Tuesday, July 6, 2010

Fishing in Kamchatka - Far East of Russia I

Early morning of 24th June, 5 of us, Thian, KN Wong, Siu Keong, Hoe and me rushing to KLIA airport for our 2 weeks journey to the Peninsula Kamchatka - Far East of Russia on a Salmon fishing expedition........... Because there were no direct flights from Malaysia to Kamchatka, we had to book a Malaysia to Beijing flight and transit from there...........
Everyone was so worries and anxious about losing our luggages due to the many transits awaiting us......
Prohibited items in China............ Gosh! Will we be able to bring back salmons from Kamchatka later...??? The transit was the next morning flight,....... so we did some sightseeing around Beijing city........ Here we are at 天安门Tiananmen Square.............
We went dinner scouting for some popular local food there............
Frog in Hot & Spicy Sichuan style............
Hot & Spicy Sichuan Catfish............
Wow! Yummy! Yummy!!......... Hot & Spicy, my favourite food.........
Oh no! It is really too hot indeed......... Ha Ha Ha!!! Later that night we went to 王府井Wangfujing Street..............
Hawker store are selling cicada, starfish, seahorse and scorpion for dessert!!?.............. Dare to try some?...... I tried the scorpion, but it taste nothing,... 'cos my tongue was still numb from the after effect of the Hot & Spicy food at dinner..............
Transit with Siberia airline............
A 5 hours and 45 minutes flight to Novosibirsk............ And we had to wait for 6 hours at the next building for the domestic transit flight.......... Of course we had to lug the luggages too......... Sigh!!!
It's a good thing to know that they have this shower facility at the airport here.........
And it's totally computerised too.............
Not bad at all............ Time for a shower.....
Time to grab some local food,.......... We can't order much due to the language barrier ( it's really tough finding someone to speak English here.... huh!)............
Some snacks to go with a drink...............
After stopping over for an hour at Vladivostok, finally after 2 days of transit flight, we reached Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky airport...........
There is no terminal building and we had to get down from the plane and walked through the gate beside the luggage loading point.........Our tour operator waited long for our arrival..........On the way to the river where the camp tent would be based, we stopped by a local tackle shop for lure purchase.....
It is a 3 and half hour drive from Kamchatka town,......... and the weather forecast said it will rain during the week............... Hope it does not affect our fishing plan.....
stop over for lunch along the way...............
Our first meal in Kamchatka - Bread, carrot in spicy source, and fried chicken with mashed potato..........
Rain throughout the way............getting off the main road........
Reaching the river side,...... the Bolshaya River ( It means big river in English ).........
It is cold and wet, making the place very muddy and the sky seems to cry all the time. What kind of summer time is this? ...........
Transfer to the camp site by boat........Approximately after 30minutes, we reached the camp site....... A warm welcome with a meal waiting for us......
Some vodka and smoked salmon........ What a perfect combination!Russian potato salad?........ Taste good! Yummy!Ура!!! Cheers the Russian way!..........Immediately after the meal, we start fishing that evening..........Thian with his first Seema Cherry Salmon (Oncorhynchus masou)........
Siu Keong caught a baby Rainbow trout.........
Walking down river a bit from our camp site.........
Yeah! My first fish............ It was a beautiful Cherry Salmon..........
Seema (Oncorhynchus masou)............
Another one too..............
After back at the camp site, Siu Keong showed off his 4 kg plus Chinook King Salmon........
Wow! What a biggie, he caught it just infront of the camp site..........
Look at the size of the King Salmon and Cherry Salmon......... Well, sorry, these two fish is to keep for food later.........Sunset at 11:00pm, local time.............This is our tent at the camp site...........
These tents accomodate twin sharing and you are able to stand straight up in it too..........
Where it is sub-divided into 3-compartments. In the middle is where we put all our camping stuffs....... while both ends act as our sleeping area..........Our operator even provided us with foldable canvas bed c/w rubber mat too........ What can be better than this for outdoor camping gears???
About food during the trip,.......... First, we have Kamchatka's Salmon fresh from the river....... Look at the yummy roe........Preparing a fresh trout sashimi and salt cured fish roe on the spot for the taking.........emmmm!We also fried Dolly Varden trout for food........ A Rainbow trout sashimi........ Delicious!What more can be better than this......... emmmm!Salt cured fresh salmon roe hanged to dry..... Our food staple for the next few days, YES!Smoked salmon - anyone???Savour these and you die a happy man indeed!!.............Our skillful chef Tatyna cooking up a storm.....Even the beautiful translator Katyna cooks a killer dish..........Food is indeed good during the trip.............We had Salmon burger, pasta, rice, olive in fish soup........ Salmon in tomato soup, and fried Salmon steak.......... Just can't believe it we are actually camping outdoors by the river side and still having such good food........ Even salmon can cook in this way........ yummy fried fish fritters.......But, please don't offer me anymore salmon food back in Malaysia........ at least for a moment...... Just ate too many here in Kamchatka......... He He He!!