Forest fires

Were blogger to allow me to post photos of the wonderful scenery around Lake Baikal, you would be as underwhelmed as I am. Not because it isn't marvellous, I have seen travel photos before - it's spectacular. But right now, with air quality in the red "Danger, danger Will Rodger's" zone and a thick smoke haze over everything, it's a little hard to see the attraction, or indeed see (or breathe!).
There is considerable irony in me travelling thousands of kilometres from Australia to find myself on the edges of one of the planet's largest forest fires. Apparently a chunk of Siberia the size of Belgium is burning and while Mr Putin has sent the army in, no one appears to be doing much. No monsoon buckets sweeping over Lake Baikal. Though that could be a good thing, a couple of accidental Baikal seals in the mix could make that forest fire a lot worse.
Let me explain. Baikal is home to a huge number of species found nowhere else. This includes a small fish apparently 80% fat. I have eaten said fish, and can attest it was melt in the mouth fish fatty goodness. The tour guide could not believe I ate not one (she suggests people at least try it) but six!
Another weird species is the Baikal seal. The world's only fresh water seal they were apparently cut off in the lake from their migration back to the sea and have adapted. To eating the 80% fat fish it would seem. Because these are not sleek, elegant seals. No, they look like someone has inserted a bicycle pump and turned them into little seal blimps. Incredibly cute, but so over inflated I was afraid the two I saw in the aquarium might pop!
So I can see why the monsoon buckets aren't in operation, one or two seals on a forest fire and the thing would have enough fat fuel to burn indefinitely!

Things you really shouldn't put in your mouth

Marmot. Yep. Marmot. Large, furry rat like creatures. Actually a type of ground squirrel. Herodotus apparently claims that they collect gold dust in their burrows. He could be right.
I won't go into the exact details of how I came to consume what is apparently an endangered species, for obvious reasons.
I'd also like to reassure you all that stories of the black plague are much exaggerated. And that was raw marmot. I can assure you, what I ate was anything but raw!
Which leads us to the step by step guide for catching, cooking and consuming your marmot.
First you will need the right terrain - high, bare, rocky outcrops deep in the Mongolian steppe are best.
Then you will need an ancient, wooden rifle, with a stand made from what looks like two random sticks and a state of the art snipers sight. You'll also need a slightly over-excited semi nomadic horse herder to wield said weapon. No ladies need apply. In outback Mongolia hunting is men's work!
Once your herder returns with the marmot, the real fun begins.
Marmots are quite cute frolicking among the rocks. Their little paws and oversized bellies are still quite sweet, even when the head shot has categorically sent it over the rainbow bridge.
The next step is the tricky one...skinning the marmot. But this is not any old skinning...no...this involves removing the skin and all the flesh and leaving just the spinal cord, while keeping the skin completely whole - cute little paws and all.
If you are finding this hard to imagine, let me assure you, it was no easier to believe while watching!
Somewhere in the middle of the skinning comes the nasty process of removing the intestines. No creatures intestines smell good. At best they are greeney grey sausages of nasty. But something about that marmot diet of plant roots and gold dust means their intestines are particularly icky. So icky only the herder and I managed to stick around. Even the dog ran away whimpering. So did the other Mongolians.
Now, you should have a marmot bag, complete with most of the flesh. And a nasty looking bowl of marmot innards...heart, lungs, liver, kidneys ... other bits I didn't recognise but which should generally be on the inside not the outside.
While all this skinning and messing about with the slimy insides has been happening, the wise marmot chef will have already prepared a hot fire and filled it with rocks. The wise marmot chef will also have brought a tool for extracting said rocks once heated. I was not with wise chefs.
You see, the next part of the process involves shoving rocks glowing red from the fire into the recesses of the the de-skeletoned carcass. But my companions only had an ancient adjustable spanner -which didn't really adjust and two sticks they were trying to use like oversized chopsticks. In the near dark. As it began to rain.
At one point I think someone actually tried picking up the stones with their hands. This was a mistake. The process made even more complex because as well as trying to force red hot rocks into your marmot, you also have to stuff in the goopey remnants in the offal bowl. Everything except the liver...special treatment for that! At the same time you have to make sure not too much steam escapes, that you don't give yourself third degree burns and you don't lose any of the precious innards.
Finally, if all goes well, and despite a poor start and much agitated shouting in Mongolian it appeared to in my case, you should end up with something that looks very like a marmot. Minus the head of course. I suspect there are easier ways of sealing the neck than your driver spending half an hour in a tool box on the top of the van, to find a single piece of rusty wire. Nonetheless, it seemed to suffice.
But then you ask, is this enough? Will the hot rocks really cook the little critter from the inside out?
And of course the answer is no! There is yet another step in this process.
Using that ancient Mongolian tool, the butane blowtorch, the marmot carcass has to be thoroughly scorched and scraped. And I mean thoroughly. A solid forty five minutes of searing blowtorch action and scorched fur scraping went into the production of my first marmot. Burned marmot fur, if you are wondering, smells only slightly better than marmot intestine.
Of course while waiting for your marmot to be fully seared, there is another delicacy to whet your appetite. Marmot liver, wrapped in caul fat, shoved on a stick and barbecued in the open flames till the outside is as burned as the marmot carcass.
The surprise is that it's delicious. Try and forget everything you have seen, forget that it might have plague, forget burned protein causes cancer - and just focus on that liver cooked in its own animal fat.
But the main show is yet to come.
Once your herder has decided the marmot is toasted to perfection it gets opened up. Imagine a giant, swollen, seared balloon, complete with its own little paws and tail. Then imagine it sliced down the middle. Rather than deflate it opens up like a big, marmoty bowl. And in the bowl is the marmot juice. This you pour out into a shared bowl and pass round. And what does essence of marmot taste like? Well, to be honest, like marmite. Delicious, meaty, rich marmite. No wonder the little critters are endangered.
Finally, there's the contents of the marmot bag and then the bag itself. Those contents, seared, steamed, unidentified bits of marmot innards anyone? I passed on that. I also passed on grabbing the hot rocks out of the marmot for "a hot stone massage". Given the toughened outdoor men who had tried picking up rocks were now squealing and throwing these "massage tools" about I decided trying to treat serious burns in the wilderness was a step too far for my cultural immersion.
The actual marmot carcass gets cut up last, into large strips. It then you see that the inside of a marmot is mainly fat. Thick white chewy fat. Now I like a bit of bacon rind. Don't mind the skin off a chicken. Used to enjoy pork belly before I gave up the flesh of the pig. But marmot fat is a step too far for me. I politely nibbled some unidentified meat lumps off of a great strip of fat, and yes, they were tasty but by then I had more than enough marmot for one lifetime.
I am assured that actually your strips of marmot fat are best consumed two or three days later, when "softer". I am wondering if in the summer, with no refrigeration, "softer" might be a euphemism.
Of course I have forgotten, there is another gift your marmot carcass can give you - knuckle bones! Apparently the only other ones like them come from wolves. If you really want the full experience you need to digest your marmot while watching someone expert with a knife extract the tiny, perfect knuckle bones from seared marmot paws.

Riding the train to Mongolia

Let's not speak too soon, because I am yet to cross the border into Mongolia, but this has been a remarkably simple trip.
The train station was where the hostel receptionist said it would be. The security check was straight forward. The waiting room was easy to find. The nice Swedish diplomat in my carriage agreed to swap top for bottom bunk.
I am always suspicious when things go according to plan. But fingers crossed my next post will not be from a lonely border town platform as I wave to the departing train.
This fear has been created by the tour guide I met at dinner. To suggest the young man was a little jaded by his career choice would be understatement. He at least did not refer to his tour group as "children" like the nice fellow who had joined us earlier...but this was definitely a young man who has travelled this route too many times!
The story he regaled us with, as we ate fairly mediocre pork and canned mushrooms was of the Russian customs officials depositing a group of Thai monks in the border town between Russia and Mongolia. They were apparently in possession of contraband...tramodol he thinks.
So now I am sitting on the train thinking about what might be in my luggage. There's nothing of course...but just walking past those "Declare it!" signs in Australian airports is enough to have me wondering if there might be a stray raisin in the bottoms my bag. Those little beagles make me nervous. The whole process of crossing borders, bring yelled at by men in uniforms in languages I don't speak - it's all terribly stressful.
And on top of that I have to decide whether to sit on the train for three hours while they change the bogeys at the border or to wander around a border town at what will be way, way past my bed time.
What pleasures can a Chinese border town offer? Cheap beer? Drinking at the moment gives me a headache! Cheap food? Everything I eat just passed straight through. I think three hours in the dark, with no air-conditioning doesn't seem do bad.
Stay tuned.

Drinking beer in Beijing

Big call out to Nick for the Great Leap Brewery recommendation. But instead of finding my way to one of great newer venues, I opted for the original, down a hutong, with directions that will mess with your head.
It's hard to believe you can go all the way to China and find the kind of neighbourhood bar, making fantastic craft beer, that you want on the corner of your street at home.
I managed to make friends with the locals and ended up with a dinner of the ice cream I bought on the way and two huge slices of water melon. The bar tenders humour extended to exclaiming "Happiness!" every time I took a bite. I suggested I reminded him of his grandma and he agreed.
The beer is very good. The Little General IPA is a standout...hoppy and very drinkable. The Honey Ma session ale has a more reasonable ABV and a delicious ginger tang. I finished with the smooth and bitter East City Porter.
Altogether, a fine night out in Beijing!

Getting to Beijing

In what has been termed my AC/DC moment, thunder struck the moment I exited Dondang subway station. I had exited at the wrong exit, I was in a park and for good measure enormous drops of torrential rain had just began to fall.
It had been a trying day.
I did eventually find my rather charming hutong hostel, but not before getting soaked to the skin and having to shelter beneath the overhang of a very official looking guard post. The official looking guard just glared at the damp muffle aged woman, weighed down with her damp backpack.
From the comfort of my enormous bed (no doubles in China only beds big enough for three or four reasonably friendly people) I can reflect on god experience of catching a train in China.
It is easier than expected. The systems are efficient and work. There is some signage in English.
There is also endless queuing and there's always someone who tries to elbow you out of your space in the queue or just steps in front of you. You have to push to get in anywhere.
These things are tiring. They are presumably tiring for Chinese folk too. There's a lot of tired looking people.
But once on the train, it is a marvel! Three hundred and three km for most of the journey. Whizzing past fields, towns and most amazing of all endless enormous cities.
The whole plain between Xi'an and Beijing seems to be a series of huge conglomerations of tower blocks that go on forever and high rise office blocks. Oh, and huge power stations, often in among the tower blocks!
It's not the China of charming paintings, but it is magnificent!
And between these huge cities, whose names I have never heard and where I am unlikely to ever go, there are dirt roads, farm tracks, shirtless men in the fields and little walled farms where bone suspects life had not changed much in generations.
It's the kind of thing you can only see out the window of a train. It makes for queuing and pushing and worrying about directions totally worthwhile.
I am not sure if I like travelling in China. It's hot, it's hard work, there's a lot of uncertainty and having to trust folk. But it's able to dish up some sights you wouldn't get anywhere else.

A funny thing happened

There are lots of not so funny things that have happened on my trip so far and I have been away only a few days. I couldn't find my driver at the airport. I got the squirts and spent most of today in bed or sitting listlessly on the couch. I had to eat mediocre Korean food to find something with no wheat and less than volcanic amounts of chilli.
But there have been some belly laughs. My terracotta warriors guide realising none of us had Wechat so she had no way of finding us if we got list in the ten thousand other visitors to the site. Or her and the driver arguing about where we were to be dropped off. Or her discovering her transmitter was out of charge and having to do a deal with the wheelchair men to find us new headsets. They had new headsets so this must happen often. But I don't think it was a scam...the poor girl had turned the colour of the grey red dragon fruit I've been eating and started mumbling in an odd mixture of mandarin and English. If it was an act, it was a convincing one!
All those things were pretty funny. Her actually losing some of the group and calling out to them ever more desperately over the headset system was also amusing. She found them, which was less amusing but probably for the best.
All slightly unpleasant schadenfreude I guess.
The really genuine laughs though were provided by my second tour. Not just did our guide explain how she married her boyfriend of twenty years not for love, not because of children or elderly parents or social stigma - but because she wanted to buy a parking space and there would be less paperwork if she was married!
Now I am paperwork adverse, but marriage does seem like an extreme action to avoid it.
Her triumph though was the detailed description of her diagnosis of her dogs stomach issues from a careful examination of their poop. This intricate scatological talk delivered as we ate dinner in otherwise salubrious surrounds. Nothing like a bit of poop to put other people off...resulting in more of everything for me!

Travelling light

I think the ultimate in travelling light isn't about the size of your pack, it's about what's in your head. The real baggage we all carry about isn't shoes and sleeping bags and souvenirs, it's all ghat other stuff that travels with us in our heads.
I have lost count box the number of times people have called me brave for heading off alone - and its nice that they think that. I count bravery as being one of the qualities I admire most in people and the one whose lack causes me the most horror. To be too frightened to actually live a full life seems to me to be taking away from that which actually allows us to be human.
The cliche is that bravery is feeling the fear and found it anyway. And it's a cliche because it's true. I hate flying, but I just take a deep breath, accept the two or twelve or fourteen hours of terror and get on that plane.
It took me an hour to work up the courage to try out for Xi'an Metro. I knew there'd be another awkward exchange as I tried to buy a ticket. The difficulty of following a subway map in a language I don't speak and the inevitable crush of humanity. But then you have to tell yourself - what could possibly go wrong? Screw up, find the way back to the starting point. Begin again.
Fear, defeated by logic! Or in this case by thirty three degree heat, sore feet and the need to not walk another five km!
So I am trying to travel light. I've bought my fear along with me, it insists on coming, but it's walking a few paces behind, minding it's own business. I can feel it there, watching for a moment of weakness, but I won't be letting it ride on my shoulders and weigh me down.