Lewisham, United KingdomDeparture from the UKBremen, GermanySchuelpBack to BremenChristmas in the HarzDriving in the HarzAround Bad Harzburg and Christmas Market in GoslarWinter Tourism im HarzAnd home againViennaNew Year'sSightseeing in Vienna Day 2More sightseeing in Vienna and some plansArrival in BudapestTickets Booked!Bath HouseTrain to LvivWe made it to Ukraine!Leaving LvivOdessa, UkraineEventful arrival in KievMorning in KievOn the train to MoscowBrief stop in MoscowOur first trip east of the KnownOn the train to Kazan - a lot to catch up onkazan - at an ungodly hour of the morningOn the train to YekaterinburgOne night until SiberiaSiberia!!!!! Tobolsk - it's not on Google Maps! It's 4 hours north of TyumenDay trains5 Hours from IrkutskSafe arrival in IrkutskLake BaikalBack to IrkutskGoodbye to BaikalAn Experience in Ulan-UdeCrossing the Border - Happy New Year and Australia DayPlans changing in HarbinEnchanted with BeijingBeijing WanderingsCrashingMore CrashingSam's almost better againSecond last day in BeijingLast day in BeijingTianjin, ChinaIncheon ArrivalSeoul!!!Exhausting full day of enjoying SeoulI still love SeoulRainy and grey in BusanUnvalentine's DayInfinite turtlesDry land againA Perfect EndCoolangatta International Airport, or lack thereofBrisbane, AustraliaMum and Dad's
 | samandleonie |  | Heading East |  | Our first trip east of the Known |
Not enough votes to display rating.
Jan 12 2009, 04:43 PM
1 photo
Embed trip
View in Google Earth
Rss news about this trip
GPX Track
Journal
Location
Vladimir, Russia
We arrived fresh off the train and, as usual, grappled with the middle aged women in the ticket offices for our next ticket. We decided not to push our luck and book the next ticket as well, although we'd planned to do so, simply because they'd frowned at us enough already. I still think it's not so much that we lack the language (although that's undoubtable), it's that we don't understand how the system works. In the UK or Germany, we'd state our destination and they'd give us a ticket for the destination, along with a little schedule telling us where to change and possibly two reservations for seats. Here, we stated our destination and the woman replied there were no trains and said nothing more. So it was a good thing we had our connection all written down (thank you Deutsche Bahn website) and could tell her where we could change and she gave us two separate tickets for the journey. Thankfully, it all worked out in the end and cost us roughly what we thought it would (phew).
Then we set out to find a hotel. We hadn't booked anything, but had the details of four places. The first one was far too expensive (we're definitely travelling on the cheap, and it's a bit difficult in Russia – the first place had rooms for £50 a night, which doesn't sound too bad, but it was too expensive for us). So we thought we'd try this mysterious hostel I'd found the website for (unfortunately completely in Russian, so I didn't really know much beyond that it existed and had rooms). I'd gotten the address slightly wrong, but we stopped and asked a pair of old women, and one of them took us down to the road it's on and explained in detail how to get there. She couldn't speak any English and we had to apologise over and over because we couldn't understand most of what she said, but she was quite clear where we needed to go and we understood enough to know that it was ten minutes walk up the street. What we did gather from her was that it's in a Catholic monastery or convent of some description, so I don't know whether we could have stayed there anyway. It at least explained why it had appeared so cheap on the website. We set out up the street and another man approached us and asked, first in Russian, then in fairly broken English if we needed help. We repeated where we wanted to go and he confirmed the old lady's instructions. We set off again. A few moments later, he reappeared and said he'd walk us there and took my bag from me. Ten minutes later, we arrived, but it had just shut (we were half an hour late – but we hadn't known). The man, Vladimir (it appears everyone actually is called Vladimir), offered to have us stay at his place, and he'd been very friendly, so I wouldn't have worried too much about it (except that it's drilled into you not to do that sort of thing). What decided it for us was that he lived twenty minutes by trolleybus from the centre of Vladimir. It was only 5:30 by this point and we didn't want to give up the opportunity to look around the town tonight, so we turned him down. He'd already pointed out another hotel five minutes up the street, and he took us there and even helped us to check in. The hotel is very cheap (you can certainly understand why it's cheap, but we don't care at all, as it's a room – private, even, which is novel for us – and it was cheap) and really quite good value. It's less than half of what the other hotel was asking.
We were very thankful to Vladimir for helping us sort out our accommodation, and we felt a bit bad for turning him down, so we offered to take him to a cafe for a beer or a coffee. That turned into an evening tour of the town of Vladimir (too many Vladimirs – it's confusing). He took us all over the centre of town (the old town) and even though his struggled often with English, we got so much more information than we would ever have gotten from the Lonely Planet. After that, we had a beer and his English seemed to get worse, somehow, and he was trying to explain more complicated things. But it was interesting, most notably his description of the oligarchs who control oil, gas and electricity. He seemed to think of them as a different kind of person, above the ordinary folk like him. And he didn't understand why this Ukrainian gas situation was viewed as a national issue, when, to his mind, it was purely business (although he did feel sorry for the people who were cold). Russians all get their gas from the government, so they don't have to deal with Gazprom. Only the rest of the world gets that pleasure.
But he was very friendly and matter-of-fact, although he really struggled sometimes with English (i.e. we struggled to understand him sometimes). When he spoke about the people of Moscow, he always described them with a frowny face. He made Vladimir seem like such a fantastic place, just with a bit of background information. It's already a lovely town, with one of the oldest churches in the country. And although we enjoyed dropping in on Moscow again, I'm glad to be gone again, away from the inflated prices and constant presence of security guards.
We were in Moscow for only a few hours, and organisation cut into that time, as we were unable to buy our tickets to Vladimir in Ukraine. When we finally got out to Red Square, we discovered that our camera battery was flat, which was disappointing, as the main thing we wanted to do was just wander around and take photos (especially of everything with snow on it). We didn't have time for museums (and we had our backpacks, as it wasn't worth putting them into the baggage service just for a few hours). The solution was fortuitous and reinforced the position of McDonald's in my mind as the traveller's friend. We went back to the McDonald's which restored our spirits last time in Moscow after we'd been frightened by the tourism police and I bought a cup of coffee and we sat surreptitiously in the front corner, next to the Christmas lights. The lights were plugged into a powerboard that was plugged into the ceiling somehow and there was an extra socket, so we plugged the camera in and charged it for half an hour while I enjoyed my coffee and Sam eventually succumbed to an apple pie (although it was a cherry pie). So we got our photos in the end and had a nice walk, although our bags hurt our shoulders by the time we got to the station for our train to Vladimir.
But now I'm going to enjoy the interesting décor of this hotel (even the curtains and bedspreads look like concrete and the telephone must be at least twenty years old). It's past my bedtime, anyway, as Vladimir (both the person and the town) kept us out late). We have to be up early tomorrow to enjoy Suzdal.
Comments |
Log in to add comment |
No comments