Window watcher

Regular readers will know all about my fetish for photographing old doors. Well, in Russia I embarked on a new love affair – with windows. The old wooden buildings in Russia often have incredibly ornately carved shutters, usually painted in what would once have been bright colours. The first place that we saw them in numbers was in Krasnoyarsk, but when we walked around the old merchant buildings near the river in Ulan-Ude I seemed to be stopping to take photos at every second house. Here's just a small selection to give you a taste. 

Day 219: Hooray for the hole in the wall

This morning we noticed on our booking form that breakfast was included, so we marched over to the hostel office to see what was on offer. The woman on reception told us to go back to the apartment – 'the boy' would bring something over. He duly arrived with some very dry, 'cream'-filled chou buns and some out-of-date yoghurt drinks, so we decamped to the supermarket up the road for some juice, bread and jam.

We then set off for lunch, stopping on the way at a funny little playground outside some apartment blocks. Our first stop in town was a subterranean noodle restaurant that we had spotted yesterday called Papa Goose, although we referred to it as Mr Ping's because it had a big picture of the character from Kung Fu Panda outside. After negotiating the unlit stairs down to the restaurant, we discovered that it was completely empty, other than a woman behind a counter who regarded us with bored indifference. We grabbed a menu and sat down but it was all in Russian and as it was a do-it-yourself-style place – choose your noodles, meat, sauce and veges and they'll cook it for you. We gamely tried using Google Translate, but as the staff seemed so indifferent and the place was empty, we decided to move on.

Next stop was a place called Booza, one of at least four restaurants going by that name in Ulan-Ude, and one that had been recommended on one of the travel websites. It looked a bit grim, so we decided to give it a miss, too, which meant that we had used up our immediate options. We thought we would try walking down into the pedestrianised part of town to see what we could find there, but on the way, we spotted a funny hole-in-the-wall place with pictures of relatively appetising-looking food on the wall and figured we may as well give it a go. There were a few people ahead of us and after each person ordered, the woman inside closed the little hatch on the actual hole in the wall and disappeared while she cooked the food. Eventually, Kate managed to order and then, finally, we were able to eat, sitting in the square in the most sheltered spot we could find (the day was sunny but the wind was frigid). The food was pretty good – sweet-and-sour chicken, boiled rice and fried rice (which I managed to spill all over the ground). It was so good that we went back for more – Kate managed to order some noodles this time, which were amazing. 

 On our way back to the apartment, we stopped for some pictures with the giant Lenin head and then, a bit further on, we were hailed by a young man with a North American accent. At first I sort of shrugged him off because I figured he was trying to sell me something, but he persisted and we eventually fell into a long conversation. An 18-year-old Canadian travelling with his parents, Eric was an extremely seasoned traveller. His parents work in the mining industry, and during periods when the price of base metals dropped and they had difficulty finding work, they would take him off on amazing trips in Latin America, South-East Asia, Europe... After a while, we were joined by his father and then by two local girls, both studying to be lawyers, one holding a very large teddy bear. They explained that they rarely came across English speakers and were keen to improve their skills with us. So we all had a good long chat standing out on the corner in the sun. 

Later, we headed out for dinner, again seeing what we could find among the places near the apartment. After last night's liver debacle, we decided to play it safe and eat at a place called Tokyo Sushi House. We were rewarded with an English-speaking waiter and some lovely food – sushi, noodles and fried rice, and no liver in sight.

We really enjoyed our stay in Ulan-Ude. Although it was lacking in anything you could really call a 'sight', it was fascinating as it clearly sits right in the heart of the transition zone between Europe and Asia. Because of the perceived lack of 'things to do', Kate had been uncertain as to whether or not we should stay there, but we're both very glad that did, as it gave us that strong feeling of leaving one culture behind and stepping into a new one. Although there is a lot about the city that is Russian – the big Lenin head, for a start, there are a lot more Asian faces around and the food is also clearly more Asian-influenced (which has us excited – Russian food is nice enough, but you can't beat a plate of good stir-fried noodles).

Day 218: A little less liver please

Last night's late departure was combined with an early arrival this cold and frosty morning – our train pulled into the station in Ulan-Ude at about 6am. Using a combination of a mud map I drew yesterday and Google Maps on Kate's phone we managed to find the hostel office without too much drama, but our apartment (located across the road from the hostel itself) wasn't ready yet. Thankfully, they let us leave our bags near reception, however, and gave us vague directions for the centre of town.

It being so early, very little was open, but we found a 24-hour Subway outlet and went in for a coffee and a cupcake. To kill some time, we started a game of cards, but after we had been playing for a while, the guy who had served us came over and shyly proferred his mobile phone with a Google Translate message telling us that cards were prohibited. This was our signal to move on, and we wandered into town, past the enormous statue of Lenin's head and down the hill to the Uda River. On the way, we stopped briefly at the 18^th-century Odigitrievsky Cathedral, the first stone building built in the city. While the girls played in the little adjacent playground, Kate and I took turns going into the cathedral itself. It being Sunday, there was a steady stream of very observant locals going in and out, the women all with their heads covered and everyone crossing themselves and bowing numerous times as they entered and exited. Inside, they moved slowly around the rooms, stopping to pray to the clearly very old paintings of their favourite saints and to occasionally lean over to kiss an icon of some sort.

We then looped back and into town, stopping to buy something for breakfast, which we ate in the square beside a big fountain. We've obviously timed our trip to coincide with fountain-cleaning season – here as elsewhere, we watched a team of men clambering around inside the dry fountain and then came back later to find the fountain in full flow. After a bit of a wander to check out the options we then went into another of the ubiquitous cafeteria-style restaurants, this one going by the name of Appetite – obviously chosen by someone with a deep appreciation of irony.

By the time we had finished our meal it was almost 2pm, so we made our way back to the hostel, where we checked in and grabbed our bags. The woman on reception asked if we had registered our visas and was quite horrified to discover that we hadn't, so lo and behold, on one of our final days in Russia, we jumped through that particular bureaucratic hurdle.

We were then led over the road to our apartment, which proved to be rather less salubrious than all of our previous accommodation on the trip. At one point, Kate surreptitiously called me over to our bed and used her eyes to direct me to the floor on the far side. I expected to find some sort of expired vermin, but was greeted by the sight of an unwrapped condom. Charming. The girls' sofa bed was incredibly narrow and when we tried to do some washing, we discovered that the cord from the washing machine didn't reach the socket, so we had to go over the road and get an extension lead. This was just one of the excursions we had to make over the road as we also had major issues with the wi fi – it turned out that they hadn't paid their bill, and Kate kept going over to ask what was going on and they kept sending 'the boy' over to try to help sort it out. And all the while, we were giving and receiving static shocks. I don't know if it's the dry air or the prevalence of synthetic fabrics but this has been a trip for static and this apartment was the worst.

Eventually everything was more or less sorted out so we headed out for dinner. Rather than trekking all the way back into town, we decided to check out the little cluster of shops and restaurants near the apartment. As we were looking into one place - a Mongolian restaurant - two girls standing outside having a cigarette started talking to us in English. They recommended the place, so we went inside and got a table. The menu was only in Russian, but it had pictures of most of the dishes so we selected four and pointed them out to the waitress. Just after we had ordered, one of the girls came over and offered her services but we said we were fine. We weren't. When the food arrived, we discovered that two of the four dishes we had ordered were liver-based. However, we had over-ordered anyway, so managed to find enough on the plates to fill ourselves up.

Day 217: Back on tracks, part 4

We had a late train to catch today, and as no-one had booked our room, the hostel kindly allowed us to stay in it as long as we liked. We had planned to go into town and get some lunch and have a bit more of a look around, but the weather was a bit crazy – alternating hail and sunshine – and we were all a bit tired, so we just hung around the hostel.

Finally, at about 6pm, we loaded up and walked down to the train station. We went into the station itself first to check on our train – and panicked slightly when we couldn't see it on the board... until I remembered the whole Moscow-time thing and then spotted it straight away.

The dinner options were pretty limited - we opted for an Asian-food place just up the road partly because it was big enough that our luggage wouldn't be an issue. Unfortunately, we arrived just after a horde of other train passengers and had to wait for ages to be served. But the food, when we finally tucked in, was good. 

Back at the station we played some cards while we waited and then, at about 9.20pm, we boarded our train, made our beds and drifted off to sleep... and then woke back up again repeatedly as the train jerked and jostled and stopped abruptly.

Day 216: Sealing the deal

After breakfast this morning we arranged for a taxi to take us out to the central bus station, where we bought tickets out to Lake Baikal. The next available bus wasn't until 11am – an hour and a half away – so we decided to wander up the street opposite to see what we could see. After a while, we came across a large covered market and spent some time perusing the wares on offer – again, a lot of smoked and dried fish, as well as some interesting-looking soft cheese and plenty of meat. We found a stall selling some nice-looking flatbread and pastries and bought a few things for the bus ride – much to the apparent annoyance of the stall holder, who seemed much more interested in doing her accounts. 

The bus ride was pretty short – just an hour or so – and when we arrived, we went straight into the information office to buy our tickets back on the five o'clock bus. As it was now lunch time, we followed the smell of barbecuing meat to the restaurant next door, where a grill had been set up outside, where skewers of meat were being pleasantly charred. Next to it was a contraption in which a wok-like pan was being heated by a wood-burning stove. Inside was a soup-like mixture containing carrots and chunks of meat, the whole lot being lovingly tended by a woman in a head-scarf. It all looked so good that we went inside and did our best at ordering some. The carrot dish was far from ready, apparently, so we sat outside on the deck in the sun, our ears assaulted by a barrage of aggressive Euro-dance coming from three different nearby sources.

As we waited, we saw the head-scarfed woman pour a bucket of rice into the wok and stir it around, and then, finally our food started to arrive – some really good grilled lamb and pork and then the rice dish – sort of a Middle-eastern paella, with tender chunks of lamb and delicately spiced rice. This was so good that we went back and ordered two more plates at 100 roubles a piece (about £1.30).

Finally satiated, we headed along the lake shore to the museum that Kate had read about last night, which the sweet old lady in the information office had told us was four kilometres away. Along the way, we bumped into two Italian men we had met on the train to Irkutsk. They told us that the museum was closed, but after we had parted from them, we figured out they were talking about a different museum, so we continued on our way, walking into a pretty brisk and chilly breeze. 

When we finally made it to the museum, we paid the entrance fee and wandered around, looking at exhibits detailing the formation of the lake - which is the world's largest (by volume) and deepest (1,642 metres) and contains about a fifth of the world's unfrozen fresh water - and some stuffed animals and scientific instruments. Eventually, we reached the bit we had been waiting for – an aquarium with a series of tanks containing some of the lake's fauna – various types of fish, including some impressive sturgeon, some bizarre yellow crustaceans, and two of the cutest, fattest seals you'll ever see, which took it in turns swimming through a small hole that separates their two tanks, first lying on their backs, then up and around and through again, this time right side up. 

Then it was back to the bus stop (where we took a quick detour to the lake shore to dip our hands in) and back to Irkutsk, where we bought some ingredients for dinner and then caught a bus back to the hostel.

Day 215: Taxi trouble

We arrived in Irkutsk at around 8am this morning. It was cold and there was a light drizzle falling. Outside the train station it was quite chaotic, with passengers and taxi drivers milling about in a jostling crowd. As we weren't entirely sure how to get to our hostel – although we knew it wasn't far - and the weather was a bit miserable, we decided on the spur of the moment to get a taxi, and I started to negotiate with the next driver to approach us. He didn't appear to speak English but recognised the name of the hostel. When I asked how much, he held up five fingers and a thumb-and-forefinger O and nodded when I said, 'Fifty?'. That sounded about right, so we put our bags in the back of his unmarked car (oh-oh), and hopped aboard. Soon enough, we were outside the hostel and unpacking our bags. But when I pulled out a 50 rouble note and handed it to him he got rather upset. This time, he held up five fingers and a thumb-and-forefinger O and then did the thumb-and-forefinger O again – 500. He tried to close the boot with our bags in the back but we just kept unloading. He then jumped into the car and parked it further up the road and came steaming back at me. By then, I had pulled out an extra 100 to see if that would mollify him. He took the 150 but kept remonstrating with me. I just laughed and said that there was no way in the world that the little drive he had just made was worth 500 roubles (indeed, we caught a taxi to the bus station the next day, a distance far, far in excess of that travelled today and it cost 145 roubles – I think that 50 was actually spot on). Eventually he gave up, stalked back to his car and drove off.

While all this was going on, Kate was checking into the hostel. We were upgraded again – our third upgrade in a row – from two rooms to a large room with four single beds. Kate then went to a little supermarket up the road to buy some ingredients, with which she made us all pancakes for breakfast.

After grabbing a map and some directions from reception we then headed into town. Like most of these big Russian cities, Irkutsk (which has about half a million inhabitants) is situated on a river – in this case the Angara River, a tributary of the Yenisei. Before long, we were crossing the river, which was wide and slow-flowing. At the far end of the bridge we found a little place for lunch and then wandered around the various sights, such as they were. We had been pointed towards an area across town where there were supposed to be lots of nice cafes, but when we got there, we found one of those 'new-old' developments – a series of bars, restaurants and cafes that had been built recently in faux-traditional style, a sort of Irkutskland. It didn't look appealing at all, but at the end of the development was a big, shiny new four-storey shopping mall, where we bought some ice creams and had a quiet rest. 

As we hadn't really seen anything that grabbed us during our meanders, we walked to the hostel along the river and had our excess pot noodles and a cucumber and tomato salad for dinner in the kitchen (which has a Playstation, much to the girls' delight).