Trans Mongolian Train Part 2

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Day 8-9 (April 12-13)

We are ready to begin our next part of the train journey boarding our train around 8 pm. We’d been advised that it would be the most local train of the trip, only to find we have a new carriage (complete with TV not yet working though).

Again there was a measure of smuggling going on. We were asked if we’d like to hide some tea towels and dish brushes (our leader translates) but we declined. A woman was putting on layers and layers of underwear. These travellers were only going as far as the first town in Russia.

The following morning we awoke to find that we were no longer attached to our engine. It was just our carriage sitting calmly at the platform. During the evening the other carriages were progressively disengaged to join other trains going in various different directions.

Eventually the engine that would take us over the border arrived and it is soon time for another border crossing first with Mongolian immigration and passport control at Sukh Bataar and then after half an hour passing through a no-mans land we do the same again with the Russian officials being careful to sit dutifully on the lower bunks in our cabins.

The Russian customs actually asked to search our luggage this time. They didn’t seem to find anything in the other cabins that actually had hidden stuff, but they did reject someone who had travelled one too many times that month and he was sent back.

The gauge between Russia and Mongolia is now the same and so there is no lengthy change of boggies and with the paperwork all done we are free to leave. We have a few hours to pass at the border town of Naushky before the train is scheduled to leave.

After weeks of no dairy, the local cheese on sale was a big hit to add to our supplies of food on the train. Our carriage is joined to others that have arrived separately at this town, and we were finally a train once more.

There is slightly different countryside speeding by now, more birch and fir trees around. We pass a lake called Goose Lake that is frozen in parts, but with large cracks appearing as it begins to thaw. On the far side a huge coal power plant sits in stark contrast to the natural surrounds of the lake. Another day passes easily, and we settle in for the night, due to arrive early the next morning in Irkutsk.

Unfortunately we pass the bottom edge of Lake Baikal during the night and so will need to wait until we arrive in Listvyanka for our first sight of it. The time table of the Trans Siberian was changed recently (a frequent occurrence) and so we only have one night at Lake Baikal.

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