Really enjoyed this travel book. Two British canoeists decide to row down one of the longest and least known rivers in the world.( well , unknown to the West.) The Amur-or Black Dragon river to the Chinese- is about 4, 400 km long,starts in Mongolia, separates the sensitive countries of China and Russia for over half it's length and goes through the least known parts of wooded Siberia. I loved it because I knew nothing about this part of the world and I have been googling the towns and villages they rowed through on their way. It took them 107 days and mostly they camped along the Russian side of the river. They were not given permission by the Chinese authorities to enter Chinese waters or lands and often had to guess in which country Islands,which popped up in the middle of the river,were in! They only made a mistake once by camping on a Chinese Island but the guards in the Watch tower were luckily quite chilled about it.
This book was not really about canoeing but about the people they met along the way. Whenever they came across a village or city they would stay in a hotel and restock food and people were obviously totally intrigued by them. They could not comprehend that they were travelling the whole length of the river at all but were totally flabbergasted that they had rowed down from the nearest town! Funny.
There was obviously lots of beaurocracy and a few times they were locked out of villages with barbed wire fences with patrolling guards along the perimeter,because the local Russian border police didn't want foreigners entering the village. The guards probably wanted something to do. It wasn't clear when this exhibition took place but I would say from the lack of mobile devices and from music references about 1999/2000. Obviously the writer was having a great time and the tone of the book is not serious at all. More like VIZ in places, especially all the stereotypical lusty Russian girl references. But hey, this guy was writing from his heart and it was obvious that he had spent a long time writing a diary!
you get a clear feeling of how Russian policy after the break up of the USSR had basically left this area of Siberia to rot. The river wasn't really used by the Russians to move anything because the Transsiberian railway was so nearby whereas Chinese barges were constant going back and forth and up and down. There was high unemployment amoung local Russian river dwellers and a general fear of theEntrepreneurial Chinese. Also the towns on the other bank, in China, looked far more affluent. Luckily the guys paid for a travel visa to go into a Chinese town for three days and they were blown away by the trade, noise and vibrancy of the town.
Other problems the two guys dealt with were being shot at by over zealous guards, being told exactly where to camp every night. Not having decent enough maps, being flooded out in their tents, having packets of noodles and cigarettes thrown at them by Chinese sailors, being mobbed by Russian prostitutues( really?!) and often getting beautiful gifts whenever they left a Village or town by the suddenly friendly border guards.
!! I often thought the references to pissed Russian men and horny prostitutes was far too stereotypical and I hope the author was just over exaggerating. There was not much at all about the politics and history between the two countries. Obviously relations were tense though! Apart from the fact that Russians took away this land from Manchurian Chinese because of the lucrative trade in fur trapping. (A similar story to the Gold Rush in California.) but there was enough to give me a taster to find out more about this interesting, yet completely unknown part of the world.
Cheers Diana for this great birthday present!
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