Advertisement
Published: October 2nd 2008
Edit Blog Post
Our tiny cabin
We lived in this for 5 days!!! We spent the last day in Moscow not doing too much, trying to relax despite feeling under the weather. We did visit a flea market that had hundreds of stools but only a variety of 3 products. I didn't want to buy a knife, some cheap clothes or a russian doll. At 8pm our transfer came and collected us and took us to the station. By 9.35pm we were on and ready to travel across Russia!
First impressions were that i could not believe how similar the train was to other trains. We've got to be on this for 5 nights!! I didn't buy any food and didn't think there was much available so when a lady who shared our cabin the first night gave me a chocolate i was working out how to ration that out over 4 days! Boredom and starvation were my main two worries that first night.
Day 26 - Friday 26th September - Got up and thankfully the lady was getting off. She was really nice but 4 people in that one cabin would've been a nightmare. And she didn't speak English. Went for a wander and 5 carriages down found a lounge. Food!!
Trans Siberia
View of Lake Baikal Each carriage looked the same so you had to count when walking through so as not to get lost (especially when walking back drunk at the end of a night). After a while i noticed other patterns to help me remember, (e.g. carriage 3 always had a small Mongolian girl dancing in the walkway, carriage 4 had a strange musty smell to it). At this point, the outside view was still quite European, similar to parts of Poland actually. We did have a blizzard that lasted for 2 minutes but then it was back to bright sunshine.
Day 27 - Set myself up a routine. Sleep until midday (we got to add an hour a day aswell which helped), doze/read/stare at the ceiling until about 3pm, have a quick wash and then go to the lounge for a meal and drinks. Passed Omsk today and scenery looks the same still. Mostly trees. That night we met 4 Americans who were travelling Siberia preaching gospels and teaching english to people. Not our sort of people but we had a good little chat. Drank loads of pineapple and vodka as they were out of other juices. Trying to sleep drunk in
a moving bed is really really hard.
Day 28 - Same routine, had ham and eggs today. Really smell too. That night we met two guys from Southend!! In the middle of nowhere in Siberia and i meet two people that live less than 30minutes from me. We agree to try and meet Paul and Brad again in Beijing, although last we heard Brad was thinking of going home as he's running out of cash. Found out that night that the woman who serves us food actually sleeps in the lounge. I always wondered why she walked around in her pijamas late at night!
Day 29 - Wake up to see Lake Baikal out the window. Amazing sight, and it's huge. We must have run alongside it for hours. Landscape has now become more barren and rocky too. That evening we had to sit at the border for 4 hours in our cabins. Painful experience. They took our passports and then we had to leave the room so they could check nobody was trying to hide anywhere and smuggle themselves in. After another long stop and loads of paperwork (mostly in Russian) we got to cross the border. Looking out the window at about 3am you could see millions of stars, right to the horizon.
Day 30 - Tuesday 30 September - Arrive at Ulaan Baatar in Mongolia at 7.30am.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.179s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 10; qc: 49; dbt: 0.0757s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
PeteB
Pete Brown
its not that easy! and i dont have much time, ive got photos will get them on when i can!!!!!