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| Our relatively Spartan train corridor |
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| Our relatively Spartan cabin |
30 June, Thursday
We woke up early around 5 am, but then went back to sleep
again as it was still grey outside so not much chance of a beautiful sunrise. The passing scenery was getting greener. Water bodies, white bark of birch and red of Siberian pine trees whisked by. Our alarm woke us up at
7am local time, but we shut it off and went back to sleep again. Time to get some sleep and rest as there was not much to do while the train was on the move and the scenery outside was not so pretty when as it was raining.
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| The train at Nazyvaevskaya |
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| A view along the way |
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| Another view along the way |
Sometimes it was hard to imagine that this is the dreaded Siberia that all those exiled by Soviet government were sent. The lush nature and space. Large industrial towns. These could be anywhere in the world. We saw more heavy industrial equipment - cranes, oil drillers and such. Except for the grey and the rain. If this were the weather everyday, then it would be drab. Of course, we were in mid-summer. Mid-winter cold would probably be another story.
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| Silo |
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| Fuel for industries |
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| Omsk |
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| Just outside Omsl |
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| Change of engine at Omsk |
At Omsk, we bumped into Toni and Rob from Kansas whom we met earlier in Moscow. They had spent an extra day at Moscow and had given Yekaterinburg a miss. They are in a 4 share cabin on carriage 9, separated from us by a single carriage. It was nice to know that they too are on board. At Omsk, at Toni & Rob's recommendation, we picked up some meat stuffed pastries. We could have those for snacks or meal. We had brought some fruits with us. We still have our stash of nuts and fruit mix as well. We got back on the train only a minute before it pulled out of the station. We need to be careful with these short stops.
We had learnt during the stop that the young men we saw in the Class 3 cabin were soldiers. During the day, they were dressed in their official crisp green uniform. We observed them stretching their legs on the platform. They behaved impeccably. Guess we would not have to worry about heavy drinking or drunks on board.
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| Silo? |
Wildlife-wise, we observed many soaring eagles, and magpies and other birds whenever open fields were observed. One eagle flew near our window after we pulled out of a station for a while, as if to accompany us. We saw some ducks in the lake. The areas around the railway appeared to be particularly wet or boggy. This leg of the trip, the tracks appeared to the side of the corridor of our carriage rather than the other way around as had been thus far on the Trans Siberian / Trans Mongolian. There was then less of that “the view behind the train” situations.
Sometime in the afternoon, our stewardness came to sweep our
cabin as well as the corridor along it.
She then proceeded to mop the place down. These ladies do take their roles
seriously. One thing about the Russians
we have noted is their national pride.
Their tourist fronting services are always impeccable. They are a proud people who will not do
anything to make foreigners think any less of them, their country or their
people. And that is a fantastic
thing. If only some other country’s
visitors to other countries would behave as impeccably!!
Back on the train, we reported our finding to Martin. On the platform, we had made plans to meet with Toni and Rob later at the restaurant around dinner time. On the way to the dining car, we passed Carriage 9. Toni and Rob were sharing with an Azerbaijani couple. We invited them to come to dinner with us but they declined.
For dinner, we settled again for the mixed meat solyanka soup that we had the other day. We were joined by other travelers from Toni and Rob's carriage. The first couple comprise of young American now living in Malmo, with his Swedish girlfriend. They had met in New Orleans where he was from. He told us that in New Orleans, one does not get home without interrupting one's journey with conversations along the way with all the folks one met. He had a shock when he got to Sweden and found that folks there do not greet each other on the streets at all on a casual basis. Ah ... Now, we suddenly have a better understanding of our Swedish friend a little better. That was so different from our recent experience in Denmark with our friends Jorgen and Helle. We were quite sure that we could live with the the Danish better than we could the Swedish.
The second couple were two friends travelling together – David, the photographer from Holland and Mya from New York. We would be most likely to bump into these two later as they were also headed to the opening ceremony of Naadam festival in Mongolia. We might even see them before that as they are independent travelers.
The Malmo based couple were also travelling independently, using only the invitation letter from the first hotel but having their hotels pre- booked in three places and then having a visa agency process their Russian visa for them. Interesting. We would have loved an extra day added at Moscow, another at Yekaterinburg and another or may be two at Lake Baikal to take full advantage of the Trans Siberian had we know that was possible even though the experience thus far had been great.
Just before we pulled into Barabinsk station, our last long stop before dinner time, something sitting at the edge of a mash caught our eyes. As the train was moving fast and we had to photograph through the glass window, we could not get a clear shot of the creature.
We were discussing how fast time past although for us it had been our laziest day since we started the adventure, not doing much beyond napping, eating, short chats, keeping our eyes peeled for photo opportunities. We would have liked to to have processed some photos so that we can post something on our blog when we get internet connection. Thus far though, we have done nothing of that sort due to lack of power availability.
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| Smoked fish from Barabinsk |
We were still in the dining car when the train pulled into Barabinsk. Fish smokers were hawking their wares. We bought one for 200 roubles (4AUD) to share with Martin as it would be too much for one person to consume. The hawker tried selling us 3 or 4 but we only bought one. It smelled really good. Rob loves fish but not Toni. Still he was not game to come have some with us. When we tried to get back into the dining car after making our purchase, the hostess was not the happiest with us. We had contravened some rules that we did not know. She had locked that door to prevent stowaways. We explained that all our things were in the dining car. With a stern crossed face, she let us in and proceeded to lock us in the dining car with a bang of the door. We were not permitted to go back to our carriage until after the train pulled out of the station. We spent the remaining of that 30 minutes stop chatting with the others in the dining car.
When the train pulled out, we went back to our cabin. We went to fetch Paul who had indicated that he would not mind trying the smoked fish but found their door locked. They are done for the day. Martin brought out his swiss army knife and plate. We cut the the fish up. We ate it with our bare hands, then eat the triangle meat filled bread. After the hearty supper, we disposed of our trash bag so that the cabin would not reek of fish!! We used bath gel to wash the plate and our hands. We ended that meal with a little coffee for Martin, tea for our travelling companion, and a small piece of chocolate each. One could not call that meal a bad dinner at all. It was easily the best meal we had on the train thus far.
We had noticed a young girl hovering constantly outside our windows in the corridor throughout the later half of that day. There were two other young boys doing the same further down the corridor We had not realised why she did that until we noticed that there were actually three charging points with 110W in the corridor of our carriage. Aha. We are going to get ourselves one of those for our use the next day.
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| The fantastic sunset with the lake that Martin wished for |
1 July, Friday
We were up at around 2 am but decided as there nothing worth seeing
so we went back to sleep. It was dark outside. We woke up at 4 am but
it was still dark, so we went back to sleep again.
The next time we awoke, Martin sitting up to watch the passing
scenery at local time 5.30 am. We had been adding an hour to our clock each morning to compensate for local time. We
sat up to watch the passing scenery but then fell into a good snooze until 9 am local time. We then made two cups of coffee with one of our coffee packs. We had some nibbles but no big breakfast. We were not hungry.
That morning, we were hoping to see that small
obelisk that marks the halfway point between Moscow and Beijing via
Ulanbaatar. It is supposed to be to the south of
Rob and Toni came to visit and we all had a great time
chatting. Rob was bleeding from his
shaving nick so we suggested Listerine from Martin’s morning kit and a patch
from my soft Australian toilet paper to stop that mess. We
all had a good laugh. Our hostess came
to sell us some souvenir. We were finally able to buy the key chain with the train that we had
earlier wanted.
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| Just outside station |
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| Krasnoyarsk Station |
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| Krasnoyarsk lion |
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| The famous mural outside Krasnoyarsk station |
On exiting the station, the first things we saw were a blow up jumping castle in the shape of a white tiger and a tall column topped with a lion holding a
spade and a sickle. To the right, on the wall of the building were the mosaic murals from the Soviet era. We stopped to admire the murals. We also saw ice cream vendors so decided to get some ice creams for ourselves and for Paul and Wendy. Back at the tracks, we bumped into
Rob and Toni who asked after our ice cream and we asked after their triangular camcha (a local pastry delicacy). Martin was tasked to get us some camchas while we went to hand over the ice creams.
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| Chinese train |
Back on the train, the hostess apologised for the mistake
she had made. She thought Paul and Wendy
were getting off the train at Krasnoyarsk instead of Irkutsk. We were really glad that they had not been thrown off the train. Since Martin and we had removed our linen, we had to put them back on our beds.
The empty cabins were now occupied by older
Japanese ladies who rolled their cases on to the train. They were as old or older than our mom but they were very energetic and agile. We saw a few quietly slipping a few bottles of alcohol into their cabins and shut their doors. They were quite noisy, something one would expect from teenagers rather than elderly Japanese ladies.
Shortly after we left the station, we crossed the Yenisei River. On the other side, we note a huge sawmill yard with logs and sawn logs. Then we passed a row of what looked like lock up garages. These are like those one saw of boat houses along the shore of a lake or the sea in Australia. Here they faced the railway tracks. And they were not very big, about the same sizes as those boat houses. What do people use these for.
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| Crossing the Yenisei |
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| Sawmill after the Yenisei |
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| Those interesting garages next to the train tracks |
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| Village up the hill |
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| Rail on train carriage |
After we past the town of Kansk, there was a village just next to the tracks. This enabled us to get a close up peek of life of the inhabitants around. The villages there appeared to be more affluent than the previous ones along this route. We also saw trains loaded with tracks already attached to sleepers ready to be laid.
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| Village life |
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| Village life |
The sun came out finally. Blue sky with fluffy white clouds
added to the beauty of lush long green grass peppered with patches of low purple
flowers. Every so often, yellow flowers would up as surprises.
At Ilansakaya where the train would stop for 20 minutes, we jumped out of the train to have a look and
stretch our legs. Our engine was then #369
and it was still red. Between it and the
first coach – #13 – was a service coach for workers of the train presumably. It looked as if it might be lived in, not unlike from those boat houses on the rivers in England. The train had added coaches
along the way. It was now a relatively long train. We met Rob and Toni again as well as the Malmo based couple based in Malmo on the tracks.
We had noticed this the little Russian boy travelling
with his mom and dad in cabin with two berths 37 and 38 in our carriage. That would have made us a single cabin if we had had that cabin. He was curious and restless so his poor dad had been walking him up and down the corridor from one end toilet to the other. At first, it felt a little irritating as it was a constant tax on privacy. But he was a cheerful kid and we felt sorry for his parents. He had gotten on at Krasnoyarsk. That morning we had offered him cookies but he did not want any. We sneaked up on him on the tracks and gave him a good tickle. His parents laughed. Now that we have tickled him, he is a little
more comfortable with us.
Around 4pm, our hostess came again to clean up the place – she swept and then mopped the cabin. Martin teased her
about the sheets. In good nature, she laughed at her earlier mistake. The Japanese ladies were now deep into wine and chips and were louder than as
ever.
We were hungry so we ate some dates and almonds, and then
had our dehydrated mashed potato followed by the packaged minestrone soups that Paul had given us. We had forgotten about the camchas that we had bought. Shortly after that, we had gone to the dining
car. Rob and Toni were already in
conversation with Mya and David and the Malmo based couple with another Russian
couple, so the original 4 sat together. This
time we decided to order herrings and potatoes.
Paul decided to copy our order and the solyanka while both Wendy and
Martin ordered cheese on toast. Wendy
and Paul also ordered orange juice. Paul ended up giving us his herrings as they tasted too raw to him. We felt too full after dinner as we had double helping with a Coke.
The hostess brought us sliced orange rather than orange juice. Then she explained that she had run out of orange juice. We hoped that she was not charging us for the sliced orange. She gave them apple juice instead. We were beginning to wonder if they made mistakes on purpose to make monies off us as the foreigners appear to be only patrons at mealtimes.
Both Wendy and Paul were telling us that the Japanese
ladies were behaving strangely with respect to toilet use. It was as if they did not understand that the toilets were occupied each time they found the doors locked. They were
barging and banging on the door. Paul
was surprised that they were trying to break in when he was inside
shaving. Wendy showed them her fist
when they continued banging and tried to enter when she was in it. That made them retreat. Back in the carriage, we discovered that the Japanese ladies
were as untidy as the Chinese as the toilet they were using was completely wet
and dirty. We went to use the front
toilet. As we started to
download the photos onto our computer, the train pulled into Tashyet so we had to use a
different card for the time being to capture the photos. At the toilet in the front, the little boy
after having washed his hand informed us that he had done so. We were then friends.
When the guide for the Japanese lady came to visit them, we took her aside and explained the situations that had arisen that day. She said that it is Japanese tradition to knock and for the inside person to knock back. But the trains were loud and they were hard of hearing. We requested that she instruct her ladies to wait as long as the doors were locked. Two situations when the doors could be locked. When someone was inside the washroom or when the hostess locked it going into a station. These washrooms emptied on to the rail tracks so they were not usable at the stations, including 10 minutes before arrival and 10 minutes after departing from a station.
When we were in the dining car, it had started to snow again
although nothing was sticking on the ground. We thought it was rain but the trajectory was almost 45 deg and it was not all that windy. The skies were
grey again. At Tashyet, we changed our
time zone over to Irkutsk (Moscow +5, same as Beijing). Finally we will not have to changed time zone
for a while. Darkness came in a hurry. A fog descended into the valley. Then the clouds lifted a little as we pulled out of Tashyet. No beautiful sunset that evening. Wet windows were also not conducive to photography
At 8.47 local time the following morning, we would arrive at Irkustsk and travel 70km south east to the village of Listanyaka on the shore of Lake Baikal. We are seriously looking
forward to that. We set the alarm for 6 am. We decided to go to bed early that night.
2 July, Saturday
We woke up at 6 am, still as tired as ever, to try to catch
a glimpse of the Angara River that feeds into Lake Baikal. The guidebook said that it would be
beautiful. It was very pretty. After that, we had another 1 hr and 45 min after breakfast before we get to our station. We ate the camcha that we bought
the day before for breakfast. We downed it and
split a coffee pack with Martin.
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| Lady with her friend getting off at the first Irkutsk station |
There were three stations for Irkutsk. The little boy came to say goodbye with his dad at the first station. We slipped him a lolly which he accepted. We said goodbye to his dad too. We saw a lady got off the train with her pet outstation dog. Wow. We had not realised pets are permitted to travel on the Trans Siberian. Our stop was the final of the stations for Irkutsk. After three nights and two days, we were really looking forward to getting off the train.
Footnote : The thing about the Trans-Siberian is that it lets one see across a range of the country. There are many places where one can stop, but the question of what one could do depends on whether one spoke Russian or otherwise. For those of us who do not speak Russian, then the limitation is what is offered by the various tour companies that could handle non-Russian speakers. One gets this feeling that there is more that one could do out there but the big barrier is the language. And in that way, it was both a learning as well as a frustrating experience.
Footnote : The thing about the Trans-Siberian is that it lets one see across a range of the country. There are many places where one can stop, but the question of what one could do depends on whether one spoke Russian or otherwise. For those of us who do not speak Russian, then the limitation is what is offered by the various tour companies that could handle non-Russian speakers. One gets this feeling that there is more that one could do out there but the big barrier is the language. And in that way, it was both a learning as well as a frustrating experience.
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