I’d met a Siberian couch surfer who told me that in a Buddhist monastery somewhere near Ulan Ude there was a monk who had been praying since 1927. That’s quite a long time I thought. Maybe I should go and see this man.
I took a train to Ulan Ude and arriving in my hostel on a brisk siberian morning, saw two sleepy faces that i recognised - it was the two finish girls who I’d met previously on Olkhon Island =D
We decided to go and see the sleepy holy man together.
After a couple of minibuses changes we finally made it to the middle of nowhere, and there stood a temple. Monks went about their monky business, and we roamed freely. We saw a picture of Putin visiting the temple 2years ago and some people wandering towards a holy rock with their arms stretched out and eyes closed. Funny what you see in temples.
Ivolga Monastery is not usually open to the public, but we are not the normal public, we are explorers god dammit and after a little Yorkshire charm and a looooong wait (which we believed to be a test but probably wasn’t), suddenly the Lama took us by surprise and lead us through into the temple.
As he performed a short ceremony we followed his lead implicitly. Had the Lama performed a Maurice Dance we certainly would have done the same. Moments later we were face to face with Ivolginsky Datsan. We were stood four abreast silently looking at a yellow waxy man in a glass box.
Yes, it was strange, surreal and amazing. I have my suspicions as to actually how ‘alive’ Ivol is, although he must be the local barber’s most reliable customer as his hair is still growing - despite having at one point being buried underground for 30years. Completely fine and normal.
The girls and I headed back to the city and ate some nuts on the bus while passing some wooden houses on fire and reflecting over what we had seen.
The next day we decided to go and explore the barguzin valley, 6hours north of UU on the east side of Lake Baikal. We took a minibus to Barguzin Ust then hitchhiked over the river and a further 40km east towards the mountains. We hopped out on the outskirts of Barguzin, a small Siberian town and proceeded to wander around aimlessly getting blown about in search of food and a bed to sleep in.
Generally, if there was smoke coming out of a chimney, it was worth a knock. We were directed by a local shop owner - who still used an abacus and eventually found a cafe and splashing out on a bowl of soup, some stale bread and a cup of Liptons. There we met chirpy local who knew a man that knew a Woman who maybe able to put us up for the night. Bonza. An hour later we all had beds so with a base sorted we trekked to a nearby village. Along the way I found a nice jacket dumped by the side of the road and we ran into an old sailor with the same jumper as me. He invited us into his home and we soon met the family. His wife seemed very pleased to meet the girls, at one point checking Elinor’s scalp for lice, as you do in Siberia. As the girls 'chatted’ (non of us speak Russia of course), Alexay’s brother proceeded to show me his family photo collection then invited me outside for some man talk. From what I could gather, this involved trying to figure out if the girls were my wives and do I like drinking vodka. He gave me two smoked fish, again-as you do in Siberia, some advice on which route to take back and after many thankyou’s we went on our way.
We wondered off into the taiga forest, traipsed through some icy swamps, made a fire, ate the fish, drank some beer, managed to avoid the wolves and made it back to our Siberian home stay in time for diner and a game of UNO.
