Blogshank - Mike Smith, Illustrator and Diary Blogger » trip

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Mike — Mon, 05 Jan 2015 15:38:48 +0000

061014

Mike — Sat, 27 Dec 2014 21:18:04 +0000

Mongolia

Mike — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 08:19:25 +0000

On the train to Mongolia we met a Russian man who said he was a lama. He took an unhealthy interest in whether we had children, and told us we ought to. To help us along he drew me a picture of the sun and told me I must keep it close to my heart. I didn’t take his advice, which is perhaps why it took so long.

Like many tourists we stayed in a traditional ger in the national park and ate some unidentifiable meat. We also went for a horse ride. That was the third time in my life that I have sat on a horse, and also the last. (I said that the other two times, but this time I meant it.)

In this temple I was in the dog-house (as opposed to the god-house I suppose) by walking around it anticlockwise instead of clockwise.

Olkhon Island

Mike — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 08:15:10 +0000

We spent 4th-7th October on this island, which was a detour off the train line. It’s in the middle of Lake Baikal, which is the deepest lake in the world and supposedly contains 20% of the world’s freshwater.

(I decided to crop out the text on grounds of pointlessness, and just put some of the pictures up.)

Taiga Forest

Mike — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 09:43:45 +0000

In Tomsk we met someone called Gregory who got together some of his mates with carrier bags full of vodka bottles, and took us into the Taiga Forest to murder us for a barbecue.

Gregory turned out to be the perfect host, guiding us back out of the forest in the small hours.

The trouble with staying in hostels is that you get on a kind of treadmill, meeting only other tourists. (We tried to correct this by using the couchsurfing website.) I wish I’d done more cartoons like the one below, but the trains and buses were too clattery to draw in.

Omsk and Tomsk

Mike — Sat, 24 Sep 2011 08:40:10 +0000

When Caz was little there was a world map their kitchen wall, and she found it hilarious that there was a place called Omsk and a place called Tomsk. Her Dad said they must go there one day, so we took a diversion to Tomsk, which is a small branch line (ie several hours in Russian terms) off the trans-Siberian railway. Caz’s Dad flew in to Moscow and joined us especially for that bit.

“The lady said she knows 3 expressions in English: ‘Thank you,’ ‘I love you,’ and ‘It’s a miracle!’”