On time and space

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On time and space

There is something very strange about making the trans-siberian journey. Time and space as you know them seem to lose meaning.

Firstly there is the time problem. You fly from London to Beijing and this makes you jet lagged. You expect this. You hop on the train and time slips by unaccountably. People bring books to read like War and Peace, and by the end of the journey are surprised to discover that they have only read a few pages. The journey has lasted 6 days, but it's impossible to say what happened to the time.

Keeping time with your watch does not help at all. I can't remember how many time zones we have travelled through, but it has been quite a few. The solution, Russian style, is obvious. Everything is on Moscow time. The timetable, the tickets, the clocks at the station, the clocks on the train etc. Fine until you get up one morning knowing you have a train to catch, but can't work out for the life of you what time it departs. Then you are on the train. The question you have to ask yourself is which clock do you follow? Your body clock (likely to be closely related to local time at your point of departure), local time where you actually are, local time at your destination (quite important if you are arriving in the middle of the night) or Moscow time. Once on the train, we mostly opted to set our watches for local time at our point of destination. But obviously this is different for everyone on the train. The result is nobody knows what the time is, or much cares. The appearance of the sun or moon outside gives clues as to what you should actually be doing on the train at any given time, but these are indications only. Mostly you just snooze in your bunk the whole journey, get woken up at about 7am with your main meal of the day of stew and vegetables, and then wonder why you are shattered when you reach your destination when all you have done is snooze for the preceeding 24 hours.

Another aspect of time is season. When we arrived in Beijing is was definitely summer, if very wet summer. We saw olympic spectators transformed into pixies with the ubiquitous plastic rain mac. (I guess these will have started a new trend and sports spectators around the world will be wearing them for the next 4 years until Londoners come up with a different way to embarass our olympic visitors.) The rain seems to have followed us to Mongolia as it was wet there too, but also cold. We asked at our guesthouse if it was normal weather for this time of year, and they said not. Mongolia is actually known for its blue sky, and in summer gets very warm. But the rain brought the cold with it. Out in the countryside sleeping in a ger you really appreciate how cold it can get. Through Siberia it was variable. Irkutsk was decidedly cool, and Lake Baikal so chilled that dipping our toes in it for a few seconds caused them to go numb. But I suppose that is relatively warm given that the lake is frozen over for 5 months per year. As it is large enough to contain 20 per cent of the world's fresh water, I guess that means it gets pretty cold in winter. Krasnoyarsk was hot and humid, with a violent thunder storm on our first night. We ate outside in restaurants, and I even spotted adverts for protective sun cream. I can't remember what the weather was like in Ekaterinberg, so I guess it must have been fairly moderate. We didn't stay long enough in Nizhny Novgorod to assess the climate. In Moscow it was hot (around 30 degrees) and sunny when we arrived and we went out in the evening dressed in our summer skirts. Within a couple of days the temperature had plummeted to 8 degrees and there was lashing rain.

Question is, how do you pack to account for so much variability in climate conditions, whilst also travelling light? Also, how do you make sure you are presentable both in the wilds of outer Mongolia when you are staying with nomads and also when you are staying in upmarket hotels with well-heeled Russians? The answer revealed itself to us in a flash when we reached Moscow. It's obvious! You indulge in retail therapy!

Then there is space. I think every city we have visited, with the exception of moscow, has 2 names. So for example, Nizhny Novgorod is also called Gorky. Ekaterinburg is also called Sverdlosk. I understand that the reason for this is that many names were changed with the fall of communism. What I don't understand is why railway timetables still use the old names whilst stations use the new names. Already I struggle to read Cyrillic, but when you add in the fact that the destination I think I'm going to is written completely differently on the tickets, I really don't stand any chance at all of knowing where I am.

Then there is the question of which continent you are on. Obviously we started in Beijing which is in Asia, and we ended in Moscow which is in Europe. But the bit in the middle is rather blurred. I think most people agree that the dividing line is somewhere near Ekaterinberg and the Urals may have something to do with it. One of our excursions in Ekaterinburg was to visit the official border between Europe and Asia. This is a very popular excursion with Russians, which I found surprising - I thought it was something mainly foreigners would be interested. The strange thing is there is not one border, but two. Our tour guide said that this was because there is one touristy border near the town, and one real border which is several kms further out of town. I think one was officially verified by geographers, but I forget the exact story. What I do know is that it is the done thing for newly weds and entire wedding parties to drive several kms to one or other of the borders (I don't think it really matters which) to have their photos taken. Our tour guide took us to the "real" border first, and we sneaked in between the wedding parties to take our photos on either side of the border. Then we went to the touristy border and did the same. There is a plaque at this border explaining how you determine the border between continents. Apparently there are a number of factors to take into account: eg geography (such as mountain ranges), flora and fauna, climate etc. Once you have determined the border you draw a line on the ground, build a monument, and label the continent on each side. But there is a final twist in the story. I couldn't understand the tour guide at all. Titia's Russian has been coming back to her steadily, and city by city I see her undertanding and conversing more, much to her relief. And mine. However even Titia could not understand our tour guide completely. But, with combination of sign language and Titia's interpretation, this is the story as I understand it. At the touristy border between Europe and Asia,the monument builders made a mistake. They have labelled the continents the wrong way round. I looked for signs of concern amongst the wedding parties having their photos taken, but they were apparently unperturbed.

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