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Published: October 12th 2012
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I thought travelling on the train for 36 hours between Ulaanbaatar and Irtusk would be dull and uneventful, how wrong could I be.
Last night (10th October) I arrived at Ulaanbaatar train station at 8.30pm. Waiting to depart in the station was a huge train with with multiple carriages, clearly the trans - Siberian express. Walking to the front of the train I pushed to the front of the steps about to board when I was stopped by yet another person wearing an official uniform. I insisted that this was my train but after some discussion soon realised that I was about to board a train destined for China!
Once on board the correct train I discovered that I was sharing a cabin again with the Aussie sisters. As we squeezed into our cabin with all of our luggage and food supplies a local Mongolian man came in. Perhaps he was in the fourth birth? He sat down on the lower bunk and refused to move which was strange considering we had our luggage to stow under the seats. Eventually I got him to stand up and he eventually left the carriage never to be seen again, most strange.
The overnight journey was uncomfortable and I had little sleep. The train was older and had limited facilities, the boiler for making hot drinks literally had a fire underneath it maintained by the attendant. The toilets did not have any running water and the power sockets only had enough voltage to power a razor.
I arrived at the Mongolian/Russian border at 6am. I had been warned that the process at the border could take up to ten hours. With five minutes noticed the attendant turfed us out of the carriage onto the platform, in the panic to leave I smashed my head on the bunk resulting in blood and a boil egg sized lump to appear. The dutiful attendant locked our cabin and told us to come back in two hours time, i noticed that we were the only travellers to be sent off the train. The Mongolian border point was bleak and I would not recommend it for a holiday or even a day visit. On our return to the cabin we handed over our passports and had the cabin searched by the Mongolian officials. Process complete we headed to Russia and after a slow trundle we
arrived at the Russian border control. The toilets were cleaner and the general feel of the place was better. Before we left the train a female passenger popped into our cabin to ask if she could hang her very large coat on the spare coat hook? Not sure exactly what she was up to I said no and told her to go. We all had a good laugh about how close we had come to smuggling contraband into Russia. The older Aussie sister climbed up into her bunk and suddenly discovered a piece of hand luggage hanging from the other vacant coat hook, she asked if it was mine but clearly it was not. I realised that whilst we had been out at the Mongolian border post someone had sneaked in and tried to conceal this bag. The Aussie was holding the bag, there was no way I was going to add my finger prints to it so I went for help. Turning left out of the carriage I was immediately confronted by a Russian official. She was 5ft tall with a slight figure wearing the most ridiculous official cap that was wider than her own footprint. She looked at me and I looked at her! I could just see the attendant at the very end of the carriage, in a semi high pitched and slightly distraught yelp for help I summonsed her to the cabin. She arrived and shook her head and took the bag away not appearing to be to concerned.
We left border control at 4pm exhausted.
There was clearly a smuggling racket on the train and both attendants were in it up to their necks. As we chugged through Russia a steady stream of goods were moving from cabin to cabin with the attendant orchestrating and facilitating everything. Outside there was a blizzard blowing and the landscape was slowly turning from Autumn to winter in front of my very eyes.
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