Trans-siberian flamingo

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Tuesday, July 31 2007

Empire of the Middle

China, next part. We are moving in fast luxurious trains, eating in luxurious shopping malls, we feel like in Europe (apart from the digestion). The wildest part of the trip is definitely behind us : Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong are the most occidentalized Chinese towns you can ever find.

We're getting slowly used to civilization again. Of course, as we are in China, shopping fenzy !

More flamingo pics for the fans :

Flamingo staring at Oriental Pearl in Shanghai :

Flamingo Oriental Pearl

This one from the crossing of the Russian-Mongolian border : flamingo very well surrounded...

Houlala

Sunday, July 29 2007

Great Fucking Wall

Out of these bad luck options, check out the best ones :

  • crossing the border 30 minutes too late, miss the last bus to Beijing and be forced to stay 23 hours in a crappy chinese border town,
  • arriving to Beijing and figure out that we brought half of the Gobi sand with us, so that the sky is yellowish and totally foggy even if there are no clouds at all (yeah, every winter, the sand reaches Beijing because of desertification in the west),

Sandy Fog Beijing

  • planning a great trip to the Great Wall : go to Jinsanling, camp overnight in a tower, then trewk to Simatai (10 km walk); instead of this, being blocked on the road by some traffic jam (yeah, Chinese drivers are the worst in the world, far worse than russian ones : when the cars in front of them are slowing down because of the jam, their reaction is to occupy the left hand side of the road, and consequently, after 2 minutes, everything is totally blocked for hours), so finally deciding to go to Simatai for starting point instead (then the trek would be ascending, not descending)
  • arriving too late to Simatai, trying to reach the wall, but being blocked by 20 chinese "security" claiming that is forbidden to sleep in the wall (only to redirect us to the hostels); finally, camp in a crappy corn field;
  • having your poor travelmate (ie Jesus) getting awfully sick during the night (yeah, I transmitted it to him) and totally out of energy the next morning, then finally walk 1km instead of the 10 planned...

FAAAAAAN !!!!!!

Just kidding, Beijing is great (flamingo says).

Flamingo with Mao

Flamingo Great Wall

Wednesday, July 18 2007

Rave party on the Baikal

Finally one small hour to geek again before taking the train to Ulanbataar.... yes, the visa expires in two days so we are not welcome anymore in this great country !

Sight to the lake

Some time to share a very special experience. After a lot of encounters, drinking, eating, singing, during the 50 hours of train from beloved Eka, we arrived in Irkutsk on saturday morning, not really knowing what to do until the Mongolian embassy opened on monday so we just decided to take a minibus to the Baikal. In that minibus, a bunch teens talked to us for five minutes and finally decided to invite us to their rave party.

Sasha, Olya, Sasha, Flamingo

So after lunch and first shower in the Baikal, we went to the place, which was actually an agglomerate of old wrenches floating on the Baikal. An usual squatt for alternative Siberian teenagers changed into a party place for one evening.

On se gele les couilles

Of course, the security conditions were totally amazing, far below what you would expect for any party organisation in Europe. The place is almost totally unsecured, with spikey metal parts all around. Combined with the toxicology levels of all this crowd (200 to 300, my estimation), finishing the night with a few broozes is a performance. You can be happy not to fall into the water or bleed more seriously.

The boat

Fortunately the security is here. A bunch of paramilitary guys that seem to take their job very seriously, with guns obviously placed on their lap.

Security... ca rigole pas

Two dancefloors : techno and drum and bass (I finally got my drum n bass party in Russia... yeaaaaah), until 6pm, then sleeping in a former gas vat full of rust (while Jesus was gossipping in our tent).

Dancers

Great ! This is a confirmation that russians that you met randomly are extremely friendly.

But how come Russian that are on the other side of the cash machine are so rude ?

PS : this is why there are no photos of Jesus on the blog :

Why Jesus is never on the blog

Sunday, July 1 2007

Leaving in few minutes

Yes!, and I'm here geeking together with Nicolas and Tanya posting some news before taking the train to go to Ekaterinburg (30 hours by train... :S We won't post anything in about 2 days for sure).

There are some more photos from Slava's birthday party yesterday. There were some nice russian chicks and a lot of alcohol, from wine, whisky... and of course Vodka!!! :D

Wanna some vodka?

We will talk more about that later... (Including "Na Pososhok", the last drink before the first step in a large journey). Today we wake up early (incredible!) to see the university of Moscow and the views from there. Of course Mario came with us (some photos in another post later).

So since we are in a hurry (the train leaves in around 1 hour and we still have to get there...) that's all at the moment. Don't forget to leave your comments and continue visitin us!!! :P

Bye bye!

Friday, June 29 2007

SPb

Jesus is too lazy to blog even if he has 50 pages of bullshit in an old-fashioned paper diary... fucking bastard !

What else was exciting about St Petersburg ? The best sight from the city is definitely at night, when the bridges open. We went for a night cruise on a trendy boat and the big city lights are simply magic.

St Pet Mafia

The weather was a bit shitty at some points. Hopefully, our welcoming comitee in St Petersburg (friends of Tanya from Hospitality Club) provided us some very useful rules :

  • drink vodka and beer. Otherwise your alcohol money will be blown in the wind.
    • if the weather is no good, take your friends and relax, drink (for example : vodka)
    • after good and tasty food you must sleep
    • if you feel like working, go to sleep. This feeling will disappear.
  • If you forgot any rules, call us !!

A big THANK YOU for St Petersburg mafia (Sash, Varvara, on the picture below) for the time you've spent with us. It was very precious.

St Pet Mafia