Altai village

pictured above: (left) Dalaihan’s brother, Khavlet, Scott, and Dalaihan (right) enjoying chai (tea) in Altai Village

Our drive continued until dusk.  When we finally arrived in Altai Villlage, there was just enough light to make out the ground under our feet.  Baatar directed Khavlet to drive us to the local store so that we could buy provisions before it closed.  When we got out of the Scooby-Doo van, the cold air bit into my lungs like I had never felt before.  I would later find out that the temperature was about -20C (-4F).  At my first breath, I coughed uncontrollably, it felt as if I had sucked acid into my lungs.  I had to learn to breath more gradually when going outside in the cold conditions.  Baatar made his way inside while I made my way to the outhouse.  Another lesson in cold weather: do your business fast; its not only the hands that get cold.

I made my way towards the “general store,” front door.  On the way there, I smelled something familiar.  It smelled like a metallic fleshy smell.  It smelled like blood.  I looked down and saw a dark black circular swirl of liquid on the ground and another 3 or 4 feet away and third about ten feet away.  My initial feeling was that an animal had been killed here – and recently.  I opened the door of the “general store,” and saw blood and drag marks all throughout the forier.  They all led to the door on the left.  I peeked inside and saw what could best be described as a goat and sheep slaughter session in progress.  There were animal parts and a few women with cleavers going to town.  Just then, Baatar popped his head out of the other door (the door on the right) and said, “Over here, come his way.”

I made my way into the second room to at last find the “general store.”  We loaded up on potatoes, some vegetables, and some other staple foods as well as vodka (as a gift for our hunting team), some chocolate for the kids, and a few beers to drink with dinner.  Baatar excercised his experience and purchased a few packages of baby wipes.  These would later turn out to be invaluable for washing whenever warm water was not available.

Altai Village “general store”

After the store, we drove to Dalaihan’s  house.  Dalaihan is the owner of the Ealge that we will be hunting with.  His son, Alpamys also owns an eagle and is training it to be a hunting eagle.  Immidiately on arrival, I was invited into the living room where we had chat (tea) with goat milk (top photo).  On Dalaihan’s wall I could see some of the trophies from his previous hunts, several fox pelts and some rabbit pelts.  I also saw several photos of him on previous hunts with German, French, Italian, Japanese, and Korean tourists.  I also met Dalaihan’s wife and daughters.  The family was very friendly and made me feel welcomed in their home.

After we finished our chai, we loaded into the van to drive to Shar-Gobi, the location of Dalaihan’s winter cabin.  His son, brother, and his brother’s wife and children were wintering at the lodge and would be taking care of us during our hunt.  After I loaded into the front seat I heard a high pitched chirping sound.  I turned around and to my surprise there was a huge eagle sitting behind me; I had almost forgot that he was coming along for the ride!

After we piled into the Scooby-Doo van, we began driving out of Altai Village heading towards Shar-Gobi.  We came to several creeks and rivers and we jsut drove right over them.  They were not completely frozen and several times, one or more of the wheels cracked the ice and slipped a little.  The whole time, the ice groaned and creeked and gave me a very uneasy feeling.  Even during the day the roads were rough, at night, they were just as rought but it was harder to see the pot-holes.  We bounced around and around, the eagle chirping the whole way.

Well Kris, you requested video, here it is.  I shot this video as we drove from Altai Village to Shar-Gobi.  You can see how dark it is, how bumpy the road is, and you can hear the eagle chirping all the way.

This video has been moved to: http://www.scotttraveler.com/2009/11/08/altai-village/

Eventually, we began to slow down and Baatar asked me to put my camera away.  I asked him what was going on and he said that we were approaching a military check point.  The truck slowed and then stopped at a gate arm.  I couldn’t see anything and then suddenly, a Mongolian soldier came into view from the left side of the truck.  He was very tall and wore huge boots, a thick hat and a massive jacket.  He had an AK-47 rifle slung across his back and with each breath a huge bellow of steam came from his mouth.  With the engine and the heater of the truck turned off, the piercing cold bit right into me.  I hoped again that my “loaner” jacket, gloves and hat would be available.  The soldier called to an officer who came out and examined our paperwork and eventually let us pass.

When we arrived at the hunting lodge, it was quite late.  Dalaihan’s boys were still wide awake and eager to see the western visitor.  His wife, Khashy, had hot chai waiting for us.  The men all sat in the living room and chatted about the drive.  We broke out some beers to toast the hunt.  When Dalaihan started looking for a bottle opener, I reached into my bag and pulled  out my leatherman.  When I opened it, the Kazakh men’s eyes opened wide and then they asked to see my multi-tool.  It was passed around and they all complimented its design.  After a little while, Khashy brought out a huge dish of potatoes, carrots and sheep meat.  It was heavily oiled and hot; after a long drive, it had to be one of the best meals I’ve ever had.  Knowing that we had to get up early, we went to bed right after dinner.

Dalaihan checks out my leatherman multi-tool

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train to Irkutsk

Another 2 day train ride…  in total I have spent about 10 days of the last month on a train…  I’ve learned that the more food, and the greater the variety, the easier the trip.  Making friends goes a long way too.  On this trip, I made friends with two Russian men; Alec and Zhenya.  Of course, their food was better than mine and I ate (again) like a king.  I was beginning to grow weary of all of the kind hospitality that has been plied on my by these Russian people.  They are such gracious hosts, they are so eager to treat you as an honored guest and invite you into their meal or party.

We had a 4 hour stopover in the town of Taiga.  Zhenya suggested we walk over the railroad tracks and go into town for some coffee or a beer.  There was a large contingent of Russian soldiers who agreed to pose for a photo when Zhenya told them I was from “Hollywood.”  The weather was quite cold as you can see (14 degrees F).

Alex and Zhenya left early the next morning and were replaced by two men from China.  Specifically, they are from Manchuria in China’s far Pacific northeast.  They were very curious about me and asked to see my passport.  They compared the American passport to their Chinese passports and were very interested in my name, its spelling, my birthdate (age), the style of the passport, and they had all sorts of questions about where I had travelled and about my work.

Both men spoke no English and little Russian, so we had a challenge communicating.  But, what Russian I did know went a long way in making the train ride much more enjoyable.  The man on the right wrote his name (in Chinese characters and in English; Ma Yun Kun – family name: Ma, first name Yun)  in my book and asked for my email.  He said that he had a Chinese/English translation program and wanted to stay in touch via email. 

Of course, these two guys brought a virtual restaurant and insisted on feeding me for the next 24 hours.  They had sausages, pickles, anchovies, noodles, and all sorts of other tasty foods.  The only thing that they had forgotten to bring was a knife.  They regularly asked me to use my knife to cut their bread and sausages and to open the different food wrappers.  When they tried to open a can with my knife, I stopped them and pulled out my Gerber (leatherman) and we used the can opener.  They were quite impressed with the leatherman and had not seen one before.  Yun opened all of the attachments and looked at each with great interest.  When I showed him the diamond blade saw and let him cut beer cans and bottle caps in half; he was quite pleased.

The miles rolled on and on and I saw an endless sea of farm houses and barren fields covered in snow, endless little towns and train stations, and thousands of trees and farm animals.  The heat was working quite well, so much so that my drinks were all warm.  The two Chinese men and I tried to figure out a way to refrigerate my drinks and we finally settled on some 100mph tape and put the can outside the window.  Within 20 minutes, the Pepsi was 1/2 frozen.  The total time to chill a can to “cold” was about 12-15 minutes only.  The men had a look at my roll of 550 cord rolled up “Ranger” style.  They were very impressed with the green cord and were in disbelief when I told them that one strand could hold 220 kilos.  They tested this by stringing it between the bunks and standing on it.  I explained that if you looped the 550 cord 8 times, you could use it to pull a car.

Again, I felt so guilty with the generous hospitality that I was receiving.  These men did not know me at all yet they were sharing all of their food and drink with me.  I counted how many times I had been “invited” into the train feast of my fellow passengers.  It was at least a half dozen, maybe 7 or 8 times.  As I lay in my bed, I wished that there was something that I could do to show my gratitude.  Then, I remembered that my leatherman had its own blade; I had two knives and Yun had none.

I climbed up to Yun’s top bunk and presented my knife to him as a gift.  He tried to refuse but I insisted telling him that I had two knives and he had none.  He finally accepted and then became very happy.  He had a big grin and examined it very closely.  He opened it again and felt its razor-sharp blade.  I bought that knife at a US military PX (post exchange) some time ago.  I remember earlier this year Kevin was admiring it and tried to buy it from me.  Sorry Kevin, that knife should be in Manchuria by now.   I finally felt a little less guilty for all of the wonderful hospitality that I’ve received.

In some of the stops we saw some “interesting” things that seemed worthy of taking the camera out of its case.  We saw a nice vintage train that was on display and I always enjoy watching the local vendors selling their food and wares to the train passengers.

Later, I met Anja from Bavaria.  She was a few cars down and also travelling alone.  So, we decided to team up and travel together for the next 3 days until our paths would take us in different directions.  She was 2 months into a 12 month around the world trip.  Just like I did, she began in Odessa, Ukraine and studied Russian.  However, she had a few years of Russian studies at University and her skills were more advanced than mine.  She was able to communicate with most Russians (albeit in a quirky German/Russian accent) and it made my next 3 days of travel a lot easier.

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train to Ekaterinburg

Another train ride.  But, the bus to Kazan will not make it to my train in time.  So instead, I hire a cab for the 2 hour drive and get my first taste for some Russian country driving.  A lot of passing busses on 2 lane highways, but the driver didn’t seem to take too many chances.

I arrived early to the train station and was happy to find a pair of train attendants who were very friendly.  I snapped their photo and they smiled happily; too bad that it didn’t come out better, they were both so nice.

I went to my compartment and found that a man and a woman had already gotten settled in.  They were playing cards, not sure the game, it looked like Spades.  The man was drinking large beers.  These beers were big, larger than the ordinary Russian beers which are in turn about twice the size of an American beer, even bigger than a tall can.  I mean these beers were big; they could go toe to toe with an American six pack.  Trying to “make friends,” I asked the man “skulka,” meaning, “how much?”  I was curious how much these monster steroid beer cans cost.  He replied how many millilitres they were.  So, I rephrased the question, “Skulka rublie?”  He replied that they cost 105 rubles, about 30 rubles more than a beer ½ their size.  He then asked me if I was travelling for work.  I recognized the word “rabata” from a previous train ride.  I replied, “Nyet, ya turista.”  I asked what card game they were playing, they asked where I was travelling, I asked where they lived, and so on.  In no time, the tense atmosphere that I walked into was gone and we were chatting away, me, with my nose buried ins the dictionary furiously taking notes.  The snack attendant came by and I purchased a beer and things were going along swell with my two new Russian friends.  But, after some time, the train attendant came in and told me that I was in the wrong wagon.  I had to move to the next car.  The two Russians in my room immediately broke into protests.  They wanted me to stay and argued with the attendant that I should be allowed to stay.  This went on for about 15 minutes but the attendant wouldn’t relent.  So, I packed up, bade my friends farewell, and then moved to the next car.  As I walked to the correct car, I thought to myself how nice it was that these people took enough of a liking to me that they wanted me to stay in their car during the journey.  Again, I had a feeling of connection with these Russian people and it was a good feeling.

In my new car I found a middle-aged and older aged woman.  They were already getting ready for bed.  So, I adjusted my sleep plans and went to bed early.  The overnight train ride was smooth and in the morning, the ladies seemed grateful that I had not kept them up late.  I chatted a bit with them in Russian and they seemed to appreciate that I was trying.  As always, they were curious about where I came from, where I was going, whether I was working or not, and what exactly I was doing.  I find that many Russians do not like their photos taken, so I snuck a photo of them as discreetly as I could.  Of course, with no flash, it’s a bit blurry.  After coffee and tea, we enjoyed some breakfast and watched the Russian landscape go by.  It is just Amazing how big this country is.  For those that have driven across the United States, imagine twice the distance.  It is truly a massive place.

And the kilometers just roll by… and the landscape looks colder and more bleak…

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