China post # 9 - Yekateringburg

Yekateringburg! A big mining city, right before the Urals. Famous for one mine in particular ... where the soviets dumped the bodies of the last tsar, Nicolas II and his family after popping them. We thought that we were in Siberia, but the locals informed us nyet! Actually, the Russians have officially demarcated the border between Europe and Asia here with a monument on the highway - that's us, with a foot in each continent.

We went straight to our homestay in a very dodgy looking part of town with soviet style aprtment blocks, but once we made it through the smelly hallway and lift and past the various metal doors our hostess's 3 room flat was very nice. Elena has green fingers and immediately sat us down to a feast of pelmeni (siberian ravioli), salads and a bottle of vodka. Our last hostess, also Elena, in SP, fed us really well also, especially the breakfasts of porridge and pancakes, but she didn't speak a word of english. That was fun trying to communicate and her niece was often pressganged into translating. The first Elena was a russian teacher, but the new Elena is a university lecturer of english, so I was able to interrogate her extensively on russian life. An interesting woman who had travelled a lot and her return from Egypt she brought back some cannabis seeds, so she has a 4 foot cannibis plant on her balcony! She wouldn't let me take a photo for obvious reasons, but she is innocent of any wrongdoing as she has never even tried it or doesn't know how ...

Next day we were taken on a tour of the city by Marianne and posed beside Pushkin, saw the monument to the russian soldiers killed in Afghanistan and Chechnya (paid for by the families, not the government) and ended up at a scottish bar, Gordon's, for a pre-lunch pint. Dimitri and Alexi insisted I try the Guinness which wasn't bad. Later on we did a long walking tour of the city's other 2 Irish bars, which were dead and ended up again at Gordon's which was hopping.

Next day was our wilderness tour and we were picked up by Dimitri our young student guide, and Den the driver in a lada! Believe it or not we travelled nearly 300 km in said vehicle to a national park, which was not such a wilderness place as it was packed with coach tours. Our rafting trip was achieved in the tiny blue craft above and we were quite shocked when the boys told us to embark in the thing and that they would meet us 2 km downriver. Our worries were needless as the river was no more than 3 feet deep at most and we ended up using the paddles to push ourselves along when we frequently got grounded. Dimitri took us hiking to some caves after lunch and it all finished with a beer - except for poor Den who would only have a tea. Both Dimitri's parents work in a top secret military facility beneath the town where the live. Access to the town is strictly controlled by the military and his parents are never allowed to leave Russia - real James Bond stuff!