guys hair-doo, but I'm speechless]

Number One
As I’m tucking into my Mongie veggie stirfry, I notice that Katja, the
dreadlocked Danish girl who has been staying here before me, has
picked up her plate and is licking it clean. I glare at her with
undisguised shock. “We like to lick our plates,” assures Begzsuren, my
Mongolian host. So I see! And why, pray tell? “Well first, it shows a
good regard for the cook. Second it cleans the plate, and third it’s
good exercise for the tongue. Exercise is good for health. We exercise
the rest of our body, but not our tongue.”

Number Two
I returned from Mongolia to Ulan-Ude in Russia, reunited with my
Buryatian host, and found myself halfway through a hen party. Turns
out the Russkis have a much cleverer version of Mr & Mrs. Instead of
testing the bride how well she knows her future husband, they turn the
questioning onto the groom, and for every question he fails (for
example, identifying his bride-to-be’s lips from a selection of all
the hens’ lip imprints, or kissing a photo of his bride-to-be that has
been posted on the ceiling), he has to pay a fine and all the proceeds
go towards a big girls’ night out.

…a 1969 Czech Skoda! Police dogs! Hitchhiking! Russian mother in toilet raid! Cauliflower cheese! All this and more.

FB

[Blog post sent via SMS to Ollie, a bit of luck, and an Autumnul Siberian tailwind. Fleur flies to Beijing tomorrow. And promises to reveal all of the above once she's settled there. What Sofasurfing-treats will China hold I wonder?]

Hello all. Ollie here.

Well, the leg’s rested up a bit [squeamish people might like to skip the next sentence...right...about...now] and my surgeon in London has now sewn-up the holes made in Rio de Novosibirsk (!) so here’s the 1st photo-set to celebrate. (Don’t worry…there’s no photos of the leg). No, these 1st pics are from our 2nd stop-off - Yekaterinberg. Well, when you’re on and off the rails, sometimes it just happens that way round! Gawd I wish I was still out there. But Fleur is in touch regularly and it sounds like she’s definitely sofasurfer-ambassader-ing for the both of us Go Fleur!

The photos try to tell the story of our journey into, around and about Yekaterinberg. And it’s gargantuan Godly glinting golden globules. With perky Polly and her friends. (It’s a Russian tongue twister I made up, to make sure you’ve not had too much vodka with breakfast). And then of course, there’s the inevitable farewell that takes place all too often on a 12,000 km overland sofa-surf in less than 12 weeks. As Fleur wrote previously - there was quite a build-up waiting for Polly to arrive…as she was abroad in Turkey for the first day and night that we stayed at her house. (That’s the ultimate gesture in sofarific-philanthropy for you.) I look forward to the build up of her arrival again - when Polly hopefully comes to couch in London in 2009. (We’ll try not to be away when she does ;-))

Moscow pictures to follow shortly too, as well as a set on Flickr.com.

And so…Enjoy! Click here!

http://www.digitoli.com/sofasurfers/on-and-off-the-rails/

(There’s a slideshow, with captions, if you press the ‘ > ‘ play button that loads. It takes about 5 minutes to watch, so brew a cuppa, sit forward, and as they say in Russia … “dos vidania”

Ollie

So in precisely 12 hours (and GMT+10 Hours), I shall be escaping this life-void to step right into an Ambassador’s Reception - yes, my Vladivostok host is a ‘CS city ambassador’. I have great hopes, not least for a washing machine (matters are now desperate) + to be really spoiled with chocolate.

So the Chinese couple departed in the night - secretly, I was hoping they would go because if they were to stay,  it would mean that it was normal to turn on the lights at 4am, chatter loudly, and slurp food as if 20 elephants were sloshing through a swamp. And of course I couldn’t possibly complain after their fruit bounty. Now, with just one Russian woman in my cabin, I have entered some kind of retreat: somehow the women aren’t friendly like the men. Still, I guess these retreats  are supposed to be good for you.

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！！！！