Home again, home again, jiggity jig

Mongolia is amazing for its vast expanses of nothingness. You couldn’t help but watch it out of the window of the train continuously. Even though all you might see for miles around was a ger or two and some goats, or a random herd of horses. Scenery-wise, it was a fantastic journey. There was the oh-so-watchable emptiness of Mongolia, then forests and mountains and the gigantic Lake Baikal in Russia. We were sharing a carriage with some obnoxious but hilarious Australians, a French girl and an Israeli guy, and loads of spherical Mongolian traders (how do they get so fat? I suppose all they eat is meat and cheese). As the train pulled out of Ulan Bator (or Ulaan Baatar, if you like) we thought the traders were all trading with each other. There was an awful lot of rushing up and down carriages carrying armfuls of things like jeans, rugs, and rolls upon rolls of sellotape – then swapping them about. The border crossing was an adventure in itself. Since they are cruel, they decided this would be in the middle of the night, but they would also switch us 4 timezones to put us on Moscow time. This was to confuse us and make us think the crossing took a lot less time than 6 hours with no toilet and too much beer beforehand…

The Russians were a friendly bunch (sarcasm), and came round peering at us as we tried to sleep, checking multiple times under a trap-door in the corridor for illicit whatevers, and under our seats for hidden Mongolians. A small boy ran up and down the corridor all night with a towel over his head pretending to be a ghost. Such was the border crossing! The Australians were less than charmed by this boy, and several times played with the idea of pushing him out of the window as he clambered all over it to stick his head out. In the end they nicknamed him ‘monkey’ (which even the other Mongolian children cottoned on to) and taught him how to high-five.

At around what we thought might be 2 or 3am the Russians brought round our forms, and we discovered the customs form was only in Russian. Great. So it was all like a big fun border-crossing puzzle, with clues from things like the cheat sheet Paul had managed to download before we’d left, and a Polish person in another carriage who could speak Russian. This confusion over the form may have had something to do with the treatment we received at Moscow airport, but more on that later. Then, safely through the border and into Russia, a frenzy of activity started up (we wanted to sleep, damnit!). The Mongolians rushed backwards and forwards between the carriages again, re-distributing the merchandise. They seem to have been splitting it up between themselves, the Mongolian non-traders, and the Mongolian cabin attendants into order to get it all through customs. A lot of bribe-money had changed hands, we think. One of the Australians spotted them all handing notes over to one of the cabin attendants as they boarded the train.

We had, for some reason, expected all the Mongolians to leave the train at the first Russia stop to sell their wares cheaply in a market over the border for a few days before returning to Mongolia. We were mistaken. Every stop we arrived at, there would be a crowd of local Russians waiting eagerly to buy cheap crap off the Mongolians. About ten minutes of very frenzied bargaining would commence, and then they would all get back on the train with a lot less stuff. We realised they didn’t need to stop somewhere in Russia to sell their wares; the train was their travelling shop, and the Russians knew where to find them. It was actually fascinating to watch – kids being sized up against T-shirts, women fingering handbags, and men clutching boxer shorts. Even the cabin attendants were in on it – they would cover up their uniforms and sell stuff too, sometimes refusing to let us get off the train. In fact, they generally looked at us as though we were a complete pain in the neck and waste of space. How dare we take up valuable trader space? In fact, how dare we be sitting at our seats when they wanted to vacuum in there? Paul reckoned they were definitely more there to attend the cabins than to attend us.

At every stop the obnoxious Australians would lean out of the train windows and give a commentary on their ‘Ugliest Russian’ and ‘Worst Russian Haircut’ competitions. I hate to say it, but the folk who turned up to buy crap off the Mongolians were among the ugliest group of people I’ve come across. With 1980s mullets being the preferred hairstyle. Add this to the spherical (but very friendly) Mongolians and you had an attractive bunch.

So anyway, Western Siberia is really very pretty. I woke up at what my Moscow-time watch told me was 4am to brilliant sunshine, mountains and forests. Later Lake Baikal came into view and seemed to follow us forever. It was beautiful. All the trees, fields, and little wooden houses which looked like they were trying for a ‘pointiest roof’ competition. It was starting to feel like Europe. We had a pretty relaxing 4 days on the train (although I never want to eat instant noodles again). We read books, played some tunes on the fiddles, watched trees and listened to the Australians plotting to kidnap monkey-boy. It was a nice beginning to the end of the trip – I think it would have been a bit of an anti-climax to just hop onto a plane in Mongolia and suddenly find ourselves at home. This made it feel like the long journey it is.

In Moscow we were met by a very elegant and businesslike Diana, who was to be our brief host. She was the daughter of a Russian bishop and had stayed with my parents for a couple of months a few years back to improve her English. We now know that many Russians are actually very attractive, just not the ones who like to buy things from Mongolians. Diana had just got married and had a beautiful new and stylishly decorated flat, but we weren’t to be staying in it because it only had a couple of rooms. No matter, later we would meet her sister (Marina) and stay with her instead. First we got the train into town to meet a couple of Paul’s colleagues from Edinburgh (in Moscow for a conference), Derek and Sarah (who we’d visited in New Zealand in January).

Transferring to Marina’s involved a very long train journey into the far-out suburbs. Her brother Ed met us, and we got to know the Moscow tradition of buskers on trains via an old man singing ‘I Saw Her Standing There’ by the Beatles in an upbeat and very Russian style. Another world away from the Peruvians in NY who would get on the subway, play about 2 bars, and expect you to pay them. These guys were genuinely good and people were actually happy to give them money. Marina told us her and her siblings had done some singing on the train once and made a fortune.

Back at the digs we met the bishop, on a surprise visit from the Black Sea, who was very smiley and insisted Paul would be known as ‘Pavel’. And then the next day, which was our only Moscow day, we made a deliberate effort to avoid anything depressing and Soviet, and just visited Red Square. On account of this, we think of Moscow as being very elegant. We went inside a big cathedral that looked like it was sponsored by Disneyland, and the most stylish shopping centre we’ve ever seen. (Think train-station chic.) One of the most striking things about Moscow (architecturally) was the subway. I’ve never seen one so ornate, with mosaics, vaulted ceilings, and plaster moulding. We also really liked the water feature in Alexandra’s park outside the Kremlin. It ran next to the classiest Mcdonalds we’ve ever seen – a mosaic’d river (but not flowing) filled with fountains and statues of fairy tale characters, in which local teenagers were swimming, wrestling and generally playing splashy-splashy. It was so full of life, and no-one was telling them to get out.

That was our day in Moscow. We left a lot of time to get to the airport, and were glad we did. We had a hot a sweaty time getting there, to find our plane tickets did not exist. Our flight from Moscow was printed ‘2nd May.’ Much panic. We were so close to going home! And what’s more, our visa said we had to leave on that day, or risk being locked in a room and stared at through a very small window by security staff. Not good. The 2nd May had been our original date when we’d booked the tickets, due to the foibles of a round the world ticket. But our travel agent had changed the flight for us as soon as it was available, and sent us a confirmation. Paul protested that he had checked the BA website the night before, and it had all been fine. The Russians were having none of it. Apparently we were booked on the plane but no ticket had been issued – we would have to buy a new one. Or contact our travel agent. How would we do that? This all made no sense, but I stopped Paul biting the girl’s head off and asked her if there was any way she could help us. At first she seemed to take it as a personal affront that we would change the date at all. WHY would we do this? She demanded. I tried to cheerfully explain the round the world ticket situation, she spoke on the phone, and immediately became more smiley and accommodating. We were to come back in half an hour, and when we did (Paul had even managed to Skype the travel agent in this time), it was all sorted out. Phew.

But it seemed that since they had made it so difficult to get into the country, they were still going to make it hard to leave. At customs that Russian-only form came back to bite us. Where were our violin documents? Our customs declaration? Our registrating photographs? We’d been pretty sure the customs form had only asked us to declare valuables, and we spent a lot of time explaining how little value these fiddles had. But Paul’s looks quite old and people mistake it for one that doesn’t sound like a tin box, so they pored over it, and brought their friends to look, constantly wanting to know the age. We wanted to say – it may be old, but it’s still only worth £5. Eventually Paul said he didn’t want to bring it home that badly, and would leave it there if they insisted. It would give him less to carry. This seemed to persuade them, and a big man gave us a stern talk about letting us off this time, but next time we come to Russia blah blah. Next time? Hahahahaha. Hilarious. After that the least of our worries was the full-body scanner and the giggling blonde behind the monitor.

On the plane I tried to assess my feelings about going home. I suppose I had a touch of the nervous anticipation. Paul had something to go back to, but I didn’t. We would both have to be rehabilitated into normal life, and I’ll probably miss the Road a bit. This year was more than just seeing foreign places, it was a whole lifestyle and it seems like only days ago that we were anticipating the Big Trip. We met Mum in London for a day of sightseeing and she asked us difficult questions like, what do we think we’ve learnt? What will we change about our lives? What will we give up now because travelling has made it seem so unimportant? They were difficult questions, because if we have changed it happened so gradually that it’s not so easily identified. We know we’re better in all sorts of awkward social situations, and can make the effort to get on with even the most difficult people. But otherwise… perhaps other people will be able to tell us.

London was loads of fun, and it was a lovely last-minute surprise that Mum came to join us for our day of Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, and Camden Market. Everything that’s British welcoming us home – going to some ugly places like Ulan Bator (sorry!) you really appreciate how beautiful a city like London actually is. We stayed with our friends Amy and Mike in a lovely place in Hackney and I realised that whilst before I had been really against the concept of London, now I wouldn’t mind living there.

There were more surprises when we got back to Edinburgh. First of all it was sunny, and the pale morning light washed over Princes Street and the Castle and Calton Hill, and everything was warm and welcoming. Which is a relief, as it would have been a bit of an anti-climax if it had been raining. Secondly one of Paul’s bandmates Isla met us at the bus station, and then another (Rachel) met us as we were on the way to Paul’s sister’s. It was really lovely to have been away for so long, and then have friends so keen to welcome us back! Paul’s sister Sooz gave us a full Scottish breakfast, and we began our long journey of slipping back into life.