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Published: July 16th 2014
Enjoying a beverage in our cabin
Train 007H Vladivotok to Ulan UdeI was just saying to Ruth the day before that I wish those leaden skies would just open up and get it over with, however I did not want it to rain while we were walking down hill toward the railway station encumbered with our packs, I was concerned one of us would go arse up.
A short time later we arrived safely and entered the station passing through security before going in search of information on which track our train was on. The girl at information ignored my enquiry then closed her booth before I could ask her again. Eventually I discovered platform 3 was were we needed to go so we lugged our gear up the stairs and across the overpass before boarding carriage 10 in the first class section of the train.
The carriage is old and there is no bathing facilities so it will be another 3 days before we get to shower, the toilet was stainless steel and opened up directly on to the tracks, so much for caring for the environment. The provodnitsa is the boss and looks after those guests in her carriage, she is short, round and a lovely person who
Train 007H
Somewhere in Siberia would help us out regularly as we travelled. I prepayed our meals before leaving Australia but later discovered that only included one meal a day, it took a lot of miming and frustration before we understood that we must pay for the others.
We opened our window to let in the breeze as it is hot here and I was tired of roasting, then headed to the restaurant car where I enjoyed interacting with the staff who seem to drink vodka while they work, after an interesting salad we returned to our berth to find our bedding was soaked by a squall. Our provodnitsa found us some dry bedding so all was good.
Our first long stop was at Karbarovsk where we stared out the window, after nearly being left behind a couple of times in China I am more careful now days. The scenery is lovely although there is a shortage of anything but trees, hardly any birds or animals, we have only seen a handful of cows and goats in four days of traveling. Day three was the worst, long stops in sidings, delay delay delay, we are running out of things to keep us occupied,
by mid afternoon we arrived in Chita and I realised we would never arrive in Ulan Ude on schedule.
The trains run on Moscow time which is confusing as Russia has at least five time zones and I am paranoid I will mix them up and miss a train, anyway our train pulled in 6 hours late (I think) at 4am in the morning and I was forced to pay way too much for the cab but we would never have found the hotel on foot.
We passed out almost immediately waking at 10am and showered for the first time in 4 days, Ruth went first coming out of the bathroom complaining about cold water, I went in turned the tap the opposite way and got hot lol. This is our only day here so we wanted to make the most of it so we headed towards the centre of town checking out the 7.7 metre Lenin head first, before visiting the incredible opera/ballet theatre. Next we went in search of museums finding one in a cool mall where we stopped at an Irish bar for deep fried cheese sticks and beer, heaven. Lots of Mongolian souvenirs here
so we have been buying, then got caught in a torrential down poor with raindrops bigger then a 50 cent coin.
When the rain stopped it was oppressively hot and we decided to make our way back to the hotel, Ruth then spotted the Buryat Museum we had been looking for all day so we went in for a look. Very impressive Soviet era paraphernalia mixed with lots of old weapons and a great display on Russian buddhism which appears to be similar to Mongolian buddhism with its many blood thirst demons dismembering and torturing a multitude of sinners.
Next morning we left our hotel for the train station and the 9.48am train to Ikutsk, I am cool with the trains now although I havent tried to buy a ticket at the station yet, this time we travel 3rd class. It was horrible, no aircon, no breeze, it was so hot and there were so many people but the views of Lake Baikal, forrest and village were pleasant. The locals just dont seem to feel the heat. Anyway 8 hours later we arrived in Irkutsk, lovely train station over looking the river and a very soviet city centre,
I like these Russian city's they uave immense character. After check in we went looking for bars and found a few lol, helps when it doesnt get dark till sometime after 11pm.
The Russian food is the great suprise of the trip so far, much more choice than I expected and all good quality, last night the Russian salad looked like a mousse and Omul and caviar looked like a terrine, but all so taste.
This morning we travel to the lake side village of Lisvyanyka, ten minute walk to the bus station then an hour ride on a minibus, it would hit 40 degrees today yet these people are rugged up. I was expecting a postcard european lake village but instead found an only slightly attractive post soviet mess. The Russians lay on stony beaches or lined up for boat trips while we ate Plov, purchased a few souvenirs then headed to the excellent Baikal museum where we saw some beautiful Nerpa pups. After leaving the museum we waited on the side of the road for about 20 minutes for a minibus back to Ikutsk, the driver was such a maniac he was frightening the Russian passengers.
When we arrived back in the city in the late afternoon it was damn hot so we went looking for a good pub for a drink unfortunately there are none in Irkutsk, such a boring city.
Next morning we checked out at 12 and went looking for something to see, the museum had no english and was not very good, the churches were nice enough, but that was about it, sat down in a bar near our hotel while we discussed how to get that Belarus visa for me. At 5pm we headed to the train station for the next leg of our journey across Russia.
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D MJ Binkley
Dave and Merry Jo Binkley
Siberia
We are going to take this trip some day.