4 July, Monday
We were monitoring what was going past outside hoping to get a last glimpse of Lake
Baikal. We were up at 3.30 am but there
was not enough light to be able to make out much. There was always a line of trees between
the rail and the lake. Sometimes there were villages too. The mountains here are much taller than at Listvyanka.
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| A last look at Lake Baikal before we leave its shore |
At around 4.30 am, we saw one of the rivers that feed Lake
Baikal with the beautiful mountains behind it. The banks here were much steeper. Some of the
pine trees looked like they were clinging to the slope of the hills. They all stood tall and proud with only their roots looking like the fingers and toes clinging to the slope so that the rest of the tree could stay upright.
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| Me with my Russian cousins at Ulan Ude |
Shortly after, we pulled into Ulan Ude for 30 minutes. It was nice to have English speaking
attendant. He said 30 minutes. Martin and my travelling companion ran out of the carriage and
headed to the front of our train to take a photo of our engine.
As we did that, we noticed that the crowd near the trains have cleared
and the engine started and shone its lights.
We wondered if we had misunderstood how long the train would stop, so we
made for our carriage. On the way, we saw
some new passengers trying to get on but was re-directed to wait. Ok, we were safe. We found out later that these redirected passengers belong to our carriage. There was a lady, Tracy,
from London, and a couple who had both lived outside the US for 7 years, she from
Arizona and he from North Carolina. He is a military contractor and she a teacher at an International
School. They are great travelers and
had spent time in Indonesia and Qatar.
We traded stories of how involved the process of procuring a Russian
visa was. She is 8 weeks pregnant and wore on her neck, a talisman from Lake Baikal protecting pregnant women.
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| Along the Selenge |
Coming out from Ulan Ude, the scenery outside changed again. It was mostly open grassland and
we start to see stockades for animals among the village houses. We saw herds of calves and a lone cattle. The train also moved much slower which meant
that we can open the windows of our Mongolian carriage. This was the first carriage of the Trans-Siberian that had windows which actually be opened. There was no mechanism though to keep the windows open. We used a 1.5 litre water bottle as a stop. It was useful especially during hotter times as the carriage was not air-conditioned. The samovar on our coach was not electrical but was heated by firewood.
A hoopoe bird similar to the one we saw at
the Sultan Marshes in Turkey flew by. We then saw a buzzard like large black
bird on the garbage pile. We observed
later two more hoopoes trying to follow the train.
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| Trash along the railway tracks |
We crossed the Selenge River and saw more steppe and
villages with stockades. For a while,
the railway track followed the Selenge River.
There must be more train carriages with open windows along this mostly single
track as rubbish – plastic bags of various colours – can be seen strewn along
the rail path. Thus far on the Trans-Siberian, we had not observed so much plastic or rubbish along our routes. It was not a pleasant sight but one was more concerned about the environmental impact of such wide plastic pollution.
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| A peek at village life |
We observed villagers going about their everyday lives. It
would appear that if inhabitants here spent a substantial part of their lives in the collecting, splitting and storing wood to keep themselves warm in
the severe winter, which temperatures can go as low as -60 deg C.
At some point, we started to notice a highway running
parallel to the railway. It appeared to have good quality asphalt top although traffic appeared thin.
Around 9 am, after the station Ubukun, the landscape looked increasingly arid. The highway was
built on raised ground with tunnels for flash flood waters and wild life. This reminded us of the sight that greeted us when we crossed the Gobi Desert in China back in 2009. The trees here were dwarfed where they existed. Otherwise the
landscape was grassland with mountains as back drop. Then there was a pocket stretch of
taiga – with the characteristic white trunks of the birch trees which were as
tall as before. It was green again outside but before too long, it was just
grasslands. Villages were more frequent
here than on the taiga between Yekaterinburg and Irkutsk.
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| Steppe |
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| Sight just before the border town of Naushki |
As we have open windows, we could smell and listen to what was outside as
well as felt the prevailing temperatures.
When the train halted momentarily, we heard tweet tweet and looked up
to see the yellow bird again sitting on the wire. We wonder if it had served as inspiration for
tweety bird, the cartoon character of Disney paired often with the dog, Sylvester.
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| Naushki |
Before too long, we arrived at the final station at the Russian
border, the little town of Naushki.
We were advised that the train would stop for three hours there. There was an initial check of passport with
the carriage’s manifest, after which we were told that we should leave the
train as they have to decouple us from other carriages in preparation to go
across the border. We walked towards
the station, hoping to find a charging point so that we could work on our blog or photos, but there was none.
Other than the beautiful mosaic murals depicting the costumes of the traditional folks of the area, the train building had nothing. No waiting room, no conveniences for passengers, no cafes. We walked into a park at the back of the
station with the hope that it might be nicer to sit in. Nope, the trash cans were running over with
heaps of plastic and bottles neatly piled under or near these. The trash cans were near benches, rendering these unattractive resting spots. We crossed the park, and found what appeared to be a
crow trying to look bigger than he really was. On the other side of a dusty road which looked like the main street of a one horse town was the railway building. It had some steps and a shady spot on one side. In the blistering heat with no other options, that spot was not a bad place to sit and rest a little. We walked over there, sat down and worked on our blog for as long as the battery in our laptop would last. Paul and Wendy came with us.
Martin said he would go for a wander.
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| Beautiful mosaic mural |
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| Main street of the town |
That shady spot was also slightly breezy so we watched young boys playing in the school field nearby as we worked on the
blog. We had run out of things to talk about. Soon enough, Martin joined us, having run out
things to do in this half horse town.
He had noted that the roads were full of port holes. This was probably the best illustration of a town that everyone had forgotten about.
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| WWII memorial |
Our laptop run out of power so we decided to head back to the
train. Martin said there was a notice
for 30 minutes, which was a little surprising because the stop was supposed to be for 3 hrs. May be there had been some kind of a change. On the way, we went to where Paul
said he saw a war memorial behind the building to have a look – it was the
memorial to the victims of WWII. After arriving back at the train, we finally understand that the call was for the train going to Chita. We note that there were only three carriages that were
crossing into Mongolia after the train for Chita left. The carriages looked so lonesome standing alone on the tracks waiting for border procedures to be completed.
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| The three carriages crossing into Mongolia |
As we had run out of things to do in the town, we thought we would wait back in the train
carriage. Martin showed us a little shop
at the other end of the station. Some cows were crossing the road between us and the little shop. There
was nothing worth spending our last rubles with except for an ice cream for
him and me. He had run out of rubles the evening before. No problem.
We had too many remaining rubles which we would have to change to Tugrik once we crossed the border.
Back at the carriage, our Mongolian attendant had already
drew the shades across the west facing windows along the corridor. The carriages were very warm, but it was still
better than being outside. We were not
sure what to do next, so we started to have lunch. Slices of bread and tomatoes with pate and
some cheese and oranges. After lunch, we decided to have a snooze. By
then it was around 4pm. We had arrived
around 1pm.
We were snoozing when we
noticed a battalion of uniformed personnel heading towards us. We were not sure where the battalion had come from as we had not seen more than a handful of people including all workers since we pulled into the station (passengers to Chita not counting). They would check our passports to stamp it
but importantly, they would check the carriages for contraband. The lady that came to our cabin asked Martin to empty out his bag. Out came clothes thrown in that needed laundry as we would be needing to do that
soon as we had no opportunity since Yekaterinburg. She asked if mine were the same and I said
yes and all dirty. She decided against checking me. A lady later climbed to check that above
the door space after we have been told to exit our carriage. The same check was carried out to each cabin. All the spaces were checked. When that was complete, we were coupled to a Russian
engine. Hooray, at 5.30pm we pulled out of the station. As soon as we were out of the station, we
all clapped.
We wandered how the occupants of our next door cabin fared since she had not only stocked all the space in her cabin as well as all spare space in Paul & Wendy's cabin with bananas and other food commodities like oil, etc. We wondered what the difference in price were. She had to be a regular as she was seen dining later that evening with the carriage attendant and the hostess who helped him clean the train.
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| Crossing no man's land between the borders |
We have to travel only 17km to reach the next
checkpoint. The train slowed as it
approached the barb wires fences that marked the border. Yellow gates on the Russian side and a black gate on the Mongolian side marked a strip of land between the two borders. After the border, we passed the first Mongolian
station where the guard saluted the train, and a second station where the same happened. We did not stop at those two. We pulled into Sukhbaatar around 6pm.
We had been advised that it would probably
take an hour to clear us. Outside another battalion of uniformed personnel appeared and they surrounded the carriage. We watched in fascination. The border personnel probably outnumber the passengers of the train by three folds. The chief of the uniformed personnel appeared
to be accompanied by his young son. The
immigration and customs processes took much less time to complete - around an hour. The train had to stop for 2 hrs as it needed to be reconfigured. We were told to disembark.
We were hoping we could charge our laptop in the
station. Before we could even exit the carriage,
we found ta money changer already at the door of our train trying to get us to change
monies with him. We did no such
thing. Instead we headed for the ATM only
to find that it did not work. Martin
wanted to borrow some rubles for the bathroom and since we need to use one too, we
went with him. The lady gave us change
in Tugrik. Nice. We decided to change our remaining 250
rubles into Tugrik with her. Wendy
followed suit but that result in the same earlier money changer coming into the
picture as the toilet receptionist did not have any more Tugrik.
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| Ulaanbaatar |
In the station, there was no power too. A young Mongolian girl told us that with her
head shakes as we tried the plugs in the station.
We decided to get a cold drink at the stall that Martin had discovered
on the other side of the station. Cold drinks were 1000 T each (around AUD 0.7). Exchange rates in Mongolia are even more confusing than the rubles conversion. It was refreshing and cool especially after sitting in the heat of the carriage all afternoon thus far.
Rob and Toni were not sure whether to change monies or
not. We gave them 2000 T and told
them to get cold drinks for themselves. In the meantime, another train pulled on to the tracks in front of our carriages
obscuring it from sight. We were sure
that our time was up even though our carriage was not yet coupled to anything. So my traveling companion lead the charge to go behind the parked train on the front most track and walked to our own carriages. It worked.
Martin sat down and proceeded to nap. It was not very interesting to be waiting and
waiting for hours on end. The trip from
Irkutsk to Ulaanbaatar could easily be completed in an overnight trip instead of
two nights. This had to be the most challenging leg of our trip.
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| Spartan Mongolian carriage corridor |
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| Me inside spartan Mongolian cabin |
The Mongolian carriage was not helpful as well. The Russian carriages were like the one we had going into Irkutsk. Since we were in the Mongolian carriage, we could not loiter in the Russian carriages. The Mongolian carriages had no charging points anywhere. Power to the carriage was switched off once it got light enough in the day and was not switched back on until it was dark. The Australian plug point in the carriage carried no power at all. Outside in the corridor, there was a charging point with 56W. Laptop and all OECD devices work on the minimum of 110W. There was no available power for personal devices in any stations. Passengers should bring paper products for entertainment!!
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| Shortly after crossing Mongolia border |
We decided that we would eat dinner we were
underway again. But as soon as that
happened, the views became fantastic. We
were looking out of left windows on both sides of the carriage, racing in between these
two until useful photographic light was no longer.
We were finally rewarded after the rainy morning and the blistering heat of the day with a spectacularly beautiful sunset. All of us perched at the windows looking at it.
The landscape was very different from Russia where small plots of land
were used for animal husbandry. Here, the herds appear to roam free. Dinner once it got dark was peaches, more bread with pate for me and
cheese for Martin and a little tea.
Small meal but neither of us were not too hungry after all that heat.
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| Another spectacular sunset |
It was also then we learnt that the Mongolian young lady who was attending university in Irkutsk and sharing a cabin with Rob and Toni did not come back on to the train. We wondered what had happened to her as her luggage was still where it was on the train. They had informed the attendant who had taken possession of the luggage for safe keeping. There are some interesting going ons in these trains between these borders. May be it is the same for physical borders like these where the people on both sides have always been friends and the only thing separating them is a border imposed by two countries.
Seriously weary partly due to the non-stimulating and more frustrating nature of this day, we went to bed early. We would have to be
up rather early in the morning as we were scheduled to disembark at 8.30
am. We set the alarm for 7.30 am.
5 July, Tuesday
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| The front of our train entering Ulanbaatar area |
At 7 am, there was a knock on the door. The Mongolian attendant could not wait to get
us off the train that he woke us up early. He wanted us to strip our linen and packed up our beddings.
We made coffee sharing a pack of pre-mix.
Half awake, we stripped our beds and packed in readiness to leave
the train. This was our last train
trip with Martin. We would miss his good company in the future. We were really lucky to have him as our travelling companion and that we had traveled so well together.
As we wait for arrival in Ulanbaatar, we noticed that our train has grown really really long as many carriages have been added on during the night stops while we slept. As we turned corners, we could see both the tail and the head of our trains. We snapped this shot just as we approached Ulanbaatar station.
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