Day 280 - Sun Aug 9 - Ulan Ude to Arshan

From the previous day's research, we know that there are mini-vans that run daily from the Ulan Ude train station to the village of Arshan, our next destination. These mini-vans leave every hour between 8:00 am and 10:00 pm, and only depart once every seat is filled. It's an eight hour ride, about 12$ per person, and seats are on a first-come-first-served basis.

Originally, we plan to catch the 8:00 am, but when we reach the city bus stop near our hotel it seems the buses run rarely on weekend mornings. Our backpacks, etc, very clearly mark us out as tourists, and a Buryat men waiting at the bus stop strikes up a conversation with us. He and his friends are local boys, from villages in the area, living in town and working on construction sites. They like the town and enjoy having the area's famous Tibetan Buddhist temple (datsan) nearby where they can go on their more spiritual days.

Today is their day off and they're up early, hoping to continue the party from the night before. "We're not drunks," he explains, "we're just having a good time." He just wants to clarify that they're in a different category from the full-time drinkers so common in town - those with the leathery skin, bleary eyes, staggering pace and sharp odour of chronic drinkers. "If you have hands and feet you should work," he says, and does not think very highly of those who ask for change for their drinks rather than working for it.

Pierre and I wait for our bus and talk with our new friend awhile until we finally realize we realize the bus we want may not come in time. We negotiate with a taxi driver and say goodbye to our worker friend. As we put our bags away, he continues to chat away, and I miss most of it but catch the gist at the end: "Is there anyway you could spot us 100 rubles?"

I see the logic in this: Pierre and I have enough money to spend on a 100 ruble taxi ride to the train station, so perhaps we've got an extra 100 (4$) lying around taking up space. I think up a way to say no that won't sound to him as though I'm turning down a panhandler. "Sorry," I say. "We only have enough for the taxi and bus."

He smiles his goodnatured smile - oh well, worth a shot - says good luck and wanders back to his friends at the bus stop.

At the station, there's no sign of the mini-van yet, so Pierre waits in the station out of the drizzle with our bags while I hover around the parking space where the 9:00 am Arshan bus should arrive sometime before the hour. A small crowd of passengers eventually gathers.

When the mini-van finally arrives, there's a scramble for seats. As expected, there's shoving and I get a few elbow jabs, but in the end the fight for seats is pretty tame as far as transportation scrums go. I wiggle my way far enough into the side door to throw my back pack and one grocery bag into a pair of seats. Voila, we have a reservation. Pierre staggers over with our remaining bags - we tuck one next to the driver, another under the back seat, wedge our small backpacks and grocery bags aound our calves and rest Pierre's guitar on his lap. Crowded, but fairly cosy. The ride goes smoothly for the first 7 hours of the trip.

Though the sign in the minivan window says "ARSHAN" our bus driver doesn't plan on going all the way there. Instead of taking the turn to Arshan, the driver tells a group of us to get out. This kind of change of plan is pretty familiar to us by this point in the trip - getting from A to B is always less straightforward than we expect. Still, I'm not clear on why we need to get out.

I turn to another woman exiting the minivan - she also looks a little confused. "Do we continue by foot?" I ask her. She and her friend laugh like I've just made a witty joke. Apparently, no, we won't continue on foot.

We wait at the road side "bus stop" with our mini-van driver for about 10 minutes until a bus passes by. The minivan driver talks to the bus driver, and they seem to negotiate a passenger swap. This allows the mini-van driver to continue to the next and final town without making the detour to Arshan, and the bus driver only has to go to Arshan without continuing on to the next town. We lug all of our things onto the bus for the 20 minute ride to Arshan.

The stops off at a little bus hut near a park and we pile off again with our many bags. I take a few moments to load myself up and when I look up I notice Pierre looking at a loss. An elderly man is lying on the ground on the curb next to the bus. From the way his wife calmly sits down her bag and lies down on the ground next to him to talk , I assume that he's on the ground by choice. She is sober, he is not. From his tone of voice I assume he's refusing to go anywhere after the bus ride. We offer to give a hand and Pierre manages to help the man and his wife as far as the grass a few feet away before the man gets cranky again and doesn't want any help. His wife laughs.

"We'll sit on the grass awhile," she says to us. "Where are you from?" I tell her. She lowers her husband onto the grass. "We have lots of drunks here in Buryatia," she says and laughs again.

"In Canada, too," I say. No one around us seems to be taking much notice of the public-fall-down-drunkenness at 4:00 pm. It reminds me of Ulan Ude. I ask her for direction to the Arshan Spa, where we think we might find accommodations, and she poins us down the street.

As we walk down the street, we pass fences and houses, most of which have little signs that say "zhilyo" (жилье). This means more or less "lodgings available." The guidebook mentions these and says they are quite a good deal, but we continue onto the Arshan Spa. It's not quite what we expected, in terms of price or appearance, and the lady at the front desk is a mix of multiple front desk cliches from Hollywood movies: bulldog expression, bleached blonde bun high on her head. She grudgingly gives us the price information and a registration form. Pierre and I debate the price and the type of room we're likely to get. In the end, we decide to check out a zhilyo before committing to a room here. Not an extensive search - just one or two.

The first place I check out isn't willing to take two people for just two or three days, so I check out lodgings at the house next door. The building and yard are unassuming by Russian standards, but neat - wood fence, wood house, woodpile in the yard. I wander in the front gate and the owner, Danil, comes out to give me a quick tour of the rooms he has for offer.

The first room is simple and dark, with cots and a hotplate, but the second is much more charming. The place feels like a cottage - the front door leads into a small bright kitchen area with a sink, hotplate, fridge and table; a second door leads into the sleeping area. There I find four cots and a couch, a TV and a whitewashed woodstove.

I love the place but with all the hiking we're hoping to do, I know we're both looking for a place where we can take a shower from time to time. I have no problem with using the nearby outhouse, but I have no desire to take cold water sink showers for the next few days.

"Do you have a shower?" I ask.

"Well, we have a banya," he says. I recognize the word, but I have never had a chance to use a banya myself, the Russian sauna/washing room that is such a part of Russian culture.

"Are we allowed to use it?" I ask, just to clarify.

He gives me a funny "of course" look. "Just tell me an hour before you need it and I'll start the stove."

Danil takes me across the yard and shows me the two by two metre wooden shack with a white water tank above a woodstove. He shows me the lightswitch and where the door locks for privacy, explains how to pull hot water from the heated tank and how to mix it with the cold mountain water from the tap on the wall. There are basins and metal scoops for collecting the water and pouring it out again.

I go to collect Pierre and our bags and we walk back to Danil's place, past the cows that as always are loose in town, trimming the grass that lines the roadside and near the parks.

Pierre's impressed with our little cottage and thrilled about the banya. Since there are so many cots and couches in our place we expect that we might get roommates at some point, but it turns out that the place is all ours for only 24$CAN per night. We like our little home the nearby mountains so much that we decide to skip visiting Lake Baikal and instead stay in Arshan until Day 286 when we catch our train to Tomsk.

We celebrate our first night with a trip to the banya and a bowl of borscht from a local snack shop. We meet with a local guide to set up a long day hike on Day 281 before heading home to sleep.