Land of the Rising Sun, Heat, and Humidity

Sincere apologies, Dear Reader, in the satellite delay in updating our blog to include our Japanese sojourn. Somehow it was a very intensive four weeks, where we experienced the oddness of being tourists, rather than travellers, and spent a fair amount of time with sore heads and sore feet as a result of trying to visit and absorb a culture so alien to our own.
We are very glad we've seen what we've seen in Japan, but at the same time neither of us is particularly concerned that there's plenty we've still missed. We definitely got to a point where we were suffering from shrine and temple fatigue; philistine it may be, but how many shrines and temples is it necessary to visit before you get the general idea?
Please don't let me put you off; Japan is certainly worth a visit, I would just personally suggest you go with a mind to having an enjoyable time, rather than with the expectation of being blown away by what you'll see and experience. The impression we left with was that Japan has been very careful and clever in marketing itself (both to the “outside world” and its own people) as a magical, mystical place, but nearly everything we saw and every place we visited has been either been created or carefully managed; in our eyes there was very little “raw” Japan to be exposed to. Again, it seems like I'm running the place down, which I'm truly not; we do have some great memories, met some wonderful people (both local and fellow travellers and tourists) and had one or two once-in-a-lifetime experiences. (Mmm...I'm not sure that I fully agree with Alex's reservations, but I will try to expand on that. I understand that Japan is an earthquake, land-slide and flood-prone country (possibly avalanche-prone in the Alps, too). Natural features, and particularly rivers, have been (over-?) engineered (plenty of concrete used) to reduce the threat of landslides and floods, so there is little that looks really natural. Alex and I are probably more conscious of that, having crossed Eastern Siberia. (Below, what I regard to be a fairly typical view of a small Japanese city).
Also, shrines, temples and castles are usually built from wood, so many originals were burned down, either by accident, or during a century or so of civil wars, or during a period of modernisation in the mid to late 1800s, or during (massive) bombing raids in World War II. Consequently, what are now present are replicas. That's not to say that the replicas aren't interesting or attractive, but I feel that we have more surviving historic buildings in the UK; we just don't have the fanaticism for them that the Japanese seem to have (I don't regard National Trust members as fanatics).
Just as important is our approach to the country. I think Alex and I were too influenced by the enthusiasm of our Lonely Planet guide book and our expectations were higher than they should have been. Plus, we have realised that we are more interested in natural landscapes and wildlife than in cultural aspects. I know that it has been difficult for Alex to write this Blog because she didn't want to be unfair about Japan and looking at the 'photos that we have taken, they were lovely and/or interesting places - Russell).

So where do I start? Our journey to Japan from Russia? Wow, that seems like another world entirely, thinking back to our ferry crossing from Vladivostok to Fushiki. It was only fitting that it was a very “Russian” trip! The night we sailed we were advised that we would have dinner once we left the port, and on our recce of the ship we certainly saw the Dining Room being set up for a meal. However, there were no further announcements, and when we tried to get into the Dining Room about an hour later to see if anything was happening, the doors were firmly locked. We heard no more. Breakfast the next morning was actually announced (in English too), and our final Russian experience was being taken to a table and being told we would be required to sit in the same place for every mealtime for the next two days until we docked in Japan. A fellow traveller who'd also missed the previous night's window of opportunity for dinner was pretty much forced to sit with us, again for the duration of our sailing. It turned out to be extremely beneficial for us (but I'm sure something of a challenge for him), as Takuma (his name) was a Japanese student returning home after studying Economics in Paris for 6 months. He was lovely. We (me especially) were very concerned about the etiquette rules in Japan, which are many and far-ranging (in fact I felt under a lot of pressure to “perform” properly and not perpetuate what is supposed to be a Japanese perception that Westerners are somewhat uncouth and uncivilised compared to themselves). Takuma did his very best to guide us through some of the “basics” e.g. did you know it is considered impolite to leave a single grain of rice in your bowl? He was also an absolute star when it came time to find the train station in Fushiki, get tickets and work out how we were going to get to Takayama, our first stop in Japan. We took a photo of him, unfortunately we forgot to ask for his email address, so if anyone knows him, please ask him to get in touch!
(Left, a view of Takayama, though it's fair to say that all the rural areas we saw seemd to look like this. Where you see fields in the picture, these are paddy fields and is typical).
Can I say at this point, that unless you've been there, you can have no concept as to how hot and humid Japan can be. I don't think any daytime temperature was under 30oC the whole time we were there, and the humidity?! The nearest thing I can compare it to is to ask you to imagine walking into a hot bathroom after someone else has just had a long bath or shower in there. It's incredible; as soon as you walk out of your air-conditioned hotel you literally walk into a wall of damp heat. Within seconds you're dripping with sweat and don't stop until you're back inside an air-conditioned building. Most of the Japanese men have a towel draped round their necks, and nearly all the women carry dampened towels to mop their faces. We wondered if we were perhaps being a bit wimpy about the weather, until we met a couple of women in Nagoya (more on this city later), one of whom told us that her English friends who work there always leave and go back to Britain at this time of year 'cos they can't cope with the heat. And also this summer is an unusually hot one, so even the locals are struggling ...
That first day in Japan was very emotional for both of us. We'd become so used to being straight-faced and closed off throughout Russia, but now we'd jumped into a country where people were ready to smile all the time, and actively tried to be helpful. For instance, to get to Takayama we had to change trains twice, but when we got off our first train after parting ways with Takuma, we just didn't have a clue, as funnily enough, everything was written in Japanese (although as we spent more time there, we became amazed at how much IS written in English (Actually, most public transport information has some English included, a policy to promote tourism, I understand - Russell). Whilst trying to decipher a very mystifying timetable, a young lad came up to us and established where we were trying to get to, and told us to stick with him as he was going most of the way ... all this in Japanese by the way, he didn't speak English, but as Russ has said before, it's amazing what you can communicate by tone of voice and non-verbal signals. Thanks to him we safely got to our destination and very quickly came across our next helpful, smiley person, at the information booth situated right outside Takayama train station (fancy that, having an information point where it's actually needed???) who found us accommodation and gave us pointers to restaurants within about 5 minutes.

TAKAYAMA
A mountain town in Central Honshu (Japan consists of around 3900 small islands and 4 large ones; the latter are what most Brits would think of as Japan and Honshu is the largest of these and contains most of the major cities. Japan also lays claim to islands to the North, occupied by Russia, and to the South, occupied by North Korea. I think that they lost these additional territories at the end of World War II - Russell), that I would heartily recommend visiting, albeit with the proviso that you don't go expecting “real” Japan; for us it was a wonderful place to be as a starting point, but it's definitely geared up as a tourist trap; everyone spoke English, I swear we passed a “Ye Olde Tea Shoppe” or something very similar, and the place is absolutely heaving with Western Tourists. We heard more English spoken our first night there than we had in our entire two months across Russia, including Moscow and St Petersburg! (above, just a pretty view in Takayama).
We stayed at the Rickshaw Inn for 4 nights, and loved it as a base. Our first night we stayed in their “Japanese-Style” room, with a sacred space and tatami matting and floor-cushions and futons and green tea and everything! The next 3 nights we were in a Western-style room, which was equally comfortable (in fact maybe more so, 'cos you don't realise how much you rely on chairs until you don't have them! I'm sorry but there's only so long a Western body can sit comfortably on a cushion on the floor, while making sure your feet aren't pointing at anyone, another rule of etiquette!).
Whilst at the Rickshaw Inn we met a wonderful Aussie family, Oliver, Coral and their son Jim. (They had come to Japan for Jim to take part in a Dr. Suzuki Summer School in Matsumoto, but were doing some sight-seeing as well). In fact we liked them so much we positively stalked them and joined up with them again later in Matsumoto – more on that place to come.
Takayama is perfect if you want a place that you can walk round; nearly every corner you go round brings another lovely view of either a sparkling carp-filled river, or a glorious old-town street with it's distinctive cedar-frond spheres hanging outside the sake shops.

It also boasts, on the outskirts of the town, Hida-no-Sato, a wonderful open-air museum where dozens of traditional homes and farm buildings have been rebuilt, (having been moved from places now flooded after the creation of yet another hydro-electric dam).

And it really must be a wonderful place, because I had cycled – yes, me, cycled – there under duress, and my view was more than slightly tainted by the tantrum I'd been having, because I don't do handlebars, a steering wheel is SO much more me, darling.
KANAZAWA
Having decided to give Oliver, Coral and Jim a respite from our presence for a little while, (or was it that we could see them starting to get scared?), we headed off to Kanazawa, where we were going to swap our Exchange Form for a Japan Rail Pass. This is an essential if you're going to do a lot of travelling round Japan; the rail system there is an absolute marvel – a famous quote is that you can set your watch by them, which you really can (in general, when things in Japan don't work or run to time, it's surprising – Russell) – but it is VERY expensive (err...it's probably about the same as the UK, price-wise - Russell), whereas if you buy a Pass (which comes at a set price), you're pretty much guaranteed a saving on your travel costs. This wasn't a terribly simple thing for us to do; we'd of course only decided on adding Japan to our itinerary after China fell through, but you can only buy the Exchange Form for the Pass outside of Japan (and only through specified agents, none of whom are in Eastern Russia - Russell). Thanks goes to my Mum for this one, who took receipt of the Exchange Form and DHL'd it to us, along with two more Lonely Planets; not only was it a real faff to do it, but it was flippin' expensive too, and she's very kindly covered the cost for us. Thank you Mum!
We found we'd picked a classic time to move around; not only was it apparently the main Japanese 3-day holiday, but it was also the start of the school summer holidays too. So missing the train to Kanazawa that we were standing right by was only the first of our worries. (There's a very definite system on rail platforms, where the type of train coming in determines where exactly you stand on the platform, and I mean EXACTLY. These trains are punctual for a reason; if you don't get yourself on board within a certain number of seconds, then you've had it).
Once we found an alternative train to get us to Kanazawa, and actually managed to get on board this one, we arrived at our destination, found another brilliant information point to help us get accommodation, and then spent an increasingly worried 20 minutes or so, whilst they phoned hotel after hotel for us, trying to get us a room, only to be told they were fully booked because it was, after all, the holidays. But bless their cotton socks, the girls at the desk kept trying, and finally found a ryokan, (a traditional Japanese lodging house), to take us. In a way we struck lucky, as it was based in the Katamachi district of Kanazawa, the main shopping and eating area etc, and we were right by the River Sei, so it was actually a very quiet place to sleep. The only real problem was that the ryokan's air-conditioning system was truly antiquated, which meant that if you weren't sat right in front of it you couldn't feel it! We learned very quickly that when we came back to the ryokan in the evening, the thing to do was to have a shower (shared bathroom on the ground floor) right before bedtime, and then go straight to our room (on the third floor, up 6 flights of steps, no lift) lie down and not move for the rest of the night!

(Left, the Ryokan room set-up for our arrival, with a flask of cold green tea on the table).

(Left, how a ryokan room looks when the futons are takn out of their cupboard and the table folded away).

I have a terrible confession to make here; Kanazawa has a Macdonalds, and it made my day finding this out! Don't get me wrong, if it's your thing, then Japanese food is lovely, but as a Westerner you have to be prepared for the possibility of being served a bowl of rice with EVERY meal ... I don't actually like rice ... As time went on Russ and I both got rice and noodled out, and have realised that we most definitely have Western palates.Kanazawa has a Samurai district, where, yep you've guessed it, Samurai used to live. We spent a lovely (hot – 33oC at 11am) morning following the winding streets, which are lined with tile-roofed mud walls, and visited the Nomura Samurai house, which has a small but beautiful, quintessentially Japanese garden; green, lush, shady and tranquil, with huge carp gliding under a stone bridge.

We also visited Kanazawa Castle Park, (left, Kanazawa Castle) which became Russ' favourite nap spot for the next couple of days, having some generously sized benches tucked under gloriously shady trees. As with a lot of castles, temples, shrines etc in Japan, most of it has been reconstructed, but it had impressive interpretation (thank you Attingham for teaching me all about that!), with good insight into how the castle's (unique) wooden frame had been constructed ... well Russ liked it!

My treat was looking round Kenroku-en, one of Japan's three top gardens. I confess, initially it was something of a shock – it's so small, compared to English gardens and parks that are open to the public. But once we'd got our heads round the fact that this is normal for Japan, and adjusted our vision to appreciate the differences you can see with each step, rather than every few hundred metres, then the garden started to make sense. Also, once the heat of the day passed, and the soft afternoon light gently faded some of the hard edges, then it really did become a beautiful place to be (We can see that Japan must be at its best in Spring or Autumn; high Summer temperatures means that most flora had long-since bloomed and there was very little colour in the gardens that we visited, and the high sun did little justice to the gardens that relied on more structural planting. Japan's love of it's historic gardens and parks, I think reflects the very urbanised nature of Japan and their confidence in manipulating nature. Such gardens are a tribute to the ability and attention to detail of their creators to landscape and to plant and train trees, flowers, mosses, etc, in a way that mimics what happens in nature (and, perhaps, no longer exists in Japan), and they would seem spacious to the average Japanese house-holder, who is unlikely to have space for a garden, but I tended to find them frustratingly small and a little too contrived. However, they are very photogenic- Russell).
GIFU
We'd been advised to come here to go and watch the night-time cormorant fishing, more on that in a bit.
Our train ride to Gifu highlighted another fantastic bit of quirkiness with Japanese trains; when they get to their final destination and are due to make the return journey, we discovered that each row of seats in every carriage is pivoted, so you put your foot on a pedal to release the seat, and the whole thing swivels round to face the other way – brilliant! While on the subject of trains, I have to mention the fact that everyone, from porters to ticket collectors to trolley-dolleys to the driver, all have really smart uniforms (including white gloves - Russell); no scruffy, pilled, moth-eaten jumpers for them! And every time the ticket collector walks through the train, as he gets to the end of each carriage, he turns and bows to the occupants before moving through to the next one – how respectful is that?!

So back to the cormorant fishing, or ukai. This literally is fishing with cormorants instead of a fishing rod and line. It's a practice that's apparently been going on for centuries, and although I wasn't terribly comfortable with the amount of manhandling of the birds, Russ assured me it was perfectly fine, and that after all the cormorants have 10 years more life expectancy being kept in captivity for this purpose. There is a “master” who is in charge of about a dozen birds, who are released into the water but are tethered, so they can't get away. The master watches them until they dive for fish, then as soon as they reappear on the surface of the water, he hauls them out onto the edge of the boat, massages their throat to get them to regurgitate the fish (sorry if you're reading this while eating your dinner) and then drops the bird back in the water to have another go. The most peculiar thing about this activity, which I still don't really understand the why of, is that this fishing is done at night, and the fishermen use a flaming torch which hangs off a hook on one end of the boat. Hopefully you'll be able to see what I'm on about from the terrible picture which Russ will add (above, master with cormorant in hand, surrounded by tourist viewing boats. In the background is the flaming beacon of another fishing boat).
NAGOYA
For the life of us, neither of us can now remember why we decided to go here. It was a nothing kind of city on the whole, so we were glad we only booked in for 2 nights. Not that we had far to travel; it took a whole 15 minutes train ride between Gifu and Nagoya. We spent longer on the subway getting to our hotel district from the train station! This is where we met the 2 ladies I mentioned in my introduction, who discussed the heat. One of the them, although Japanese, actually came from Melbourne, and had brought an Aboriginal art collection with her to show at a gallery in Nagoya. She invited us to go along for a look, which we did the next day. She was an interesting lady – very “art gallery” (sorry Lou!)
Russ did have a big treat in Nagoya – a visit to the Toyota Commemorative Museum of Industry and Technology – heck that's a mouthful! Did you know that the Toyota family actually started out in the weaving industry? No, neither did I. I have to say, I was dreading the prospect, assuming it had the potential to be another “York moment” for us (when we were still dating, we had a weekend in York and visited the York Rail Museum, where Russ proceeded to bore the teeth off me while intricately explaining which cog fitted into which other cog, which such-and-such a bit of the the engine connected to the other whatchamacallit ...FOR A WHOLE DAY. This was at the time pretty much a relationship-breaker). But no, now I was to be pleasantly surprised, Russ restrained himself beautifully and in fact I enjoyed myself too. It was a great combination of interactive displays, information boards and fantastic visitor guides. One chap almost adopted us for the entire weaving and textiles section, taking trouble to show us every machine and how it worked, from the days of a hand-loom right up to the latest digital air-compression looms they use today. Might sound a bit yawn-worthy here, but trust me, this place is a must-see. Then of course there's also the automobile section, which we were rather pushed for time to see, but again, fascinating even if you don't know anything about what's under the bonnet of your car except where you put the screen wash.
(I reckon that Toyota is a good example of how Japanese firms have been so successful. In the 1930s they were a weaving loom manufacturer and the son of the firm's owner travelled to Britain to learn about how British built looms and ran factories (I take it that we were among the best in the world at that time). The son made detailed observations about every aspect, gave everything thought, and within 10 years was selling better equipment back to the British. He then went on to start doing the same with cars, by buying successful American models and stripping them down to examine them closely, adopting the American approach where it worked well, improving on it where it didn't.
The attention to detail and the level of care put into things is noticeably above Western standards. Combine that with no hang-ups about plagiarising the good ideas of others and a drive to succeed (probably in the name of national pride, more than financial gain) and you have at least some of the components of their economic success – Russell).
MATSUMOTO
Coral (as in mother of the Australian family we'd met in Takayama) had advised us that if we timed our visit right here we'd arrive in time for a big Taiko (Japanese drumming) festival. We did. Wow. We arrived early afternoon at Matsumoto station and enquired at the information desk there about the timings of the Taiko drumming. She must have misheard us, as she told us it finished at 4.30pm. We trundled our way up to the castle grounds (where the festival was being held) immediately, and indeed there was a group of women playing drums, very powerfully and emotionally, but there didn't seem to be a lot of people spectating, so we began to wonder if it wasn't such a big competition after all, especially as it apparently finished at 4.30pm. Thankfully Oliver (Australian father of said family) telephoned us and advised that the festival proper STARTED at 4.30pm, and what we were actually watching was a rehearsal.
Our hotel was literally a 5 minute walk from the castle grounds, so we were able to go back to the Matsumoto Hotel Kagetsu (where we had one of those rooms where you wonder if you've actually paid the right price, cos it's a bit too nice?) and just chill for a couple of hours, before joining up with Oliver at 6pm, at their hotel a 5 minute walk the other side of the castle grounds. There we met up with Coral and Jim, and another great family who'd come for their children to participate in the Suzuki School; Si, Shaz and their children Lily and Miles, plus a lad called Kai, who they were looking out for for the duration of their trip. There were also other families who we met over the next few days.

That night however, we watched a few Taiko groups until the kids started to get hungry, then Si took us to a local zaru soba (cold noodle) restaurant, where we had a good feed (and I apologise sincerely for the fact that Russ tried a local speciality, raw horse meat – yep, that's what I thought). Then it was back to the Taiko drumming, where we were all blown away by the skill, timing and strength these men and women have. At the very end we were treated to a performance by three famous male drummers, and yes, they were amazing to watch and listen to, but Russ and I wondered, in a society that is supposed to pride itself on doing things for the common good, rather than individual benefit, how did these three guys fit into things? They very obviously thought of themselves and were indeed regarded as “stars”. (Rather more than in the West, Japan seems to be about the performance of the whole or the group, rather than outstanding individuals. This isn't always the case, but it appears to be the norm and certainly the other Taiko performances were about the product of the group, not the egos of the performers – Russell).
The next morning Russ was brave and opted for a Japanese breakfast (I'm afraid for me it was Western all the way, I can't not have toast), and he said he certainly felt good for it afterwards, he just wasn't sure how much he enjoyed eating it. I can't remember all of what he had now, but there was the obligatory bowl of rice, pickled vegetables, a piece of fish, a bowl of miso soup and a couple of other “interesting” bits which Russ wasn't actually sure what they were.
Having filled up on such goodness, we met up with the Dr. Suzuki group bright and early at 9am, and had a joint visit to Matsumoto Castle, Japan's oldest surviving wooden castle. Having seen the reconstructed sections of Kanazawa Castle, it was great to finally see “the real thing”, especially the Armoury Room, where a special outer “run” had been built in order to allow quick passage for the Samurai warriors suited up in their full armour. The group then left us to go off and see Dr Suzuki's house, while we rested under a shady pergola and tried to recover from the energy of so many young 'uns!
I realise I haven't explained about the Dr. Suzuki School, have I? I'm not sure I can give an explanation that would do it justice, and I am fearful of offending by giving a totally inaccurate description, so please, if you want to know properly, I suggest you do an internet search. All I really can tell you is that although the Dr. Suzuki philosophy starts with music, it's purpose is to be far wider reaching, and I believe Dr Suzuki considered music to be a universal language, that could be used to bring all different cultures together, and help people “talk” to each other. Right, I'm going to stop there!
Russ and I were lucky enough to be invited to go and watch a class of Jim's. Jim plays the cello, so I have to ask you to imagine a concert stage full of about 100 child cello-players, with one (outstanding) teacher and a piano player, and over an hour-and-a-half they are playing progressively more complicated pieces, that they've learned to play just by repeatedly having listened to the music, not by reading it ... we were absolutely stunned. At the front were tiny tots of about 3, with age ranges going up to about Jim's age of 10, and the standard was staggering. We are so grateful to Oliver and Coral for having asked us along, because we got to experience something that we would never otherwise have come across in “our world”.

For our last evening in Matsumoto, we got together with the Dr. Suzuki crew again. We had a fun couple of hours in the castle grounds, where Oliver tried to burn off the excess energy of the younger members of the group by staging a no-touch fighting match, with Russ acting as ref, giving points for style and imagination – sounds bizarre, but we had an absolute hoot; when was the last time you saw someone KO'd by Buddha's regurgitated last lunch?! (above, Ollie, Jim, Miles and a lass we've forgotten the name of (sorry), with Matsumoto castle in the background). Once it got dark and we spectators had been gnawed to bits by the local mosquitoes (I have actually got scars from those bites, and no, I didn't scratch), then Si kindly took it upon himself to find us a proper Japanese bite to eat again, this time to a yummy Tempura restaurant. This was where we bid a sad farewell to the group, but Oliver and Coral, as well as Si and Shaz, were kind enough to offer to touch base with them again when we get to Sydney.
KYOTO
Flippin' heck, it was hot again! Matsumoto is a city nestled in the base of part of the Japanese Alps, so although it was warm, it had been bearable. But now we'd come south, and didn't we know it!
As soon as you get to Kyoto you have to stop (which we did), cos the station is worth a sight-see in itself. It's HUGE, a steel and glass building that's got a department store, an eco-friendly roof-garden (about 11 storeys up), and several food courts. In fact we got lost so many times in this building I'm not sure we ever went back through the same door twice. Then right over the road is the Kyoto Tower, on top of the (aptly named, I think you'll find) Kyoto Tower Hotel, which again, is a recommended immediate must-see, so we did indeed must-saw it, and found it was very useful as an orientation aid to the city.
We based ourselves in the Hotel Sancrane here, just two blocks up from the Station. Again we found ourselves in a room where we wondered if we'd been put somewhere by mistake, and spent our time there becoming more and more besotted by the hotel reception staff, who were lovely, especially when very seriously bowing to us as our lift door closed every time we went back to our hotel room.

Kyoto is a place where you have to do some serious sight-seeing, and we did. Our very first day we saw Kiyomizu-dera, a temple whose main hall has a huge verandah supported by hundreds of pillars; this is where we also experienced walking in Buddha's Belly! If you ever go, you have to do it! I won't give the game away, it's one of the strangest things you'll ever do, but you'll be glad you have! Then we took a recommended route down some picturesque old streets until we reached Maruyama-koen, a pretty park where we had lunch and were given two fans by a lady and her young son who I'd smiled at when we walked in! (Our dealings with Japanes people tended to be with younger people (or, at least, up to our age) and, usually, women . We received a few random acts of kindness, and we did quite well in playing them forward, which was usually met with great surprise by the Japanese recipient. Based on our experiences, Japanese are, generally, lovely people, ready to smile, very helpful and very, very polite - Russell).

Then it was on to Kodai-ji gardens (left. I couldn't bring myself to show a 'photo of gravel cones); very pretty with a raked gravel section including a pair of gravel “cones”, which Russ wanted to rake smooth! (I feel that some of these gardens have been designed by the Diarmud Gavin's of their day; in this case, they've had a tonne of gravel left over, wondered what to do with it, raked it into a cone and called it 'symbolic of Mt Fuji', or a 'focus for meditation' and everyone else has bought into the idea, believing it was always planned that way – Russell).

By then it was late afternoon so we wondered down to the Gion district and yes, saw Geisha! It becomes quite addictive, Geisha-chasing! It took a good hour before I could really tear myself away; you think to yourself, “if I can see just one more Geisha, then I'll go”, but the glimpses of them are so quick, it's never quite enough somehow! (I can't see the mystique, really. Like a lot of things in this country, the locals, and Western visitors, are willing to suspend belief a little, revere them and treat them as other-worldly. If Britain had a tradition similar to Geisha, that was still alive, it would be the subject of satire and derision - Russell).

Kyoto day 2 was off to Nara. A beautiful park, Nara-koen, with cute-as-a-button deer, that are so tame, if too darn nibbly for their own good! Be warned, if you dare to buy a pack of deer-biscuits to feed them with, they will show no mercy! (Not so cute. Some of them had learnt that to bite the bottoms of people carrying biscuits, as an encouragement to feed them and the stags had a tendency to come at you head down, antlers first just to remind you that they were in charge of the situation. Battles of wills ensued, but I was usually outnumbered - Russell).

Visited the Todai-ji Temple here, which has the Daibutsu-den Hall, the largest wooden building in the world, and contains one of the largest bronze figures in the world, the Daibutsu, or Great Buddha. At the back of the Great Buddha is a wooden column with a hole in it exactly the same size as one of the Great Buddha's nostrils. If you can crawl through it you are ensured of enlightenment. Kids scramble through it like fun. I knew I'd got no chance, but pinned all my hopes on Russ. He managed to get in as far as his hips. I'm tempted to go back with a chisel, would that still count?
While lunching in a remarkably deer-free spot nearby, we met Nilesh Ghandi, who's been working in Japan for 4 years now, who was visiting Nara with his parents and a Japanese work-colleague. We had a lovely exchange with them, and hopefully we'll now be able to maintain contact.
Our third sight-seeing day saw us starting at the Shosei-en, another garden where every step you take gives you yet another beautiful vista. Then onwards to Sanjusangen-do temple, which houses 1001 statues of the Buddha deity Kannon. It was an even hotter day, which may have resulted in what we saw there. As we walked round the outside of the temple, thousands, and I mean THOUSANDS of dragonflies filled the sky above us. I've got no idea what that was about, there didn't appear to be much water around the temple, just a small pond. A very surreal moment. The late afternoon saw us taking a walk out the other side of the station to a 5-tier pagoda, by that time we were too tired to go in, so just sat and looked. Sometimes that's enough.

Our last full day was equally action-packed. We began at Kinkaju-ji, the Golden Temple, which does indeed, since it was fully reconstructed in 1955 (an obsessive monk burned it down in 1950, as you do), have two floors covered on the outside in gold (leaf). We get the feeling this place would look completely fabulous in spring, when the blossom is everywhere to soften the edges, or in the autumn, when all the reds and browns and yellows would give the whole place a jewelled quality. From there we walked to Ryon-ji temple, to see the world-famous rock garden. Then we caught a bus across to Ginkaku-ji, the Silver Pavillion. Before entering, we had a picnic lunch on a bench along the Path of Philosophy, a sweet route by the side of a canal. Sadly the temple itself was all boarded up while they carry out a major restoration project, but the gardens were magical, winding their way up a hillside to give a tremendous view of part of Kyoto nestling in among the hills. As we left the Pavillion the heavens opened, really opened. We were able to find a scrap of shelter under a sign, across from the bus-stop, but literally in the time it takes to run across a normal two-way road, we were drenched. It was like we'd sat fully clothed in a bath and then stepped straight out. I don't think I've ever experienced weather like that before. That was our cue to call an end to that day, and a reasonably dramatic finish to our Kyoto visit.
HIROSHIMA
The date we took a train to Hiroshima? 6 August (2008). The date the A-bomb had been dropped on Hiroshima? 6 August (1945).
I'm ashamed to say that in our ignorance, we'd no idea of the significance of the date of our travelling to Hiroshima until I tried to book accommodation a couple of days before-hand and found I couldn't get us into the same hotel for two consecutive nights. But how chuffed are we that we managed to get there for such a special day? Although we missed the morning's official ceremony (at 8.15am, the exact moment when the bomb went off, as evidenced by 2 watches that were found in the aftermath, which are now in the Memorial Museum - hauntingly sad to see and realise what it was that made them stop) we arrived about lunchtime and went straight up to the Peace Memorial Park. There were still queues of people waiting to pay their respects at the cenotaph, where a book is kept with the known names of all those who perished at the time, and which is updated every year with those who survived the actual blast, but have died in years since. There is also the Flame of Peace, which will only be extinguished once the last nuclear weapon on earth has been destroyed.

The evening of the remembrance day was magical. People gathered either side of the river that runs between Peace Memorial Park and the A-Bomb Dome and we found a spot on the bridge looking towards the Dome (the 'A-bomb Dome' was a municipal building with a domed roof and the shell of the building survived the blast, despite being almost directly under the centre of detonation and the building. It became an iconic image and has been preserved. The rest of Hiroshima is a typical, modern thriving Japanese city). There was immense camaraderie. We chatted to Edwin, an American who came to teach English 21 years ago and who has just never left – a great guy, whom I think Russ envied for various reasons (you'll have to ask Russ to explain it to you in person!)

As darkness fell, hundreds of coloured candle-lanterns were lit and placed in the water; for ages they just sat all jumbled up against the river bank. Then the tide turned and gradually, slowly, the lanterns began to drift one by one past the Dome, under the bridge, and onwards down the river. I make no apology for waxing lyrical in saying that it was like watching hundreds of jewelled souls gently glide by.
The next day we visited the A-Bomb Museum, which goes into great detail about how the bombing of Hiroshima came about, and puts a very different perspective on what we English were told in our school history books. They are also very honest in admitting that their own military practices leading up to the bombing were often inhumane. We then made a stop at the Peace Memorial Hall, a contemplative hall of remembrance, which affected Russell quite profoundly.
If you should ever get the chance to visit Hiroshima, a coastal town, you must. At the time it didn't really strike me, but now I look at the pictures we took of the A-Bomb Dome and get such an eerie feeling; I recall walking round the ruins on remembrance day, and realise now that although there were hundreds of people milling around, I felt such a sense of stillness and quiet in that spot. A lone heron perched high up on the remains of one window frame, just watching.
TOKYO
WE CLIMBED MT FUJI!!! but more on that later.
I think one of our lasting impressions of Tokyo will be our stay in the Shinagawa Prince Hotel (we got a great room rate, honest!), which was a truly bizarre Las Vegas-style complex of shops, restaurants, cinemas, entertainment arcade, bowling centre and Epson Aqua Stadium, where from our 26th floor bedroom we looked down onto an outdoor pool that was home to half a dozen bottle-nose dolphins...

We did indeed go and experience the pleasures of the Epson Aqua Centre, that first night in the big city, and it was on the whole wonderful! Not only are there numerous tanks full of all manner of sea animals, but there is also a 20 metre long Shark and Ray Submarine Tunnel, where you literally feel like you're in the water with them. I confess we weren't happy with the state of the penguins, who were all huddled up facing the wall at the back of their “Penguin Continent” enclosure, and the lone “Happy Ocean Sunfish” was in what looked to us to be a too-small tank (although neither of us know what size tank would be the “right” size). What did feel right though, was the main dolphin pool, where we caught a performance involving the afore-mentioned bottle-nose dolphins, a false killer-whale (I'm sure there's a proper name for it, but alas we've forgotten it) and four Pacific White-Sided dolphins (thanks Russ for remembering that mouthful). What these creatures are capable of is a sight to behold, and any concerns we may have had about them being treated properly were definitely dispelled when we got the opportunity (for a fee of course) to touch one of the bottle-nose dolphins, a beauty called Snowy. There was obviously so much affection between her and her trainer; it was a joy to watch their “off-air” interacting.

WE CLIMBED MT FUJI!!! coming up soon.

We managed to “do” some of the Tokyo sights; Shibuya crossing is a visually famous site, when pedestrian lights go green at the four-way intersection and hundreds of people surge across the road. We're glad we've seen it, in fact we crossed it back and forth from pretty much every junction, to try and get the proper feel of it, but to be honest, it's just like any other busy crossing, and as with so many things, it's much smaller in real life. It does have a lot of giant video screens around it though – very Vanilla Sky. We hung out for a while at Shinjuku station, one of the world's busiest train stations, where 3 million people A DAY, yes, A DAY, pass through. Shinjuku is also home to the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Offices, which are famous for their architectural style and which totally blew me away with their complexity, but Russ said he prefers Shrewsbury's Shirehall (do an internet search for it and you'll hopefully get the point) (I don't remember comparing it to Shirehall... - Russell). We had fab yakitori (skewered meat – Russell) and beer in Shinjuku, in a district called Omoide-yokocho. It reminded me strongly of a Blade Runner set, all tiny streets that you can just about walk down two-abreast, with tiny nameless restaurants, each one propping up the walls of the next, and probably only selling one type of dish. It's a district that is threatened with being demolished this year, to make way for posh new development; it will be a crying shame if they go ahead with it.
WE CLIMBED MT FUJI!!!
Harajuku girls? Yep, we've seen 'em, and the Harajuku boys as well (In the UK, these youths would adopt 'Goth' culture, but in Tokyo, the style covers ghoulish themes, pseudo-Edwardian and traffic accident victim, it seems, and, no, I'm not trying to be funny - Russell). Indeed very funky kids, but not many “posing”; if asked, a surprising number didn't want their photos taken, and I felt a bit odd trying to take sneaky shots.

At the other end of the spectrum, when we walked through Yoyogi-koen park just round the corner, we were visually and aurally assaulted by the Takenokozuku, a group of over-the-top rockabillies (left), who really go for it, and the more people taking their photos, the better. As we walked through the park on a Saturday afternoon, it became rapidly apparent that this is where many Tokyo folk come to do all the things they don't have space for in their city apartments. We saw people playing drums, saxophones, guitars, didgeridoos. Groups were playing catch with balls, frisbees, water balloons, or learning a new dance routine. Above all this was the constant blare of the budding rock bands who were set up on the park's perimeter walk. It was absolutely mental, and alien to Russ' and my provincial perception of being a place to quietly feed the ducks.

Have I mentioned that we climbed Mt Fuji? Well, if I'm absolutely honest, Russ climbed all the way to the top, I didn't quite make it. To give you an idea of what we did, I'll make a (British) comparison. Snowdon is Wales' highest mountain at around 1,000 metres. Ben Nevis is Scotland's highest mountain at around 2,000 metres. The top of Mt Fuji is 3776 metres, and believe me, that's high enough for the air to get pretty thin. I did manage to get to 3,400 metres, which I'm pretty chuffed with, whilst at the same time absolutely gutted that I couldn't make the rest of the way. However, I had to be disciplined; as it turned out, it took Russ another hour to reach the top after leaving me – if I'd been along it probably would have taken 2 hours, as I struggled more and more with the altitude, the higher we got. I was heartened by the fact that some of the Japanese climbers were actually carrying portable oxygen cannisters, whereas I, an ex 10-20 a day smoker for 20 years, did it “freestyle”! If I take nothing else away from our months away, it'll be that I'll be able to tell our friends' grandchildren “I climbed Mt Fuji you know”. That's if said friends haven't clobbered me to death for boring the pants off them by continually mentioning this fact every week for the next 25 years. And Russ did it – all the way! (Not said through gritted teeth. At all. Honest.)

Mt Fuji - the North lip of the crater

The next day, our last day in Tokyo, was equally brilliant for very different reasons. Thanks to Dave and Helen's input, Russ decided he wanted to go to a baseball match – baseball is Japan's biggest team sport and Tokyo is home to the Yomiuri giants, Japan's favourite team. It just so happened that they were playing on the Tuesday, against the Hanshin Tigers. We popped down to the Tokyo Dome (where they play) and got tickets for that evening's match, only the tickets still available by that time were Standing only, and a game lasts 3 hours, and we'd just climbed Mt Fuji (have I mentioned that?) the day before, and to be honest my feet bloomin' well HURT and so I was in a complete sulk. However, Russ successfully bribed me by treating me to steak at a nearby sports bar.
As we were leaving, me now full of protein and beer and much more amenable, Russ approached two guys he'd (correctly) pegged as American, and asked them if they could maybe give us some pointers on the game, since we knew nothing. It turned out that Brendan and Michael were also going to watch the game and had also only been able to get standing tickets, and so they very kindly offered to hang around with us and be available to explain the basics. Russ and I had a BRILLIANT 3 hours. Brendan and Michael – thank you so much for your patience and humour. Thanks to you (and possibly the next two large beers I seemed to neck quite contentedly) I wasn't aware of my feet at all. The game was so much fun to watch, with mascots cavorting about the field, and cheerleaders making Russ very hot under the collar (very agile, are cheerleaders) you couldn't help but be drawn into it. Since we'd been put in the Tokyo Giants area, we thought we should support them, and of course, they won.

We couldn't think of a better way to end our Tokyo experience and I can't really think of a better way to end this part of the blog. So “arigato gazaimas” Japan, and “sayonara” Dear Reader – we'll catch up with you again soon, when we've got some Australian experiences under our belts.

Left, Brendan, a Brit we never got the name of, Stu and Michael at the Tokyo Dome.

(I couldn't find a place to slot the ensuing rambling into so here is my post-script.
In Japan, space is a big issue, well handled. I am impressed by the way that such a densely-populated country is so ordered, clean and tidy (population about twice that of the UK, land area actually roughly 40% more (don't quote me on that), but much of it is hilly or mountainous and can't be built upon (landslides / flooding / other) so the people are squeezed into the plains). A lot of towns and cities feel to me like they are built to about 75% of normal size. Houses are small and packed together; most people run small cars and the few 4x4s that you do see look huge by comparison; most vans and trucks are smaller than the UK. Private car parks use automated racks to stack cars two or three high; even the (thousands of) shopping bicycles end up parked double-decker, in some places.

When we were travelling by train, it appears as if a lot of towns and cities blur into one another. At the edge of a town, there might be a few more paddy fields and a few less buildings, then a river and once across that you're into the next town.

It's rare to see any waste ground. If there is a triangle of land not big enough to build on, it will be used for growing rice. In fact, in the middle of residential areas, you will find green spaces, but rather than it be grass with kids kicking a football around on it, it's likely to be a paddy-field.

It's also a surprisingly quiet country; road speeds seem to be lower, engines quieter, it's rare to hear a car horn and rarer still to hear loud music from cars. (Quietness does not apply to major parks, shopping malls and giant video screens used for advertising).

Electricity - if there is way to power or automate something that currently relies on a manual process, they will do it, even if you never thought it necessary. Power consumption per head of population must be massive. I find it interesting that old Japanese houses were built in a way that windows were shaded from the sun and cooling airflow was promoted, but modern houses ignore smart design like that, because they can run air-conditioning units 24 hours a day (and every home seems to have them) - Russell)

Left, one way to run a car dealership in a cramped city - have your showroom on the first floor

Another successful deer round-up.

Part Two - The Final Curtain (as opposed to the Iron one)

And so, the end is near. To pick up from the last posting, arriving in Ulan Ude (UU), it struck us as being very foreign. Yes, I know we are in a foreign country anyway, but UU was different again to what we'd so far experienced with Russian cities. I'm not sure I can explain why, but at the very least we noticed a melting pot of people here; suddenly we were surrounded by very Siberian / Mongolian / Buryat faces rather than the previously predominant white Russians (also, the terrain was hilly, dry and dusty and the temperature around 35 degrees C, unlike most of our experience of Western Russia. UU is a small city, maybe only the size of Shrewsbury, set beautifully, with a good feel about it - Russell). Getting this far was also a bit emotional for both of us; it should have been here that we turned south into Mongolia and then China. However, I can say now, having done what we've done since, what has been in our small world an “epic” drive across pretty much the width of Russia, and realising what we would have missed out on seeing and experiencing, we have the point of view that everything happens for a reason. (In some ways I regret not driving Elmo in Mongolia. Not going to the trouble and expense of a longer, multiple-entry visa was the biggest mistake I have made in respect of this trip so far. It would have allowed us far more flexibility and the opportunity of driving into Mongolia and back into Russia. Mongolia would have been a bigger challenge of navigation than Russia and I would have liked to say that I had crossed the Gobi Desert. However, driving close to the border, we have had a flavour of what the Mongolian terrain is like; driving the Siberian highway, we have driven roads as rough as we would experience in Mongolia; and I think that the right way to see Mongolia is on horse-back. Whenever we stopped the car whilst driving through (hours of) grasslands in this region, we became conscious of the bird-song that we had not heard, and the breeze that we had not felt, because of the car, and I felt we had missed out a little - Russell).
Unfortunately, because of the timescale we have now been working to since our amended travel itinerary, we could only allow ourselves one night in UU; it would have been good to stay longer and experience more of the Buryat culture. However, as it stands, how many of you out there can claim to have seen what UU is proud home to – the biggest Lenin head in the world? ...Quite. We realise now that perhaps we should have had a sub-feature to our blog, with a photo of Darwin next to every Lenin statue we've come across; maybe for our next year-off's blog...

On from UU and a 2-day drive to Chita meant a night “car-camping” again. We stopped early to cook ourselves a meal, before driving on for another couple of hours and then parking up for bedtime. It was while Russ was trying to get either of our 2 stoves to actually stay alight (Western-made stoves made to run on Western-standard fuel, not Russki petrol - Russell), that I noticed a fella on a bicycle, coming from the direction we were headed. I didn't think too much of it, until he shouted “Hello!”. It turned out that Niomi (my apologies for almost certainly misspelling his name), a Japanese gentleman, had set off from Vladivostok on his bicycle on 13 May (it was now 19 June) and was going to continue cycling across Russia, through the Baltic States, make a bit of a weave through Europe, and end up in Portugal, where, 20 countries cycled later, he would then fly home. So, thank you to those of you who have e-mailed to commend us for what we are doing, but, compared to this chap, it's sod-all! And, to rub it in, he has already motorbiked Australia and cycled across America.
The next day we made it to Chita, having awoke early in what turned out to be (we think) the entrance to a logging site! The now expert Prado mechanic performed another fuel-filter clearance before we set off from what was a beautiful spot in the hills (we reached over 1100 metres, higher than Snowdon apparently, but I didn't notice any small train running up the side of this particular mountain).

We did wonder momentarily if we were on some other kind of “trip” when we arrived in Chita, as all around the main square and shopping streets teenage girls appeared to be floating about in ball gowns, and yet it was only 4pm in the afternoon. However, we established that it must have been “Prom” day, and soon got used to the experience of walking past yet another “Princess Barbie” lookalike (well, I did at least; Russ was rather quiet that afternoon....)

While experiencing this fantastical reprieve we were girding our loins; we'd been warned we'd got anywhere between 900 – 1500 km of bad road ahead (i.e. previously unexisting road). We were going to give ourselves 6 days and 5 nights out in the “wilderness”, assuming we might manage 240 km a day max (about 6 hours driving), given what we'd already experienced. So you can imagine our delight, when leaving Chita the next day, to find a good road, and by late afternoon we'd already got 460 km under our belts. The main obstacles in our path were more animal than mineral in fact: as a follow-on from Russ' “Might is Right” rule, apparently, here 4 legs consider themselves far superior on the road to 4 wheels. However, eventually we once more saw plumes of dust in the distance and realised there was some hard driving to come yet again

That'll be a dusty road, then...

Our second day in the wild was pretty much a whole day of unmade, dusty road, but we were both in the swing of it, and when we set up camp that night to find our stoves had now completely called it a day, Russ set to and built us a proper fire, using only a match, with no fire-lighters, or petrol cans thrown in disgust, in sight. So pleased were we to see proper flame, that we ended up making excuses for how to make use of it; not only did we cook our meal, but we then heated water for washing up, followed by more hot water for Russ to have a manly shave in a wing mirror of Elmo, followed by yet more hot water for me to wash my face, which at that point was one of the most glorious experiences I could remember. It was only when we discovered that we'd whittled our 5-day supply of water down to about 2 litres that we realised we might have been getting a bit carried away.

The end of our third bumpy, dusty day was our wonderful experience of the hospitality of Sasha, Svyeta and Roma, as I mentioned in our previous blog update. Sasha told us we were now about 200km away from Blagoveshchensk, which would mean we'd made it to the Russian Far East, an area which is actually larger than Europe. By the time we reached Blago (and good road!) by late lunchtime the next day, Elmo's temperature gauge was showing 36°C. We checked into the Hotel Druzhba (with me using only Russian – smug moment) to find they'd only got a deluxe room available with a king-size bed. Given our past few days of “hardship” we said, well, we'd put up with such luxury if we really had to...

Blago's claim to fame is that it sits one side of the Amur River and the other side is China. Again we had the momentary frustration of knowing we were so close, and yet couldn't get in! Lots of Chinese tourists come across to Blago for the “Soviet” experience (and the nearest vodka factory, if the happy, bottle-clutching group in our hotel were anything to go by). A big plus of this was that the hotel therefore had Chinese food in its restaurant, which was delicious (and made up for the Cold-War style breakfasts we had there). (The Chinese we came across were a very noisy, lively bunch and quite a contrast to the reserved manner of Russians. Now, I would like to go to China just to experience the bustle, never mind the sights - Russell).

(Oh look, another 'phot of me with no top on - Russell) Two hot days later and were were on the move again, another 2-day stint, this time to Khabarovsk. We'd hoped the road would now be okay, but no, another 60 km stretch lay ahead of us almost immediately. By lunchtime it was 34°C and yet more bad road lay in front, prompting us to have a lunch-stop. With horse flies the size of my thumb taking an interest and with no desire to sit in a closed Elmo with our air-conditioning not working, brainwave! We rigged up our 2 mosquito bed-nets so one draped over each side of the car, and that way we could have the windows open without having chunks of flesh removed.

Due to the heat of the day, we had a bad night's sleep in the car that night, so when we arrived in Khabarovsk for 10.30am the next day, we parked up in a quiet street and napped for an hour! We then found our way to the Hotel Zarya where we checked in (we stayed 7 nights here in total) went and had a look at our room and napped for another hour! Our hotel room was very comfortable apart from the consistent and mysterious daily arrival of mosquitoes; it became a ritual every morning and evening to kill as many as we could find, but their numbers never seemed to decrease. After two nights of being entertained by their various high-pitched whines past our ears, and laying bets on which bit of us they'd try next, we fetched our now ever-useful mosquito nets and commenced the nightly routine of rigging the nets up between the over-bed lights and the curtain pole on the opposite wall. To give the mozzies their due, they were very persistent even then; following the first night of “netting” Russ found 2 very poorly critters at the end of his bed, who had managed to crawl up the inside of his net from the floor. (I believe their illness was due to the Permethrin-soaked nets, rather than from having imbibed on Russ' juicy red cells).

Khabarovsk is lovely; a more un-Russian city I've never seen, with wide tree-lined streets and lots of red brick buildings (built around the end of the 19th century). For the first time in a while we were able to be proper tourists. We ate in an authentic “blini” cafe (Russian pancakes, sweet and savoury, delicious); we dined on sushi (shipped in from “nearby” Japan – over 80% of Khabarovsk's tourists are Japanese); and gorged ourselves on ice-creams (Russians have a very sweet tooth and there are ice-cream stands on virtually every street corner). We strolled round the Park, visited the Regional History Museum and spent time at the Military Museum (where Russ was in raptures over the courtyard display of Russian army trucks, cannons and tanks, and where I wondered how much longer until I could have my next chocolate ice-cream). We took a long look round their huge WWII Memorial; a massive black marble crescent and about 30 enormous black marble monoliths, all covered with the names of those that Khabarovsk had lost; there were thousands of names. It was very moving and slightly eerie, because as we looked around, the bells of the church behind the emorial started to toll slowly, and they kept ringing until we walked away, when they came to a stop again.

Just a small part of the WWII memorial

Left - Spot Darwin

It was in Khabarovsk that we were finally able to give Elmo a proper clean at an “Auto-Moika”, basically a lad wielding his pressure-washer wand (ahem). It cost us a lot of money, but Elmo was VERY dirty, (so it made us pig-sick to hit yet more unmade road on our last leg to Vladivostok.)
And so now we are here, in Vladivostok, (a city closed not only to foreigners but also most Russians until 1992), having spent 7 days in a very small hotel room and not at all getting on each other's nerves, at the end of the line. We've not had time to sort out 'photos of 'Vlad'. It is a port city, set in a bay and built on a number of hills, so it feels a little like San Francisco, and has a similar climate (some hot days, some foggy days). It's also a cosmopolitan city and a very nice place to while away time.
Elmo has cleared customs and is waiting for a container ship to start his journey to Brisbane, thanks to Davos Express, shipping agents, who have been a pleasure to deal with. We catch the ferry to Japan this evening. We can't really believe we've done it; back when we were debating the idea in Moscow we didn't really think it possible, but you can surpass your own expectations and give it just that little bit more than you think you've got. Yeah, yeah, enough of the marketing.
Big thanks to Ken (Pops) for giving us the encouragement and mental push into going ahead, rather than turning back, and enormous thanks to Murray (Step-Pops) for his invaluable patience, time and internet searches in finding the best way to get myself, Russ, Darwin and Elmo the heck out of here.
We hope you have enjoyed our Russian journey, and hope you'll “tune in” again to catch up on our Japanese and Australian exploits. Thank you for being there with us.

Just more beautiful Eastern Siberian scenery

Different Strokes – Part one

Yep, it certainly does take different strokes to make a world. When I typed the last blog 2½ weeks ago, I never thought I'd be drafting the next one sitting in 35°C heat in an open-air cafe above a man-made lake with fountains, in a park, surrounded by beautiful brick buildings from the turn of the century, with tree-lined avenues and SUNSHINE.
We're now in Khabarovsk, only 2 days (albeit long ones) drive away from Vladivostok (yes, we decided to do the daft thing and challenge ourselves to drive across Russia). It's such a weird feeling to be so close to the end of our Russian journey, although the fat lady hasn't sung yet (no quips about my vocal talents on the video clip please). We aim to get to Vladivostok for the evening of 5th July and then we've 5 days to try and ensure that Elmo has successfully been put into a crate and on a ship bound for Brisbane, Australia (the shipping agents in Vlad think that is enough), and 9 days to sort ourselves (and Darwin) out with ferry passage to Japan, where we've decided we'd like to spend 3 weeks sight-seeing (by public transport – what a quaint concept...) Thanks to Dave and Helen for their suggested “must-sees”.
And I don't mind admitting that we are flippin' proud of the fact that we've now driven across Siberia, along approx 1300km of unmade road – again if you've seen the videos, you'll hopefully understand our patting our own backs.

Russ will readily admit that he wasn't that struck by Western Russia, either the landscape or the people, but we have both fallen in love with Siberia and the Far East of Russia, and the folk that inhabit it. The Siberian landscape, especially, is more than can possibly be described, with glorious grassy prairies full of bird life that you can't see, but are deafened by when you stop the car and step outside, while around the edges of your view are magnificent mountains, in so many hues of pinks, purples and greys. We've taken more photographs than we can probably count, but none of them will do justice to what you have to see with your own eyes.

We are glad that we have driven the Trans-Siberian Highway rather than take the train. The hardship of driving such a distance, on such challenging terrain, and sleeping out in it for nights at a time when we were between cities and any chance of a hotel-stop, I think made us feel we'd earned the beauty that we were experiencing.

(left - a view from our lakeside overnight stop)
We've had Lilia and Sisik, two local girls in Ulan-Ude, come up to us and just start chatting, curious to know where we were from and where we were going; the first people in Russia who'd really taken an interest in two dusty foreigners. We had a taxi driver applaud us and give us the thumbs up when he saw the GB sticker on Elmo. At a fuel station in a small village in the middle of nowhere we've had a local chap come up and shake our hands and wish us “Good Morning” (it was actually afternoon, but hey, who's fussy in the face of such obvious friendship). And most special of all, as we were preparing to sleep in the car for the third night in a row (we gave up on camping – more about that later) as we crossed the most remote section of the highway, and having parked up by a beautiful lake, we had Sasha (a Russia/China border guard), his partner Svieta and her son Roma invite us (in Russian – no English spoken by them and rightly so) to their evening picnic of shashlik (BBQ'd chicken or pork), where they proceeded to virtually force-feed us most of their meal, going without themselves, and they were so patient and full of good humour as we bumblingly tried to answer their questions about where we were from, what we were doing here etc. For both Russell and I, I believe that it will be our best remembered night in Russia, such was their honest generosity and friendliness. (Dull diatribe from me: generally, Russians seem to be very matter-of-fact. We have dispensed with the smiley foreigner stuff when we try to communicate, as that seems to confuse, but, on the whole, the folks on the receiving end allow us, patiently, to struggle through with our phrases of (bad) Russian and gesturing, without any sign of a belittling smile. So, we have got used to having an armoury of words, props, gestures and play-acting that will get us what we want. That said, the further East we have come, the more helpful, friendly and animated the people seem to be, and a little more inquisitive, too, although it is hard to quantify within that how much more positive I am towards people now we are in warm, dry weather in stimulating scenery - Russell)

So, enough of the eulogising, and on to a proper breakdown of our journey from Tomsk onwards. Did I talk about Tomsk much before? We liked it very much; it was fairly untouched by Soviet hands, apparently because the city fathers decided not to have the Trans-Siberian railway stop there – a wise move if you ask me, given how lovely it is. It was here that we drove to a quiet spot (that we thought was rough ground, but actually turned out to be a local beauty spot for picnics – oops) and Russ successfully managed an oil change on Elmo, a wash of the air filter, and emptied the fuel filter of quite a lot of yucky water (the cause of that mystery dashboard light, Russ discovered after a good internet search), while I was able to give Elmo a good wash with water from the river we were parked up at.

It was a 2-day drive to Krasnoyarsk from Irkutsk, so we camped out for the night in between; our last night in the tent as it turned out. It had been a gloriously hot, clear, blue-sky day, which meant a gloriously clear, therefore numbingly cold night. But once I'd got my hot water bottle, thermals, pyjamas, 2 pairs of socks, scarf, one of Russ' fleecy tops, plus 2 fleece blankets over my sleeping bag, I was absolutely fine. Bizarrely the next morning pretty much for the first time we were able to put the tent away dry. Russ would have appreciated this much more had he not woken up suffering with a nasty tummy-bug and therefore having to commune with nature slightly more closely than he would have liked.
Because we'd done good mileage the day before,we arrived in Krasnoyarsk for early lunchtime, to find we'd turned up on 12 June, which is celebrated across Russia as the day (in 1991) the USSR ceased to be, and the Russian Federation began. Therefore we found ourselves battling down one block of the main street for about ½ an hour, through massive crowds gathered for the parade. Eventually we got down to Ploschad Lenina (the main square; every city should have one, I shall campaign for Shrewsbury's on my return) and managed to check into the Krasnoyarsk Hotel, a big Soviet concrete block of a building, but comfortable rooms. We thought this might be a mistake initially, as we found ourselves looking directly over the Ploschad, where a big stage was hosting all manner of singers, dancers and other entertainers, performing, VERY LOUDLY. However, when we returned to our room about 11.30pm that night, we were first captivated by the sight of the huge crowds who had gathered in the square to enjoy the late-night festivities, and then we were completely enraptured by the entertainment finale of a non-stop, 15 minute firework display to music.

It was here that I got to experience another “exciting moment”. So we'd wondered off to find our Krasnoyarsk hotel (left - the Krasnoyarsk Hotel), which was down the other end of the main drag from where we'd had to leave Elmo. We'd lunched, and made our way back to the car. As we were getting sorted, I felt an irritation on my left hip, slightly itchy, slightly prickly, slightly sore. I thought something, maybe a label, was rubbing, so touched my hip to find something had fixed to me. I glanced down, to see ... A TICK. Instantly hundreds of horrible thoughts about tick-borne encephalitis (rampant in Russia, delightful effects of brain-swelling and pretty much death – I now feel that the £600 we spent on inoculations before we set out really was worth the money) poured into my mind and I spent a good few minutes either feeling very nauseous, or about to pass out (unusually, perhaps, Alex isn't exaggerating; mortality rates from tick-borne encephalitis in this part of Russia are about 20% and 40% of survivors have permanent central nervous system damage - Russell). Russ was calm, found our sharp-nosed tweezers and pulled the little blighter out. Well, in two goes he pulled the tick out. First time round apparently the body snapped off, leaving it's head still embedded (it made me feel so much better to hear that), but second time round he got it, assuring me he could see the antennae and jaws, and that therefore yes, he'd got all of it out now... For some reason after that point our desire to camp waned quite a lot, so since then, any time we've had to sleep out, we've just put our sleeping bags in Elmo and put the two front seats back. That and the fact that all manner of critters seem to like to feast on me – mosquitoes, horse flies (that draw blood – did you know they did that?) and kitten-sized ants have all “had a go”.

After just one night in Krasnoyarsk it was time to move on again, so a night in the car, then a day later we reached Irkutsk ...I made that sound so simple, didn't I? Actually, the road between Krasnoyarsk is what you can see in our Dancing Queen and Driving on the Moon clips (previous posting), and it wasn't the first bit of bad road we've driven, but it was the worst. If you could also imagine driving that terrain until 11.30 at night, up and down a couple of darkly forested hills, fighting for space with oncoming, headlight-toting vehicles as well.


(Often, there is one good 'line' of least potholes, bomb-holes, berms, banks, etc, which vehicles in both directions try to take (left - oncoming traffic trying to find the best line). To some extent the 'Might is Right' rule is in force, such that we can 'persuade' smaller cars to pull over and get off the good line for us and oncoming trucks persuade us of the same. To go off on another diatribe, the reason for the poor condition of the road in the Krasnoyarsk to Irkutsk section seems to be that it is built straight onto marsh which, presumably, freezes and swells in winter to force the road surface up and open. In the new sections of, as yet, unfinished highway that we drove further East, the road has been built many metres above the land, on (millions of tonnes?) of hardcore, gravel, earth and/or sand. It is a hell of an engineering project. What also becomes apparent is the effect of traffic on the road surface when it has been impaired or is unfinished. The suspension action, of trucks in particular, can create a corrugated road surface that is grim at low and high speeds, but there is a speed at which Elmo's suspension can cope with it well, typically about 60 – 70 kph (40mph, ish). However, if the corrugations have become badly potholed, then above 25kmh is bloody awful and it is best to slow right down and pick your way around them as best as possible.

Also, Alex hasn't mentioned the road-dust (which gets EVERYWHERE). Whilst I enjoy driving along seeing a cloud of dust behind me, driving into the dust from other cars is less entertaining. Visibility can drop to around 10 metres and it is best to assume that there will be a car on your chosen line coming the other way, so on with main beam (it's best to dry with headlights on in the daytime, anyway) and slow right down (we had a few near-misses, but Russian drivers, whilst risk-takers, are switched-on). To be fair, with the few slow vehicles going in our direction that we wanted to pass, it was a case of judging whether it was clear from the odd glimpse of road past their dust cloud, then main beam on and drive into blindness as fast as the road surface would allow. Oh, and Russian risk-taking on the roads: population of Russian about 2.5 times that of the UK, road deaths over 10 times that. Families (I assume) erect small shrines at crash sites in the same way that some people leave flowers in Britain. You don't travel far without seeing a shrine. I'm not sure what point I want to make with this, since I am comfortable with a bit of risk-taking, but 35,000 road deaths each year seems rather a lot - Russell).

(These trucks weren't going for it. We would get overtaken by tipper trucks and then not be able to see for what is far too long when driving).

(A picturesque village on the road to Irkutsk)

Russ likens Irkutsk to Stoke-on Trent, and Lonely Planet calls it “slightly seedy”, but as Louis Walsh would say “I liked it” (so did I. It had everything we needed, the people we dealt with were friendly and helpful, the lady who cut my hair told me I was 'beautiful' (I suspect it was the only word of English she knew) and it was the best signposted city we have tried to get into and out of. We just didn't see anything that encouraged us to take any photographs - Russell). We set ourselves up in the Hotel Delta for a few nights, a comfy, Westernised business-type hotel, only slightly marred by our last night there, when we had to move rooms, and had a quibble over the price we'd been quoted, which resulted in us being “allowed” to stay if we checked out by 10am the next morning (the receptionist quoted us their rate for Russians, rather than visitors, which I double-checked with her as it sounded cheap, so I held her to it when she tried to back-track the next day - Russell. However, the folks in the Epitsentr Internet place were friendly, as were the folks in the Fiesta cafe we regularly frequented (great pizza slices), and we bumped into a few Australians and British students who had stopped off along the Trans-Siberian Railway; it was very strange to be able to use complete sentences in English with someone other than each other.

For our last day in Irkutsk we headed off to Listvyanka, a small village sitting on the edge of famous Lake Baikal and our nearest access point to it. On the way we called in at the Taltsy Museum of Wooden Architecture, which might sound a bit dry, but it's an outdoor collection of very old Siberian buildings that were actually moved piece by piece from other villages so that they could be restored and maintained. We spent a fab couple of hours there, and in fact it's given Russ some great inspiration for our “Good Life” style new home project when we return to the UK.

(Oh yes, I'm going to build a wooden chapel...)

Listvyanka, when we got there, well, it's a bit like Borth I suppose, with less cafes and shops open. So instead of a nice shore-side cafe lunch, we made do with a bottle of Coke and a Kit Kat from the nearest magazin (shop). For those of you who don't know, Lake Baikal is the world's deepest lake, containing almost a 1/5 of the planet's unfrozen fresh water (thank you Lonely Planet). The water is apparently pure enough to drink straight off (we didn't try) but blimey, it's SO cold. In fact the lake is so big that it impacts on the surrounding weather; we left the Taltsy Museum, only 10 kms away , in 28°C warmth, to arrive at the lakeside with a temperature of 11°C...

Darwin freezing his fluffy bits off at Lake Baikal

Following our four nights in Irkutsk, we drove towards Ulan-Ude, and fame! To explain, we had promised ourselves that we would pick up any “decent-looking” hitch-hikers (no, I don't mean Angelina Jolie / Daniel Craig look-alikes), but had only earlier that morning given our first lift to someone since arriving in Russia (a really nice young chap, Andrei, a National-Service officer in the army, who when Russ asked if it was a good life in the forces gave quite a vehement “nyet”) (above - the town where Andrei is stationed, on Lake Baikal). Then only about an hour later, as we drove through yet another small village, we noticed 2 people frantically waving at each passing car. We drove on, then following a squabble where I insisted we couldn't fit 2 people in the back, and then Russ made me sit there with him to prove to me that it could be done, we drove back to offer them a lift. Two people yes, but two people who are actually part of a Spanish TV competition called “Pekin Express” (where 10 couples are fighting it out to be the first to get to Beijing, on NO money, therefore everything has to be begged for – food, accommodation, lifts off idiot English travellers), and who also have a camera woman with them, plus her big camera... Well, we tried. A frantic shuffle of our things off the back seat and rear foot-well, jamming them into the back of the car and hanging bits off spare bungees. It would have been fine, had not the lass suggest that their rucksacks could go on the roof rack, which meant Russ clambering up to do a shuffle of fuel cans etc and free up some ratchet-strap space. He was just tightening up the last ratchet when a beeper went off on the lad's belt, and suddenly we're told that actually one of the points of the competition is that they have to achieve certain things to certain times, and they'd just run out of time for moving anywhere that day ... Russ kept smiling, I'm very impressed with him for that. Anyway, we might be on telly (albeit Spanish and maybe South American) sometime in September / October, as we were being followed round by a camera the whole time we were going through the above palaver. If anyone is interested we can email you the website of the TV company (why would you be? - Russell). So I'll finish our blog for now, even though I haven't brought you right up to date yet, to go and dream of being “discovered”, although I expect Dancing Queen has pretty much put the lid on that one. If things go to plan, the next instalment will come from Vladivostok, and should be our last from this “riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma” (Que?- Russell)

More Eastern Siberian landscape. Mongolia is on the other side of the mountain range.

A village on the way to Ulan Ude in Eastern Siberia