Before Russia made some very poor decisions we ventured across this incredible continent.
We have completed 6306 km of our 8017 km journey on the Trans-Mongolian train from Moscow to Beijing. Now we are in Ulan Baatar in Mongolia but thought we would give a little insight to the people in Russia and what the train is like. We have also uploaded some pics and movies of some of the things we have seen (we have also got another movie from rafting uploaded – that`s K on the front…wahooooooooooooooooo!).
Our favourite stop was at Irkutsk where we took a 5 hour bus ride out to Olkhon Island on frozen Lake Baikal (well, actually we took a bus for 3 hours and then hitched a ride in a truck, organised by a drunk guy, as our bus dropped us 100km short of our destination!). We spent a few days admiring the fabulous icy landscape and enjoying the best of Siberian hospitality.
THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE
When they say that noone in Russia speaks English they mean that NOONE in Russia speaks English! In the 12 days we were in Russia we found a total of 9 people who spoke more than 5 words of English (and 3 of them were in our guesthouse in Moscow). That`s not to say that the guy on the train who could only say “You have a good a***” wasn`t clever, it just wasn`t very useful to us. About 1 in 10 people were super friendly, welcoming and helpful. The other 9 obviously had their reasons and they meant we were extra thankful to those who made sense of our attempts to write cryllic and speak Russian, who read phrases out of our guide book to make sure that they understood, and who patiently used actions and mimes so we could have a conversation with them (the guy on the train who showed us he works as a sercurity guard at a supermarket in Moscow was a classic!). We had a taxi driver make “choo choo” noises to confirm we wanted the train station, a hostel man speak to us in German as that was our only common language, and Mark, the 16 year old, interpreted questions and answers about us, NZ, and Russia to the crowd that spontaneously gathered around us on one of our trains. Those were the Russians that made our trip fun and they will be the ones we remember.
THE TRAIN
We took 3 different trains from Moscow to Mongolia: Moscow to Tomsk (56 hours), Tomsk to Irkutsk (32 hours), and Irkutsk to Ulan Baatar (34 hours). We travelled by Plaskartny (third class), which is a carriage containing 54 beds. On your left there are 9 cubicles with 2 bunks(4 beds) perpendicular to the aisle and seperated by a small table. On the right are the other 9 bunks lining the wall. After boarding the train the Provodnitsa (train attendant) collected our tickets and brought our linen to make our bed. The beds were comfy but very narrow and very short (and you can`t sit up on the top bunk!). On some trains the passengers were really quiet, others were noiser, and all had more than the token snorer!
All day we read, slept, ate, talked and played cards (others did their fair share of drinking too) until lights out about 9.30pm. We relished the stops of more than a few minutes when we could rug up and stretch our legs on the platform – often a temperature difference of +25 degrees inside the carriage to -13 degrees outside. We thoroughly enjoyed the 6306 km of countryside unwind from snowy Siberian villages to taiga forest to alpine desert to frozen lakeside. There were times when we were bored and restless and we are pleased we made stops along the way but it was definitely a great way to travel, to see the country, and to meet the real people.
