PK, as they thankfully refer to it, turns out NOT to be a wonder and by the time I’ve run around our projected program, I’m getting cold feet about the whole thing. It really is the end of the world, just a mess, certainly. No There, there, on a massive scale of zero. And it has weather. It has lots of cloudy and damp weather. It rains a lot during the summer and then when winter arrives, the whole place is a deep freeze. You really do wonder why anyone wants to live anywhere so desolate. It’s a nine hour flight from here to Moscow, to give you some idea of the distance.

I am met by the next agent down the line and she is an American! Wonder of wonders. Married to a Russian, she has lived there for 10 years, (Marrying a Russian may be one thing, but living around here is just too much), so we start talking hard and long about what we intend to do. This is going to be the first stop on this new trip and it’s kind of VERY important that we get off to a good start. Well I’m not so sure here that we can do it and the longer I stay, the worse it gets. It rapidly becomes a no-go situation and will therefore be a major problem to replace. Tough eco-tourists come here to go hiking and nature watching in the raw and that is fine for them of course.  But we are softies. We shall be coming to visit what is known as the Valley of the Geysirs, which is a 75 mins helicopter ride in a massive old large and noisy helicopter.  You are totally at the mercy of the weather, both at origin and destination and getting the two to line up may take more than we humans can fix. I was delayed a day doing it and it did not operate the other two days I was there, which does not bode well. The helicopters are real relics. They are huge and can seat 24, but are so noisy that we are all issued with ear mufflers. At one stage, there was suddenly an enormous draft and the woman’s hair in front of me took off (which upset her enormously), but what had happened? Had we sprung a leak? Then discovered you could open three of the large circular windows in flight, which was a first, so a keen photographer type was half hanging out of the machine, happily snapping away.

The scenery at the other end is certainly spectacular, with a mini Old Faithful, as in Yellowstone and many steaming fissures and boiling mud and all that kind of thing. You land on a nice arrangement of what look like old sand tracks from the Sahara and set off on a great trek down and along the valley. They give you food, which under the circumstances was good – hot baked salmon (salmon is to Kamchatka what chicken is to the west) and of course all those cold cuts and cheese and red caviar. The totally non-uniformed 3 man crew tucked in too and was glad to see they had a beer to keep up their energy levels. On the way back, they spotted a large brown bear so we did a figure of eight around it so we all got a view – it did look ENORMOUS. Make mental note not to go walking about outside the city.

And the hotels here are just grim. Basic is not getting anywhere near. They are just plain awful and I’m desperately trying to come up with some solution that does not involve blowing them up, with some of their staff and starting again. And then a terrible thing happened. As if it couldn’t get worse, right out of the blue, with 10 mins notice, all the water in town was cut off and would stay off for 2 DAYS. We were all provided with a plastic bucket full in the squalid little bathrooms and left to our own devices. Just try to image how my babies would react to that? And I moved hotel again into the one that would have to do if we do indeed come and I had a room the size of a large postage stamp, with a single bed that would do fine for a 10yr old perhaps (and not a very picky one at that) and there is ONE light for the whole room. These are two neon tubes right over the window, one of which is in flicker mode just to make things even worse and the one and only switch is not reachable from the bed… oy oy oy. Only consolation was that I was there in high light summer and not the depths of dark winter, which I should think would make suicide a pretty good option. Doan u folks complain when something small happens at home now, as this place is seriously bad (and they think it is all fine, which makes things even worse).

I discover that the one-woman reception staff works a 24 hours shift – yes 0900-0900…. then 3 days off! And that includes the dour bottle blonde and seen better days woman who runs what for want of a better word would be the ‘shop’ in the lobby, which is in reality a chiller and a large locked glass case which contains everything we may need … from beer and water (and the beer is cheaper!) to tampons and toothpaste, but also includes such things as 10 different types of vodka (some starting at USD9 a bottle, which will surely light you up (if the holes in yr stomach don’t kick in first). She can also provide videos, matrushkas (the Russian stacking dolls), fig jam (yes Liz D. you will surely want to come now), instant coffee, tacky souvenirs, soft porn newspapers and even plastic bags of sugar lumps at 25c for about 15. Meanwhile in the room, the telephone instructions were translated by someone who possibly just used a dictionary and did not really speak English. Best info (I think) for someone trying to call you is “For access to your room your opponent should call for the hotel operator”.

Next morning, at breakfast, as I am receiving my regular caviar and ‘omlte’ which is more like scrambled eggs with bits of fatty bacon cut up into it and yummy steamed white bread, I notice a local who is managing to eat red caviar and a chocolate covered yoghourt bar AT THE SAME TIME. Feel vaguely queasy all day just thinking about it …hope you do too! But the in-room information on the restaurant contains such gems as “All dishes, with love, will be cooked by experienced staff (high education) cooks of 4th and 5th categories. You will be attend, cordial and benevolent, by training staff ….” who could need more? The waitress does smile at least so I got the cordial bit.

And then choosing from the ‘Firm Courses’, you can plump for ‘Burning Mussels with Rife’ and also ‘Potatoes fried from boiled with vegetables’, which I bravely order so that you will know just what such culinary marvels are. They turn out to be French Fries and not bad at that ….just where the veggies came in is hard to tell.

Russian hotel menus can also be very exact at telling you not only what you hope you are ordering, but also just how much of what you will receive – thus if such a thing as a tuna salad sandwich with lettuce was offered, (fat chance in most places outside 5 star) there will be a column on the menu, before the price, which will have 2/200/10 or the like. I was totally mystified by all these … beef stroganoff with potatoes would be 300/200 …veal fricassee with mushroom and spiced potato 385/175/200 … all beyond me until the penny (or rather gram) dropped. It tells you that you in either grams or pieces just how much you will receive… viz the sandwich is 2 pieces of bread, 200 grams of tuna and 10 grams of lettuce. I don’t know if culinary inspectors whip out mini pocket scales and check, but kinda doubt if such beings exist. What a job opportunity … a Russian cheap hotel and restaurant inspector .. after all, Gogol concocted The Government Inspector, who put everyone into a panic, so it is time for Zagat to hit Mother Russia .. just bring Pepto Bismol, a book to read between courses and a strong streak of machoism !

And I found Ravioli listed under Japanese Dining.  And salt and pepper containers are reversed in Russia – salt out of three holes and pepper out of one… bet no guide books tell you that … I should be charging for all this info.

And there is still more to come ….