The Train July 15, 2006
I woke up around 6AM and noticed a lack of movement. For most of the night the train had swayed rhythmically as it moved along the tracks with an occasional stop to accent how peaceful the motion was.
Time for the morning toilet. I quietly left the cabin made my way to the end of the car where the toilet is located to find it locked. I had forgotten that they lock the toilets when the train is not in motion. This is done because the toilets flush straight to the outside and you can imagine what a mess that would be.
I walked to the other end of the car where the doorway to get on and off the car is located. The door is locked and no one else is up. From the back window I see the rest of the train is gone. I walked forward to an open window, leaned out and saw that there were no cars forward of us either. We are sitting at a station and at this time of the morning there is no activity. Why have we been abandoned!?! My early morning foggy brain wrestles with the question, but other more urgent problems take precedence. I unlock and open the door of the train and look out at the station, nothing stirs except for an old dog that walks a few feet before circling and then laying down. About this time Holly appears in the hallway of the car and asks what is going on. I tell her and never one to be timid she jumps down from the car and starts to look around. She turns around and states the obvious “There is no train”. We find a toilet at the train station and human life in the form of the toilet fee collector. Pay toilets are common in a lot of Asia and Holly has brought money. I owe her one.
As we return to the train my Russian Mongolian friends makes me understand that our car has been set aside on purpose and will be picked up by a Russian train at 10:45am and we will continue on. That is the second relief in the last 10 minutes.
Mongolian Immigration boards the train and after we fill out the required departure card (in Mongolia) a uniformed officer comes to each cabin, collects our passports and then disappears. A short while later he returns looks at out passport pictures and after stamping the book hands them to us with a smile.
The train is finally reassembled and began to move precisely at 10:45. I like a railroad that runs on time. Our car is pulled about a mile and then stops again in front of another station.
After sitting for a while, Russian Immigration boards and the process starts again, but these guys are more serious. To start there are four of them and they aren’t smiling. The first two are women and look like characters from a James Bond movie; a short solid woman with close cropped hair wearing a skirt and a shirt with military type insignias. The other is a tall athletic blond in a tight blue jumpsuit. They move down the car handing out detailed forms that are written in Russian and must be filled out in duplicate. This presents a problem as no one in our compartment understands Russian. The jump suit tries to help but quickly sees how hopeless this situation is. She disappears and returns with a young lady from another compartment that has just graduated from university in St. Petersburg and speaks American English. She helps us with the forms, the officers take them and our passports and continue down the car. Next four Customs Officers board. This is where it gets tense. All our baggage must be pulled down and more forms are handed out. This form is in English and we fill them out and hand them to one of the officers. It is suggested that we step out of the compartment while an officer searches the overhead compartment and under the seats. We have read about this in the Lonely Planet Guide and are prepared for a lengthy ordeal. They are looking for black-market goods that are routinely smuggled across the boarder. They find nothing in our car and after about thirty minutes our passports are returned and we are allowed to get off the train for our first experience in the Mother-Land.
The toilet is the first stop for everyone. Not the worst we have seen, but not one you want to linger in. We then make our way to a small shop where two ladies behind a counter fill people’s orders from shelves that are sparsely stocked with soda, water, chips, cigarettes and ICE CREAM! I try one of the Russian ice cream bars while Holly buys water and a package of cookies. As we walk away we discover the water is carbonated. We return and are told they have no distilled or “still” water. We walk away a second time and start the search for plain bottled water. No luck with this search and we sit on a bench thankful to be off the train for a while.
After a couple of hours our car is hooked into a Russian train and we begin the journey again. The rest of the day is spent stopping and starting at numerous stations. We get one more long stop just before dark where we find plain water and my first Russian beer. Not bad and reasonably priced at about 50 Roubles (about US$2).
The bed time routine begins again with a queue at the one available toilet in our car. Ready for bed we read, Holly plays solitaire with a deck of Mongolian cards she bought in Ulaanbaatar. The faces feature pictures of Mongolian characters and take a little getting used to, but she manages. Then it’s lights out as we rumble through the night heading for Irkurtsk..
Time for the morning toilet. I quietly left the cabin made my way to the end of the car where the toilet is located to find it locked. I had forgotten that they lock the toilets when the train is not in motion. This is done because the toilets flush straight to the outside and you can imagine what a mess that would be.
I walked to the other end of the car where the doorway to get on and off the car is located. The door is locked and no one else is up. From the back window I see the rest of the train is gone. I walked forward to an open window, leaned out and saw that there were no cars forward of us either. We are sitting at a station and at this time of the morning there is no activity. Why have we been abandoned!?! My early morning foggy brain wrestles with the question, but other more urgent problems take precedence. I unlock and open the door of the train and look out at the station, nothing stirs except for an old dog that walks a few feet before circling and then laying down. About this time Holly appears in the hallway of the car and asks what is going on. I tell her and never one to be timid she jumps down from the car and starts to look around. She turns around and states the obvious “There is no train”. We find a toilet at the train station and human life in the form of the toilet fee collector. Pay toilets are common in a lot of Asia and Holly has brought money. I owe her one.
As we return to the train my Russian Mongolian friends makes me understand that our car has been set aside on purpose and will be picked up by a Russian train at 10:45am and we will continue on. That is the second relief in the last 10 minutes.
Mongolian Immigration boards the train and after we fill out the required departure card (in Mongolia) a uniformed officer comes to each cabin, collects our passports and then disappears. A short while later he returns looks at out passport pictures and after stamping the book hands them to us with a smile.
The train is finally reassembled and began to move precisely at 10:45. I like a railroad that runs on time. Our car is pulled about a mile and then stops again in front of another station.
After sitting for a while, Russian Immigration boards and the process starts again, but these guys are more serious. To start there are four of them and they aren’t smiling. The first two are women and look like characters from a James Bond movie; a short solid woman with close cropped hair wearing a skirt and a shirt with military type insignias. The other is a tall athletic blond in a tight blue jumpsuit. They move down the car handing out detailed forms that are written in Russian and must be filled out in duplicate. This presents a problem as no one in our compartment understands Russian. The jump suit tries to help but quickly sees how hopeless this situation is. She disappears and returns with a young lady from another compartment that has just graduated from university in St. Petersburg and speaks American English. She helps us with the forms, the officers take them and our passports and continue down the car. Next four Customs Officers board. This is where it gets tense. All our baggage must be pulled down and more forms are handed out. This form is in English and we fill them out and hand them to one of the officers. It is suggested that we step out of the compartment while an officer searches the overhead compartment and under the seats. We have read about this in the Lonely Planet Guide and are prepared for a lengthy ordeal. They are looking for black-market goods that are routinely smuggled across the boarder. They find nothing in our car and after about thirty minutes our passports are returned and we are allowed to get off the train for our first experience in the Mother-Land.
The toilet is the first stop for everyone. Not the worst we have seen, but not one you want to linger in. We then make our way to a small shop where two ladies behind a counter fill people’s orders from shelves that are sparsely stocked with soda, water, chips, cigarettes and ICE CREAM! I try one of the Russian ice cream bars while Holly buys water and a package of cookies. As we walk away we discover the water is carbonated. We return and are told they have no distilled or “still” water. We walk away a second time and start the search for plain bottled water. No luck with this search and we sit on a bench thankful to be off the train for a while.
After a couple of hours our car is hooked into a Russian train and we begin the journey again. The rest of the day is spent stopping and starting at numerous stations. We get one more long stop just before dark where we find plain water and my first Russian beer. Not bad and reasonably priced at about 50 Roubles (about US$2).
The bed time routine begins again with a queue at the one available toilet in our car. Ready for bed we read, Holly plays solitaire with a deck of Mongolian cards she bought in Ulaanbaatar. The faces feature pictures of Mongolian characters and take a little getting used to, but she manages. Then it’s lights out as we rumble through the night heading for Irkurtsk..
posted by Gary and Holly Davis @ 7:26 AM
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