Eat My Globe Part 3

I.

My first experience of visiting a market in China was something I shall forget in a hurry. The sights, sounds and smej were a full-scale a.s.sault on every sense, and levels of cleanline seemed to be variable, to say the least. Alongside baskets of i ognizable fruits and vegetables were an equal number of iter had never seen before. There were live carp flopping around d buckets of water to clean the river mud from their gills befoii being chopped up to order, their heads tossed on the floor gasp their few last breaths. There were butchers' blocks caked blood, where every bit of the animal imaginable was on sho the putrid smell of the meat mixed with the humidity brought] wave of nausea over me. And, of course, there were dogs. The were live dogs cowering in cages and dead dogs hanging froB hooks, where their raw flesh was coated in a crispy skin, where blowtorches had been used to remove the fur. It may bej challenge to everything we know to see markets like this, wit their opportunities for disease and different moral perspective but this a way of life for much of the world's population and superimpose Western values on it achieves nothing.

As I had seen the dogs in the market, I thought I should at leas try them in the flesh, so I fought my way to a nearby restaurar where I ordered a small bowl of braised dog with a less challengJ ing side-dish of steamed chicken dumplings. The dog was like a^ gamey version of pork, but when I was told later that the dogs are beaten before being killed because people believe that adrenalin ^ in the meat makes it taste better, I decided that it would be my one and only dog-eating experience.

Pat Dimmond, an expat Australian, gave me that happy information, but fortunately for me, the food at the Yangshuo Cookery School, which she owned, was going to be a lot less daunting. She arranged for me to be collected at my hotel and taken the few miles from the polluted, bustling city to the serene surroundings of the cookery school, where the cla.s.sroom opened up to the stunning background vista of karst mountains and rice fields.

Over the next few of days my fellow cla.s.smates and I were shown how to cook over a dozen dishes, most of them specific to the region, although there were others that I was to find again as I travelled throughout the country. Carp cooked in beer was a local favourite, as was kung pao chicken, a dish from the Sichuan region but popular here because of the abundance of peanuts. The best dishes of all were also the easiest to prepare. Vegetables stuffed with spiced, minced pork and then steamed were simple and delicious and, best of all a dish Amy called 'egg rope dumplings', which involved making mini-omelettes in a wok and stuffing them with minced chicken before folding them over until they resembled Chinese dumplings. It was a well-organized school and, after cooking, we enjoyed the fruits of our efforts in a small courtyard surrounded by beautiful countryside.

The afternoons were free, and Pat organized a cycle tour for me with Christina, a local farmer, around the rice paddy and peanut fields. Bikes and I are never the closest of friends, particularly when I discovered that the seat seemed to have been specifically sharpened to cause maximum torture to my ample b.u.t.tocks. After two hours my eyes were watering and my backside was screaming in agony. Christina, noticing my pain and knowing about my interest in food, asked me if I wanted to come and help her prepare a meal for her family. I was off the bike before you could say 'maillot jaune'.

It was a simple meal, but every last bite of food on the table had come from Christina's small farm. She pickled her own garlic and used this to flavour the oil before adding strips of home-cured bacon and green beans. She dug up taro, sliced it into fries, soaked it and then deep-fried it in peanut oil as she steamed some fresh vegetables. We were joined by her elderly grandmother, her husband and her baby daughter as we ate our meal. Much as I had enjoyed the cookery school, it was moments like this I had been searching for. After another two hours on the bike, Christina led me back to the hotel. She let out an unsympathetic chuckle as I gave her the bike back and wandered into the distance waddh: Hke John Wayne.

A food writer's got to do what a food writer's got to do, so th evening I headed out in search of one last unlikely ingredie: one that I knew would challenge my stomach more even th: dog. I headed to the night market, where stalls selling food locals and tourists alike were already busy, with over-sized wo spitting over blazing coals. I chose one and began to point to variety of ingredients for the cook to stir for me in his aire; smoking pan. He didn't bat an eyelid when I pointed to t selections of vegetables or the cured bacon. He raised an eyebro' when I pointed to a meaty pig p.e.n.i.s but duly chopped it up. was when I pointed to the last ingredient that he stopped an said, 'You know what is?'

I did. It was a cane rat, killed and dried, laid out head and ; teeth in a rictus grin. I nodded and he shrugged, picked up I rat and chopped it up, head and all. He watched carefully as served my finished dish. All I can say is that it didn't taste H! chicken; it tasted exactly like I imagined a dried cane rat woul( taste.

Let us never speak of it again.

Gorging on the Three Gorges.

If you are of a nervous disposition, skip this section. What follows will not only make you sick but will haunt you for the rest of your days, as it is haunting me.

I had by this time met up with my next group and, after spending two days in Yangshuo in order for them to acclimatize, we began a month-long journey that was going to begin with an eighteen-hour train ride north from Liuzhou to Yichang and from there on a three-day boat trip up the Yangtzi River.

If anyone ever tells you that travelling by train in China is romantic, I want you to kill them for me and I want you to do it slowly. It is not in the slightest bit romantic and, when it is combined with the travelling Chinese, it is one of the worst experiences imaginable. The first indication of the horrors came as we were about to board the train. I suspected that the toilets on board might be a little unsophisticated, so I headed to the public bathrooms of the station. This, unsurprisingly, is the point at which the squeamish among you should look away, particularly if you are on public transport and do not want to throw up over your fellow pa.s.sengers.

I expected squat toilets. I even expected a smell like h.e.l.l's a.n.u.s. What I did not expect was half a dozen holes in the ground straddled by Chinese men grimacing and groaning as they worked hard to extrude their daily bread in open view. It got worse, a lot Worse. Some of the men thought that this was the perfect opportunity to have supper at the same time and were eating bowls full of noodles. I asked one of my new companions to go and check to see if I had really seen what I though I had seen. He retur a few minutes later looking decidedly green.

'I didn't know which end the slurping was coming from', ] reported.

On the train things were little better. When we boarded, state of the carriage in our chosen cla.s.s of 'Hard Sleeper' made our guide, Jackie, blanch.

'This the worst I have ever seen.'

The only challenge to the stifling heat was a spluttering cc ing fan, which did little but move the dirt around. We oper the window as we got moving, only to be covered by a thin fil of black goo from the engine and the heavy pollution outsid I climbed up to my middle berth and tried to get to my 'hap place', which for those of you who don't know me is a c.o.c.kt bar in a good hotel, where I can at least get a free bowl of nut I managed to doze off", helped by the clickety-clack of i wheels on the track, but was woken up by the sound of t^ stranger on the bottom berth, voiding his rheum directly on my sandals. I had already realized that the sound of Chinese i spitting was going to be the soundtrack to my time there had not yet discovered how little they cared where they spat i on what. In the next weeks I saw them spit in bars, in expensi^ restaurants, on the streets, in buses and here on trains. I sc learned not to wear open-toed sandals.

By the time we got off"the train at Yichang, our moods were^ fdthy as our clothes and little improved by the b.u.mpy bus jou^ ney to join the vessel that would be carrying us up the Yangst River. It was described on the trip notes we had been given 'a basic Chinese-style tourist boat', and Jackie explained th ours was a 'medium-quality' boat allocated to us by the Chine government. My first impression was that I would be spendir the next three days on a floating sewer. The room I shared with my companion, Chris, had sticky carpets, dirty sheets and slime caking the walls of the wet room. The so called 'sun deck' had already been commandeered by the Chinese men, who were was.h.i.+ng their baggy underwear in water from the river before hanging it up to form a fluttering, ceremonial bunting of saggy smalls-Jackie suggested we clean up and meet in the small restaurant for supper before it closed. The water from the caked showerhead trickled out an uninviting brown colour, and I came out feeling dirtier than I had gone in. At least I was able to change clothes before I headed ofl"to eat. Remarkably, the food sent out from the tiny kitchen into the dining-room was delicious. We were now in Sichuan province, and it showed in the food we ordered, which carried the peppercorns and chillies used in every dish, primarily to keep people cool in the humid climate. The peppercorns, actually the dried berries of a local ash tree, have an anaesthetic quality, which starts by numbing the tip of the tongue and works its way back through the mouth, while the chillies, dried on the roadside in the heat of the sun, bring a soft heat and an unmistakable red tinge to many dishes. The menu was limited, but simple dishes of cabbage cooked in beef broth, Chinese sausage with courgettes, tomatoes tossed with eggs and pork with plenty of those chillies at least restored us to some semblance of humour.

The journey did give us an opportunity to see the Chinese in their relatively new role as tourists. Most excursions are as a group rather than solo. All partic.i.p.ants are given matching caps and are then barked at through a megaphone by their guide, even if they are only inches away. They stand when told to stand, take pictures when told to take pictures and sit down when told to sit down. There was little sign of anyone showing individual thought or initiative.

In the evening the men would gather on the sun deck to watch their underwear flutter in the polluted breeze, drink vicious-smelling brandy and smoke powerful cigarettes. To keep cool they would roll their s.h.i.+rts up, tucking them under their ample man b.o.o.bs to expose bellies which they would then sit rubbing as they continued to spit with some professionalism. I didn't go out on the sun deck much.

We made one small stop on the way, at the small to Fengjie. There was nothing much to recommend the town for a small market and a local restaurant, which again se terrific food. The market was filled with all the ingredients characteristic of Sichuan cuisine: Chinese broccoli, pota endless varieties of tofu, dried meats and sausages, fresh chi and eggs and, on the floor everywhere, the peppercorns red chillies laid out to dry. The restaurant made full use of: of these, and our table was soon filled with plates of pork water chestnuts, tofu and shredded taro in a slick of deep oil, sausage and candied aubergines, with more peppercorns chillies. It was more than some of the group could manage, was in my element, delighted to be presented with delicious smells from the kitchen and deeply savoury food.

I would have been happy to be anywhere but the float diesel dustbin after three tortuous days floating along the luted Yangtzi. When we finally arrived at our destination. Red felt light as I hurtled up the hundred stairs to our waiti bus without a backward glance.

We broke our journey to Chengdu with an overnight stay Chongquing - officially, we were told, the fastest-growing ci in the world, with a population of well over 30 million, most whom had arrived in the last ten years. Not that I saw much it, in part because we were only there for one night and in pa because it is easily the most polluted place I have ever visitec While the hotel check-in procedure was being dealt with, took a walk outside to snap a picture of the skyline. The fug o smog hit me in the face within seconds and led to a prolonge coughing fit and eyes that were still watering the next mornin when we boarded the train for the short six-hour journey t<>

Chengdu is the capital of Sichuan, and Jackie promised it h; 'the best food in the province'. It was obviously worth testin and, as soon as we found our hotel in the Tibetan Quarter o the city, we followed Jackie to 'Snack Street'. All over China, Snack Streets have been created by local authorities in part concerned about levels of hygiene and standards at the old hawkers' niarkets, but even more concerned that they were in the way of potentially profitable building development. They are astonis.h.i.+ng places, the shouts of the cooks and the smells wafting in the air along with the sounds of sizzling pans making your mouth fill with watery antic.i.p.ation. I tried to sample as many vendors' wares as possible: small cakes of rice stuffed with fiery barbecued pork, piping hot broths filled with noodles and chicken then laced with more chillies, and minced beef stuffed into bamboo canes that cracked open to let the aromas of the contents escape into expectant nostrils. Sticky rice b.a.l.l.s came filled with melting sweet tofu, and deep-fried pancakes with kiwi fruit were like the best turnover you can possibly imagine.

Supper too was a triumph: that most cla.s.sic of Sichuan dishes, the hotpot. When we arrived at our chosen restaurant, it was already packed with family and friends enjoying one of the ultimate communal meals. At the centre of each table was a small burner, and on it was a large dish with two bowls. In the inner bowl stock bubbled away while the outer bowl shone fiercely with oil flavoured with fresh and dried peppercorns and, of course, chillies. From a long list we chose over thirty dishes, which were brought to the table for us to cook in either pot depending on how brave we were feeling. Sweet shrimp, tripe, quails, eggs, beef tendon and lung, slices of bamboo root and many more were dipped into the hot oil and devoured until we all slumped back, full to the brim and with sweat pouring from our foreheads.

We were leaving Chengdu the next day, and Jackie wanted us to experience a unique lunch before we left. Manjushuri is one of the most revered monasteries in China and well known for the food it serves at the restaurant in the quiet grounds of the temple. It is a set feast, and we sat around a large table with a lazy Susan in the centre as servers appeared and placed dish after dish after dish in front of us: plates of thinly sliced pink sausage; kung pao chicken; sweet and sour pork, crispy and dehcious; fislj fritters in a lemon sauce, topped off with chives and chilli; crab soup thickened with sweet corn; green beans with quails' eggs. The meal went on and on until I counted well over thirty dishes before us. At the end we could barely get up to walk away from the table.

Manjushuri has a secret, however. Not a single animal was harmed in the making of our meal. Every dish was purely vegetarian, created from fruits, vegetables and tofu skilfully combined to create dishes that anyone would have sworn contained meat. If veggie food tasted this good back home, not a single creature with eyes and a face would ever need to die for my benefit again.

Chengdu was a city I promised myself I would visit again, and it is tragic to think that so much of what I saw has since been destroyed by the huge earthquake of May 2008 and its aftermath. That, however, was all in the future as we began our journey to our next destination, Xi-an.

As we sat on board the bus that collected us at Xi-an railway station after our journey from Chengdu, our guide shared a very interesting fact with us. There are, apparently, 40 million bachelors in China. 'It is because of economic and demographic factors', he announced, as though reading from an approved text. As I thought back to my previous encounters with Chinese men, the spitting and hacking of young and old, the T-s.h.i.+rts rolled up and placed beguilingly under flabby man t.i.ts and the rubbing of the sweaty bellies, I couldn't help thinking that there might well be plenty of other reasons Chinese women don't want to go near Chinese men.

There are, however only two main reasons why tourists come to Xi-an. One is to visit one of the great archaeological discoveries of all time, the Terracotta Warriors, and the second, more important from the point of view of my trip, is that Xi-an has some of the most delicious food in all of China.

The capital of Shaanxi province, Xi-an takes its name from the.

Chinese words for 'western peace', a throwback to when the city was the beginning of the Spice Route bringing trade between Europe and the Orient. It is still one of the most important commercial centres in the country, but as you walk around the city, its history is apparent everywhere - in the large and imposing Drum and Bell Towers, in its sensitively restored city walls and, most of all, in the faces of its people, who are mainly drawn from the Han majority and the Muslim Hui minority, both of whom bring their cultures and their food to the city.

Xi-an also has the largest Muslim population in China, another fact that has a significant impact on its food, and it was to the Muslim quarter I headed as soon as we were left to our own devices. Naturally, no pork was served, which after Yangshuo and Chengdu, where every possible part of the pig is available, came as a bit of a shock. In this quarter of Xi-an it was mutton that formed the basis for nearly every meal, the most famous dish being the nouris.h.i.+ng yang rou pao mo, a soup consisting of braised mutton in a broth thickened with the local wheat bread. This is brought to the table with side-dishes of chilli, pickled garlic and coriander to flavour according to taste. It was warm and savoury, and after twenty-four hours of travel I was ravenous and devoured two bowls.

After a stroll around the city walls and a couple of hours doing inevitable ch.o.r.es such as laundry, I met up with the rest of my travelling companions to head to another famous Xi-an inst.i.tution, a restaurant called De Fa, which was acclaimed for its dumplings, and more precisely for its dumpling banquet. The locals have a saying, 'If you have not had a dumpling banquet in Xi-an, you have not been to Xi-an at all.' It was certainly an experience. We were seated around a round table to be presented with bamboo baskets containing examples of dumplings from all over China. Fish, chicken, beef pork, seafood, vegetables were all represented in boiled, roasted, steamed, pan-fried or deep-fried form. The presentation of each was different, as the dumplings were dyed in bright colours as well as being served in a variety of shapes. The stuff just kept coming until, by the end even I had to turn down the offer of one last walnut and roasted duck steamed dumpling for fear of projectile vomiting.

I had received an e-mail from a friend, when I told him I was in Xi-an: Tunny, you go all the way there and the Terracotta Warriors are all over here in London.' I didn't have the heart to tell him that, while there may well have been an impressive display of a few examples on tour in the West, at the Museum of Qin they were not going to miss a few Terracotta Warriors because there were thousands, in fact nearly seven thousand excavated so far, in three pits, with thousands more still believed to be underground. The army was created by Emperor Qin s.h.i.+ Huang to protect him in the afterlife, with each warrior based on an actual person shown in his allotted rank as they were on the day they were first erected - row upon row of them, along with their armour and chariots.

It was one of those all too rare occurrences where the expectation is matched by the reality, and we went our separate ways for two hours to take in the sights of the four main galleries of excavations. The first warriors were discovered in 1974 by four farmers, who have since become superstars in the local community and play the part to the hilt as they sit in to the museum area every day, ready to sign copies of souvenir brochures and posters - for a fee, of course.

Two days was all too short a stay in Xi-an, but as we clambered on board the train for our last journey together, I was filled with genuine excitement about finally reaching one of the world's great cities. My excitement was only slightly tempered eighteen hours later, when we arrived and were faced with an a.s.sault of the Chinese in full flow as thousands of people fought to exit the station through the one door that was open. The notion of waiting seems entirely alien to the people of Beijing and; as I had countless times before on the trip, I found myself being pushed to one side by the aggressive locals.

The Beijing city authorities had tried to put in a queuing.

stem at the station to bring some semblance of order to the chaos, but the locals simply ignored it. As we stood patiently waiting for cabs, people screamed and jumped in front, shoving angrily to one side. None of our group would be particularly proud to admit it, but we became quite aggressive in return, giving as good as we got until we forced our way into a couple of cabs to our hostel.

Having calmed down and showered, I went for a walk in the area around Beijing's other main railway station. The temperature was in the high nineties, and the humidity meant that I was drenched within minutes of stepping outside. Looking for some respite from the sun, I ducked down a small alleyway and found myself in one of Beijing's famous hutongs - small warrens of lanes built around a local water supply (the name apparently comes from the Mongolian word for 'well'). After years under threat from development, many are now protected and the communities within them preserved. They are alive with energy, the streets filled with shops and food carts, steam rising into the air from the dumplings and noodles stored within. I was starving, so for a few pennies I bought a large, round, steamed dumpling stuffed with minced chicken. Enough to keep me full until supper.

The dish most a.s.sociated with Beijing is, of course, roast duck. Everywhere you look in the capital you see it hanging in the windows of restaurants waiting to be served to tourists and locals alike. It's a dish I had eaten many times in the UK with my family and had been the cause of many an argument as the waiter served the skin and the flesh only to take the bones, my favourite bit, away so they could use them to make soup for the staff.

Duck restaurants in Beijing come in many different styles, from the small family places to restaurants in the grand hotels. Each has its own recipe and its own way of serving. Some serve the skin and flesh separately; others layer one on top of the other. Some make a meal out of the whole duck, offering hot dishes of soup and blood before the main event. All present the ducks to the table first, glistening and golden, before carving and platj alongside baskets of steaming pancakes, dishes of hoisin and shredded crisp vegetables to add texture as well as flav Our first choice was one of the family-style places, where demolished two ducks and plenty of side-dishes. The crii skin, the melting fat and the moist flesh worked in harmo with the slightly sweet sauce as I rolled more than my fair s.h.i.+ of pancakes.

'You need for energy,' Jackie said, rolling herself anot dumpling, 'for walking the Wall.'

I had not actually been that bothered about walking on Great Wall of China, put off" by images I had seen of sectii restored to former glories, filled with throngs of tourists foil ing obediently behind their flag-waving guides. I had planned give it a miss and head to Beijing's Snack Street instead.

'No, we not do like that', Jackie argued, explaining that thi were still sections of the the wall in total disrepair after yea: being plundered for their stones by local farmers and that, if were prepared to suff"er a four-hour ride in a cramped mini-1 to the faraway sections of Jinshanling and Simitai, she woii promise us a very diff"erent experience.

She was right. What followed was an unforgettable five-ho hike along the wall, where we often had to climb up crura bling parapets on our hands and knees, along ledges and dow steep slopes and along parts that had not been repaired, I woul imagine, since they were first built. There was barely a soul i: sight, and for well over an hour I found myself walking alone My thoughts turned to my mother and my eyes began to water. I knew it had been one of her dreams to see the Great Wall and, as I stared out in the silence, I off"ered up a small prayer that she could share this part of my journey.

The following day was my last with this group, and we had one more sightseeing trip planned: to Tiananmen Square and then to the Forbidden City. Both are places whose names resonate through history, for very diff"erent reasons, and both are that depressed me, again for entirely different reasons. I P'^''^j j,iurry images when I was a child of missiles being paraded '^^'front of the Chinese leaders.h.i.+p in Tiananmen Square, mainly for the benefit of those in the West. In later years, of course, burgeoning democracy movement found its spiritual home in the same square and, when it was put down with ruthless efficiency by the authorities, the images were screened around the world and printed indelibly on the minds of all who saw the ma.s.sacre that took place.

Unsurprisingly, the Chinese government brooks no discussion of such matters, and our official guide denied all knowledge of such events. No mention is allowed in the media, and the internet is scoured for any unauthorized release of images. China may be opening up, but at times like this you sense that it is still very much a closed country. As a visitor, you are allowed to see what they want you to see and allowed to hear what they want you to hear.

The square is impressive. Built on the gardens of the original city of Beijing, which was destroyed by Mao Zedong, it has a capacity to hold over a million people and is still the centre for many celebrations and concerts. Topping and tailing the square are reminders of China's hardline past and its most significant leader, with a mausoleum containing the mummified body of Mao at one end and the instantly recognizable portrait at the other end.

To the majority of Chinese Mao is more than just a dead political leader, but his influence is definitely on the wane. The older generation revere him, almost to the point of divinity; to the younger generation, with their exposure to Western culture, he and his school of thought are increasingly anachronistic, a piece of history that had a great impact on where they are now but is of little relevance in their daily life.

My thoughts inevitably turned to the anonymous man with the shopping bag who became a symbol of the failed push for democracy as he stood in silent challenge in front of row after row of tanks. No one is quite sure what happened to him, but it is fairly certain that the Chinese leaders did not give him one oH the luxury apartments they kept aside for their cronies.

Our guide led us from the square into the Forbidden City ^ was impossibly crowded with tour groups, primarily Chinese^ who followed dutifully after their flag-waving guides who we barking at them through plastic megaphones as they moved in irresistible waves through the grounds. Half an hour of wandering around saw me right royally p.i.s.sed off at being shoved fromJ pillar to post. I decided to take my leave and head off to tlndf something forbidden of my own, in the form of the more unusual snacks offered on the streets of Beijing.

Beijing's Snack Street is certainly not for the squeamish. It specializes in things on skewers - it is just that those things on skewers just happened to be seahorses, silkworms, slugs, live lizards and scorpions, impaled and all wriggling around until they are selected, dipped in oil to meet their death on a sizzling hot griddle. I tried a selection. I do it so you don't have to. The silkworms were chewy, and the seahorses were chewier still. I could not bring myself to eat a lizard but watched in horror as it shrivelled in its death throes to order for eager customers.

Across the road I saw a sign saying 'Gourmet Street', pointing down under one of Beijing's huge modern shopping malls. Following the arrows, I found myself in an enormous food court, stretching hundreds of yards into the distance, filled with stalls selling food from every part of China: spicy Sichuan hotpots, Cantonese roast goose. Silk Road noodles and mutton soups, fiery Hunanese fish, stir fries, dumplings and braised pork knuckles. Payment was made by a pre-paid swipe card, and the quality was exceptional. The stallholders filled the air with amiable banter persuading you to come to their stalls rather than their neighbour's.

'Eat this. Good. His stuff smell bad, very bad, make you sick.'

It was enormous fun, and large plates of food with the inevitable 'bin pijou' cold beer, costs little over a. time.

china: liuzhou to beijing.

One day later I was ready to say my goodbyes to my com- ns but I still had one more treat in store, thanks to Jackie, ur guide, who offered to show me what she considered the best street snack in Beijing. She led me to a small stand where a man was busy cooking on a hot plate. 'Juanping', she told me.

It was a thick crepe brushed with hoisin sauce, lined with a crispy dough stick then sprinkled with chilli, dried chicken and spring onions before an egg was broken into it and the whole thing was folded over for easy eating. We stood outside the market eating our snacks. Jackie smiled. 'Something to remember China by.'

I thought of eating dog and rat in Yangshuo, of the train journeys and the boat trip up the Yangtzi. I thought of the spitting and the men who ate noodles while using the bathroom. I thought of the melee at the train station and the horrors of the pollution. Then I thought about the cookery school, the simple meal I had helped Christina prepare for her family, the Sichuan hotpot, the Snack Street of Chengdu, the yang rou pao mo and the dumpling banquet in Xi-an and, of course, the roast Beijing duck here in my last port of call.

'Don't you worry, Jackie,' I said, 'I have plenty to remember China by.'

Into and Outta Mongolia.

I used the thirty-six-hour train journey from Beijing to Bator to make the acquaintance of yet another set of companic this time joining me as I travelled on the Trans-Siberian Railv to Moscow. We got to know each other over many bottles of c beer provided by hawkers at the regular stops and by becor embroiled in a series of hard-fought card games.

It was a small group, a mixture of singles and couples, the youngest being only twenty-four and the oldest well iE their seventies - not a bad feat considering that this had all hallmarks of an arduous journey. By the time we reached Ul Bator we were all acquainted and slightly dishevelled after a dai journey through the Gobi Desert, which fdled the whole tra with dust for over five hours.

The recent history of Mongolia is one of subjugation at tyranny. Since the time of Genghis Khan and the decline of t Mongol empire, this small country has been under the contr of other nations: first the Chinese and more recently the Sovie Union. For nearly seventy years Ulan Bator was a Soviet out-1 post, with all that that entails: the economy was governed byl strict Soviet socialism, religious observance was outlawed and all places of wors.h.i.+p, including centuries-old monasteries, were destroyed or turned into munic.i.p.al buildings.

In the early 1990s, when the Soviet Union shattered into nation-states, Mongolia was cut loose and left to fend for itself. With no apparent source of income and no ready-made export market to the USSR, it quickly descended into poverty and ould have also descended into chaos but for one factor: the credible resilience of the Mongolian people. Brave, pa.s.sionate proud of their country, intensely close to their families and unendingly hospitable, there were few people I encountered on my travels quite like them.

Although the majority of the 3 million-strong population of Mongolia live a cla.s.sic nomadic lifestyle, Ulan Bator, whose population just topped the i million mark, sums up the state of the nation perfectly. With no funds to support infrastructure, the city's pavements are crumbling and road surfaces almost non-existent. Medical services are negligible, and there is horrendous poverty apparent everywhere. It is one of the most ugly cities imaginable and I understand why guidebooks describe it as a carbuncle on the face of the earth. The majority of the architecture is a legacy of its Communist days, and there are high levels of pollution. In a remarkable contradiction to this tale of gloom, Mongolia also has a very stable education system, levels of literacy are high and many people speak excellent English. The country has some of the most advanced communications networks in Asia and, because of foreign investment in the mining of Mongolia's rich deposits of minerals, it now has large expat communities from all over the world, which, inevitably means equally large numbers of restaurants, cafes and bars to serve them.

By far the largest group are the Germans, and whither go Germans there goes beer, which means that UB is also filled with pubs and bars primarily selling the local beer, Chingis. The bar at the Chingis Brewery was a fully decked-out German Bierkeller, with all the Mongolian waitresses looking uncomfortable in dirndls, the traditional Alpine costume seen in Munich's beer halls.

Food in UB is hardly of the delicate kind and has a lot in common with that of its former Soviet overlords: lots of smoked fish served with heavy, stuffed pancakes called kushur. It is also the only place outside France and j.a.pan where I have been offered horse to eat. For our first meal I ordered a horse rib. What cami reminded me of the opening credits to The FHritstones, when Fred orders a Brontoburger at the drive-in so big it tips his car' over to one side. This was about the same size, and I tucked int it with about the same gusto. It was very high in flavour, qu: gamey and stringy but perfectly acceptable, and after many houri on a train eating Pringles I gnawed it down to the bone.

We were only staying one night in UB before setting out into the Mongolian wilderness to spend the next couple of days at ger czmp, in the traditional tents of the Mongolian nomads. The pa.s.sion of our guide. Nemo, for Mongolia was tangible and, as we drove, he took time to show us things that we would otherwise have missed: small pyres of stones, topped with flags around which you walk three times to invoke a blessing and wish for a safe return; men at the roadside with their arms extended to carr^ hooded eagles used for hunting; and, best of all, an encampmi of Mongolian nomads with whom he was acquainted. He pulL our van into their camp and led us to one of their tents with promise that we were going to sample some of the traditioi nomadic food.

One of the great fallacies accepted over the years is th Mongolians drink yak's milk. They certainly keep yaks, thou sands of them in great herds over the plains of the wilderness, but] for their wool only. Yaks produce very little milk, though, an airag, the fermented drink so a.s.sociated with the country, in fact comes from mare's milk. Nemo showed us how it was produced. The milk is poured into a bag made from a cow's stomach, which holds nearly 80 litres. About 10 per cent is kept back each time as a master culture, and it is refilled each day with fresh milk. The bag is stirred vigorously with a paddle every time someone pa.s.ses, to incorporate the new milk with the old. If children misbehave, they are punished by having to paddle the milk foi an hour, and any visitor entering the tent is also expected to give the bag a good stir as a thank-you for the hospitality. It reaches a strength of around 5 per cent and remarkably, Nemo told us.

Mongolians can drink as much as 5 litres a day. It is little wonder that they also have one of the highest rates of liver cirrhosis in the world.

He pa.s.sed round a bowl so we each got to try some. It was a noxiously dreadful drink, tasting as you would imagine a musty bowl of white horse p.i.s.s should taste. Other products we were offered, all made from horse milk, were equally unpleasant: a tough, sour curd biscuit; a 'vodka' distilled from horse-milk yoghurt; and a couple of hard cheeses. One item, however, seemed to meet with universal approval: orum, a cream with a thick skin like clotted cream and made in a very similar way, by heating the milk in a pot over simmering water.

We headed off for the camp and pulled up to the small lines of tents murmuring sounds of approval. It was a small s.p.a.ce, with about twenty circular ger tents, often used by Mongolians from UB when they want to get away from the chaos of the city and return to a more idyllic existence. Idyllic it certainly is, and after dumping my kit I wandered off on my own for a short while into the hills behind the camp.

After the chaos of Beijing and the grime of UB, the clean air and the tranquillity came as a welcome relief, and when I returned to the camp, I could see it had the same effect on the others in the party. The next twenty-four hours pa.s.sed very gently. Some people went riding. (Not me - I eat horses, I don't ride them.) Some tried their hand at archery, and others went for long hikes. It was good to be out and about in the clean air and to have the opportunity to see the Mongolians doing things that have been part of their culture for centuries.

They say Mongolians are born in the saddle and die in the saddle, and it's true, they are incredibly at ease on horseback. The next morning I awoke at about six o'clock and dipped out of my tent to enjoy the chill morning air. As I sat contemplating, I heard thundering hoof beats. Climbing a hill, I looked out and saw two men on horseback out herding their cattle. Hurtling along at full gallop, they were both standing up in the stirrups hands on their hips as though the horse was simply an extension of their bodies. A magical sight.

When it came time to leave the camp, we all felt a little deflated. It was such a beautiful place to be, and the quiet and calm were so welcome that we wanted one more night. However, we were heading back for one more night in UB before the beginning of the next stage of the journey: the beginning of the Trans-Mongolian/Trans-Siberian Express, which, after all, is what the trip was all about.

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The Trans-Siberian Express: Riding the Rails from UB to St P.

It's a big place, Outer Mongolia. So big that the next stage of the journey would see us travel for over forty hours and across two borders before we even hit our first stopping point in Russia, Irkutsk.

We stopped at Ulan Bator's state-owned department store to buy snacks for the journey, having been warned that there was precious little food on board the train. Even though there was a dining car, we would be dependent on what we brought and what we could buy from the housewives who lined the platforms selling pastries at each stop.

We boarded the train, stowed the bigger luggage under the seats and soon settled into the rhythm of a long journey, with games of cards or Scrabble, reading from the floating library of books or simply sitting with a bottle of beer or gla.s.s of vodka and watching the world go by outside. Those who had seen my misery on that first train journey in China would laugh to hear me say that by now I was beginning to enjoy these extended train rides. I had figured out a routine to keep reasonably clean, and the enforced periods of inactivity with nothing to do but listen to the rhythmic rattle of the train over the tracks was strangely pleasing.

Not so pleasing was the interminable wait at both the Mongolian and Russian borders. Five hours at the former challenged both patience and bladder as our carriage attendants decided it was a good idea to lock the toilets. The delay at the Russian border was more tolerable, and after we cleared customs and our pa.s.sports were taken away for visas to be checked, were at least able to get down from the train and walk into nearest settlement to top up on supplies.

Our first aim, obviously, was to buy Russian Baltika bee available in grades from 3 to 10 with the lowest being the ligt refres.h.i.+ng beer that Russian men like to drink during the dayl and the highest being a dark, rich, black beer akin to stout. But we also needed food and handed over roubles for some weird and wonderful snacks including tubs of dehydrated mashed potato ; with croutons, an odd mixture that became strangely more paPI atable as the trip progressed as we reconst.i.tuted them with hot^ water from the samovar in each carriage.

Cleared to go, we settled once more into our routine for the next twenty-four hours until we reached our first stop in Russia,; Irkutsk, the capital of Eastern Siberia, where we immediately boarded a bus to take us the short journey to Listvyanka, on the edge of Lake Baikal.

We were split into smaller groups and billeted to spend the night as the guests of local Russian widows who rented out rooms in their apartments to raise extra income. I paired off with another single traveller and, joined by Andrew, our guide, we found ourselves in the home of our hostess, Ludmilla, who for reasons I never quite figured out spoke to us only in German. Whatever the language difficulties, she was incredibly welcoming and soon had us sitting in her kitchen enjoying cups of strong black Russian tea, plates of fresh vegetables and bowls of pel-meni - small dumplings in broth. Despite the slightly forbidding appearance of the apartment blocks, remnants of Soviet times, the homes themselves were comfortable and warm, and much restored, we left our luggage and walked down to the edges of the lake to meet the others.

Lake Baikal is the largest freshwater lake in the world and contains over 20 per cent of the earth's total, so pure that it is pumped from the lake straight to the surrounding homes. It also provides a ready supply offish, in this case sig and omul, to the local restaurants, and just about every meal had fish in some form _ be it smoked, in pates or freshly grilled. At the local market every stall was attended by plump, stern-looking women selling fish, which they were smoking themselves. Hanging from hooks above them, the fish swayed gently giving off a wonderful smoky scent in the breeze. I just had to try some. They were still warm and bubbled with the oils released during smoking. The flesh fell from the bones and was deliciously sweet as it dissolved on the tongue. It spoiled me for other smoked fish.

Tradition dictates that visitors to Lake Baikal must indulge in one of Russia's favourite pastimes, the banya or sauna, which in this case meant sitting in a hut at the edge of the lake, slowly being boiled alive by steam coming from a wood-fired burner, drinking vodka and then throwing yourself in the ice-cold lake. There are no written statistics of fatalities, but I suspect the bed of the lake is littered with the bodies of middle-aged men clinging to vodka bottles. The combination of heat, cold, vodka, heat, cold, vodka was an interesting one and made sure that, when we all congregated the next morning, there was little noise except a few gentle moans as we boarded the bus back to Irkutsk.

Irkutsk is a growing city of nearly one million people and clings fiercely to its place in Russian history as the home of exiled revolutionaries from the Decemberist movement of the nineteenth century. It is also proud to declare itself a city 'built by women', in honour of the wives of the exiles who chose to give up their lives of comfort in Moscow and follow their husbands to such a bleak outpost. The term 'Decemberist wife' is still used in Russia to describe a woman who shows loyalty to her family in the face of extreme adversity.

Alongside the modern buildings of the city's recent rapid rise, the side-streets remain lined with the wooden buildings of its first incarnation, and it made a pleasant interlude before our next, longest part of the journey. It also provided me with my first close encounters with the Russians themselves.

For centuries the people of Russia have had little or no individual freedom. During feudal serfdom and then under harsh Soviet rule they were told what to do, say, think and believe. They compensate for this lack of influence by now clinging to any sc.r.a.p of personal power life may offer them and by making life miserable for anyone else who may need them to perform a service. They have an ability to appear exasperated at anything and everything. Buying anything inevitably involves eye-rolling, shrugging of shoulders and the distinct impression that it is a terrible inconvenience and an insult from which they may never recover.

A favourite drink in Irkutsk is kva.s.s, beer made from fermented bread. On just about every street corner elderly women sit by large barrels dispensing gla.s.ses for a few roubles a time. Buying some, of course, is immensely hard work.