2 Days on Train to Ulan-Ude

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The nightmare began on 5th July when I caught the 11.30am train for Ulan-Ude. There were some things about this trip that were better than expected and some that were definately not.

First of all, the toilet myth was not correct. Though they were tiny, at least you could go there without having to work yourself up to it. In fact, I think they must have been cleaned and bins emptied quite regularly.

I only saw two westerners on the train; they did speak English but I don't think it was their first language and they didn't seem too interested in chatting. Even the Russians seemed very stand-offish amonst themselves. In my compartment were a young couple and a young lady with a little boy. They didn't even seem to speak amongst themselves. So I found it quite uncomfortable and actually very claustrophobic with 4 1/2 people in that tiny space.

So thank god I discovered the restaurant wagon. In there you have more space to sit at a table and look out the window and it doesn't matter how long you stay there. I don't think you even have to eat. In fact, not many people seemed to use the restaurant; they, unlike me, had come prepared with all kinds of food for the long haul. But I was under the impression that there would be lots to buy on the stations and even people coming on board to flog their food. It was kind of true but not really. What would I do with a whole salami, eggs and cucumber if I bought it from the babushkas at the station. Now if they had packaged it up into a nice little roll or sandwich that would have been much better... The other food you could buy on the stations was a bit greasy, such as deep fried potatoe cakes and a similar battery thing with a sausage inside. After eating one it was kind of enough and I was longing for some breakfast cereal!


The other trick with the restaurant was that even though I was told (I think) that it opened in one hour, that time never came until after 12 noon. So if you brought no breakfast you would starve. Then it is slowly revealed that actually less than half the items on the menu are not actually available. I had worked myself up to trying borsh (cabbage and beetroot soup) which is a Russian specialty but then found they didn't have it. At least there was an English menu but even so there were some evil things on it such as tongue and cods liver - yum. Solyanka was good though (was actually good twice in a row); its a soup with different meats such as sausage and beef which is very tasty

The first night I tried to go to bed about 10.30 but I obviously needed to get with the plan. Train people don't go to bed until the sun goes down, which in this part of the world is after 11pm. Then they sit up in bed with the cabin's TV blaring some Russian movie until they feel like turning it off. Or in the case of my room-mates, they play stuff on their computer - hey did you ever think of putting the headphones on? There is no need for any consideration of other people trying to sleep, so bring some heavy duty earplugs. Then the next day they emerge from the cabin anything from 9, 10, 11 to midday anf have their breakfast at lunchtime. I guess why bother, since there's nothing to do anyway. Wear sporty outfits, sandles with bright coloured socks (yes with the sandles). One lady had an eye-catching outfit of sporty hot pants which were see-through white with a dark coloured g-string underneath - not a good look.

As for the carriage attendant, I didn't see much of her. So much for my grand plan of getting her to help me get off at the right station. She seemed to disappear for most of the time and people just did their own thing. But it didn't matter anyway. Each wagon on the train displays the current time in Moscow time, so you just have to ensure you know what your ticket says and get off at that time. Don't worry about local time cos nobody knows what the right time is anyway. As you cross time-zones people get a bit confused. Having said that, I thought the train was meant to arrive at each stop to the exact minute, however my train was over 5 minutes late, which actually sent me into a bit of a panic - I knew I couldn't have missed my stop but OMG if I had I don't think I couldn't stand another hour on this train!

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