Forget about the fluffy stuff in this email. Let me endulge on an experience that has certainly been cemented in to the memory banks.

The beginning of the VODKATRAIN...(as extracted from my travel journal).

...Train 13, carriage 13 an on day 13, touch rotten wood that superstition is ficticious. The train is clean (best to date) and comes with western ammenities (trying to use a squatter on a shunting train is messy business).

Each carriage is strcitly controlled by a provoditza who has an endless job description from security to maintaining a DRY toilet seat (aiming is like playing darts). All berths contain a hot water urn, a decent card table, four beds with linen and the stock-standard rattles. Carpet was brand-new which came attached to that "new carpet" smell. Bit disappointed with the cement head rest, my blood stained pillow must have been used as a tablecloth in a heamatologists labratory. There's plenty of hooks, bars and spikes, great for gymnastics but terrible for the head.

The morning was spent with idle chat and a highly competitive game of solitare with me, myself and I. All of which are undisputed losers. At 11am, we ventured to the dining cart with our free meal vouchers we scored on boarding the train. Lunch was simple, which was ideal considering the over-intoxicating flavours from China. Beef and carrots in a sauce that had the consistency of cat flem.

As Riss left to make friends with the toilet bowl, a Polish lady sat adjacent to me at the table. Late 40's but hard to distinguish from the application of nicotine and stress moisturiser, she was pleased to be acknowledged. Worked at the Polish consulate at Irkutsk (Siberia, one of our destinations), spoke little engish however I understood what "snoow" meant. It's gonna get cold.

Riss became quite ill the remainder of the afternoon. Food poisoned by last nights tofu as she was the only one brave enough to eat it. I knew Tofu was evil. Her spews echoed down the corridor every hour like a cookoo clock. Quite an unorthodox way of vomiting, Riss would let out mighty big coughs with every spew session.

The train provoditzas became quite concerned as well as myself once handed the quarantined forms for submission at the upcoming border crossing. The quarantine forms asked about SAR's and related symptoms. Basically a self-evaluation form. These were questions we did not want to tick, and thus we didn't leading up to the border crossing at 8:40pm. A 3 to 4 hour ordeal which provides no access to toilet facilities during the carriage change to the larger gauge Russian track.

As time drew near to the border, the provoditzas amplified their concern in the matter and began taking Riss's temperature. A thermometre which has probably had a long history up Chinese bums, went under the pit of Riss's arm.

By now the cold Siberian weather of the Gobi Desert had set-in as the provoditzas fired up the coal boiler. In a matter of minutes the carriage turned into a charcoal chicken rotisary. This didn't help the situation one bit as body temperatures started to rise.

The train came to a skretching halt on the chinese turf of the border crossing. A dimly lit station that resembled a scene from Schindler's list as poor jews were escorted to burning infernos. The military quickly lined the circumferance of the train looking like attack dogs waiting for their next feed. Gun in one hand, cigarette in the other breathing out steam like a charging bull.

Next minute the provoditzas yelled something from the front of the carriage window. Communist police raced on board to commence the customs protocol. In a matter of seconds, customs officals, communist police, two lab-rats and a translater crowded our booth like we were a travelling zoo exhibit. The provoditzas must of told officials that Riss was sick...

One lady, who dressed like a surgeon pulled out a plastic gun (wild-west style) and fired two dead-eye d*** shots between the eyes. I believe it was a heat indicator or we just survived our first round of russian roulette.

A highly ranking official now stepped in to confuse the situation even more whilst the temperature of the carriage was still rising. I could see Riss starting to panic which triggered the impluse to dry-reach. Surrounded by seven people, Riss grabbed a plastic supermarket bag and let out a bloody huge belch/cough. A sound made similar by the great dane dog breed. Not the ideal response the officials were looking for and bought us a ticket OFF the train...

The translater announced forceably for us to follow and myself and Riss were escorted off the train by three machine-gun welding police, two lab-rats and the translater herself. We were escorted like POW's into an old building running parallel to the tracks. Before we entered we were provided face masks which didn't aid the confidence levels. Ushered into a room that once seemed like an old ticketing office turned in to a makeshift doctor's surgery post SAR's epidemic. It now became clear...they thought we had SAR's!!!

A man convincingly looking like a corn farmer slid on a white dirty coat and led us towards an old wooden door. It had a red globe dimly lit above the door frame directly under a metal triangle that had the universal symbol of radioactivity. Inside we were confronted by two rooms, one slightly bigger than the other. Stained white tiles and protuding old copper pipes covered the interior that indicated its past life as an old toilet block. The stench still remained.

Riss was told to enter the larger of the two rooms which unfolded a large chest xray machine or a converted mammogram machine. Riss stood between the two radiation plates and the farmer turned radiologist, myself and another lab-rat went to the other room. Separated by a wooden door that was about one-ply thick (so much for protection), the room was dimly lit with fraid wires dangling like cobwebs from the ceiling. There was a small TV screen and some k*** like a kareoke DJ machine.

He turned the machine, sounding like a robot darlick from Dr.Who. The TV screen showed Riss's ribcage and the contracting ripples from the heart. The zips and bra clippings clearing showing up black on the screen. The doc's hand manurisms appeared like he couldn't find anything in this "where's wally" kinda scenario.

Back out of the room we were told to wait 30 minutes with two doctors and a communist policeman keeping close eye on our breathing patterns. It also felt like a shooting duck contest at the Royal Melbourne Show, as the doctors would continually shoot that plastic gun at our forehead from the other side of the room. I think I pissed them off when I waved my head side to side to increase the difficulty of the game.

The sitting duck game started to piss me off along with the finger points and the mandarin remarks. Eventually we were moved on to another surgery which was much cleaner and brighter than the psychriatric prison we were last in. They gave Riss a blood pressure test and made us fill in some more quarantine forms, this time without the vomit tick box. We refused to fill it out as the remaing symptoms like passing blood didn't fit Riss's category. They tried to make Riss tick the violent coughing box but we neglected.

Constantly we tried to say that Tofu was bad, but it was like talking to a deaf person. They believed that Chinese food is the most hygenic in the world. Negotiation became to a stand-still before they concluded with the diagnosis on the official quarantine forms...

Pregnancy. . Without hesitation I agreed as I knew it would be the quickest way to get us out of this situation AND country.

Back out in the main foyer, the train had disappeared and thirty chinese soldiers sat playing with pornographic cards. We did meet a nice American who assured us the train would return one hour later.

Back on board we had another passport check before the train proceeded over the border (3 hours later from our arrival). Deprived of sleep after a hectic session with the chinese, we hit the pillow and fell straight asleep.

30 minutes later, we heard a large knock on the cabin door. Half asleep, Riss opened the door and we were confronted by a large mongolian official. Obviously her chromosomes were deformed at birth, this possible female cross masculine genetic something yelled at me to get down from my bunk. I was being visually cross-examined and asked how long I was in Mongolia for. I said 3 days in a sleepish tone (not realising that we were there for 4 days). She stamped the passport for 3 days and I hope this doesn't effect tonights 7 hour border crossing into russia.

What an experience to remember...

Anyway must go...out of time.

Keep writing those emails. Hope all is well.

Cheers,
Hatton