subsidiary statistics

I weighed myself on arrival, and after a shower, and more recently. Pleased to report that weight loss during shower was within experimental error, and since have discovered a rather awesome burger joint in town.

Yesterday seemed rather patriotic as I tried to get documents in order to organise a postal vote from Kamchatka (is that a record) for the federal election, and made anzac biscuits, which work rather well even without all the ingredients.

Today I visited several museums, the highlight of which was the permafrost research institute, where a cute grad student named Sasha showed me their large walk in freezer. It's actually a series of tunnels carved out of the permafrost 12m underground, where the temperature is always -10C. The biggest surprise is that permafrost (in this area anyway) is only 5% water by mass, about 30% air, and the rest silicates and organic material (ie dirt). That means that, while frozen, it is not usually solid and can actually be dug, etc. I suspect permafrost on Mars is similar, if only due to aeons of sublimation.

In the afternoon Yulya and Anya found a piano for me in a disused room of a night-club, and I played the pieces I could remember for them, sometimes wearing a moose costume hat. Why? You will have to wait! I played Cataract of Lodore, Day 5, SHM, Alkan's Barcarolle, Danse Macabre, and parts of Godowsky's transcription of Chopin Op. 10/12 (which I could remember). I also sang parts of west side story, old man river, and the first 10 bars of Vaughan William's Songs of Travel. It was, apparently, well recieved. For a country that produces so many excellent pianists, I have met very few musicians.

Anya and Egor work for Sakha Internet, and live in a friendly, fun office environment. They constantly run promotions and competitions, for instance, to name two rats that live in the office. The current front runner names are 'Bruce' and 'Peter'. I think. Not sure about Peter. Another promotion is to film something silly, so after the piano we went to the Yakutsk city park, I dressed as a moose, ate flowers, and was destroyed by Anya (dressed as the girl from Kick-Ass) wielding a katana and pistol. Obviously everything was sufficiently fake, except the water pistol, which was real. (It shot real water).

After I'd got nabbed by the police for running through flower beds and eating flowers and stuff, I met some friends of friends, one of whom was a tattooed professional 'bich' or aimless man (so he said) who was riding a quad bike from Vladivostok to Anadyr (including >1000km of roadless driving) as part of the celebrations of 65 years since the end of the Great Patriotic War (or WW2).

On the internet this evening I found I had received Russian Bride spam, which I thought was particularly hilarious.

Now I must buy 2 weeks supply of sugary biscuits to get me through to Magadan. The best information I have is that the trip can easily be accomplished in a week, so I'll probably spend a few days making side trips to places of interest. I have little desire to spend 10 days in Magadan!

For those of you wondering where on Earth '...tsk' is, I'll make a map for you:

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=ru&geocode=&q=yakutsk&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=%D0%B3%D0%BE%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%B4+%D0%AF%D0%BA%D1%83%D1%82%D1%81%D0%BA,+%D1%80%D0%B5%D1%81%D0%BF%D1%83%D0%B1%D0%BB%D0%B8%D0%BA%D0%B0+%D0%A1%D0%B0%D1%85%D0%B0+(%D0%AF%D0%BA%D1%83%D1%82%D0%B8%D1%8F),+%D0%A0%D0%BE%D1%81%D1%81%D0%B8%D1%8F&ll=62.021528,129.814453&spn=23.559573,93.076172&t=h&z=4

Aren't I clever!

Additionally, attempts to disable the flash on my camera to preserve power (the unit is faulty) have been unsuccessful, so I purchased 14 batteries.

Half way and stats

Today is, I think, the halfway point of my trip. 39/77. So far I've covered a lot of km, mostly by plane to Beijing.

To update the blog, yesterday I went back to Anya's to cook dinner for her and some friends, but her mother strongly discouraged me from leaving and cooked a wonderful dinner instead. Today I will attempt anzac biscuits, since they requested Australian food. Today I visited the Yakutsk museum, which is actually pretty good. There's a whale skeleton out the front, maybe a whale swum up the river one day? The only other excitement was sending a postal vote request to Moscow for the upcoming election, during which time I'll be in Kamchatka. I have not found another Australian to verify my identity, but apparently this is not necessary under difficult circumstances. I think mine qualify!

Travel statistics: (Some...).
I took 10 trains in Russia, average time about 10 hours, average distance 600km. Slow trains are cheap trains. Total cost was about $284 Australian dollars, which shames long distance trains in the US and Australia! For nearly every leg I had a sleeping berth with bedding, though no door.

BAM stats! As promised, here's the details everyone has been hankering after. The BAM project was to link the Lena river port of Ust-Kut with the Amur river port of Komsomolsk-na-Amur, with short branch lines from Tynda north to the coal mine at Neryungri (and by 2020 maybe Yakutsk!) and south to the Trans-Siberian Railway at Chita. (I think).

Total length: 3097.6km (mostly single track)
Length of sidings, yards, and passing loops: 445km
No. of urban cites: 100
No. of cities built: 3
No. BAM workers (not including the military) in 1981: 40000. In 1988: 60000.
Percentage of workers under 30 in 1984: 75%.
Length of embankments: 2446.9km
Length of embankments higher than 12m: 59.9km
No. of embankments built on swamps or marshes: 640
Length of excavations deeper than 12m: 112.2km
Length of excavations in permafrost: 196km
Length of excavations with angle greater than 1:3: 122km
No. small bridges: 844. Total length: 17.7km
No. medium bridges: 638. Total length: 31.3km
No. large bridges: 113. Total length: 22.8km
No. tunnels: 6. Total length: 31.7km. NB. The cape tunnel at Baikal is actually four closely spaced tunnels.
Greatest altitude of line: 1300m
Deepest permafrost: 600m.
Total number of structures built excluding bridges: 2600
Quantity of earth moved: 570 million cubic metres
Number of vehicles supplied 1975-1977: 13000 large trucks, 1100 excavators, 2000 bulldozers, 1200 mobile cranes. Most were scrapped after a single season due to maintenance costing twice the cost price!
Total budget (according to soviets) US$11 billion (1984 dollars).
Estimated actual cost of labour, materials, etc in a market economy: $30 billion (1984 dollars).
In the original budget, 10% was set aside for unforseen costs, and 15% for rebuilding shoddy or permafrost affected work. 25% budget pad!

As it happens, building on permafrost is really tricky, as it moves a lot! Under pressure it liquefies and subsides, and in spring and autumn can squeeze dirt everywhere. The native Yakuts have many words for the peculiar formations that can occur.

I have had difficulty organising a hydrofoil as part of the trip, which is too bad. I think I'm still doing okay on the luck stakes. I attempted to upload photos, but while the internet is okay, the net cafes are quite difficult to use. Since my last upload (half way through Mongolia), I have taken around 2000 photos, though!

Big trucks, the first kitch-hitch, and the worst road in the world.

My last post left me sleepless in Tynda at 5am as the day's first light began to show. I made a brief return to the blue metal chairs to try and sleep, even going so far as to prop my wallet under my ribs for cushioning, thus attempting to sleep on a big pile of cash. Obviously I was too poor, because I didn't sleep at all. I bought a small potato and cabbage pastie from the cafe for breakfast, then packed and prepared to explore the city for a few hours with Katya, the geologist I had met the previous day.

 

It being 6am I wasn't sure who we would meet. Tynda is a town built on a hill top, in which the usual soviet apartment blocks serve to create wide avenues. Climbing one of these we met two slightly wired people who said 'travellers!' and immidiately offered us a smoke. After a quick chat, we continued past Arbat market (Tynda was built by Moscovites, and if that makes no sense, too bad). Soon we were passed by a slightly tipsy man on a very shiny bicycle, wearing pinstripe suit pants, dress shoes, and carrying a box of cat food. We later had a chat - he was rather friendly. Soon enough we found our objective, a large steel statue of an androgynous rail worker with an enormous sledgehammer. We clambered all over the plinth to get photos in the early morning light, then were greeted by a rather fat man who introduced himself as an ex-journalist. He told us that the foundations of many factories (icecream, amongst other things) could be found in the fields outside town. These green-field sites were abandoned in favour of existing industrial sites in European Russia during perestroika, and the town has shrunk ever since. He wore on his shirt a pin with the face of Kim Il Sung, the deceased but continuing president and great leader of the DPRK. He was an adherent of the slightly zany philosophy of Juche, which stresses self reliance, the ability to control and improve ones destiny through allegiance to the leader, etc. I am no expert.

 

Returning to the station we found a see-saw disguised as a matroshka doll. The train was late, I finished my nutella, and we said farewell. I took the train to Neryungri, a coal mining town. I slept heavily on the train, then found the next compartment had a french couple (the woman was Russian, but spoke French). My french is pretty aweful, but that didn't stop us from speaking in Frussian for a while. The man bore a passing resemblance to a well known french film director currently 'residing' in Switzerland, though I was not entirely sure why they had travelled from Paris to Neryungri.

 

I arrived, and with the help of the French couple, found a cheap hotel (the guide being thoroughly out-of-date, then walked around town. At the NW end, I snuck into an apartment block and climbed to the top to get a view over one of the largest coal mines in the world. The open pit mine is up to 300m deep, though there are about 5 peripheral smaller pits and an underground section as well. I took a taxi to the entrance of the mine, darted off to the side, and in rather... functional... russian explained to the guards that I'd come to see the mine truck maintenance shed. After a short wait I was given a red helmet and ushered through the door. They told me that they earned about 1AUD/hour to guard the entrance. Being hot, their shirts were unbuttoned, but that was no concern. Soon I was walking on ground regularly trampled by 200 tonne mining goliaths. The dim of the workshop (about the size of a large aircraft hanger) contrasted with the light outside as several trucks in varying states of disassembly or repair seemed to hunch in the shadows. The mine uses maybe 1000 large vehicles, mainly Russian Belaz, American Drosser, and Japanese Humatshi (?). I climbed all over them, had a good look at the controls, and otherwise fulfilled every last remaining boy-hood fantasy. This was seriously cool. The drive train is actually electric, so they're hybrid cars, which means I get tax breaks if I drive them in California. Hehehehe!

Turns out 'from Australia' is the best free ticket I've ever had.

 

I hitched back to town (all roads lead there), then made contact with a friend of a friend who lives there. Soon enough I was hungry, and offered to cook him and his family dinner, which I did, thus performing the first kitchen-hitch of this trip, but hopefully not the last. I should learn the Russian for 'I have ingredients, but need a kitchen - do you want dinner?'. I had to rush away to meet the French couple at a club in town, where they helped me crash a wedding going on. Everyone was dressed up and having a good time, this town is one of the most prosperous I have seen so far. The music was loud, but the food was excellent, and soon enough the man took a microphone and crooned several French classics, which was somewhat bizarre. Following more than enough smoked salmon and disco lasers, I departed to the hotel, where I had a bed and a hot shower, but no locking door (cheap!). Some day I'll manage the trifector.

 

Next morning I woke before six, checked out, and walked to the station. All the taxis were already there waiting for a coming train, so I arrived too late to organise a lift to Yakutsk, and caught a train to Tommot instead. The train was inhabited by a strange old red-headed man (actually very nice), and several insolent screaming children, which put a damper on my plans to sleep some more. They got off at Aldan, so the last 2 hours of the trip, while slow, were at least quiet.

 

I arrived at Tommot in pouring rain, found a bus going the right way, and got on. The ride from Tommot to Yakutsk is on the M56, a road publicised widely a few years ago as the 'worst road in the world', owing to its unpleasant habit of liquefying in wet conditions and swallowing tens of vehicles without a trace. Aside from a few pinches where the road was being rebuilt, it was one of the best roads I've seen this trip, and certainly the best sealed one. 10 hours of sparse taiga drifted by either window. We stopped in Tommot town for non existent passengers, in Amga for chocolate, in Uluu for borscht (my first, I think, and rather nice), and in Kachikatsy for more passengers before taking the ferry. At the ferry the sun was setting (about 11pm), we were the third last vehicle, so departed rather quickly. I found the Yakut girl who had got on spoke reasonable english, so we chatted about school, uni, and life in the far-east.

 

At about 1:30 in the morning we arrived in Yakutsk (I thought the driver had said the hour of 9 or 10 (ie pm), but he probably said 9 or 10 hours. The difference is about one letter.). Anya, the CSer, was awake, greeted me, showed me a bed and hot water (no locking door, luckily), and even heated up some dinner for me. I think I landed in heaven!

 

This morning I awoke to find her mum had cooked me soup for breakfast (yum!). I also found the hatch to the roof open, so climbed onto the top of an unfenced 8 story apartment block to look around. All the buildings in Yakutsk are built on pillars to try and preserve the integrity of the permafrost. It was founded in 1632, so is one of the oldest, largest, and coldest cities I've visited so far. Today it was only 32 degrees!

 

I wandered around the city, met Anya and some friends for lunch, and then skimmed broken concrete on an industrial tailings pond next to the river. With some success, I might add. Soon, I'll return home to cook dinner. Unfortunately the man in Neryungri knows Anya and warned her about the pasta, so I'll have to cook something else. Oh noes!!!

 

In the next fews days I'll explore the city, museums, etc, then depart for Oimyakon.

sneaky 24 hours in sydney time

Well, I'm back in Sydney time! A lot has happened in the last 48 hours, so
this post will be very dehydrated!

I left Severobaikalsk in Obschiy (unreserved train), in this case an old
kupe carriage, mainly with locals over short distances and railway workers.
Opposite me was a man with an interesting tattoo and large scar on his face
who looked a bit scary, but turned out to be very friendly. I was
microsleeping, so lay in the top bunk to watch Baikal disappear. The train
went up over the mountains and eventually I fell asleep. I awoke twice in
the night - once in the Severomuisk tunnel (a 25 year building project just
finished, 16km tunnel), and once as we passed a large forest fire, visible
for quite some time and very interesting.

The train arrived in Novaya Chara and terminated, I got off. I found the
hotel booked out, so wandered around town in my backpack, sneaking into
half-built apartment buildings populated with broken glass, the abandoned
hospital, and visiting the museum (with exhibitions on animals, including a
deer with fangs, the indigenous people, gulags, BAM construction, what the
town might have looked like, etc). In the street I saw a man amble towards
me, a large (but healing) wound above his right eye. Anatoly was surprised
to hear I was a solo traveller, 22, from Australia, and gave me an apple,
which was pretty good. I later found all the fruit in the shop was black,
so I probably had the best apple in the valley. Thanks Anatoly!

Returning to town I found a new(er) hospital, and had a look around. Their
dental equipment was modern. The main attraction in Chara (and the reason I
stopped there) is a mysterious set of sand dunes about 6km from the station
(built by Kazakhs, incidentally), in the middle of Siberia on 600m of
permafrost. I set off in a westerly direction, but after an hour of walking
on a dirt road in 35 degree heat decided to cut my losses and try a
different route. Walking back to town along the train tracks, I met two
guys in a workers car on a freight train, with whom I had tea and discussed
the merits of Russian women, helped by several large visual aids decorating
their kitchen area.

Back in town I went to the hotel, and found they could find me a room, but
would charge a lot of money. I decided the excess was worth it for a
shower, ditched my bag and dictionary, and caught a cab East to Staraya
Chara, a sleepy town left over from Stalin forced collectivisation. Summer
frosts ruined that plan, but the taxi left me next to a narrow track that
wound SW through swamp, taiga, and across a (crotch - 5cm) deep river,
adorned with frogs, mosquitos and butterflies to the sanddunes. They were
amazing. The view to the kodar mountains (impossibly craggy, like some
non-differentiable functions I have known and loved) was obscured by
bushfire smoke, giving the impression of being in a genuine desert. After a
while I strapped my sandals back on and returned, feeding only about 2L of
my blood to mosquitos who haven't heard that DEET is a neurotoxin for
insects.

I hitched back to Novaya (new) Chara and headed straight for the shop,
availing myself of some liquid diabetes (orange in colour), and surveying
more than a few boxes of unsalable food... back outside I saw a man
swearing in English, who turned out to be a Chilean mining engineer, with
about 7 others (also geologists) developing a copper mine (udokan) in the
region. Including an Australian (Mike). I hung with them for the evening,
which was great fun. They thought I was crazy, probably in general.

I returned to the hotel at about midnight (it was starting to get dark) and
realised for the first time in 35 days I had a room with a door with a
lock, so washed some clothes and had a shower. In this case the hot tap
ran, but hot was purely in the mind. Maybe it was half a degree warmer? Had
a pleasant sleep in a bed (another novelty - I write this at 4am in Tynda
railway station), before waking the next morning and packing. At this point
I realised my migration card was missing. This is unlikely to cause
problems for me until I leave, but cause problems it did for the women at
the counter (who had so gleefully named their price the day before).

Later on the train I unpacked everything and found the wretched postage
stamp sized form, so was the fright worth the inconvenience to some of the
few people I've found willing to enjoy legal robbery? Definitely. Overall,
a killer 24 hours.

I settled in on the train with a railway worker and his 2 year old son (our
Russian skills were roughly comparible... :( ), and at a 45 minute stop in
Khani, ran into another traveller, this time wielding a camera (dead
givaway). Kate was a geologist freshly graduated from Moscow, going to feed
mozzies at a Tungsten/Molybdenum ore site for a month. Bizarrely, we had
several friends in common (dinets.livejournal.com) and spent the better
part of the next 14 hours talking. Right now she's sleeping. I was feeding
mosquitos, so sniffed out some internet instead. Soon I'll explore Tynda
before taking off north into Sakha.

The rest of the train trip was uneventful. For the first time this trip, a
rainy day. Endless forests, rivers, and mountains, spectacular scenery, and
hobbits frolicking to and fro (I hoped...).

When I said the BAM had hundreds of tunnels, I didn't realise the number is
closer to six, though one is a group of 4 closely spaced ones next to
Baikal. A future post will contain a summary with lots of numbers for those
so inclined.

Particular highlights - sand dunes. WTF! Mind blowing. NB: the phrase 'eyes
dropped out' doesn't translate into Russian.

Correction

A lapse rate of 1/6th of a degree a metre corresponds to 166 degrees a km, not 600. Senior's moment... This is only a factor of 16 more than the naturally occuring rate.

I forgot to say

It was a long post! I left some stuff out.

Because of ground subsidence problems, all the buildings in Nizhneangarsk are wood and 2 stories, the town is very long and skinny, maybe 20km long and 200m wide on the narrow strip between steep mountains and marsh. Also, the center of BAM building moved to Severobaikalsk (previously meant only as a temporary worker's settlement), and it's now a large city. At first glance, the soviet blocks appear like any others. On second glance, they resemble those of central asia. Built with lots of corners to withstand powerful earthquakes, they also lack adaptations to cold climates (central asia is hot) such as a balcony to store food in in winter. Many places have small window boxes to store stuff in, but I imagine if you had a fishing line you could get a free dinner from the floor below. The whole city was only built since 1976, and largely finished by 1984 probably.Apartments are built to enclose large central courtyards with play equipment. In winter less snow accumulates. There are short stairs to nowhere for people to throw their garbage into the back of the truck.

I can't remember if I forgot anything else.

Lakes east and west

Following my last update, this is what occurred:

I stumbled from the darkened internet cafe in Taishet following a rather large and excellent dinner. Their names reminded me of the old joke; did you ever meet Volga or Nastya? They were two girls from Siberia (and these are actual names). Once you got to know them, Nastya was actually rather vulgar, though Volga was nastier than Nastya. I could go on...

I sat in the waiting room and waited for it to get dark so I could go outside and look for Venus (easy), Saturn, and Mars, all of which are in a line. Unfortunately at this latitude and time of year, it never gets dark, so I have to rely on 'Thunderf00t' on youtube for important information. Outside the temperature fell to 16 degrees as freight trains rattled past, mosquitos buzzed around, and a TV blared a Russian dubbed version of 'The Island' (the crappy 1980 horror film, not the one with Scarlett Johansen). Eventually (4am, as scheduled) the train turned up and I found my berth, made the bed, and fell asleep. This time the obligatory corpulent woman apparently drank coke and something serious in her sleep, and was probably incontinent, judging by the smell. Usually the platzcart carriages take a few days to really stink, but this one had only come from Krasnoyarsk, about 9 hours away (I think).

No matter, I was too tired, and slept well. Woke up in the morning, made some breakfast (biscuits and chocolate), and about midday arrived in Bratsk. I had some difficulty contacting the couchsurfer there, so I bought a ticket that evening, and walked out (with my bag) and caught a bus towards the suburb of Energetik (hard g) and the dam. I went too far, but caught a bus back, getting twice the view. Once again, I walked back to the spillway, which is at least 100m high, maybe much higher. It was difficult to judge. The Bratsk sea itself is hundreds of km long. I crossed the road, dodging broken glass in my chinese sandals, and made my way down to the beach. Tiny dogs are very popular in Bratsk, and there were a few at the beach. Also, it seems, topless sunbathing has at least a few adherents, but again, not enough to make me homesick! Some way further down the beach, I was savaged by a dog that was about 10 inches long (tickled a bit), and as I was walking past 5 schoolgirls, finally someone said hi. Normally I only speak Russian on trains (captive audience) or to ask questions, but these girls were quite chatty, and with minimal dictionary work we chatted for about half an hour. The thing I found most difficult to understand (linguistically, at any rate) was their supposition that I looked like an actor. I thought not, but was flattered. Later, they asked if I liked twilight (pronounced doalit in Russian) and when I said 'my sister does', they then made the connection. They had thought (presumably from a great distance) that I was Robert Pattinson. I don't know if that's a win or an FML? I skimmed a few obligatory rocks, then turned back towards the buildings.

I wandered through the city between large prefabricated Russian apartments (fitted together like Lego) and eventually a technition explained that I was using the wrong number for phones on a different provider, etc etc etc. I fixed some numbers and got in touch with the couchsurfer Dasha, who it turns out, lived in central Bratsk, about 30 minutes away. No problem, I was an old hand at Bratsk marshrutka's (private buses licensed for public routes and cheap!!!). Soon we met. Dasha thought that I needed more walking in 35 degree heat carrying my backpack, so I got a tour of a new (50 year old) designed industrial town complex carved from the taiga, seeing many monuments, fountains, and other fancy stuff, and occasionally finding some shade to rest in. If I hadn't been covered in the grime of 3 trains, I would probably be very badly sunburnt. Also, I had cleaned up a bit, even shaving on the train with hot water from the boiler and a mirror made from an old hard-drive. So ghetto. Like when I sewed up my jeans, the provodnitsa was slightly bewildered, but also impressed.

Soon enough time expired and I made my way back to Padunski Perogi station. The marshrutka driver stopped, said the name of the station and vaguely pointed in the right direction. Having previously remembered the location of the station with respect to a timber mill and its two distinctive smoke stacks, I was okay. All I had to do was cross about 12 sets of tracks in the shunting yard then walk about a k down the line to the station. Lucky trains only leave 10 times a day! There was plenty of room to dodge as well. Once at the station I charged my phone, bought a rather uninspiring packet of Lays chips, and waited for the train. This time I was in berth 44, which is a short one next to a window across the corridor. Opposite me was a family of Uzbeks from Tajikstan, the father of whom works in textiles in Tynda. He and his wife, though of normal height, were rather slender - they slept side by side in a single berth without falling out.

Next morning I woke in time to stick my head out the window as the train wound up between very tall mountains, forest, and rivers, and then down towards Lake Baikal. As an engineering achievement, the BAM is on par with the English Channel Tunnel (maybe even better), and involves hundreds of tunnels, passes, river crossings, building on permafrost, etc etc. Finished just before Perestroika, it will probably not reach full utility for some time. Today I saw a slogan on a railway building shed in Severobaikalsk which said something like 'BAM, the building is each our biographies', probably with a connotation of immortality and legacy as well. Most of the people who live in the area now came here to build the railway, and have stayed despite the lack of work since. Different sections were built by different ethnic groups, many from central Asia, so each station has its own special architecture, normally in a fairly heroic style. Severobaikalsk station resembles a breaking wave.

I arrived, met the couchsurfer (and his charming girlfriend), and went back to their place. I took a shower (oh sweet relief), washed some clothes, etc. There was enough hot water to lather my hair, but not quite enough to rinse. Fortunately, I'm very tough. I went to the shops and bought ingredients for the usual dinner, which I cooked that evening to universal acclaim. Somewhere in between I talked my way into a kiddies music school (currently on holidays), located a grand piano and played as much as I could remember (alas not much), the first piano since Beijing (and that wasn't much good). There was enough for me to have fourths! In the meantime, however, we took a quick trip to the beach, where I skimmed rocks. This was besides the point, however, as I was standing knee deep in the largest, deepest, oldest, etc body of fresh water in the world. The sky merged with the surface of the water, right down to my ankles. Visible on the opposite shore was a chain of large mountains, easily 60kms away, but clear as day, seemingly floating in space. At that height, the horizon should be about 10km away, but the opposite shore was visible. Today, I crunched the numbers for this, but more later. The beach was lovely, and the outlook spectacular. Okay, so I haven't seen an ocean in over a month (today marks 32 days on the road), but still. Did I mention the water was mirror smooth, until I started throwing rocks in. One rock got 15 skips, but my technique has been a bit off ever since Lake St Clair in Tasmania last January. If it was ever on.

That evening we talked until 1am, and exhausted, fell into sleep. I slept on the floor (as usual), but this lino was the hardest yet. Did I mention that cooking was a challenge because the kitchen is rather under equipped - just one spoon, knife, and fork! This morning we awoke at about 10am (when travelling, every night is a Friday, every day is a Saturday), and I cooked a breakfast of omelette with 7 eggs, every spice in the kitchen, and saltanas. We left, I bought mobile credit, then found the cultural palace, in which I hoped to find a piano. No luck, but I found a large greenhouse (winter garden) with a wide variety of unlikely plants to find in a town only 30 years old in the middle of Asia, like American cactuses and banana palms and stuff. Also, the BAM museum had relocated to the same building and I recieved an incomprehensible tour regarding tunnel building, propaganda, lake baikal ecology and geography, and no mention of lives lost on the endeavour.

After this I took a marshrutka to the nearby town of Nizhneangarsk (which means bottom of the Angara). This is odd, as it's at the point where the angara flows into Baikal, later it continues via Irkutsk to the Yenisey, and thence to the Arctic ocean, part of the fifth longest river in the world. This town was planned as a middle point of the railway, so that it could be built in both directions without waiting for the link from Bratsk. To this end, a large port was built and several large buildings started. In a good example of an epic fail, the railway line arrived at the port from Bratsk as the port was finished, and the large prefab lego concrete buildings began sinking into the marshy delta almost immediately. I found the hospital building, abandoned in 1993 after it sank too deep in the marsh. I had a wander through the ruined vandalised building. It seems it functioned also as a tuberculosis sanatorium. Following the closure of the hospital, it moved to the hotel, and as I thus had nowhere to stay, I had to find a bus back to Severobaikalsk. The bus to Nizhneangarsk was memorable for the fantastic view and there being at least 10 emergency exits in a bus with only 8 rows of seats. The bus back (after a few hours of trying to find it) was memorable for a woman sitting at the back with a black and almost entirely hairless (except for whiskers and ends of ears) tiny dog. Wow.

Arriving back in Severobaikalsk, I bought some juice to recharge water and sugar, chilled for a while (reading my dictionary for kicks - only word I don't know so far (in English) is plaice. I know what it is now...). I walked to the beach, skimmed some rocks, sat and watched the lake. It occured to me then, about the crazy effect of the other shore being visible. What happens is that cold air near the surface of the lake is denser and has a greater refractive index, bending the light in accordance with the curvature of the earth. A back-of-the-envelope calculation is quite easy. The path length difference is directly proportional to the ratio of the respective radii. That is, for light at the surface and one metre higher, the path length ratio is 1/6000km, or one part in 6 million. The refractive index of air (according to Wolfram Alpha) at 23 degrees is 1.00026543 and at 24 degrees is 1.00026451. The difference is about 1 part in a million. Thus to achieve the required degree of curvature, so that the ground appears flat and the horizon at infinity, the temperature lapse rate should be 1/6th of degree per metre, or 600 degrees per km. The natural lapse rate, due to adiabatic expansion in tropospheric convection cells, is about 10 degrees/km, but if the earth's atmosphere were just a bit different, maybe the world really would look flat. Of course, near the surface of the lake, this lapse rate is more than achievable, and is responsible for, in effect, a reverse mirage occuring. In antarctica, the effect is well known, and if objects are on the ice for reference, the ground sometimes appears to curve upwards like a giant bowl. Distant ocean far beyond the natural horizon sometimes appears in the sky, often greatly distorted. Back to Baikal - with this in mind, I used wind ripples on the surface from a good vantage point nearby - the surface of the lake really does appear convex, and as the lapse rate is not perfect nor uniform, multiple images of the beach on the opposite shore exist at different heights and in different directions. My brain hurts.

Yura (CSer) reappeared and began to cook dinner. 3 hours later I think it is nearly ready. Tomorrow I will catch a train to Novaya Chara and explore the area between the Kodar mountains. Unfortunately the Akulan gulag is beyond my public transport capabilities to reach, so I'll have to track one down later in Kolyma. There are abandoned cities there which once had 20000 people (or 15 large soviet blocks, a bus station, a mine, and wooden temporary housing), I look forward to finding them. Likewise, I'll take a hydrofoil up the Aldan river.