Lake Baikal & the Trans-Mongolian Train

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After another overnight train ride we found ourselves in the city of Irkustk, close to Lake Baikal: the deepest and most voluminous lake on the planet. All trains in Russia run on Moscow time, so according to our ticket we would be arriving at 01:45am. Irkustk has a time difference of Moscow+5 hours, so in Irkustk-time we arrived at the more sensible hour of 7am. The train that we had been travelling on was headed for Vladivostok on the eastern coast of Russia with a time difference of +7 hours. Doing this train journey has really made me appreciate the vastness of Russia.

Irkustk is a run-down, dilapidated city. It seems so impoverished in comparison to Novosibirsk or St. Petersburg, you wander that you are in the same country. One of the worst aspects of Irkustk is definitely its transport system. The train and bus stations are on opposite sides of the city, so getting from one to the other necessitates an expensive and hazardous taxi-ride. Getting on a public bus was practically impossible. Added to this, the busy roads are in a bad way; it looks rather like someone from local government must have run-off with the pot of money intended to be spent on maintaining the city's infrastructre.

The trickle of tourists who come through Irkustk head straight for Lake Baikal, which is exactly what we did. We hadn't budgeted much time for Baikal. Most people who visit spend a few days on the main Island, which is apparently very stunning. We just caught a bus to the shore of the lake and walked around a bit. We were fairly unlucky weather-wise, but it's a beautiful place and was worth a look.

That afternoon we went back to Irkustk station. Tickets to Mongolia were looking quite expensive, so we decided to buy cheaper tickets to the town of Ulan Ude, closer to the Mongolian boarder. We'd heard rumour of buses that run from Ulan Ude to Ulaanbaator in Mongolia, for cheap, so this seemed like a good option. Arriving at Ulan Ude the next morning, we found we could book another cheap train to the boarder town of Neweshky. We were still interested in chasing the mysterious bus option, but only had 20 mins till the train left. Faced with the possibility of being stranded in Ulan Ude, we opted to take the train. Later in Mongolia I met some fellow travellers who had taken the bus from Ulan Ude to Ulaan Baator: half the price and half the time. So the moral of the story is take the bus!

The journey from Ulan Ude to Neweshky was possibly the most scenic leg of our trip. The mountains and river valleys were really quite amazing. When we reached Neweshky we splashed out on some coupe tickets to Ulaan Baator. We would be continuing on the same train that we had taken from Ulan Ude; after it's six-hour pause (!) at Neweshky. By the time the train left for Mongolia it had been whittled-down to three carriages (by far the shortest train we took): a platskarte, a coupe (which we were in), and an ultra-posh trans-siberian experience carriage for european travellers with cash. There were virtually no Russians on this train; it seemed to contain exclusively Mongolians, Europeans and Americans. It was strange to be on a train with other travellers; on the Russian trains, we hadn't met any at all.

The scenery continued to delight. Yurts could now be spotted, dotted in the countryside. But soon it grew dark. The boarder crossing was quite an ordeal, taking some 8 hours. I took great pleasure in filling out the exit-customs form for Russia, which asked me, if I had about my person any 'cultural values'. Who doesn't?! Luckily the Russian customs guard saw the funny side and I didn't have to do any police-station sight seeing.

Possibly because it is land-locked and closer to the equator, I had been expecting Mongolia to be hotter than Russia. This was not the case, and due to the unconsidered altitude-factor, that night as our train chugged towards Ulaan Baator, we were all very very cold!

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Photos

Landscape
Not quite as flat as the rest of Siberia...