Not knowing what to expect, the train was in excellent nick - clean cabins, boiling water for cups of tea (and noodles), and the dining carriage was cool too, although food was average.
The people were far more friendly than those in Moscow. One of the guys in my cabin, an ex military man, after having a couple of cans of beer with bread for breakfast, found my travel guidebooks fascinating. While the dining lady thought she'd learn some English using my phrasebook.
The best of all was this little girl, maybe 6yrs old, who was singing along to "baby if you give it to me, I give it to you", which was playing on the radio (which they seem to play at the start and end of journeys). She knew all the lyrics; hope she didn't know what it meant!
The journey would take me across the Ural Mountains, and finally into Asia. The 'middle' Urals are not really mountainous, more miles and miles of very tall pine trees, with the odd lake and village every now and then. The lakes leading into Yekaterinburg were particularly beautiful.
Lots of music, a few episodes of Gossip Girl (!), some sudoku, and 25hr and 37mins after leaving (to the minute), I arrived in Yekaterinburg. I was now halfway into my train journey from London to Beijing; only 5,600km to go!
Yekaterinburg was larger than I thought and I was pleased to hear that most of the locals I spoke to there also didn't like Moscovites :)
It is particularly famous as it was here that the Romanov Royal Family, the last before WWI, the Russian Civil War and then communism, were murdered. It has a wonderful "Pond" too (more like a lake) in the centre of the city, and an impressive memorial dedicated to the Afghan War.
It had been raining heavily the previous week before I arrived so I had the option of cancelling my mountain biking trip for an excursion to a traditional Ural village.
Having rode a BMX without breaks my whole life (some of you will have seen it), I wasn't passing up the opportunity to ride a proper bike!
After a good night sleep, I woke up and Dmitri drove Estelle (?) and me to the point where Europe and Asia meet (pretty unspectacular, but lots of tourists) and then Estelle took me into the Urals to start biking.
After taking a while getting used to the gears, I had a brilliant time riding through puddles getting very muddy, admiring the awesome surroundings. After an hour, we climbed up the Ural Rocks for an incredible view.
Both Estelle and Dmitri were great, and I highly recommend anyone who's here in the future to join their trip (from Hotel Suite). Both spoke good English and answered most of my many questions about Russia, Yekaterinburg etc.
I was shattered after 2hr of bike riding. My leg is certainly much weaker than it was before my ankle injury, my butt was hurting, and I think I had the runs - perfect way to head into the next 10 days of hiking in the Altai Mountains, after another 1day+ train journey of course.
Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device
No comments:
Post a Comment