Trans'd Siberia

Ni hao! We have finally made it to Beijing after the world's longest train journey (literally). In similar fashion this may be the world's longest blog posting!

Once i finished writing the last blog entry last Monday we headed straight to the supermarket to stock up on the food and drink that would get us through the trip. At the time we assumed just different flavours of noodle would have enough variety for one week's cuisine. Perhaps not, as it turns out Chow Mein Pot Noodle isn't all that different from Curry or Chicken Pot Noodle (they all suck!). If I never eat another one again it will be too soon! However on the bright side we did pick up a box of Walker shortbread biscuits which quickly became the prized possessions of our food haul along with some marshmallow flumps i insisted on purchasing.

We were a little on the eager side for getting on the train and somehow managed to arrive at the train station over 2 hours before our train was due to depart. This probably wasn't a bad thing as the train station was manic with rush hour commuters and there wasn't a shred of English signage anywhere in sight. We eventually deciphered something as Peking and figured that must be our train (can't be too many heading to China of an evening). After waiting around at the platform in 28 degree sunshine our train finally pulled up and on we boarded.

Thankfully luck was on our side and we had managed to grab one of the deluxe first class cabins (2-berth) rather that the standard first class ones which are 4 berths. The compartment was actually quite nice if not a little on the small side. It's basically a set of bunk beds against one wall, the bottom one doubles as a couch during the day, a table, armchair, wardrobe and shared wash room with the neighbouring compartment. It was a million miles better than the other carraiges which looked like my idea of how they transport criminals to the Gulags.

As we pulled away from Moscow we got talking to the other travellers in our wagon.

There was Tommi, a translator from Finland who was taking the scenic route to a conference in Shanghai.

Joon, a semi-pro Poker player from New York, who was on a year long sabbatical from work spending his time playing poker and travelling the globe.

Alistair, a primary school teacher from England who teaches at an international school in Bangkok and Chris, Alistair's friend from London who was accompanying him as far as Mongolia on the trip.

These guys were to be our travelling companions as far as Ulan Bator, only Tommi was crazy enough as us to go straight through to Beijing. We all got on really well which was great and helped stave off any boredom or the onset of cabin fever. In fact the time passed by amazingly quickly. I guess it helps that you lose all concept of time and its meaning when you are on a train for that long but it was a genuinely pleasant experience (as long as it wasn't too warm outside). Talk of air-conditioned cabins is completely over-rated, unless they are referring to solitary fan in the cabin which seems to have some kind of nasal problem, it snores all day long. Thankfully it was pleasantly cool for the first half of the trip until we hit the Gobi desert in Mongolia.

Over the first couple of days we trundled our way through rural Russia, proper outer Siberia. The mind boggles at how so many people call such a barren and inhospitable place home. Many of the towns weren't looking all that peachy in mid-July so I can't see them being any more inviting in the middle of winter when there is only a handful of hours of daylight and it regularly reaches -50 degrees. We would stop every couple of hours for about 30 minutes (longer at certain stops or border crossings). During this time you could leave the train, buy provisions from the babushkas that had brought their wares or from the shops that lined the stations. It was all pretty basic stuff but that rare occasion on which you managed to buy a somewhat fresh loaf or bread (as opposed to the duck-killing bricks generally on offer) were moments to savour.

At the end of day four we reached the Russia - Mongolian border. This was one of our longer stops and involved an incredibly long winded immigration, customs, stow-away checking procedure involving officials who seemed to have attended the Russian embassy in Dublin's School of Customer Service. We were a little worried we might have to pay a fine as our visas hadn't been registered but thankfully it was never mentioned.

We then travelled a couple of km's through no-man's-land and then repeated the process again for Monogolian officials. It was around then we saw our first Mongolian magic trick. A semi-official looking Mongol came passed our carraige and asked if we wanted to exchange our roubles for the Mongolian togrog (to be honest we thought we would be stuck with the roubles so went ahead with it). He gave us 3500T's for our 750 Roubles. Great we thought, until we found out the real exchange rate is about 10 times that amount. And voila we had just turned $30 into $3.

We got similarly fleeced the next day when we went to have lunch in the Mongolian restautant car only to find that our mediocre set lunch was going to set us back $25 each, which is insanely expensive for that part of the world. Live and Learn!

Early that morning (about 5am) we had reached Ulan Bator where alot of the passengers from Moscow departed and new folk boarded. We lost our neighbours, Alistair, Chris and Joon at this stage. Crazily, our new neighbours were from Ireland, in fact not only from Ireland but Leixlip in particular (my home town of about 20,000 people). Mark and Judy were travelling across Europe to China as precursor to the year long vacation they were taking, starting in November. Small world, eh!

Travelling through Mongolia was tough work given the heat of the Gobi desert. Thankfully that only lasted a day until we reached the Chinese border where began a similar process as last time, although this time they also had to change all the wheels on the train as the tracks are a different width in China. This involved separting all of the train carraiges and putting each one up on hoists before changing over the bogies (sp?). I didn't see why they didnt just make us change trains rather than repeating this rigmarole each time it crossed the border but I guess with a population of 1 billion they aren't short on workers. This border crossing also finished with one of the more surreal experiences of the trip as we stood on the platform of Erlia Train Station in North West China at 1am listening to a pan-pipe version of My Heart Will Go On blasting across the tannoys.

We eventually got moving though and finally we were on the home straight to Beijing. Arriving into Beijing bang on time at 2pm we had completed the Trans Siberian journey. I personally loved the trip and would recommend anyone to do it once, although I certainly wasn't about to hop back on the return leg to Moscow that evening. I'm pretty train-ed out at this stage so I think i may stick to the pedestrian sight-seeing for a few days.

We have free net access here at the hotel which is a god-send so I will post up another entry in a couple of days detailing our Beijing adventures (tomorrow is the Great Wall).

Talk to you all soon.

Take Care,

Jules