Beijing, China

Last night somewhere in Beijing, I can’t exactly say where, I was eating fried cicada pupae off a wooden skew and dancing in a private karaoke room with a couple of very attractive young women in their late twenties from Harbin. I was in the tow of Gao Shan, in his late thirties, whose name literally means ‘High Mountain’, but who is a very vertically-challenged teacher from the provincial back blocks southeast of Beijing. I was having a ball, but our constant re-calculations of the deadline for my subway run to the airport were making me a little nervous. Earlier that morning I’d arrived off the Airport Shuttle into somewhere amidst the smog enshrouded downtown area of Beijing. The culture shock of coming from Siberia and Russia’s Far East was suddenly marked in my nervous system. People. And Urban jungle. And Smog! Various brands of police stood to noticeable attention on all street corners. When I asked them for directions to Tienanmen Square noone seemed to know. I was sure it was a conspiracy, similar to the Google search earlier in the morning for Tienanmen Square coming up blocked (see previous blog entry). I bought a one yuan icy pole from an old lady on the corner and walked up a side street in hope of finding a sign. I got a good lead from a young agricultural student and headed in a new direction. By this time streams of sweat were running off my brow and coursing uncomfortably down the small of my back. And I could feel the particulates in the air being hydro-statically bound to my body’s exuding moisture. I wandered into a temple opposite Tienanmen Square, more for want of escaping the traffic and smog and finding some shade. After paying the three yuan I discovered some comfort in the shade of some 600-1000 year old cypress trees, planted here during various dynasties’ reigns. The aimlessness of my gait must have caught Gao Shan’s attention. He bowed his head sideways as I walked by and with a huge bespectacled smiling face asked me where I was from. I didn’t give any particular attention to his immediate offer of assistance. But as he accompanied me he was in fact quite the gold mine of local information. He’s a teacher of Chinese literature in his small provincial town. But he was also a little eccentric. His English pronunciation wasn’t always the best and so he had this endearing habit of spelling his words, mid-sentence as he spoke. Sometimes he got the spelling wrong too. But he was so confident of his spelling that he refused to be corrected by me, more for the fact that he wasn’t always aware that I was in fact giving him the correct spelling and pronunciation. It became very humorous. “Dis is from da emperor’s reign and is da alter – A-L-T-A-R – of the god of land and green – G-R-E-I-N”, he’d say in earnest. I would be confused but eventually we’d establish he meant ‘grain’, which he was both misspelling and mispronouncing. “Ho, ho”, he’d laugh in his little jolly half-bent over fashion, “You are very intelligent man!” I’d told him that I was writing a blog of sorts and that I was a musician too. Two things that seemed to define me better on my Cornwall to Kamchatka odyssey On went the afternoon with his sentences constantly punctuated by his little spelling antics. The Forbidden City had closed for the day and so he took me to the second Forbidden City, just a interesting he said. But such was the heat and fatigue that I suggested I might shout him to a Chinese tea ceremony. I didn’t know what to expect but it was much much more than I ever dreamed. Just behind the Forbidden City was Emperor’s Lane. Gao Shan told me as we walked up the moat that the Emperor’s Lane houses back onto, he pointed out the heavily fortified house of China’s Number Three Leader – the leader of the People’s Congress. It was on this street a few houses up that Gao Shan found us a tea house. Ushered into an ornate little room replete with gnarly old peach root cut and polished to serve as the ritual’s preparation table, our young host, Nana, presided. We tasted in specific order eleven amazing and delicious teas. And with Gao Shan’s interpretation I learnt alot of the cultural significance and medicinal properties of them all. The tea ceremony was a delightful ceremony taking me and my jolly ever-spelling-his-English-words companion through eleven special teas, complete with their benefits and their cultural meaning. It was good to have Gao Shan (High Mountain) there to translate. I was taught how to hold my tiny tea cuplet like a man should hold it. And as we sat before the Nana, the pouring girl, I admired the huge contorted and polished peach root that served as the ritual tea preparation table that separated us. And after an afternoon of wondering around Tienanmen Square and the second Forbidden City in the smog and fug, the humidity and mugginess, with an ever present Gao Shan giving me interpretation in a harmless but slightly eccentric fashion, it was a relief to find this little tea house on Emperor Street, and rest in an air-conditioned ornate tea room, complete with incongruous flat screens, karaoke consoles and cordless microphones ready to go. Being so close to the Number Three’s heavily body-guarded place of residence would explain why later, when I was really embracing the karaoke session that ensued with vocal and gesticulate gusto, that the police and China’s Number Three Leader’s body guards came knocking and telling the little girls who stood by outside our private room for us to keep it down. We’d been told. After the tea ceremony had turned into a slightly off-the-rails karaoke session, Gao Shan was under my constant insistence and instruction to get me back to a subway station in order to get back to Beijing International for my post-midnight red-eye budget flight to Singapore. But my constant distractions in the packed hawker streets was proving hard for poor Gao Shan. And when I quite randomly saw two attractive girls, one attempting to ride pillion on the back of a push bike with her friend, coming up past me from behind on the crowded food-hawkers mall full of fried reptiles, amphibians and insects, I thought nothing of it to strike up a conversation. As chance would have it they spoke good English and were out of for a fun night. I was about to ditch the cicada pupae (which I think gave me the runs at a very inopportune time later that evening rushing to make my flight after a last-minute dash in a taxi to an of-site hotel for a shower and change was required!), despite the good protein source that they were as Gao Shan told me: they were too pungent, acridly and intensely sweet all at the same time. Almost made me shiver when I ate them. But Xi Lin, the lovely 26 year old from Harbin liked them and we shared the rest. Soon I was assuming control of the bike from her friend Anqi, and with my backpack worn on my chest and Li Xin holding on ever so delicately around my waist, I was ringing the bell, pedaling exaggeratedly and steering erratically through the crowded mall. “I need a beer to wash these cicadas down”, I said over my shoulder to a smiling Li Xin. After some crazy bike riding, we went to an upstairs bar somewhere and soon the four of us were singing, dancing in a private karaoke room. I think the young socially-awkward and married Gao Shan felt a bit left out but it was all harmless good fun. I was having a ball, but their constant re-adjustments of the deadline by which we should leave to get me to the airport continued to make me somewhat nervous. Finally we headed off in a rush, after another debacle over the billed amount. I said goodbye to Gao Shan, a good fellow. And the girls accompanied me to a subway station closer to airport where I could then get a taxi. The subway link to the Beijing Airport was now closed for the evening. I was starting to fret. The girls raced around in the dark at the exit to the subway station. All around men were in huddles in the dark. Above us a raised concrete highway towered. ‘We must get you a taxi with a metre”, exclaimed Li Xin, “That way you’ll have less problem at the other end” They finally found a driver with a metered taxi and I lept in. As it headed off I wound the window down to bid these midnight angels good night and good bye. I had just under an hour before check-in closed when the taxi, whose driver wasn’t satisfied with the metered fare and the tax stamps he’d thrown on to the dash to increase it a few more yuan, pulled three cars deep up to the curb. I had to argue my case and even write it down for him how much change I demanded. He gave me the correct change and then shouted for me to get out of his taxi. The JetStar budget flight check-in closed at 01:15 local time. It was nearly half past twelve. As I raced toward the check-in counters, the fried cicacda pupae had worked on my system too fast and I was in urgent need of a shower and change of clothes. So after grabbing my left luggage I raced downstairs to the Hourly Lounge hotel. But it was booked out. People lurking around here offered me another hotel room but it was off the airport site. They offered to drive me there and back within the 40 minutes I had left. I haggled and got them down from AUD$200 to AUD$40. And so it was that I commenced a race into the unknown and into the smog of the night. It was a highly stresseful run. And the claim that it was less than ten minutes away was starting to cause additional panic. I was screwed thought I. But after just over ten minutes we did arrive at the more costly hotel. Urgency consumed me. I lugged all my bags in to the room. And showered in lightning speed. The clean change of clothes was gratifying but I was filled with fear and loathing. Back at the reception desk waving my credit card, shaking heads all concurred: no credit card mister! So I pointed at the driver, who I knew was in cahoots with the hotel, and said I’ll pay you at the airport. And so we rushed back there, and the driver raced in after me to the nearest airport ATM. I slapped the filthy lucre into his sweaty palms and I was off racing my trolley to an as yet uncertain future. I was eight minutes shy of missing my plane when I rushed from the hotel-run taxi. But I made it to the deserted JetStar check-in area just in the nick of time. The commercial and cut-throat voracity of all the merchants I encountered on this hot and steamy afternoon and evening in Beijing was a shock to my post-Siberian system. While a little brusque at times the treatment by Russian merchants was never overbearing nor dodgy nor under-handed. Encountering the bare-faced nature of it in Beijing amounted to being the strongest case of ‘culture shock’ on my ‘Cornwall to Kamchatka’ odyssey. Despite that my serendipitous Beijing friends were a wonderful expression of life in this big fug of a city!

Beijing, China

Just took a shower in the wierd and retro Hourly Lounge hotel rooms. I’m at Beijing International Airport. And now I feel 100%, though seriously lacking sleep, given that I left Petropavlovsky-Kamchatki (the capital of Kamchatka Peninsula) yesterday afternoon and flew a very indirect path to Beijing. After the three and a half hours back to Vladivostok I had an hour to wait there in transit before flying six hours back west across Russia to Novosibirsk (capital of Western Siberia, I was through here on the train a few weeks ago en route to Lake Baikal). Then after three hours wait in Novosibirsk I caught the red eye to Pekin, Kitay (as they call ‘Beijng, China’ in Russia) at 02:00 local time this morning. And arrived here at 07:30 local time. Last thing I saw in Russia on the Novosibirsk airport public TV channel was an ad for WWF! Haven’t seen hide nor hair of WWF on my trip, though I had the opportunity to make contact in various places including Kamchatka, but decided not to. A fitting reminder I thought as I drank the last Russian Baltica beer before boarding to leave my beloved Russia. So why such a seriously convolute route from Kamchatka to Beijing? When I arrived in Vladivostok off the train at the end of my Trans-Siberian sojourn last Sunday, 15th of July, the travel agent I lobbed into there could only find this combination of flights to get me up to Kamchatka at short notice and back to Beijing in time for my pre-booked Jetstar flight on Saturday morning, 21st July at 02:10 hours. But ah Kamchatka! Man it was worth it! If only to whet my appetite. I can already see that several weeks are required to immerse yourself into brown bear country and salmon spawnings (the planet’s biggest in fact), as well as more volcanoes and their craters and lakes and a sense of wilderness I could taste while up the volcanoes slide, where just one or two very industrious mosquitoes managed to find me! I met a Yale professor in Yelisovo, Kamchatka, who’s been writing about the Russian Zapovednik (from the Russian word for “sacred, prohibited from disturbance, committed to protect”) for years. He says that many don’t know that the Russians have been protecting nature for nature’s sake for a very long time, even before most other nation states. When he tried to get the National Geographic to publish his findings in 1996 they rejected his claims out of hand. He got it first published in the Sierra Club magazine that same year. The term is an established one on the territory of the former Soviet Union for a protected area which is kept “forever wild”. It is the highest degree of environmental protection for the assigned areas that are strictly protected, and maybe restricted to the public [taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zapovednik ]. At the time, the Soviets looked at the newly formed US national parks system, which was ostensibly created for human pleasure when it did start at the turn of the last century, and decided that they didn’t want to follow the same path. “Theirs was purer from the start”, says Professor Fred, my new writer friend from Yale’s Environment School. The closest English term for ‘zapovednik’ is “scientific nature reserve”. As I flew from Vladivostok I looked at the route to Novosibirsk and I estimated by my calculations that if the cloud was parted then there should be a chance that we might see Lake Baikal below. We chased the setting sun two thirds of the way across Russia last night. The clouds spellbound me. And and at four hours into the flight I started scanning the earth’s surface below as the cloud blankets parted. Luck was with me – there were now huge breaks in the clouds. I was recognising mountain ranges. Then the Russian S7 (airline) hostess came down the aisle to say Lake Baikal was coming up. I was ecstatic! (On boarding I’d asked the ladies to ask the captain as to the probability of seeing Baikal – at the the time they came back with a big negative). And so sure enough within five minutes I caught the first glimpse of the north-east corner of the Lake, where the Upper Angara river delta snakes through marshes toward and through Yarki Island sand spit. As we moved west I saw the point at which I’d stood on 6th July looking across to Yarki and admirning the fishermen and the marshes and the holiday makers swimming in Baikal’s warmer northern waters. As we drfited along her northern tip from on high, Baikal stretched out to the south and disappeared under massive low cloud banks. But the whole complete northern tip of Baikal was clearly visible. I was very thrilled. I scanned the north-western shoreline (always tempting to call it a coastline as it’s so massive and comandeering) and saw Severobaikalsk township (where I’d stayed with Evgeny, Alyona and Anna (the wonderful family of Baikal Trail Hostel) and laughed with Azamat from Kyrgystan). And further south of Severobaikalsk I imagined the route I’d hiked south on 9th July as I spied beautiful Lake Slyudanskoye reflecting a grey evening sky. Just seeing this reminded me of the walk through the taiga-covered headlands and along the smooth-stoned beaches by crystaline waters to my favourite little wood-constructed villlage of Baikalskoye. All from such great heights. And it took about 15 minutes in the plane from first my sighting of Baikal to when I could no longer see it straining my neck backwards looking out my window. Then within another 15 minutes we passed over the (Lower) Angara River and the Bratsk (artifical) Sea – the Angara River is the only river to drain Lake Baikal. So within half and hour I’d seen the Upper Angara River drain south from the Baikal Mountains into the northern tip of the world’s oldest (at least 25 million years) and deepest lake and then it’s major draining river, the same Angara, coursing north into the huge reservoir, known as the Bratsk Sea. Needless to say I was very happy about that. So I’m going into city now to explore the Forbidden City, Tian#anm$en Square, etc etc. I need to be back out here at Beijing T2 to catch my flight to Singapore at 02:10 tomorrow morning local time. Australia beckons. But right now, after Siberia and the Russian Far East, Beijing is serious culture shock! (Hey, I just googled ‘Tian#anm$en Square’ in this Beijing Airport internet cafe and the Google results page came up with some selections. I then clicked on the wikipedia link for it and I got a message in chinese, which I assume says that the site is blocked. I asked the internet cafe attendant girl to assist and she got the following warning message while searching for the same thing: “We’ve observed that searching for [tiananmen] in mainland China may temporarily break your connection to Google. This interruption is outside Google’s control.” All very interesting.)

Novosibirsk, Russia

Vladivostok, Russia

Back in Vladivostok for a brief airport transit. Misty and cool. It’s mid-evening. And nobody in transit seems to be able to tell me where and when the flight to Western Siberia’s capital, Novosibirsk, is leaving! They’ve all headed for the smokers room. That Kamchatka air must have been too much for them.

Radygina, Russia

The climb up Avachinskaya Volcano (2741 m.a.s.l.) on Wednesday 18th July 2012 has to be one of the toughest walks I’ve ever done!

I got to base camp on Tuesday afternoon (with some great help from Martha at the Yelisovo B&B) and as I grabbed my greatly reduced backpack with pure essentials for my 24-hour time in this land of volcanic giants (volcanoes Koryakskaya (3456m) and Avachinskaya loomed above me), Vladimir, who’d driven me in his 4WD the 35 km up the dusty track that follows the rough pyroclastic-filled washout (from snow melt) to base camp, turned to me from inside the car and handed me a cardboard cannister. I looked at the faded text in Russian on it’s surface. It had pictures of Siberian tigers on it, but I assumed it was a bear flare. He quickly instructed me on its use, showing me with mimed actions, which amounted to “pull here and point at bear there”. This is favoured Russian self-defense device. Given it had come from his glove box and was so worn from rolling around in there for so long I doubted it’s field worthiness. But I took it with gratitude and grimaced couragously as Vladimir sped off in a plume of dust. He’d be back at 18:00 hours tomorrow to pick me up.

I explored this amazing location, made friends with the Kamchatka marmots, dreamed when the cold mist came through and bound me tight as I sat on the lime-lichen encrusted rocks and the alpine herbfields over light volvanic tuff, and marvelled at the spine-tingling views when it lifted as calmily as it came.

I stayed in a little hut in my sleeping bag. Starting the next morning at 05:15 local time from base camp at an altitude of 900 metres I set off alone across the various ravines, rock hopping and snow-pack crunching at times. The wierd fields of ant-hill-like soil structures (conical in shape and of varying sizes) atop the snow-packs had me wondering how they ever formed.

Many guided and private groups were to be trailing me up the mountain by the time I summited alone after seven long hours of solid pyroclastic scree-sliding-backwards-steps to the sulfurous and lava-field-plugged cone. The last hour was interminable. I was seriously fatugued. I even felt a slight vertigo, which is rare for me. And I thought to myself why go on. Why? But I did. And I’m glad. But I can tell you that as I approached the slope change where the grey-black pyroclasts turn to oxidised red and the angle of repose on the cone changes from around 33 degrees to at least 40 degrees (that’s bloody steep, considering that when one stands on a 45 degree slope it appears almost vertical to the climber on the slope’s face), I nearly considered packing it all in. I must be outta shape!

I spent almost two hours up there. And was soon joined by Russian, Germans, Japanese (among them some +75 year old Japanese women – Respect, Respect I say!). The Russian’s who sat with me (I had plonked myself out of the fiercely chilly wind behind a chunk of lava at the point where the rope is anchored – the last 100 m of the sliding pyroclast ascent track is aided with a big hand-over-hand style rope lying on the ground) were soon offering me their food. After I had plyed them with shots of vodka from the little hip-flasked sized bottle I’d bought and carried up for the occasion and zakuski of gerkin cucumber (I think they were a little taken aback that an Australian was offering them vodka at a place like this). Probably not advisable to drink alcohol when I was feeling a little dehydrated. But it was just a celebratory toke. I like the ritual of it. And after all I was in bloody Kamchatka. The one litre of water that I took wasn’t enough. I had thought we’d pass more snow pack melts but as it was the ascent track only passed one. But gladly my Russian summit friends were happy to share theirs, as well as their chocolate and salami and soaked almonds and prunes….

The views were so awesome. It’s hard to describe. The views to other Kamchatka volcanoes were incredible. Koryakskaya especially loomed right before me across the yawning gap. Snow packs still unmelted mid-summer fluted the volcanoes’ gorging ravines and accentuated the valleys and gravel-lined water courses below me. At one point on descent, taking a marvellous rest on a promontory of a rock on the gravity-defying slope I suddently saw Rauschak Test diagrams, the snow packs dendritic outlines forming wierd patterns before me.

A seemingly wafer thin line of cloud mist hung at 2000m (according to my watch’s altimeter, which proved accurate to within 55m) and when I passed throught that it was noticeable, like I was now able to see my correspodning height on all the other volcanoes that had this thin mist band drawn across them.

The descent took just under four hours, as I mastered the pyroclastic slope surfing technique that someone had tipped me off about. You simply charge down the slope in leaps and bounds and the loose volanic stones mechanically breaks your steps impact. With straight legs on impact it’s a soft landing and the pyroclasts crunch and grid your boots to a momentary standstill before you launch kamikaze-like down the slope again. It’s far easier than the alternative: a slow thigh-burning(and in my case, knee jarring) descent step by step. When the deepness of the loose pilled volcanic scree is insufficient to do the leaps-and-bounds technique then you do the fast shuffle and surf slowly down.

My Scarpas have never seen such abrasive action. And the dust! When I arrived back at base camp I had a visible layer of volcanic dust all over me. Serously thick.

Coming down I’d taken time to drink from the pristine snow pack melts. And in my water bottle I captured some of the black volcanic grit as well.

My rapid trip to Kamchatka was worth it just to be in this precious landscape. I felt blessed. And as I feel the stiffness and soreness especially in my thighs, I’m happy to have the reminder.

Vladimir was there to pick me up as I arrived back after 12 hours of exertion. And as the dust-coloured sweat streaked my forehead and neck, he shook my hand and laughed. Not for him I think he said, as I, unfathomably exhausted, slumped into the seat beside him. And as I handed him back the bear flare unused, I simply said “Thank you Vladimir, thank you!” He knew my gratitude was for much more than just the old flare.

Yelizovo, Russia

I’m in a beautiful hostel in Yelisovo (the town closest to the airport just outside of Kamchatka Peninsula’s main town of Petropavlovsky-Kamchatky) run by an Alaskan lady who was inspried to moved over to nearby Kamchatka many years ago, herself being from the pre-1867 part of Alaska that was occupied by Russians (the US government bought Alaska from a cash-strapped Russia for US$7.5 million).

I had two offers of a lift to the hostel from strangers: one from the lovely 19 year old Ireny who I sat next to on the flight and who was born and raised on Kamchatka and who plays drums in her band called ‘Sly Life’. The other was from people I’d met in the car park waiting for the luggage room to open. I’d overhead them greeting their teenage son arriving home off the plane and the mention of Australia. I asked the son if he’d been to Australia. Turns out he was returning from a 6 week exchange staying with families at Noosa Heads, Queensland. His father, through the son, introduced himself as the purveyor of all things outdoor tourism. Turns out it was his business. And with his son still as the shy translator he offered to take me to the hostel. He knew Martha the operator. But when Ireny, my 19 year old flight companion came over to say that her uncle was OK to give me a lift, I politely declined the other offer.

Ireny’s uncle was 22 years old and bare-chested, as men like to be during summer in Russia, with a seriously swollen and scabbed-up tattoo on his chest and stomach. It was very new and it looked very painful. He proudly assured me that it wasn’t as he zoomed his right-hand drive luxury Land Cruiser (imported as so many do from Japan, hence being right-hand drive) amongst the busy town traffic and then out of town to where the hostel was situated with a clear view to the volcanos.

As the never ending good-will and good-nature of Russia’s people continues to soothe me, I’m getting ready to make an ascent of one of the many volcanoes. Only got three days to make that happen. In the short time I have I’ve began the process of gathering local intelligence in order to determine what is necessary for an ascent of the volcano closest to Yelisovo, that being Avachinsky Volcano (Avachinskaya Sopka). Flying the three hours northeast of car-mad Vladivostok (the smokey haze mixed with the Sea of Japan’s mist and fog this morning was choking) I was greeted out the window with amazing classical cone-shaped volcanoes rising up all over the place, and radiating out from below their rocky skirts were myriads of taiga-encircled lakes of all shapes and sizes glistening back up at me as the jet raced overhead and the sun reflected in quick succession in each lake in turn. The volcanoes, of which Kamchatka has a significant proportion thereof of the planet’s total number, are still streaked with flutes of mid-summer snow lying starkly on their bare flanks. Already other guests at the hostel, over a wonderful salmon meal prepared by wonderful host Martha, have shared with me their enticing tales of bear sightings and of the famously large sea eagle in these parts.

Walking the river’s edge this evening, amidist the bull dust of the roads trasversed by cars (hard to believe but the soil is so easily disturbed when it’s dry), I observed the camouflaged-clad menfolk blowing up their outboard-fitted zodiacs and heading out to their favoured fishing spots. Camouflage outdoor gear seems to be the preference here. Maybe a post-Soviet hangover. I don’t know. But it’s noticeable.

Wierd little yellow-brown flies caught my attention, swarming over moist cow pats near the grassy banks. Some had other flies perched on top of them. I’ve never seen such coloured flies before.

Avachinsky and her neighbours were viewable through banks of clouds wherever I walked along the swiftly flowing stream, braided in places. Each time I looked up over the stream toward her new parts of her were exposed as the fog ceiling shifted and/or the roaming cloud banks moved. All the while the stream flowed quietly toward an unknown coast, a fraction of which I saw from the airplane above. What I saw was delta and braided into large sweeping bays.

I was enthralled to discuss Neuro-Linguistic Programming and neural awareness with them, subjects that they are both learning to be trainers in. Bottom line of all discussions in this area: living in the moment and taking responsibility for one’s own feelings and thoughts. Couldn’t agree more.

The other guest Prof Fred, an older guy with young thirsty heart and eyes, is an environmental lecturer and writer from Yale, New England region of the United States. He alsmost bounded down the stairs when he heard me arrive. Seems he likes to talk and passionate is his tone. I’m engaged by him in ways that I’ve forgotten after these two months on the road and not meeting other western academics. He’s researching the little known fact of Russia’s protected area system – the zapodevniks (see subsequent blog entries) – that was in place, if I have understood Fred correctly, long before the soviets came to power.

Martha, the host, also seems to know the WWF people in Kamchatka well. I’m not sure if I’ll say hello. With time short and my objective clearly defined, I need to stay focused. Three words: volcano, volcano, volcano.

Earlier, on the way back to the hostel I bought a couple of the Baltika beers, Baltica Number ‘9’ to be precise. Baltica make a range of beers labelled ‘0’, ‘2’, ‘3’, ”5′, ‘7’, ‘9’. And respecively they have the following alcohol contents: 0.0%, 1.5%, 2.8%, 4.0%, 5.4% and 8.0%. As it turned out the wonderful young Swiss couple who’d just rocked up from parts unknown with the bear and eagle and fox tales, had also bought a couple of Baltika Number 9 beers. We all agreed that of all the Russian beers we’d tasted it was the stronger beers +7 or 8% that had the best flavours and aromas.

Anyway, less of beer and more of ascents.

I’m now eight hours ahead of Moscow and a world away.

Vladivostok, Russia

Yesterday, after a gestation of just over one month, I slipped, it seemed, out onto the decidely empty station of Vladivostok. End of the line. It was 13:15 local time. Seven hours ahead of Moscow.

With its starting point in Moscow the Trans-Siberian memorial on the platform reads ‘9288 kilometres’. I remember I tossed a coin at Kilometre Zero in Moscow back in mid-late June. But with my train journey having started in Helsinki and with the major Arctic Circle loop, my journey must surely be far greater than 10,000 kilomteres. Not to mention the days on hydrofoils in sub-arctic rivers and crossing azure abyssmal waters of Baikal.

But no rest for planet lars. After a late night out exploring Vladivostok with my new Vladi-friend, today it’s Kamchatka Peninsular.

The three days on the train from Irkutsk were by turns wonderful and interminable. My kupe companions for the greater part of the journey were babushka Ireny and her sweet grand-daughter Katya (11). And above me on the top bunk was tall dark and incredibly lanky Sasha (Aleksandr) who was heading to Khabarovsk to continue his studies.

After first Ireny and Katya said goodbye and then Sasha a few hours later at midnight, I was joined in my cabin by for the last 12 hours of the journey, by first bank director Natalia en route to Vladivostok for business and then the brothers on a weekend of R&R in the same town.

I made other friends tooon the train. Smiling Ludmilla, the waittress in the restaurant carriage, who helped me each night with my orders.

And lovely Anvar from Tashkent, Uzbekistan, who being Muslim was happy to sit and tell me of his country while I drank my beer or vodka alone.

But it was Sasha who became my train buddy as the trip wore on. He enjoyed listening to my iPod. And he always requested I sing La Bamba on the guitar.

By trip’s end, my cabin was representing a party zone of sorts, with other carriage occupants sticking their nose in as my songs carried down the corridor. When Natalia the bank manager came in I wasn’t sure what she was thinking, as there wasn’t much room for her to sit down.

I have to say, that during my entire stay in Russia, I have been helped all the way by friendly, approachable Russians. Yesterday afternoon as I wandered the steep streets of Vladivostok with its Sydney-esque bays and Sanfrancisco-esque (new and nearly completed) suspension bridges (yes two big ones!) and mist, I asked a passerby in the high hill top suburbs (a bit of a run down area) the way to the very top of the peak. He promptly turned around and headed up there with me in tow. In his mid-30s Sasha (yes another wonderful Sasha!) ended up showing my around town til well after 1am! What a guy! A star of Vladi and a man with a gentle heart.

The sunset though from Eagles Nest lookout (a little tricky to find) was spectacular, with 360 degree views of the winding and convolute bays of the Primoyre peninsular (on which Vladivostok – 750,000 population – sprawls) and the multitude of islands, tapering off into the southern and eastern horizons. A mist hung over the Sea of Japan. And I looked to the south thinking of the land down under.

But not before a volcano or thirty-three!

PS: Oh, I forgot to mention that I went to the house here in Vladivostok where famous actor Yul Brenner was born many years ago. Yes, just a little factoid that I didn’t know about.

Vladivostok, Russia

“RZhD is my friend”, I started saying some time into my trans-Russian trip to my new Russian friends. They knew what I meant as they knew I’d been travelling on the RZhD trains for some time.

РЖД -Росси&#1 081;ские Желез&#10 85;ые Дорог&#10 80; (Russian Railways, or if literally translated, Russian Iron Roads) is the incredible company that manages the most incredible system of rail lines and rolling stock. Surely the biggest network that a single country on this planet has ever built and operated.

All except for my last trip was on precise time (the Irkutsk to Vladivostok train somehow lost three hours – must have been while I was sleeping, or was that singing!).

Vladivostok, Russia

After I’d farewell my train friends, Natalia, Evgeny and Vadim in front of the Vladivostok Station, I wandered back down onto the platform to look for the 9288 kilometres from Moscow obelisk. I sat down at its marbled-lined base and pulled the mini guitar out from its tattered plastic bags. I felt the joy of an objective realised and the sadness of a space and time ending, of friends met and farewelled. So I pulled out the guitar and started singing To Her Door.

Maybe it was to soothe myself. I was playing only for me. There was noone else around, expect for some people on the overhead walkways staring strangly in my direction. Maybe, it was a way for me to re-connect with a sense of place and a sense of home. Paul Kelly does that for me.

And so there I was. Alone. Sitting at the base of the Trans-Siberian end-of-the-line monument. And singing my heart out. And feeling good.

As Japanese tourists approached to take their photo of the monument, I concluded my song, stowed the guitar in its plastic bags and quietly slipped away up the platform in search of a Kamachatka airline ticket office and domicile for the night – in that order.

Khabarovsk, Russia