was the ex-pat conflict. I wanted to explore new frontiers, but it was hard work. I’d instinctively slipped back into my comfort zone.
Over tea so milky it looked like just milk, the musketeers grumbled about not being able to find a decent coffee. But that was one of couchsurfing’s blessings, wasn’t it? That it broke the spell of bad habits. I was off the double-shot cappuccinos with caramel drizzle because it just wasn’t an option. I was probably kicking all sorts of habits, emotional and physical. That, unfortunately, included sleeping and washing—sometimes they weren’t available either.
‘Fasten your seatbelts!’ the firefighters insisted. We’d ditched Zhenya’s car and were in her ad-exec friend Rinchin’s gleaming Nissan Presage for a spot of ego-tourism, as he sped, tail-gated and devoured Ulan-Ude’s urban sprawl as if driving a tank. The firefighters and I volleyed fearful expletives, but they only seemed to provide the encouragement that Rinchin craved. And the emergency? We needed milk vodka, a Buryatian speciality, to toast new arrivals. Despite losing an hour, plus days off my life, to this perilous and ultimately fruitless quest, it was for the best—we were spared a night on fermented, curdled mare’s milk. Couchsurfers couldn’t say no—after all, wasn’t that why we were here, for the access to traditional delicacies?
Reprieve was short-lived. Russian vodka and balsam (a herbal vodka) would have to do. Rinchin stormed Skin Mountain, a hill studded with Buddhist prayer stones overlooking the city, for the welcome we’d been dreading: the SUV’s leather seats were then swivelled around into a cosy circle. ‘No, no, I can’t drink tonight,’ groaned Bernat. Why not? Because exactly the same thing had happened the night before. I could only wait to find out what.
‘The first toast is for respect,’ said Zhenya, pouring out six shots. Respect—that made it impossible to say no. Despite our full bellies, we were instructed to chase with huge buuzies (doughnut-sized, Buryatian dumplings). The boys gritted their teeth and ate their words. Rinchin didn’t seem remotely bothered by the drink-driving crackdown. ‘What’s the penalty?’, I asked, in undisguised disapproval. ‘A two-year ban, and if you have an accident, nine months in prison,’ he said, unmoved. I buttoned my judgment—it felt disrespectful. The toasts kept coming. To health! To love! To friends! To…The fog of forgetfulness soon descended. Suitably tanked up, Rinchin dropped us off at Metro, apparently Ulan-Ude’s best club.
I hadn’t anticipated a club because I wasn’t quite at one with the couchsurfers’ motto: Be Prepared for Anything. Despite Face Kontrol not adoring my walking boots, our association to Zhenya—a girl about town with her Moscow credentials—saw us swiftly ushered into the velvet banquettes of the VIP area. Much more vodka was bought, and we were introduced to Zhenya’s friends. They’d heard some girls outside trying to remember some Spanish words. News that three macho Spanish guys were in town was out.
It was at about this point that amnesia drew its black curtain. I remembered saying thank you to Zhenya a lot, and clinging to my new ally, David (okay, I was flirting with the unattached one; I didn’t want him, I was just feeding my emotional hunger). There were strippers, there were bottle-blonde Buryatian women, there was shameless dancing, there were good times. Apparently.
25TH OCTOBER
Still dressed, still drunk and my mouth desert-dry, I woke up in Sasha’s bed, numb from a night on its wooden base—all Russians seemed to like it hard, evidently. But how did I get here? Where was my BlackBerry? Whose was that chapka—the Russian fur hat? That camera? And—oh God—did I kiss David or was it a dream? I scrambled to check the photographic evidence: tight embraces, topless boys, boys kissing boys, power punches…worrying. Then I thought about Ollie, and The Emperor, and I realised I hadn’t worried about anything since I’d arrived. Getting out of my head had, quite literally, helped me get out of my head.
I could hear that the boys had just woken up and were laughing about the night. I froze, realising that to get out of my room, I had to go through theirs. I drew a deep breath.
‘So, boys, I seem to have lost my phone and my memory and gained a camera and a hat…’
I searched David’s eyes, but I couldn’t find the answer there. I quickly scurried out—I was going to have to ask Zhenya.
‘Hungry?’ chirped Zhenya, orchestrating the domestics in the kitchen.
‘Starving!’
‘Sheep soup,’ she explained, handing me a large bowl.
Would it be insulting not to eat the solid cubes of fat, the layers of alimentary canal and the tendons swimming like eels? I was the only one eating, so I had no one to copy. Plus, as a couchsurfer, I was learning that you ate what and when you could—the fridge wasn’t mine to raid.
‘So what do you grow in your kitchen garden?’
With tomatoes, onions, cabbages, cucumbers, apples and potatoes, it was the picture of Siberian self-sufficiency.
Having pointed her attention outside the window, I threw the unspeakables away. And that possible indiscretion? Cowardice struck—I could hear the boys coming. I’d wait to ask Zhenya after they left for Vladistock later that day. Losing one’s memory had its hazards, but it was also a face-saver.
Losing my BlackBerry was rather more straightforward—it was lost. Of course, there was the possibility that something more sinister than good times had taken it, but the idea was unthinkable. Hosts had far more to lose.
The day’s next excitement was the hypermarket, for the boys to stock up for their three-day train journey. In the car my gaze was conveniently averted outside, to catch, in amongst a constructivist majority, Ulan-Ude’s bronze monuments to heroic, mounted Buryatian warriors, and Buddhist buildings with flying eaves. At the supermarket, Zhenya picked up a couple of value tins of horsemeat.
‘You need meat,’ she said maternally.
‘Why?’ responded Bernat, with some disdain.
‘For the train.’
‘No.’
It was useful to see how others—non-Brits—were with their hosts. Bernat wasn’t rude, he just didn’t want tinned horsemeat. His candour was inspiring.
We hugged the boys goodbye at the station. With them safely out of earshot, I could finally ask Zhenya for the missing details.
‘You were in the back of my car wearing his chapka,’ she said, her voice tripping into a laugh. ‘And David asked, “Can I kiss you?” You said yes. And then he asked, “Can you kiss me?” and you just started singing.’
(Was it ‘Can I kick it?/Yes you can,’ I wondered). But did I kiss him?
‘Then we got home and you went to bed. When I asked where David was, I found him in your room but you were asleep, and I shouted, “David, go back to bed!” The boys were laughing for thirty minutes.’
As did we. Too bad alcohol took as much as it gave.
My next stop, in two days’ time, would be just outside Mongolia’s capital Ulan Bator, where I’d be staying in a ger—a traditional felted tent. My host, a German woman married to a local, had three negative references—quite a count for couchsurfing. She’d been ‘moody’, and had pushed her guests into doing her ‘maximum price’ tours. She responded negatively to one reference, saying the guest had set fire to her house and stolen her phone. It sounded like a cartoon. But she also had plenty of positive references. I was intrigued; it sounded authentic. Maybe Marco from Italy summed it up: ‘At Sabina’s I had the craziest couchsurfing adventures, she is unique, in both really good and really bad ways, but once you understand Mongolia, you understand Sabina, or vice versa.’ It promised some safe danger. I was excited.
‘I have to visit my aunt with a broken rib,’ Zhenya announced after helping me buy my tickets to Mongolia. ‘I’ll be back at 10pm [it was now 5pm]—maybe you can go for a walk.’
The