So, what happened with “The End”? Ah, that was the end of my
trip through Latin America, whereas this is the beginning of my trip to
Siberia. Not the same thing, you know.
In my original plan I was going to get back to California
from Monterrey, Mexico, but my friend Chrissy invited me on a tour of
inspection of the watershed of Lake Baikal, and since that is the largest body
of fresh water in the world, and I am teaching Development and Management of
Water Resources this semester, I figured this was one opportunity I could not
let go by.
Where is Lake Baikal? Close to the border between Russia and
Mongolia, due north of Ulaan Bataar. Irkutsk is one of the largest cities in
Siberia, and sits a few kilometers west of the northwest end of the lake. It
is, of course, impossibly far from Monterrey, Mexico, so I need to undertake a
hellacious trip there. First I will take a 3-hour trip to Atlanta (my friend Dallas
tells me that souls headed for Hell need to go through Atlanta International),
where I will sit for 7 hours before the next stage. From Atlanta I am taking a
15-hour flight to Seoul, where I have a 12-hour layover. Finally, I will take a
4-hour flight to Irkutsk. I am leaving at noon on August 11 from Monterrey, and
will arrive in Irkutsk in the evening of August 13. How is that for a long
flight!
I have little recollection of what it was that I did in
Atlanta, outside of roaming the shops, and browsing through books I never buy.
Wait … that is not true. I did buy a Russian phrasebook, just so that I have
basic knowledge of hello, please, and thank you. Russian is a language with
declinations, and with about six cases (a bit like Latin), so the order of the
words or the pervasive use of pronouns is not as important as it is in English
(Spanish is in between, and in many instances the case is clearly understood by
the form of the verb). Oh, yes, I also had dinner at Panda Express.
I was facing the prospect of the 15-hour flight to Seoul
with excitement and trepidation. On one hand, one can see up to 6 movies in
that time span, but on the other you get stiff sitting for such a long time. I
compromised by seeing 3.75 movies and snoozing (or eating airplane food, which
is my absolute favorite).
I landed in Seoul at 3:30 am, which is way to early. I
roamed the halls of the airport like an errant soul because normal people don’t
come to the airport at 4 am. I did, however, figured out that I was in Terminal
2 and my connecting flight departed from Terminal 1, so I took the free bus and
discovered that the terminals are heck’a far from each other (a good 20 minutes
in the freeway). Good thing I figured that out while I had enough time.
At 6 am I presented myself in the desk that offers free
tours to the city for transferring passengers. This is the best deal in the
world, courtesy of the Incheon Airport. They collect a fee of US$ 10, that go
to pay for your lunch in the city, and depending on how much time you have they
offer 5-hour, 4-hour, and 2-hour tours. I took the 5-hour tour, which departed
at 8 am for a one-and-a-half hour ride to Seoul. The highway skirts the shore
of the Korean Sea (China calls it the East China Sea and has been freaking out
the Koreans by building artificial islands and then claiming territorial rights
all around them), and then jumped across the River Hangang and its estuary.
Seoul, like San Francisco, is built along the shores of the estuary.
The goals were to visit the Gyeongbokung Palace (14th
century, from the time when Korea became an independent kingdom, even though
still allied to the Chinese empire). The palace is very pretty and has been
lovingly restored. It includes the public areas, where the parades and
ceremonies took place (I actually got to see a changing of the guard with many
fluttering pennants and sound of drums and cymbals), and a back portion where
the king and his ministers worked, and even farther back the royal residence
with lovely gardens and water bodies.
The only issue with our visit to the palace is that most of
us had already been in a plane for 15 hours, and running around for an hour
under pretty warm weather added to the rather ripe odor in the bus.
The second and final stop was in downtown, where we had the
chance to walk along a narrow street lined by shops that catered to tourists
and restaurants. Our guide herded s to one of these restaurants, where I had
vegetarian bibimbap (basically a few mounds of shredded veggies to which you
can add hot sauce and rice), which is pretty standard lunch fare here in Korea.
It was OK but not great; like so many other vegetarian dishes it would benefit
from a quarter pound of grilled beef. I ate as fast as possible, because I
wanted to use my time looking at the city, not eating. It was a nice walk, but
personally I would have liked to see more of the city. On my way back I am
going to strike on my own and do serious tourism!
On the way back we caught the low tide, and I was shocked by
the extent to which the floor of the estuary had been drained. I will have to
use this as an example of extreme tidal range when I teach Physical
Oceanography this semester.
By the time I got to the airport I was hot and bothered, and
had to cool my heels in the departure level for an hour before I could get my
boarding pass and document my luggage. Once I had the boarding pass I made a
bee line for the departure gates, planning on taking advantage of a special
accommodation that very few travelers have heard off: The fabulous people of
the Incheon Airport put at your disposition a free shower service. For 30
minutes you are the lord of a well-appointed bathroom for your personal
ablutions pleasure. Experienced travelers on the know, like yours truly, take
care to do the Trans-Pacific flight wearing an old shirt, underware, and socks,
and carrying a fresh set in the backpack. Thanks to this foresight, a half hour
later I emerged from the bathroom like Venus emerging from her shell (except
that I had a bit more pudor and was wearing a clean shirt), born anew after my
luxurious shower. The old smelly clothes were left behind in the trash can.
Following the teachings of my friend Gustav, I stopped by
the duty free to buy my allowed liter of cheap whisky. I had not prepared
myself, however, for the snobbishness that the Asian upper crust has developed
for whiskey, for which they are willing topay absurdly exorbitant prices. Worst
are the unpronounceable Scottish whiskeys, but even the American ones get
bumped in price thousands of yens,or wons simply by having a different color
(e.g., Johnny Walker Green) or by being special editions (e.g., Jack Daniels
Honey). The duty-free sales women are particularly keen on selling the
high-price products, and look down their noses to us schmucks that go for $20
Jim Beam (some Korean women are particularly fair, wear black dresses to appear
cadaveric, and wear stiletto heels, for a general aspect of attack bitches, an
image no doubt developed to deal with cheap customers like me). Ha, they
probably have never enjoyed the experience of chucking down Kessler direct from
the plastic bottle around a campfire!
The flight down to Irkutsk went just fine, even if a bit
stuffy, and as promised we landed at 8 pm. I was pleasantly surprised to find
out that the migration and customs processes went superfast. The Russians
finally figured out that all the necessary information is printed in the
passport and the visa, so there is no need to subject the incoming tourists to
a KGB-style interrogation. My luggage was one the last to come out, so by the
time I came into the tiny arrivals hall the crowd had thinned considerably.
There were four people standing there, holding signs in Korean, but there was
no one holding the sign for Knut-Reisen. I looked around for a while, and even
asked the information desk. Nothing. I couldn’t find the money exchange counter
either, so with some trepidation I used the ATM to pull out 20,000 rubles
(approximately US$ 300). I went back to the hall and found null comma nichts. It looked like I had been left to my own devices.
OK, I went back to the first guy who had offered me a taxi, showed him the
address of the place we were going to stay, and five minutes later we were
barreling at high speed through the streets of Irkutsk.
Irkutsk is a handsome city of about 700,000 inhabitants, and
in the summer is filled with green trees and parks, people walking in the dusk,
and lively advertising (I am told that come September the snow will start and
the aspect of the city will be much closer with what most of us associate with
the word Siberia). We finally arrived at my destination, a three story house
that must have been built 500 years ago, with that aspect of decay that was
familiar to me from visiting the Russian neighborhoods in Riga. It was a
peasant house transplanted to the center of the city. It took me a while to
find the entrance, and once there I had to wait by the door for a good few
minutes until this woman came in from the outside. This was Mrs. Galina, who
looked to me in astonishment, and in Russian-accented German asked me how had I
come from the airport. I explained I had taken a taxi. “But where is Lara?” Not
knowing who Lara was I simply shrugged my shoulders. “I know about you”, she
said, “You are staying at another house, and later you are getting a woman.” At
this alarming statement I assured her that I might be staying at another house,
but I was most definitely not getting a woman! What the hell is going on? Is
this nice-looking woman a heartless human trafficker—whom I shall refer to
hereafter as Madam Galina, Queen of the Russian underworld—making a sordid
attempt to foist on me a helpless female refugee? Madam Galina shook her head
and went inside to make a phone call to Lara, and five minutes later I was
speaking to her and clarifying that yes, I was the gentleman expected to arrive
this evening; no, I had not seen the Knut-Reisen people at the airport; and
yes, I knew Christine Kobberger and I was looking forward to seeing her later
in the evening. Whew, what glorious misunderstandings one can get into in this
travel business.
A few minutes later Lara came to collect me. She is our
liaison here in Russia, and clearly she is going to become our key
trouble-shooter. Lara is German, lives in Berlin, is married to a Russian man,
and studies East European Culture at the university. Needless to say, she is
perfectly fluent in German, Russian, and English. I am the first one to arrive,
so we made our acquaintance over a late dinner of raw Lake Baikal fish, mashed
potatoes, and sliced tomatoes and cucumbers (rats, I forgot to bring the
Habanero sauce I packed for this trip) at a pleasant open-air bistro a few
blocks from our home stay. I am going to like it here 😊
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