Like Yangon, Almaty has had the rug pulled from under its feet: the seat of political power has been diverted to an unpopular mausoleum of unfortunate modernist architecture several hundred miles away, leaving only the physical relics behind. But unlike Yangon, which responded by descending into feral chaos, Almaty doesn’t seem to mind one bit. It has exhaled slowly, repurposed its Soviet-era bureaucratic behemoths, helpfully pedestrianized its resplendently wide boulevards (recall Stalin’s paranoia about the insurgencies plotted down narrow lanes) and settled into a sedate middle age.

Plenty of Soviet era behemoths, all gently decaying

Moday: Only one car parked outside the mayor’s office (formerly seat of national government).

Monday evening rush hour: not many takers for the Metro

The Kazakh State Circus features in many books on ‘important’ Soviet Architecture.

On this balmy weekend where the prevailing color is nonetheless still monochrome, serene ‘passeggiatas con gelato’ are in progress, and in the piazzas the serious children are playing sedately. It is no place for disaffected youth, so there aren’t any. The millenials are pleasant and unfailingly helpful. Their English is excellent and they are planning to go to Europe for further studies (no-one is interested in the USA).

Sedate passeggiatas down the pedestrianized boulevards.

Three of my goals for this weekend in Almaty (long showers, laundry, eat vegetables) are handily achieved thanks to my nifty little Soviet era apartment, courtesy of Airbnb. Fantastically located in the middle of downtown it is decrepit enough the developers should be circling; but since every road has 3 names – its Soviet name, its current name, and what people actually call it – it has probably simply slipped through the cracks. So its pensioner tenants, who are within a 5 minute walk of anywhere worth being, are left in peace.

Dinner in my Soviet era kitchen: Rosti with salad and mushrooms. Note the bread, but she was right, I didn’t need an egg.

I amble around, shop for Tashkent tomatoes at the farmer’s market, take in the ballet and a museum or two, eat a gelato and am restored.

Pig and cow feature prominently in the farmer’s market, but horse isn’t similarly advertised.

Just so you don’t think its chicken.

Another ambitious opera theatre.

Everyone was still awake in Act 2, so unlikely to be Sleeping Beauty (as advertised).

And just as well because task 4 is picking up my visa from the Iranian Embassy. Since I have in my hand a document from the Iranian government indicating that at my convenience I will be persona grata for a period not exceeding 20 days, this should be a formality. I have set aside the whole of Monday in case it is not.

A tragicomedy in two acts: Act 1.

Cast: Me; A security guard; Two gents; A secretary; Dr. Jekyll; Mr. Hyde; A Bank Cashier; 8 Uber drivers.

Scene 1: It is early on a dank morning in a ramshackle subdivision about 40 minutes from the center of Almaty, identified from Google maps as the location of the Iranian embassy. The curtain rises on a vast compound that covers a whole block. The walls are at least twelve feet high. Somewhat surprisingly, only one door is not padlocked. The buzzer is not wired up. After much banging the door opens.

Me: I’ve come to pick up my visa

Security guard: Unintelligible

Me: (proffers Google translate which says ‘I’ve come to pick up my visa’).

SG: Unintelligible, mimics not having glasses.

Me: Is this the Iranian embassy?

SG: Shakes head.

Me: Where is it then?

SG: Unintelligible.

Me: Well can you call someone to help me because I’m not understanding you at all.

SG: Points to the basement of what appears to be a deserted building in the middle of the compound.

Scene 2: The only room occupied is on the 2^nd floor – two gents with jihadi beards and their Central Asian secretary.

Me: Is this the Iranian embassy?

Gents: No, it moved 10 years ago. We’re (they exchange glances) a Chinese oil company.

Secretary: Looks surprised. (The secretary retrieves a sheet of typed directions to the actual Iranian embassy).

Secretary: Would you like an Uber?

(Aside:  Every second car in Almaty is a taxi and Almaty Uber is the cheapest in the world. Over the next few hours I will take 8 Uber rides for a total outlay of $14).

Uber driver #1: Iranian embassy?

Scene 3: 30 minutes later. It is still dank but this subdivision is marginally less ramshackle, as is the compound. This gate is wide open and astonishingly there are no metal detectors (even the malls in Almaty have metal detectors). At the end of the empty, appallingly decorated room is a wall of bullet proof glass. The gun slit to peer through is inconveniently located at upper chest height.

Me: (through gun slit) Hello, I’ve come to pick up my visa.

Dr. Jekyll:  Passport.

Me: (proffers passport and Iranian Government letter).

Dr. J. : No

Me: What no? I have the letter.

Dr. J: Yes, and we have the visa (pulls down a ledger, and there I am inscribed within ).

Me: So what’s the problem?

Dr. J: No application form. We need online application form.

Me: What do you mean? I don’t have that form, you have it. Did you approve the visa?

Dr. J: No, Tehran.

Me: So Tehran has it.

Dr. J: Your tour organizer made mistake.

Me: What mistake? Tehran approved it.

Dr. J: Go back and fill in again online.

Me: You want me to go home and fill in the online application form again?

Dr. J: Yes.

Me: And then come back?

Dr. J: Yes. Then you pay 360 Euros and we give you visa today.

(I contemplate bursting into tears, but a strategic retreat seems wiser, given we are at a yes)

Uber driver #2: The name (of my apartment) is not Nazerbaev 112, it is Furmanov 112.

2 hour interlude. Via email my internet dude tour organizer offers his best suggestion: ‘do anything they ask’.  But I am unable to complete the online visa application. Finally the Iranian government confesses its website is down for maintenance. I screenshot the message and, preparing for battle, gird my laptop in a plastic grocery bag.

Uber driver #3: Iranian embassy?

Scene 4: 40 minutes later, the same room. A few unhappy Kazakhs are lounging on the ugly, plastic-covered sofas. On the other side of the gun slit sits Mr. Hyde.

Me: I just need to tell you I couldn’t fill…

Mr. Hyde: Yes, yes, obviously anyone should realize if you already submitted a successful application you can’t submit another one.

Me: (Bites lip). OK. So what then?

Mr. H:  Go to the State bank of Pakistan and pay 180 euros. Visa is ready after 5 business days.

Uber driver #4: State Bank of Pakistan?

Scene 5: 30 minutes later in a strip mall, the State Bank of Pakistan.

Pakistani Bank cashier: 180 Euros is 71,475 Tenge.

Me: Can I pay with a card?

PBC: No

Me: Do you have a Bankomat (ATM)?

PBC: No.

Uber driver #5: Bankomat?

15 minutes later

Uber driver #6: State Bank of Pakistan?

20 minutes later

Uber driver #7: Iranian Embassy?

Scene 6: 30 minutes later. The same room. The Kazakhs have left. Through the gun slit Dr. J. is back. He looks sullen, even after lunch.

Me: Here’s the receipt. For 180 Euros.

Dr. J: Yes

Me: (opens laptop and indicates calendar) I’m coming back on April 12^th. I will pick up my visa then.

Dr. J: Yes

Me: Will you write me something to say that will be OK?

Dr. J: No.

Uber Driver #8: The name is not Nazerbaev 112, its Furmanov 112.

It has taken over 8 hours.

The Iranian embassy, Almaty

I have 2 gin and tonics with dinner at the Korean restaurant round the corner.

Gin and tonic number 1

Act 2 will be performed on April 12^th.

I finally get my Pasternak moment on the 057 Irkutsk to (somewhere unpronounceable but way past Rostock on Don) when Lara parks herself opposite on bunk #11. Larissa is a dumpy, chunky babushka, but she is not grumpy! Not at all! In fact she’s so good-natured and charming that within 20 minutes she has us all wrapped round her little finger. Her week’s supply of food is deposited in the prodenitsa’s own fridge and the prodenitsa herself has cheerfully provided us both with real china plates and proper cutlery so Larissa can load them up with a delicious selection of home-made salads for our lunch.

Larissa will be on the train for a week. Fortunately she has brought food for a month

A few hours later and even the fierce Tajiks on the top bunks are happily showing us photos of their grape harvests. In a final coup de main on our morning constitutional she even has the train driver getting down from his compartment for a photo-op.

The most good-natured train driver in Russia

The sun is still sparkling on the taiga and our Google Translates remark simultaneously that it feels like spring. It is a lovely, if short, 30 hour train ride and we part, appropriately, with a heartfelt bear hug (she and the Tajiks head on to Rostock).

The bright blue skies make all the difference. Massive stands of trees try unsuccessfully to break the wind.

Spring is on its way to Novosibirsk too, so the grey film on the hard packed snow and ice that covers the sidewalks is beginning to melt treacherously. I am focusing on keeping my footing when it occurs to me the reason the air feels so balmy on my legs is that I’ve neglected to put my snow pants on top of my long underwear. Fortunately, Novosibirskians are far too polite to indicate they’ve noticed. My goal is some prep for Kazakhstan tomorrow: Scene, a bank. Cast: Me via Google Translate; A bank clerk.

Me: Is it possible to change Rubles into Tenge?

ABC: No. Do you have dollars?

Me: Oh! Is it possible to change Dollars into Tenge?

ABC: No.

A night at the Novosibirsk Opera and Ballet to see Peer Gynt, in this modern iteration an  odd combination of both opera and ballet.  I would have preferred the piano and the chorus on stage and the dancers in the orchestra pit. But the acoustics were absolutely sensational, the best I’ve ever heard.  Caviar and champagne helps too.

Hello Steppes!

All bets are off! The last stage of this marathon train expedition, a 48 hour, two night trip, will not be on one of the Russian Railways marvels I now so smugly consider myself expert in. The 369 from Novosibirsk to Tashkent stopping in Almaty Kazakhstan, is a decrepit Uzbekhi Railways imitation. Truth be told, it isn’t an imitation at all, but a slightly unhinged parallel universe.

Novosibirsk Railway Station. The palm trees are obscuring a grand piano. The pianist is playing Rachmaninoff.

Clue number one: most of the train is composed of open bunk ‘plazkart’ carriages to accommodate a full cohort of ‘importers’ laden down with plenty of who knows what (whatever it is they come by from time to time trying to sell it).  The single ‘kupe’ carriage of elite 4 berth compartments has an oriental rug, but is half empty.

All of the action is at the rear of the train which is packed full of ‘importers’. The sniffer dogs are very interested.

Clue number two: all the prodenistas are men, and none are prepared to deploy air freshener in the bathrooms or vacuum between our feet. No-one has a clipboard. After the border and when they have acquired enough who knows what from the ‘importers’ they let a subset sleep in the kupe carriage, though not, fortunately, in our compartment.

Our prodenista sports elaborate dental work and what looks like a military band uniform. He insists I take a picture of him with this dried-up pomegranate. Meanwhile his junior associate (glimpsed partially) cackles “No photos! No photos!” hysterically from the side. Neither of them prioritize cleaning the bathrooms.

The samovar is coal fired.

But bunk #9 will be cozy under the Uzbekhi railway blanket. Just as well since all the lights and heating fused on the second night.

Clue number three: there is no little elf with free dinners (how we laughed but how we miss him now) only a hulking great Uzbeki who tries to strong arm us into buying greasy plov on a 3 hour rotation. Ludmilla (Luda, this trip’s bunk #11) keeps up a whispered commentary on everything she disapproves of (it is constant) and manages to whisper him away but I make the mistake of saying ‘patom’ (‘later’) so he puts me and his rapidly congealing bowls on a half hour rotation. Google Translate is not effective in Uzbeki.

Plov extortion. Out of self defense I tried to figure out when it might be fresh and ordered then. I was wrong.

At just before 6am I am engaged in the daily ritual of calculating how long I can put off going to the bathroom when all lights come on and three different breeds of sniffer dogs expertly nose their way down the carriage, followed by 5 members of the Red Army Ensemble who align themselves beside my bunk. ‘Passport’ they chorus. They are so transfixed with last year’s Burmese visa they take the passport away, presumably to show the tenors. An hour or so later a trio with slightly better vocabulary demand my full itinerary in detail (they are visibly disappointed it won’t include Burma). I omit Iran and substitute Istanbul as an imaginary final leg but It doesn’t help. Finally, and after another hour, a well-scrubbed millennial with perfect English (of course) presents me with my passport, inexplicably freezing cold, ‘I’m so sorry’ he says unexpectedly. ‘It’s quite all right’ I tell him. Of course, we’re stopped, so the bathroom is locked.

But all is not done. The Kazakh half of the equation awaits. Its single military representative, while decidedly spottier and much less spruced up than the RAE has several more lights on. He immediately spots my proffered UK passport lacks the Russian exit visa (the dilemma – my Iranian visa, which I’m going to pick up in Almaty, will go in my UK passport, so I need my Kazakh visa there also, but my Russian visa is in my US passport). I surrender my US passport reluctantly (I have not yet made it to the bathroom). ‘Two passports?’ he asks. ‘Yes’ I concede. He immediately stamps the appropriate one. ‘Welcome to Kazakhstan’ he says with a grin.

By the time it gets light we are into the steppe. The horizon is flat in all directions and will stay that way until nightfall, 12 hours away. We stop at one tiny town and see only a handful of isolated villages, all beside the tracks. Their houses feel braced into the landscape.

An unusual blast of color.

There are no full size trees. Only the wind has sliced and etched huge swirls in the snow, which, caked with ice, glisten in the sun.

I had thought the landscape would be scarred with Soviet mines, but it is not. It is pristine; harsh and majestic.

The graveyard at the end of the world

I idly follow some snowmobile tracks as they meander out of a village and beside the railway for over an hour. Along with the electricity poles they end up at a single farmstead. There are no other tracks or electricity poles as far as the eye can see.

The electricity poles stop here.

Outside the farmstead a young boy without gloves is hauling a steel milk can on a sled. He stops to wave at the train, which passes this way three times a week.

Unusually at dawn a far house-light.

An Irkutsk joke:

“I’ve heard you have bears and wolves walking the streets in Irkutsk”

“Don’t be ridiculous, we don’t have streets in Irkutsk”

Babur, the  mascot of Irkutsk, combines the worst elements of bears and wolves.

Under leaden skies, more snow, and a damp, biting wind Irkutsk definitely isn’t a contender. Not only are the sidewalks not at all free of snow or ice, but underneath they seem to be made of polished granite. Plus, the frozen grey slush seems to mask unsurfaced roads.  I rebuff the usual phalanx of aggressive taxi drivers hogging the front of the station in favor of a 40 minute ride on the ancient tram at 5mph (25 cents). Not for nothing has Irkutsk been described as a ‘boom or bust’ gold town. This particular bust cycle must have been really protracted.

The Matreshka hotel, evidently built during some earlier, fleeting boom, aspires to the ‘Neo-Soviet’ pre-IKEA style of charmless interior décor. But we must look beyond décor to cleanliness (5 stars) millennials-at-the-desk (A+ particularly after one hauls my roly bag up three flights of stairs) and breakfast (over and above – a la carte homemade yogurt supplementing a lavish buffet). A piping hot shower (note for later, a real bath tub) and a change of clothes and I am willing to give Irkutsk a second chance.

The Neo-Soviet pre-IKEA dining room at the Matreshka.

Note to self: there is little point reserving a ‘queen sized bed’ for extra room if it is actually two twins shoved together, with a twin duvet.

At 2pm and courtesy of Katarina, that NYL from Moscow, I am handed off to her friend in Irkutsk. Over the next couple of days Anastasia (Masters in International Relations, Human Rights Watch alumna, social entrepreneur) will walk me off my feet in the service of upending these so facile stereotypes. Can all Russians actually be sweethearts? I’m certainly batting 100% up to now.

Anastasia is an Irkutsk and Baikal booster

In the first place, we are not in fact in a bust cycle. Indeedy not, thanks to, of all things, Bitcoin. It turns out that various international shady characters have ridden into town and taken advantage of fantastically low electricity prices to install massive numbers of Bitcoin servers in rented apartments, making unlikely Irkutsk the Bitcoin capital of the world.

In the second place, despite its resolute location in Asia, Irkutsk is more appropriately known as the Paris (rather than the Dodge City) of Siberia (more plausible when the snow stops sufficiently for the elegant pre-revolution architecture over this side of the river to reveal itself in the gloaming).

Irkutsk can strut its stuff once the snow stops

Even the Stalinist buildings aren’t bad. Unknown Warrior duty is no fun at -25°C.

In the third place, the Matreshka hotel is not simply a clean if unfortunately decorated $40 find on Booking.com, but an exceptionally dangerous place tourists, especially of my age, should avoid. It all seems related in some way to its proximity to the market and the bus-stop outside, which evidently is frequented solely by pick-pockets (if this is the case they are expertly disguised as babushkas). When I ask the millenial-at-the-desk whether I can safely make the 6 minute walk to the restaurant up the street for dinner she is not amused. “It may look dangerous but it isn’t” she says. ”In any case there’s a police car parked outside”. She’s right and it will be there tomorrow too, still empty. I cunningly disguise myself as a pickpocket babushka and make it there and back uneventfully.

The notorious Hotel Matreshka. Taken from in front of the police car.

I’ve just finished washing my malodorous train clothes in the bathtub and am settling in with the New Yorker when I get an anxious text from Anastasia wondering whether I need an armed escort.

Another upended stereotype: I’ve yet to see a Russian drink; when I ordered beer with my dinner the waitress had to run to the grocery store across the road. Everyone else was drinking herbal tea.

The fish is listed as ‘Omul’ – a Lake Baikal specialty. However Omul is protected, so this is in fact another kind (Peyul) that looks and tastes completely different. It is the same price whether listed as Omul or Peyul. Thanks to Anastasia for the insider info, but who knows what all that’s about.

Day 2, Baikal

Everything has changed. The clouds have blown out, the skies are bright blue and here in the Paris of Siberia the sun is sparkling on the sidewalks. Even the roads are now clearly asphalted. It will be a perfect day for the 12 hour trip Anastasia has organized to lake Baikal. First order of business – getting there – is itself a challenge involving a complex sequence of marshrutkas (mini-van buses): Neither where they stop nor when they go is obvious, even to a native Russian speaker who lives in town.

First off, the grandly titled ‘ethnographic museum’ which truth be told is the main reason I am in Irkutsk at all. Various ancient Siberian taiga villages and stockades relocated to a different taiga in service of a hydroelectric dam, and, as hoped, just like Old Sturbridge Village, although the live re-enactments at OSV are better (here the roles of the peasants are played by disconcertingly looming papier maché models). I insist on spending hours inspecting everything, but Anastasia is able to tell me all about it, hence a good time is had by all.

Absolute bliss: Old Sturbridge Village in Siberia

Probably not many live re-enactment volunteers given the houses mostly aren’t heated.

Ancient hunting blind: a nice cozy place to hole up while waiting for the bears and wolves.

Apparently if we ran out of water tomorrow Lake Baikal could keep the entire planet supplied for the next 40 years. It is not surprising then that it has a 2000km shoreline (of which I hope to see only a fraction, Anastasia is very energetic). Tomorrow she plans to ski across to the other side. It will take 6 hours, much out of sight of either bank, all sounding and looking like a really poor idea.

Shamanist prayer flags on the shore of Baikal. Ostensibly from the Buyan indigenous people, but more likely from cross-country skiers.

Fortunately today it is only -20°C so we can take a long (long) walk on the ice and then circle back to buy smoked fish at the village market and take it into one of the cafés to eat. The notion of bringing one’s own food to a café is somewhat counter-intuitive, and Anastasia warns me we will need to buy something, which turns out to be a couple of pitas to wrap the fish in. But we even drink our own thermos of tea, while the family beside us tucks into their own full 3 course meal.

One of these is actual Omul, the fishermen themselves are less inhibited about the prohibition.

Pita and actual Omul for lunch.

At about 4pm, having taken each other’s measure, we can finally start on politics. I am interested why Putin enjoys between 80% (Anastasia’s figure) and 90% (Katarina’s) support. He has made internal improvements (like shutting down the paper mill that was polluting Lake Baikal), but not enough and he is getting tired. People are restless but afraid of chaos when he steps down. Navalny, his only viable opponent, is a consummate politician who espouses eliminating hush-money subsidies to states (like Chechnya); this may restore equity (the money is funneled into the pockets of corrupt politicians, and even the Chechens themselves are fed up) but is a risky path. International politics are not on the radar screen, even for this International Relations expert. She is interested in whether there is a link between Trump and Putin. I offer that more than half the USA is praying for one, and that it surely involves kompromat based on shady financing of his business deals. But Putin is surely too clever to have his fingerprints on anything. She thinks his acceptance of the most recent sanctions show he’s hanging his inner circle out to dry. As he reaches the end of his career he is seeking to establish his legacy. and he wants it acknowledged that it is he who saved Russia. They need to realize the price he has paid for greasing their wheels.

The local history museum, a bridge too far.

At 6pm I decline the final museum and insist on declaring victory. Although I rarely actually feel cold, being out in it all day is exhausting. At the hotel I am so tired I settle for a bar of chocolate and a bottle of water for dinner; I can’t even make it into the corridor to get hot water for tea.

This year’s long post about trains.

Weighed down with 5 days-worth of food I never eat at home (cups-of-soup, pot noodles, instant coffee) I am bright and early for the 13:50 Moscow to Chitra train #70, making about 100 stops over the 5 day trip to Irkutsk in far eastern Siberia. Of the many trains on the Transsiberian route, foreigners prefer the more lavish #3 and #4, but I expect the older Chitra to be more solid, plus it arrives in Irkutsk at the more godly hour of 10:00 am on Friday, rather than the middle of the night.

It is not quite clear why Lonely Planet advises getting to the station 2 hours in advance in order to identify the train.

A mere smattering of those 100 stops. The engine is changed every night.

Train 70 Moscow to Chita

I easily identify carriage 8 (it is between 9 and 7, unlike the UK trains) and then my compartment midway between the samovar and the toilets (bunk #13).

Chill Lonely Planet, this isn’t rocket science.

But wait! In contrast to the undertaking by Russian Railways that ladies will be put together, bunks 11, 12 and 14 are already occupied by gents, at least one of whom has evidently never seen the inside of a shower he trusts.  I am outraged and corner the prodenitsa (aide for our carriage) who is assiduously mopping the toilet floor. “It was my understanding” google translate begins in a passive aggressive tour de force “that were it possible for ladies to be together in a compartment, it would be so. And it does in fact appear to be possible”. Indeed it does. The carriage is not full and other ladies are in compartments alone. The prodenitsa observes me narrowly. She has seen it all before. She hopes that these statements are not an attempt to impugn the honor of these fine Russian gentlemen. Regrettably, at this point no changes can be made, so she also hopes that nonetheless a comfortable and satisfying journey can be achieved to (her eyes narrow even more) Irkutsk. She is not swayed by my final desperate plea that they are smelly.

At this point a choice must be made. The trip from Moscow to Irkutsk in eastern Siberia will take 3 full days and two half days on either end (4 nights). I have been waiting for it for literally 50 years. There won’t be a do-over (even if I repeat it there will never be another first time).  So I need to get over it and get on with it.

Dimitry, Pyotor and even potentially Vasily-the-unshowered turn out to be sweethearts, just as the prodenitsa has optimistically advertised.

D is a millennial whose single passion is helicopters. Fortunately he is training to be a helicopter pilot. By the end of day 1 he has shown me every single picture on his computer, all of which are of helicopters, plus some videos of him as a pilot. The linguistic effort exhausts him and he sleeps in until 10 on day 2. Fortunately also, his phone is dead, so he has to spend the trip studying for his exams rather than watching videos.

P is a quintessential dad whose kids are set to surpass his wildest dreams (one is an architect and the other at Moscow University). He works for Gazprom but not in the Moscow office (this is significant to the other 2 who nod sagely). I presume that if he was an oligarch he would fly to Irkutsk, which takes about 3 hours. (Update: we later learn he makes this same trip from Kalliningrad on the Baltic to Siberia once a year to visit his mother. Once he disembarks at Irkutsk he has a further 6 hour train trip north followed by a 3 hour bus ride into the taiga. All in all the round trip will take a month. He does it by train because he is afraid to fly).

Dmitry fueling up for another bout of helicopter splaining. Pyotor taking advantage of the minute and a half of cell phone service available for the next 100 miles.

V – the – unshowered (and also it will turn out, the snorer) is more of an enigma. He has the bunk above mine and therefore during the day should share mine as a seat. But V doesn’t like to sit next to me or look me in the eye and so he alternates between squeezing in with the other 2 on the opposite side (which subtly exasperates them) or standing in the corridor. At dinner (pot noodles for me, pasta for P, and for D two competing 3 course meals from his divorced parents) D and V get into an intense discussion later described to me as about ‘political history’ during which D is too well-mannered to roll his eyes. After dinner V ascends to his bunk and falls asleep at 8pm. (Update: V has warmed up this morning and unbidden scurries through the carriage to identify the cleanest toilet for me. They are both clean. The prodenitsa’s obsession with mopping and dusting far outweigh her intransigence with seat assignments).

Vasily  prefers to stand in the corridor rather than sit next to me.

Within a few hours the three of us (P, D and me) have settled on an effective way to get the most out of our combined 300 word vocabulary (there is usually no cell service or internet en route so GT is sidelined). I ask a question and then rephrase it a couple of times. They confer among themselves for a consensus answer which P delivers (D has more words but often gets hold of the wrong end of the stick). If it is a question they are particularly interested in (about 1 in 5) someone will bring out a napkin for a more thorough written response. We adopt a calming rhythm of ignoring each other until meal times and settle in for a nice discussion (and D’s pictures) in the evening. By the end of day 1 we have covered the cost of health care, universities and income tax and admired D’s college transcripts. I am hopeful we will move onto politics tonight since they have shown surreptitious interest in my book on Stalin. After the first night all the compartments are filled up, but few seem as convivial as ours. Moreover, in contrast to the hysterical admonitions of Lonely Planet, we leave our electronics lying around and not only do we not lock ourselves in at night, we leave the compartment door ajar, which is just as well since it is hotter than hell and everyone is in T shirts or pajamas.

Bunk #13 all set up for the night. The pillowcase from home is my best hack: I can stuff my parka inside thereby defending myself from the Russian Railways ‘pillow’.

The built up environs of Moscow drop off after about 3 hours and now, nearly 24 hours later, all we see through the dense gusting snow are isolated villages burrowing into the drifts. The village houses are mostly well kept but only some have smoke coming from their chimneys. Between them the larch forest is still interspersed with fields and from time to time we see ski tracks and even occasionally, resolute skiers. About every hour there is a small, quiet town. It is bliss.

During day 2 we pass over the Urals (rather disappointing as mountains – they achieved their full potential several millennia ago). They too are dotted with cozy villages nestled into the snow. Notably fewer of them are inhabited.

Not how I’d imagined the Urals (before it really started snowing).

On day 3 we cross the wasteland that is the desolate marsh of Western Siberia. Within the bog many trees are stunted and dead, like a first world war battle site and it appears fully devoid of humans or their habitation: There are no roads and we pass only two villages all day, only a few railroad workers’ cottages, glimpsed through the blizzard, huddle dispiritedly alongside the train tracks.

A rare sign of life in Western Siberia.

When I tell D & P this intense snowstorm is being called ‘the beast from the east’  V, from his top bunk, observes that it is in fact ‘the beast from the west’. My rush to impute nationalist motives is corrected by D, ever the didact, who points out the actual direction of the wind.

The blizzard outside may be raging but carriage 8 has settled into a bustling rhythm that demands careful attention. First of all is the matter of time. Carriage 8 like all Russian trains en route adheres to Moscow time, which is a full 5 hours different from where we will end up in the east, promoting an existentialist dilemma where at any given moment the clock at the end of the carriage bears no relationship to either our phones or laptops (further complicated by the fact that cell phone service can only optimistically be called intermittent and we have had internet only once in 3 days) or, more significantly, our biological clocks. Not only do we sleep in until ungodly hours but the little elf who runs the restaurant can deliver meals he calls ‘dinner’ at times no sane person would want to eat. (We each get one free meal. D and V, who are getting off midway in Omsk had their ‘dinner’ at what they thought was 3pm on day 2. P, the Transsiberian expert, who is  getting off with me at Irkutsk has decreed we will have ours on day 4 when the arrival of ‘dinner’ may coincide with our biological breakfast, or something).

Only the blazing sunlight provides a clue that in fact it might not be 4:49 in the morning. The heat in the carriage has been turned down for the night.

We stop about three times a day for long enough to buy food from the babushkas who man dank kiosks or more disconcertingly flash their merchandise from where it is pinned inside their coats. Hard boiled eggs are 25 cents, train-proof bread that never tastes good or but never goes bad 50 cents, and questionable salami a dollar.

If we want to eat tomorrow we must brave the kiosks tonight.

.On one occasion I buy some smoked fish. Inside, enveloped in fetid heat, it starts to smell after only 10 minutes. They implore me to eat it quickly, but even so P is forced to spray the compartment with pungent deodorant in self-defense.

Making no friends with this evening’s menu choice.

The carriage is looked after by two prodenistas. It should be pointed out that their job is to look after Russian Railways hardware, not its passengers. To this end Nadzheda toils all morning (Moscow time), which means she turns up randomly by day and night, poking her vacuum between our feet and insisting we lean this way and that so she can polish behind our backs and clean the windows When we stop she scurries outside to chip the ice from the undercarriage. It has not escaped our notice that Nadzheda pays most loving attention to the bathroom nearest her little compartment, which is always sparkling clean and well supplied with toilet paper. Tamara works at night (Moscow time) when our opportunities to despoil Railway property are minimized, so she can concentrate on her specialties of paperwork and Sudoku. Three hours after carriage 8 has been cleaned to within an inch of its life a man with a clip board comes round to inquire after our satisfaction. Since the surveys must be accompanied by a Russian ID (supplied reluctantly by D and P) he is not interested in my opinion. Remarkably, their comments will be published on the Russian Railways website, as I discovered once accidentally. V on the top bunk keeps resolutely mum.

All hands on deck, or rather under the deck.

Carriage 8 before Nadzheda has vaccumed the corridor and straightened the runner.

According to Lonely Planet, Transsiberian trains #3 & #4 will provide a non-stop party experience, but in carriage 8 on the 1950’s Chitra express the subtle etiquette is much more decorous. Lower bunks get the window seat near the table, but when the others indicate an intention to eat by rustling in their food bags it is considered polite to shift out of the way and leave the compartment. It is not polite to comment on food, unless invited (exception – smoked fish as mentioned, and my pot noodles which invited discreet scorn but then an avalanche of invitations to salami and cheese). Cookies are left on the table for communal use and should be pressed on others whenever eye contact is made. Tea is drunk 8 times a day.

Russian railways help out with the tea drinking requirement by providing mugs.

And a samovar

D & V depart at Omsk on day 3 (V thaws completely and kisses my hand). Unfortunately this unexpected outpouring of emotion causes him to forget his passport unleashing a tsunami of bureacracy in the service of dropping it off at the next station (Ob, population 10, six hours away). V & D are replaced by a deaf woman and at midnight (actual time) a sulky millennial who is welded to his iphone. We accommodate and the conversations begin again.

I am reluctant to disembark. After all there are still three more days before Chita, not to mention Vladivostok.

Three days later and Moscow leads the pack of cities to aspire to live in: It is a walking city. The pavements are flat and free of snow, ice and litter. (Those that are not are being assiduously attacked – on a Sunday – by many unusually goal oriented teams of workers). They are so wide, bike lanes, dogs and kids are all kept effectively distant. Pedestrians wait for the green light and in return drivers do not pretend to accelerate as soon as one steps into the street. All major highways have regular underground passages which are clean and well lit. People use them, and above, the traffic flows smoothly.

Public transport is everywhere: on each of the 10 or so Metro lines trains run every minute, so need never be packed. Trams are sleek and buses (the domain of babushkas) are spruce. Neighborhoods are chock a block with enticing apartments of every persuasion from fin-de-siècle to brutalist concrete, all cozily supplied with grocery stores, bakeries etc. The grocery stores and bakeries look just like home, and there is a coffee shop on nearly every corner.

A random view from my hotel window at rush hour on Monday morning

On my four hour amble I  pass more than 30 theaters or concert halls all bustling with matinee audiences (the many churches are bustling too, clearly where babushkas go when they get off the bus).

A church on every corner. Another stereotype bites the dust.

Best of all the people are largely above and beyond friendly, although any attempt at random street smiling is met with frank alarm. (However, the combination of my TJ Maxx parka [fake fur hood] and LL Bean windproof pants clearly signals me as a homeless person, so I am always soundly rebuffed by the more extravagant fur coats swirling around in the cold [the TJ Maxx fur coats are less discriminating]). But it is millennials who are the best bet for directions and a chat; they have been very well brought up and can be relied on to be both accurate and charming. The irony has been wrung out of them somewhere.

Outside the Tchaikovsky concert hall. People were actually swinging when I went to take the picture.

Saturday evening saw ‘Lady Macbeth of Mtensk District’ at the Helikon theatre, the Shostakovitch opera which, thanks to this production, seems unlikely to shed its controversial reputation any time soon. From the Charles Renee Mackintosh-style metal chairs swathed in plastic the substantial chorus had to continually lug around the rather too small stage, to the startlingly realistic simulated sex initiated during every orchestral interlude, the director clearly had a lot on his/her mind. Moscow was having none of it. The first bout of SS saw a frantic scurrying to the door (on inspection a surprisingly young demographic) and by the time the chairs were hauled into their final iteration as a lake the audience was well and truly depleted. Fortunately management had was prepared – slipping conservatory students into vacant seats rather like at the Oscars.

Unfortunately the students were a limited commodity. At the curtain what was left of the audience resolutely kept to its seats and the director noticeably didn’t take a bow. After, the conservatory students demanded my evaluation. Google translate settled us on tyazhelaya ruka (heavy handed). But the orchestra and cast had been superb.

Before or after the performance? I don’t remember

Not to worry, what I have always imagined as the bona fide Soviet persona is alive and well in my hotel restaurant. The hotel itself is fabulous. It is steps from a central Metro and new enough to be wonderfully appointed but not too new that the architecture is silly. Best of all it is only $60 a night. Worn out from my walk I decide to give its highly recommended restaurant a try for dinner.

Cast of characters: Me; A waitress. Setting, the empty restaurant.

Me: Can I have the rosti please? And would it be possible to have it with an egg?

AW: Why?

Me: Well when I make rosti at home I usually have it with eggs.

AW: How many eggs? 2? 3?

Me: One would be fine.

AW You’ll have to pay extra (takes a few steps away then back). The rosti comes with mushrooms AND a salad, you don’t need an egg.

Me: Never mind then

AW: Do you want some bread?

Me: Maybe just a little

AW: You don’t need bread either.

Me: OK….

Me: I think I’ll have a glass of white wine. Is this Russian wine good?

AW: You should drink French wine.

Me: No I think I’d like to try the Russian wine actually.

AW: The French wine is better.

(The Russian wine turns out to be fine)….

AW: Dessert?

Me: Yes can I have the apple crumble? but can I have vanilla ice cream instead of the sorbet? I don’t like raspberry sorbet.

AW: That won’t be possible.

Me: OK then I won’t have it. I’ll have an éclair instead.

AW: With vanilla ice-cream?

The annoying Tretyakov gallery where all the Russians who emulate other artists show their work. For a 5 point bonus identify who is being copied here (answers may be used more than once).

By the shores of Gitchee Gumee?

This one however was fab. Look at the light coming from behind the trees.

Disclaimer: I actually went to the wrong museum. There is a whole other Tretyakov with Contemporary art, which is what I was really after. Curse you Google maps!

But the museum of Decorative Art was a winner. Lenin with your cake anyone?

 

*I’ll have the borscht!

The Moscow city government, anticipating the soccer World Cup, is providing me welcome help in deploying my 120 word Russian vocabulary. Beyond sporadic transliterations of essential signs, they are also encouraging businesses to be more English aware. It is a work in progress: While the SIM card shop is fully fluent “How nice to see a babushka smiling, ours are so grumpy”, the ticket booth at the local metro stop which cheerily announces ‘We speak English!’ seems to rely on a random loiterer rather than an actual employee to provide the service.

Down on the platforms the signs for which train goes where have not yet been attended to, so each word must be attacked syllable by painful syllable, while dodging the crowds. Luckily trains come literally every minute, so mistakes made are easily undone. And what trains! Or more accurately, what stations! Determined to distract the proletariat from their daily grind some inspired comrade (it may even have been Stalin himself) decreed every station be festooned in decorative excess. So Komsomolskaya is frothy French Baroque, Kievskaya is patriotic mosaics dripping with gilt and Pobedy Park  an art deco extravaganza. I spend a satisfying afternoon checking out the top 20 for the cost of a single ticket ($1) after the sun went in and the temperature dropped down below -20° again.

Komsomolskaya

Kievskaya

Park Pobedy

Eyes on the Prize.

Yesterday morning’s blue skies had tout Moscow outside to celebrate (February prior clocked only 6 minutes of sunshine, 2 fewer than January), while all of military Russia – enormous commandos in arctic camouflage and no gloves and dumpy Cossacks in furry boots and big moustaches converged on Red Square to celebrate ‘Defense of the Fatherland’. Strangely and to my acute disappointment no-one, not even Katrina my nice young lady (NYL) guide for the ‘hidden Moscow’ walking tour had any idea (or interest in) where the military parade would be. It turned out to be a private party down at the tomb of the unknown soldier, however Putin was on hand to address a meager political rally. Evidently the attendees had been bussed in and they sloped off for ice-cream at the earliest opportunity (all the liquor stores had been closed).

Putin is not managing to rally the faithful on this occasion.

Hidden Moscow was mostly electric substations designed to resemble libraries and concert theatres (another Stalinist brainwave) and culminated with an apartment building that had been moved several hundred meters to widen the road, thereby preventing insurrections being plotted in the erstwhile narrow lanes. It must be noted that the apartment building in question was more than 5 stories high and appeared to be built of solid stone. The move was accomplished clandestinely at night with the residents in bed and the utilities (including gas) still on. Apparently they woke up oblivious, having been purposely given the wrong date for the adventure.

The apartment building in question. Don’t ask me how.

My afternoon ‘Communist Moscow’ walking tour also touted moving massive buildings (in this case City Hall) as one of the highlights of the soviet era in, but the true highlight of the tour itself had to be the NYL (Marina) presenting the line for McDonald’s at its opening in the 80s (at 30,000 at least 28,000 more than Putin pulled earlier) as evidence for how Russians have been tricked by the West (can’t disagree with that). Low points (of both the Soviets and the tour) being the Lubyanka prison – examined only from a distance; what sounded suspiciously like the beginning of Stalin’s rehabilitation “He won the war”, an uncomfortably robust defense of Putin “By keeping our borders safe he allows us to concentrate on our internal problems” and an all-to-familiar perspective on the US elections “Trump is better for us than Clinton would have been” – all rather eyebrow-raising from a history graduate student. She was so enthusiastic it seemed churlish to bring up Crimea, Ukraine and fake news. I was not at all surprised to be  directed to a faux Soviet style café afterwards, nor that the café was packed.

Apparently City Hall was moved 30 meters in 30 seconds (or was it 300 meters). In any case more haste less speed made a big crack in the top floor (since papered over).

Marina and her ‘trainee’ Sergey, who provided the raised eyebrow accompaniment to Marina’s more surprising analyses of Russian history. Note the worker thinking on the job. As Sergey pointed out, he wouldn’t have lasted long in the Stalinist era.

The borscht nevertheless was delicious.

However I had the gulag museum to myself.

No lines today. Lenin, like Ho Chi Min last year, is being refurbished.

This trip has been in my mind for more than 50 years. Fittingly then, it officially begins within a few miles of the freezing bedroom in which it was conceived by a restless teen obsessed with the doughty Victorian explorers and febrile poets, yet completely oblivious to the astonishing purpleness of their writing. Fittingly too, it is borne witness by my dear friend Pam, a partner in those teenage dreams, who herself has led a well-traveled life, but who, as a geographer, objects strongly to the notion that the Silk Road begins on a wind-swept beach in Northern England.

‘Away, for we are ready to a man!
Our camels sniff the evening and are glad.
Lead on, O Master of the Caravan,
Lead on the Merchant-Princes of Baghdad.

Sweet to ride forth at evening from the wells
When shadows pass gigantic on the sand,
And softly through the silence beat the bells
Along the Golden Road to Samarkand.

We travel not for trafficking alone;
By hotter winds our fiery hearts are fanned:
For lust of knowing what should not be known,
We take the Golden Road to Samarkand’.

March 24th 2017

I’m glad Phnom Penh has come at the end of my trip. I feel uneasy here and I’m not sure why. It is not a walking city even though the sidewalks are no more broken down than in Yangon, which was, and the traffic is no worse than in Hanoi, which could be, and I feel conspicuous even though no-one shows the slightest interest in me or my belongings. Indeed, my hotel guys have told me sternly that the curfew for walking back from dinner is 9pm. No, no danger they hasten to reassure me, it’s just (they look at each other helplessly) too quiet.

Fortunately, tuk tuks outnumber pedestrians by about 20:1 and one has already committed himself to preventing me from going anywhere on foot. Our first stop is PS21, the high school the Khmer Rouge appropriated as a torture facility.  The audio guide narrator invites me to find a seat in the shade. “I am one of only 7 survivors of this prison” he tells me. Then I learn that after the US dropped more bombs on Cambodia than they did in the whole second world war, Phnom Penh was overwhelmed by refugees. In 1975, the Khmer Rouge threw everyone out and Phnom Penh became a ghost town. Many of the quarter of the population they murdered (chiefly ‘elites’ who were usually identified simply on the basis of bad eyesight) passed through PS21 en route to the more than 700 killing fields located throughout Cambodia.

“You are sitting under a banyan tree” my audio guide concludes. “It was planted here after PS21 was liberated. The Khmer people believe the shade of the banyan tree provides peace for restless souls”.  Going back, I notice how many young banyan trees are in the neighborhood around my hotel.

In pre- K. R. French Colonial days, Kep the nearest beach to Phnom Penh, was replete with iconic art deco villas. My quest to photograph them is several years too late. Only the mango trees and bougainvillea remain to drape over the iconic art deco garden walls. ‘Why no rubble?’ I ask my new trusty tuk tuk driver. ‘People from Phnom Penh want sell land for building’ he tells me. I have learned this is a euphemism for the Khmer Rouge who now pull all the economic strings. ‘No-one buying?’ I inquire and he smiles sardonically. In truth, it’s no surprise that restoring Kep to its former glory as the ‘St Tropez of South East Asia’ is overwhelming,

Beyond the scattering of French-expat run guest houses (like the oddly named Raingsey Bungalows where I’m staying) the poverty is grinding. The cows, which are the bellwether of economic health, are mere sacks of skin and bone with barely any energy to stagger from one rubbish pile to the next; they are clearly not being fed in the dry season. Kep beach is in the South-East Asia ‘B’ league and there’s precisely 2 things to see (we are on the way to one of them: the Kampot pepper plantations).

 

But he is stopping unexpectedly to point up into the hills.  “Khmer Rouge lived up there” he tells me. “And this is where they killed my father” he points to the other side of the road. “I was eight”. I struggle for an appropriate follow-up, and finally settle on asking who looked after him. “No-one. Sometimes neighbor gave food. Sometimes no food”. I ask him if he went to school and he looks at me like I’m insane. The lost generation.

When I rejoin the conversation he’s in the middle of explaining his grand plan to be a tuk tuk tour guide. “First thing, I need lap-top for website” he shoots me a glance “Other lady, English like you, she gave me money for lap top”. “Then why you still need one?” I inquire. “Couldn’t buy” he says sadly “Daughter got sick and had to take to Phnom Penh hospital”. I decide to channel the Swiss anthropologist I met at the last hotel who spent the evening venting about the shortcomings of the abundance of NGOs that endorse repeatedly giving a man a fish. “Actually” I say “Lap top is not the first thing, first thing you need a plan – what your tour will be, why it will be special” he has heard this before. I relent a bit “If you think about it, I can help you put it into a website”. He has heard this too. “Problem is” he confesses “I can speak English OK, read and write, not so OK”. “So if I sent you an email” I ask “Can you read?” “Probably not” he says resignedly.

Next morning it is the turn of the young man who serves breakfast (since there are only 4 guests there is little more for him to do). “We won’t be here next year when you come back” he announces (Its not clear why he refers to himself in the plural, but I let it go). “Why not?” I inquire blandly “Will get new job as general manager of diamond mine” he tells me. I try to arrange my features to downplay any skepticism. “Great!” I say “Better than hotel” (the high season lasts only from November through February and the rainy (low) season with no guests at all for six months). “We just need computer experience” he tells me “So first thing, lap top for practice. We can read and write English. Fluent”. The tuk tuk guy must have tipped him off. A lap top will cost him $300 in dollars, probably more than he earns a month in the off season and he’s already told me he owes money to the bank for something else. Meanwhile, at least two thirds of the cars in Cambodia are huge SUVs that have been imported with 300% tax. Needless to say they have Phnom Penh plates.

Well folks, time to sign off. It seems like 20 dispatches are a good round number and tomorrow I start the trek back to West Roxbury. Looking forward to seeing you all soon for a South East Asian food party.

March 30th 2017

March 18th 2017

The environs of Siem Reap, gateway to Angkor Wat, look like nothing more than Iowa with palm trees. It is coming to the end of the dry season and the winter rice has been harvested but thankfully they have not yet begun to burn the fields. The overall sense is of ochre in the air until an unexpected downpour scrubs the dust from the trees and reveals a burst of fluorescent green.

Siem Reap, where all three pillars of South East Asian tourism are forced into uneasy proximity. Endless hordes of Chinese tour groups are disgorged from their buses then rapidly quarantined in the startlingly vast (and presumably opulent?) hotels that line the ugly road from the airport. They only appear after 11, when the heat is becoming its most blistering, and so we run into them only by accident. The backpackers have found nirvana in Pub Street and are taking its mantra ‘encouraging irresponsible drinking since 1998’ extremely seriously. They don’t seem to be here to go sightseeing, so we only meet them at night. The bourgeoisie are installed in discretely well-appointed hostelries like our ‘Pavilion D’Orient’ – a tropical oasis with a huge infinity pool and plentiful cocktails – and are focused on avoiding eye contact under any circumstance. There are many, many more Americans, looking spruce in white and determined that every interaction with the hotel staff will be a significant cultural exchange. The Brits are suffering loudly from the heat, while the French would like it to be recognized that they were here first. The Japanese mutter to each other inscrutably and remarkably the German/Dutch axis manages to fade into the woodwork.

In any case, the full seventy-seven wonder-of-the-world-square-miles of the Angkor Wat archeological park deserves more than our usual lackadaisical approach to sightseeing, so we buckle down and make a plan that will be appropriate for the 3-day entrance ticket (the 7-day ticket must surely come with a PhD). On day one we will reconnoiter of the lay of the land by bike, on day two we will inspect the minor temples and only on day three will we get up close and personal to Angkor Wat itself. (Lest this be interpreted as slow going even for Schwobs, please know that the hotter than hell index is currently approaching a 15 on the Spinal Tap scale, and as we will find out in due course, we can only healthily be outside before 11 and after 4.

In the event, we are almost thwarted even before we get started: Two sequential delays in our flight connections the night before left us ravenously chowing down on delicious ham baguettes, while willfully ignoring the well-known maxim that the location with the least incentive to ensure its mayonnaise is up to snuff is the departure lounge café at any airport. Fortunately, almost the best thing about AW is the super hygienic toilets within dashing distance of each of the temples, no matter how remotely they are located and so we avert an ugly outcome.

Even so we barely make it round the ‘Grand Circuit’ even with the help of reasonably functional mountain bikes, 4 cans of fizzy sugared beverage and many liters of water. Afterwards we collapse, me in the pool Jim in a darkened room (shades of Italy) and we can barely stagger to happy hour that night. (As an aside our miscalculation of the effects of the weather has not been helped by the forecasts of lowering clouds and rain furnished by all the major news organizations, or by the population who are still dressed in winter clothes (hoodies have substituted for puffer jackets and natty flannel pajamas have surfaced as a style item).

Day 2, and our helpful hotel has insisted that we need a ‘sunrise over Angkor Wat’ experience even though it necessitates a seriously ungodly start at 4:45am. Mr. Karona our trusty (if sleep deprived) tuk-tuk driver indicates his deep desire for us to have a good time so we are moved to share our concerns that we will be elbow to elbow with a million other tourists whose hotels have had the same idea. Mr. K. takes the matter in hand, heads off in precisely the opposite direction to everyone else and finally deposits us at the bottom of what seems to be the only significant hill in the area. He points out the way up and settles down for a nap. We finally reach the ruined temple at the top in the pitch dark, and completely alone (fortunately, Jim didn’t forget his cell phone) and right on cue dawn breaks over the plain and Angkor Wat in the distance. The sun does rises in its own good time but not surprisingly we are not at the correct angle to reproduce the iconic ‘sunrise over Angkor Wat’ picture beloved by Google Images, so we refer you to that source. Jim feels he has earned the breakfast picnic the hotel has also thoughtfully provided, but I still need to be prepared for a dash, so I donate mine to Mr. K. (by now much refreshed) and he eats it happily as we set off to explore the fantastic Temple of Ta Prom, of Lara Croft fame.

Day 3 of the Angkor Wat marathon also does not disappoint. Thanks to due diligence the day before at the Museum we feel very confident with the Hindu deities, but we are completely thrown by how much the outside of AW resembles an English Stately home – Chatsworth or Blenheim maybe. All that’s missing is a fountain of some description at the front. We start with the outside galleries with their massive bas-relief narratives of famous battles between deities as well as the among the ancient Khmer and their foes. Within about 5 minutes and despite having more than one erudite guide book we can’t remember the difference between the bird deity and the goose deity, who has 4 arms, 8 arms or 20 arms and whether the monkeys are good or bad. Still it is all fantastically executed and we find that if we discretely glom onto various tour guides we eventually get it straight. It takes so long that when we finally emerge into the unwelcome sunshine the Chinese have appeared and are energetically photographing each other in every available nook and cranny. Fortunately, it is a religious holiday so we do not have to fight them to climb up the central towers which are blocked by marching grannies with bouquets of lotus blossoms (remember them?). Instead we clamber to the top of a side tower seriously lacking in selfie opportunities, so when we get to the top we have it to ourselves.

Jim departs for Bangkok and I set off for the last stage of the trip

March 15th 2017

Luang Prabang! Let’s hear it for the redoubtable French who, happening on a dinky little fishing village at the confluence of three rivers (the Mekong being one, the other two being unpronounceable) re-imagined it a glorious monument to Indochine architecture, or at least a perfectly lovely little riverside town with stunning photo-ops on every corner. Let’s also hear it for the Lao who, when the French were ‘encouraged’ to leave in the 1950s didn’t immediately sashay into town with dire paint and garish fairy lights, but evidently tiptoed away, quietly locking the doors, allowing the dust to settle on the gramophone in the bar, the bougainvillea to drape itself with increasing exuberance everywhere and the bromeliads to colonize every possible vertical surface. Let’s finally hear it for our regional fairy godmother UNESCO, who came bustling into town forcing the dust to be dusted, the drains to be fixed, the internet to be available and the gramophones to be wound up so we can all enjoy the party. Here we are then, at the wonderful Maison Dalabua, where the rooms are fetchingly distributed among UNESCO-monitored lily ponds, chock a block with all the tropical horticulture a heart could desire (plus orchids), a gourmet restaurant within spitting distance and a swimming pool right off our terrace, and all for $40 a night. For unlike the Vietnamese who confront the same opportunity by charging $2 for dinner, but then need to feed 100 to make ends meet, the canny Lao charge $20 and thus only need to feed 10, plus the rancid backpackers are frozen out (they are bitter and try to retaliate by spreading the canard that Luang Prabang has become a theme park; to which we say Pshaw! there’s a reason we vacation in the Marais and not the Banlieu). So not only does everyone smell better and are better fed, but we are all happy and the Lao can slope off early to finish converting their bamboo huts into French colonial facsimiles, which is what everyone was doing during our bike ride around the countryside yesterday.

Yesterday has made it clear that venturing much further afield will not be feasible by road (only one road is paved and the rest are so pitted and stony it took us 2 hours to cycle 5 kilometers on our horrible hotel bikes), so we have engaged the cheery Mr. Phet. Mr. Phet does not require a French colonial bungalow because together with his wife and son, he lives on the boat we have hired for the day. Fortunately for us they are both away (she to teach high school, Phet Jr. to advance his primary education) and so he and his home are at our disposal. Our goal is the Buddha caves a convenient 2-hour trip up the Mekong (only 1 hour on return since we don’t have to fight the current). En route Mr. Phet not only introduces us to some of the le vrai Lao in the riverside villages but also delivers a sardonic primer on Laotian politics over his right shoulder (we inadvertently opened the floodgates by inquiring who could afford to build the staggeringly vast riverside palaises on the Luang Prabang outskirts). Not only are we treated to a discourse on the entire spectrum of government graft, but we learn that the omnipresent ticket collectors enjoy patronage positions uncannily like those on the Mass. Pike. Plus ça change.

Mr. Phet also tells us that he was a Buddhist monk for 4 years, and finally I get the chance to put my observations of monks in all 4 SE Asian countries into context: I have identified 2 distinct flavors – the professionals look stern, even austere. Unless they are shopping for ‘Buddhist monk gift sets’ (to be found in all the major Thai malls and providing all sorts of laundry and personal hygiene products done out in a fetching shade of saffron) they never laugh. Professional Buddhist monks often seem to be praying (In Burma they are always praying, but there again so is everyone else, particularly the flag-men on the railway, which was especially disconcerting at the viaduct and going down the mountain). In contrast, the 2nd flavor – teenage/milenials – are most likely to be checking Facebook on their cell phones; the thought of prayer has clearly never entered their minds. Mr. Phet tells us that parents who either can’t afford to pay for education or prefer to invest their resources elsewhere can rid themselves of their obnoxious teenage dude offspring for a few years by putting them in the monastery (opportunities for mean girl daughters also exist but they are less abundant). It occurs to me that we might be in a different place now if Mrs. Trump (mère) had had the opportunity to shave her son’s head dress him up in a silly orange sheet and have him get up at 4 o’clock in the morning to go and beg for his food in his bare feet. As SE Asia seems to prove, four years of that every day is entirely sufficient to rout out any dude-like tendencies in any male, alpha or otherwise.