Since we left the UK we’ve been having encounters with all sorts of people. Apart from meeting Michael the Wonder Guide in Xi’an, the encounters with people outside the tourist industry have been some of the best.
Here’s my Top 5, in ascending order:
5. The Russian woman on the train from Irkutsk to Moscow
I’m sure some of the Trans-Siberian trains are touristy, but we were the only westerners on that one and seemingly no-one spoke English. My longest encounter was late at night with a woman outside the toilet. She said many Russian words and did quite an impressive mime. Sadly, it was lost on me… But I did establish the important part was something to do with kicking the toilet door.
4. The Mongolia little girls in Sukhbaatar Square, Ulaan Baatar
They came up to us on our first morning in Mongolia as we sat watching some brides in large dresses pose in front of Chinggis Khan.
The first couple of times they ran up, giggled and ran away. The next couple of times they ran up, we said hello, and they ran away. I then consulted the guidebook and attempted the Mongolian for hello, which caused a good 10 minutes of hysterical laughter. Eventually Ben detected a ‘bonjour’ through the laughter and we managed a few minutes of conversation in French. Aged about 6, their French was better than ours.
3. The Russian family on Olkhon Island, Lake Baikal
Mum, Dad and daughter, about 8, were visiting Olkhon Island at the same time as us from nearby Irkutsk.
We visited a number of beautiful, steep, treacherous cliffs where the little girl repeatedly (so it seemed to us) ran a very high risk of falling to her death. This was of course fine – except when she decided to walk along with us, chatting merrily in Russian, before climbing steep cliffs, chatting merrily in Russian, and not coming down, chatting merrily in Russian. At one point she showed us some large rocks she had hidden in her pockets, and I don’t think they were improving her balance.
Fortunately her parents caught up eventually, and told us they once found kilograms of rocks in their overweight holiday luggage. Happily she only gave us a small rock to remember her by.
2. The Chinese teenage girls in Shanghai
They were visiting Shanghai for the Expo and wanted to practice their English when we were all sightseeing on the riverfront.
They explained which province they were from, and because we didn’t know where it was, told us it was where the Shaolin Temple is. ‘Ah yes’, we said, but they were not convinced we had really heard of it. ‘Shaolin monks’, they said, ‘ah yes’, we said. ‘Kung fu’, they said, ‘ah yes’, we said, but they were still unconvinced. Eventually one of them said ‘Bruce Lee!’, and they believed us when we said we had heard of him.
1. Nikita on the tram in Irkutsk, Russia
We met Nikita as we attempted to cross Irkutsk with all our stuff. We were the only westerners on the tram, and the only ones Nikita had ever seen on an Irkutsk tram. He’s studying science at the local university and was on his way to a birthday party with a guitar on his back. This turned out to be a birthday present which he and his friends had clubbed together for and then disguised as Nikita’s own guitar to surprise the birthday boy. What a nice guy!
When we told him we were from London he said “wow” and when we told him Ben’s name he said “woooow” and looked astonished. Still not exactly sure why.
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