If you were to ask me who I thought was the Man of the Millennium, Genghis Khan would not be top of my list.
However, judging by the vast poster declaring Mr Khan to be just that on the side of the bus shelter in Ulan Bator, the Mongolian nation disagrees. The Mongolian capital was stop number one on my 5000-mile journey from Beijing to Moscow on one of the longest rail lines in the world: the Trans-Mongolian Railway.
Armed with a Russian phrase book and vitamin tablets (in the belief that I would have nothing but mutton and vodka to nourish me for the next month, I accordingly stocked up to stave off scurvy), I had ventured into the heart of the largest land empire the world has ever seen.
The immense grassy plains, known as steppes, stretched out with sandy, calloused fingers, as if trying to grasp their former kingdom that had once touched the edges of France. The gnarled digits were speckled with wild horses and camels, and the occasional ger camp (a ger being a round, sturdy tent, a key part of traditional Mongolian life: forty-three per cent of the population is nomadic).
Ulan Bator is not just the world's coldest capital but also the farthest from the ocean. Eager to sample some of the local cuisine, I asked the owner of the guest house I was staying in where I could try good Mongolian food. She thought for a moment, then replied, "I can tell you where to get good food, and where to get Mongolian food, but good Mongolian food? No." Thank God for my vitamins.
That evening I went to see some traditional theatre. The highlight was the bizarre, mesmerising throat singing. An essential part of ancient Mongolian shamanism, it sounds rather like a grasshopper playing a didgeridoo, and has to be heard to be believed.
The main draw of Mongolia is its countryside, and a few nights staying in a ger in Terelj National Park was on the cards. With images of me galloping across the wilds of Mongolia, I couldn't resist the opportunity to horse-ride. What I didn't count on was having the most disobedient horse in Asia, with a penchant for stopping in rivers just where the flow reached my knees. That evening, saddle-sore and giving up any dreams of being a cowgirl, I drowned my sorrows with fermented mare's milk.
Contrary to popular belief, it is not possible to hop on and off the TransMongolian/Siberian Railway using just one ticket. If you wish to stop, it is necessary to purchase individual tickets for each leg of the journey. Having decided that Irkutsk, Siberia, was my next call, I managed to procure a ticket using appalling Russian, and hopped on board the train. The carriages are divided into three classes: first class has two beds in each berth, second class has four beds, while if you opt for third class you are confronted with a forest of twitching feet, as beds are essentially placed where there are spaces. At the end of each carriage, regardless of class, there is an urn of boiling water so that tea and instant noodles can be consumed whenever the urge arises. Keeping a very territorial and watchful eye over events are fearsome carriage attendants known as provodnitsas. The train stops briefly at stations along the way, allowing you to purchase goods from swarms of babushkas, including, happily for my scurvy paranoia, lots of fruit.
Following a bureaucratic twelve hour wait at the Russia/Mongolia border, the train pulled into Irkutsk - the gateway to magnificent Lake Baikal. This behemoth is the world's oldest and deepest freshwater lake, holding twenty per cent of the world's freshwater supplies, and has a smattering of small islands. The largest of these, Olkhon, was a little beyond Irkutsk, and was where I headed to spend a few nights.
Olkhon's street lamps are ablaze twenty-four hours a day. Apparently they had been installed a mere two weeks, but no-one knew how to switch them off. Though the island is small, there are plenty of beaches, woods and mountains to explore. I whittled away many a day swimming in the pure, soothing waters with tiny catfish pawing my feet, before watching the sun, as if it had suddenly blushed at realising the hour, say a bashful goodnight.
When you think of Siberia, the first things that usually come to mind are barren wastes under metres of impenetrable snow and gulags and salt mines stuffed with pathetic exiles and convicts. However, passing from Irkutsk to Krasnoyarsk, my next stop, the train was greeted by shimmying Siberian pines, the occasional sparkling lake and waving children scampering around in the summer heat.
After dumping my luggage in a cheap hotel that smelled like scuffed old leather shoes, I went for a stroll around Krasnoyarsk - one of Stalin's favourite places to build prison camps. I was taken aback when a hand was placed on my shoulder and I was asked in English, "Excuse me, are you a tourist?" I turned around to find a man looking at me inquiringly.
Unsure if this was perhaps a member of the KGB about to accuse me of crimes against the state, I cautiously answered, "Yes." After a long conversation, it transpired that the man, Andre, spoke perfect English, and had a niece the same age as me called Olga, who lived in Moscow.
He insisted that he telephone her to see if I could stay with her in her flat there. She agreed, and said she would meet me at the station.
Clutching my phrase book and sincerely hoping I wasn't going to end up for sale as an internet Russian bride, I caught the train for my three-and-a-half-day journey to Moscow.
I was sharing my cabin with an older Russian couple who were so concerned about my travelling alone and my being the only foreigner on board that they decided to take me under their wing. With the help of my trusty phrase book and much gesticulation, Mishka, Vladimir (his name was not actually Vladimir, but his real, impossibly rhotic name was far too difficult for me to pronounce, so with a shrug he accepted "Vladimir" as his moniker) and I managed to have some decent "conversations"; yet my protests went unheeded in the mornings when, after rousing me with "Rootik! Rootsky!" (their terms of endearment for "Ruth"), they would drag me out of bed to force-feed me salad and pickled fish.
In Moscow, one of the most glamorous places in the world, I felt tinged with shame as I arrived in my tramp-like state to be welcomed by Olga, who thankfully did not sell me on eBay. Olga very kindly offered to show me around the capital, starting with the hub of the city: Red Square.
From the imposing walls of the Kremlin, to the stark mausoleum of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, to the psychedelic designs of St Basil's Cathedral (a mass of swirling colours commissioned by Ivan the Terrible - when the creation was finished, Ivan had the architect's eyes put out so that he could never create a building to surpass it) Red Square engulfs you with its history and infuses you with a sense of the place that Russia once was.
Traversin on the splendid Moscow Metro is a tourist attraction in itself. Each station is completely different, though most are ornate and grand, depicting Stalin's ideals for the Soviet state.
On canvas, the State Tretyakov and Pushkin museums house many of the greatest artistic designs ever created, and Olga and I spent hours perusing the impressive collections of original Rembrandts, Van Goghs and Monets.
Olga and her family very kindly invited me to stay in their home in the nearby town of Sergei Posad, named after the man who founded the monastic scene in Russia and who is now Russia's patron saint.
Olga's mother had made copious amounts of traditional borscht (beetroot soup) for us all, and because Olga's family are huge rock 'n' roll fans my week in and around Moscow was rounded off singing Beatles songs on the balalaika.
Waving goodbye to a new-found friend, St Petersburg - Peter the Great's "Window on the West" - was calling me. Knitted together by a snaking network of canals, this magnificent, flamboyant city bubbles with charisma and vibrancy. The Hermitage (the former Winter Palace), with its incredible art collection and regal interior, is undoubtedly the cultural high point of the northern capital, oozing luxury in a way that only royalty can.
Another vestige of the reign of the tsars is the Summer Palace situated in Pushkin, on the outskirts of St Petersburg. Home to Catherine the Great's Amber Room, the gleaming surfaces were called the largest piece of jewellery in the world. Looted by Nazi soldiers during World War Two, the palace has been restored to its former glory. It is now cushioned by a lush green park, and one could easily imagine Mr Darcy emerging sodden from any one of the elegant lakes.
For the final part of the train journey, I was sallying forth to Helsinki.
Exhausted, I fell asleep with my head resting on my hand. Waking up in Europe proper a few hours later with a Gorbachev-esque mark on my temple, I concluded that I was taking the "at one with the local culture" thing too far. The mark gradually faded. My memories of the TransMongolian Railway never will.
However, judging by the vast poster declaring Mr Khan to be just that on the side of the bus shelter in Ulan Bator, the Mongolian nation disagrees. The Mongolian capital was stop number one on my 5000-mile journey from Beijing to Moscow on one of the longest rail lines in the world: the Trans-Mongolian Railway.
Armed with a Russian phrase book and vitamin tablets (in the belief that I would have nothing but mutton and vodka to nourish me for the next month, I accordingly stocked up to stave off scurvy), I had ventured into the heart of the largest land empire the world has ever seen.
The immense grassy plains, known as steppes, stretched out with sandy, calloused fingers, as if trying to grasp their former kingdom that had once touched the edges of France. The gnarled digits were speckled with wild horses and camels, and the occasional ger camp (a ger being a round, sturdy tent, a key part of traditional Mongolian life: forty-three per cent of the population is nomadic).
Ulan Bator is not just the world's coldest capital but also the farthest from the ocean. Eager to sample some of the local cuisine, I asked the owner of the guest house I was staying in where I could try good Mongolian food. She thought for a moment, then replied, "I can tell you where to get good food, and where to get Mongolian food, but good Mongolian food? No." Thank God for my vitamins.
That evening I went to see some traditional theatre. The highlight was the bizarre, mesmerising throat singing. An essential part of ancient Mongolian shamanism, it sounds rather like a grasshopper playing a didgeridoo, and has to be heard to be believed.
The main draw of Mongolia is its countryside, and a few nights staying in a ger in Terelj National Park was on the cards. With images of me galloping across the wilds of Mongolia, I couldn't resist the opportunity to horse-ride. What I didn't count on was having the most disobedient horse in Asia, with a penchant for stopping in rivers just where the flow reached my knees. That evening, saddle-sore and giving up any dreams of being a cowgirl, I drowned my sorrows with fermented mare's milk.
Contrary to popular belief, it is not possible to hop on and off the TransMongolian/Siberian Railway using just one ticket. If you wish to stop, it is necessary to purchase individual tickets for each leg of the journey. Having decided that Irkutsk, Siberia, was my next call, I managed to procure a ticket using appalling Russian, and hopped on board the train. The carriages are divided into three classes: first class has two beds in each berth, second class has four beds, while if you opt for third class you are confronted with a forest of twitching feet, as beds are essentially placed where there are spaces. At the end of each carriage, regardless of class, there is an urn of boiling water so that tea and instant noodles can be consumed whenever the urge arises. Keeping a very territorial and watchful eye over events are fearsome carriage attendants known as provodnitsas. The train stops briefly at stations along the way, allowing you to purchase goods from swarms of babushkas, including, happily for my scurvy paranoia, lots of fruit.
Following a bureaucratic twelve hour wait at the Russia/Mongolia border, the train pulled into Irkutsk - the gateway to magnificent Lake Baikal. This behemoth is the world's oldest and deepest freshwater lake, holding twenty per cent of the world's freshwater supplies, and has a smattering of small islands. The largest of these, Olkhon, was a little beyond Irkutsk, and was where I headed to spend a few nights.
Olkhon's street lamps are ablaze twenty-four hours a day. Apparently they had been installed a mere two weeks, but no-one knew how to switch them off. Though the island is small, there are plenty of beaches, woods and mountains to explore. I whittled away many a day swimming in the pure, soothing waters with tiny catfish pawing my feet, before watching the sun, as if it had suddenly blushed at realising the hour, say a bashful goodnight.
When you think of Siberia, the first things that usually come to mind are barren wastes under metres of impenetrable snow and gulags and salt mines stuffed with pathetic exiles and convicts. However, passing from Irkutsk to Krasnoyarsk, my next stop, the train was greeted by shimmying Siberian pines, the occasional sparkling lake and waving children scampering around in the summer heat.
After dumping my luggage in a cheap hotel that smelled like scuffed old leather shoes, I went for a stroll around Krasnoyarsk - one of Stalin's favourite places to build prison camps. I was taken aback when a hand was placed on my shoulder and I was asked in English, "Excuse me, are you a tourist?" I turned around to find a man looking at me inquiringly.
Unsure if this was perhaps a member of the KGB about to accuse me of crimes against the state, I cautiously answered, "Yes." After a long conversation, it transpired that the man, Andre, spoke perfect English, and had a niece the same age as me called Olga, who lived in Moscow.
He insisted that he telephone her to see if I could stay with her in her flat there. She agreed, and said she would meet me at the station.
Clutching my phrase book and sincerely hoping I wasn't going to end up for sale as an internet Russian bride, I caught the train for my three-and-a-half-day journey to Moscow.
I was sharing my cabin with an older Russian couple who were so concerned about my travelling alone and my being the only foreigner on board that they decided to take me under their wing. With the help of my trusty phrase book and much gesticulation, Mishka, Vladimir (his name was not actually Vladimir, but his real, impossibly rhotic name was far too difficult for me to pronounce, so with a shrug he accepted "Vladimir" as his moniker) and I managed to have some decent "conversations"; yet my protests went unheeded in the mornings when, after rousing me with "Rootik! Rootsky!" (their terms of endearment for "Ruth"), they would drag me out of bed to force-feed me salad and pickled fish.
In Moscow, one of the most glamorous places in the world, I felt tinged with shame as I arrived in my tramp-like state to be welcomed by Olga, who thankfully did not sell me on eBay. Olga very kindly offered to show me around the capital, starting with the hub of the city: Red Square.
From the imposing walls of the Kremlin, to the stark mausoleum of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, to the psychedelic designs of St Basil's Cathedral (a mass of swirling colours commissioned by Ivan the Terrible - when the creation was finished, Ivan had the architect's eyes put out so that he could never create a building to surpass it) Red Square engulfs you with its history and infuses you with a sense of the place that Russia once was.
Traversin on the splendid Moscow Metro is a tourist attraction in itself. Each station is completely different, though most are ornate and grand, depicting Stalin's ideals for the Soviet state.
On canvas, the State Tretyakov and Pushkin museums house many of the greatest artistic designs ever created, and Olga and I spent hours perusing the impressive collections of original Rembrandts, Van Goghs and Monets.
Olga and her family very kindly invited me to stay in their home in the nearby town of Sergei Posad, named after the man who founded the monastic scene in Russia and who is now Russia's patron saint.
Olga's mother had made copious amounts of traditional borscht (beetroot soup) for us all, and because Olga's family are huge rock 'n' roll fans my week in and around Moscow was rounded off singing Beatles songs on the balalaika.
Waving goodbye to a new-found friend, St Petersburg - Peter the Great's "Window on the West" - was calling me. Knitted together by a snaking network of canals, this magnificent, flamboyant city bubbles with charisma and vibrancy. The Hermitage (the former Winter Palace), with its incredible art collection and regal interior, is undoubtedly the cultural high point of the northern capital, oozing luxury in a way that only royalty can.
Another vestige of the reign of the tsars is the Summer Palace situated in Pushkin, on the outskirts of St Petersburg. Home to Catherine the Great's Amber Room, the gleaming surfaces were called the largest piece of jewellery in the world. Looted by Nazi soldiers during World War Two, the palace has been restored to its former glory. It is now cushioned by a lush green park, and one could easily imagine Mr Darcy emerging sodden from any one of the elegant lakes.
For the final part of the train journey, I was sallying forth to Helsinki.
Exhausted, I fell asleep with my head resting on my hand. Waking up in Europe proper a few hours later with a Gorbachev-esque mark on my temple, I concluded that I was taking the "at one with the local culture" thing too far. The mark gradually faded. My memories of the TransMongolian Railway never will.
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