Водки поезд (The Vodka Train: Beijing to St Petersburg)

The trans-mongolia railway. It spans the entire width of Asia. Beijing to St. Petersburg over 6,000 kms. Setting foot on that train was pretty exciting. Looking at the locals and others on the train I was kind of surprised not to see excitement on their faces. "Don't you know that we're on a train to Mongolia?". Despite the fact that we had booked our tickets months in advance and had a schedule and itinerary for when we arrived in Ulan Battur, to me it still seemed like a great adventure into the unknown.


Our initial stretch from Beijing to Ulan Battur was about right though. It takes about 36 hours. For a journey of this length leaving in the early morning is definitely the way to go. By the time the excitement wears off it's time to go to sleep and by the time you wake up and have some pot noodles you have arrived.

In general though life on the train is, well long. For some reason it sounds a lot better in the brochure. There is a certain amount of romance and adventure that comes to mind when you think of the riding a train the entire breadth of a continent. But there is a certain amount of tedium that accompanies being stuck on a train for a prolonged period of time.

For example, there is no "on board entertainment" so you are obliged to make your own. For us is was cards. A$$hole to be specific. It's funny that almost everybody, with only minor rule variations, knows how to play this game so...we played...and then...played...

and then took a pot noodles break...

and then...played a bit more...then a break for some instant mashed potatoes...then some interaction with the locals...then mock the hostess who seemed obsessed with straightening the runner carpet that spanned the carriage and would get rumpled or crooked from people walking on it but would be straightened almost immediately.****

Once cards got a bit boring I managed to go 5-0 and retire the undefeated Trans-Mongolian Railway Chess Champion. Although I only played 2 opponents and one of whom wasn't entirely 100% sure of the rules. Still chess champion. Not bad considering I probably hadn't even thought about chess since I last played in a pub in Iceland 3 years ago.

Some Like it Hot

The trains don't run on coal any more, what is this the 19th century? No the trains run on diesel. The boilers for hot water however do run on coal. Yes, that's right. Every carriage has it's own coal fuelled boiler that provides hot water for tea, coffee and pot noodles. And a main part of the hostess' job is to keep the fire going and ensure there is lots of hot water.

Funnily enough, even though there is a massive coal powered fire generating enough heat to bbq a yak, the heaters for the carriages were not radiators but electric base board heaters. They too seemed to have just the two settings. So even though it was the middle of winter in the Gobi desert we were all more than comfortable in short sleeve tshirts***

As you would expect with a coal fire there are two temperatures, extremely hot and evaporated into steam hot. Luckily the area between the carriages are not burdened with electric heaters, or heaters of any kind, so if you want to cool down some boiling hot water to drinking water about 90 minutes in -20 degrees does the trick.

Crossing into Mongolia

The border crossing from China into Mongolia involves changing the train carriages from Chinese gauge* to Russian guage. The tracks are wider in Russia than in China (the russians having built the mongolian railway in exchange for, well whatever they had at the time). So at about 10 at night after around 14hrs we stop, pull into a big hangar and they make the change.

This process is notable for two reasons,

1) They physically lift the carriage of the Chinese chasis while you are inside. It is actually as cool as it sounds and is all the more impressive because they are so good at it that if you were'nt paying attention you wouldn't even realize it was happening.

2) For the several hours it takes to change over an entire passenger train no one is allowed to use the toilet. This makes sense when you consider that the toilets empty straight out onto the tracks and that we were in an indoor hangar surrounded by workers...

The second thing led to a near emergency and one of our group had to sweet talk the guards to use the toilet on the strict condition that the toilet was not to be flushed until we were back under way. Even though there is not a lot to do on a train and you have to make your own fun and stuff, standing around guarding the restroom door so that once we got underway again you are the first one in to flush your....um.....

Anyhoo, time is measured in short intervals between pot noodles and instant mash potatoes, card games and books, then chapters then pages of books.

It was almost lucky then that I had hung some laundry up to dry (freezing cold Beijing hostel rooms aren't the best for drying laundry) which then reminded me that all this free time would be a great opportunity to mend a hole in my pocket and replace a button with my trusty needle and thread.

It wasn't long though before Jenny, one of my cabin mates had had enough of my poor sewing technique and took over for me. She did a hell of a job too as that button is still on.

Crossing into Russia
Since the tracks are the same in both countries then a mere border crossing should be a mere formality right? Right? No. Say whatever you want about Russian political and economic reforms but state desire to control everything is still prevalant. Two examples:

1) When handing out the customs forms, which are sequentially numbered, the hostess skipped over one of our group. She was adamant that she had distributed the forms correctly and that Andrea had lost hers and under no circumstances was she allowed to issue another one. This is where Mike's lawyerly skills came into play (not for the first time either) and he gathered and presented the evidence to her in such a way as to prove her wrong conclusively and obtain the much sought after customs declaration.

2) When we got on someone mentioned something like "oh ya and watch out for people stashing things in your cabin." Things? What things? What people? It's not drugs is it? Oh man if someone tries to stash drugs in my cabin they are going to get the beatdown of the century.

No it wasn't drugs.

It is unclear what the duty restrictions are on cheap goods from China being imported through Mongolia (it must have something to do with Russia considering itself part of Europe) but I guess the rules are quite strict. So more than once someone tried to stash a pair of shoes or just generally enquired about the possibility of stashing stuff in our cabin. We politely declined.

When we arrived at the border however and opened up the hatches to prepare for inspection what did we find but another pair of shoes. Sneaky buggers. It worked too. Whomever's palm needed to be greased at the border obviously was and a smug looking Mongolian lady collected her inventory once we were safely across the border in Nauski, Russia.

If there is a town that is a stereotypical one-horse, border town it is Nauski. We had quite a long time here. This was evident because in the middle of the night, a uniformed Russian border guard in a surprisingly short skirt and high boots took our passports and hadn't yet returned them and didn't seem likely to any time soon. Also because our now one carriage train was resting on the track outside Nauski station all by itself, unattached to any engine or any other carriages.

From this we garnered that we weren't going anywhere anytime soon.We took a wander around town. And I literally mean we walked the entire visible circumference of the town which has maybe 100 houses and a few businesses. We really wanted to replenish the supplies but none of the "stores" had signs.*****Eventually, I thought that there was just too much traffic going into this unmarked building for it not to be a store so I walked in "If I don't come back tell my mom I love her". It was indeed a store and not just any store.

A store where we could pick up some cups, you know to drink stuff out of. There wasn't a lot to chose from. "I call "Lion cup" I said. Hey, I called it. Trevor got the monkey cup, and Andrea had to settle for the stupid kitten cup. Normal rules, you snooze you loose. But then again if you make a big enough deal about it then you actually win. So Trev got stuck with the pussy cup.

Siberia to Moscow - The Longest Train Ride. Ever.


I know I'm an accountant and all but the only thing I can think of when I hear that something is going to take 76 hours, is that it is a hell of a long time. Especially when it is continuous travel in a train with all there is to look at out the window is birch forests and more birch forests:

Too bad for Russia that birch bark isn't a global commodity or they would be uber-riche.

Three (+) days on a train leaves you with a lot of time to think. You ponder a lot of things. Some questions big, "Should I have stayed with my girlfriend and not bothered with this round the world trip?" and some not as profound "if you put a fresh layer of deoderant on overtop of 3 days of previous layers does it actually make a difference?"

It also brings to light a few cultural differences. Example: The hosteses are allocated an office, for taking care of paper work and a cabin for sleeping. The cabin for the hostesses is denoted thus:

as opposed to the rest of the cabins which have a number. The hostess cabin is the smallest cabin imagineable for two people but is probably reflective of the fact that generally one of them is working at all times so there's not a lot of time when they are in the same cabin at the same time.

Why then, would they come to me, about 1/2 an hour into a 76 hour journey and ask me to switch cabins because an old lady and a separate family of three, one of whom was an infant were crammed into the two person hostess cabin, while the hostesses (I found out later) were two people comfortably situated in a four person cabin) and that if I didn't switch I would be a total dick.

I'll be honest. At first I didn't mind. I felt like I was helping out. Then I felt like I was being taken advantage of especially when the Novisibirsk army got on at 2 am and the snoring colonel from hell joined my cabin. But then I remembered about the existence my good friend vodka and his second cousin beer and all was well. Oh and also their distant relative, ear plugs.

Except that is until the three straight 5am stops when the hostess would banging ice from the underside of the carriage with the shovel.

Sleep comes really easy on a moving train. It is one of the most relaxing things ever. A steady clickity-clack. A gentle rocking but not like on a boat where you need to be sick. It was when the train was stopped and I checked the gps and we were still 2,200kms from Moscow and moving at 19kmph that time really seemed to drag. Also when a baby was crying or 9 inches of ice was being cleared from directly below your cabin by a 50kg woman with a shovel at 3 in the morning.

I think it's safe to say we were more relieved than anything to arrive in Moscow without having killed one another or anyone else.


Photos 1) View out the back window of the Gobi desert enroute to Mongolia from Beijing. 2)3) The corridor. Note the straightness of the rug. 4) Hanging out on the train. 5) With these cards I'm going to be President. Again. 6) Mmmm. Pot noodles. Hey, I had to get at least one shot of me eating with chopsticks! 7) TRANS-SIBERIAN CHESS CHAMPI-OOOOOON! 8) Coal burning fire. Probably could have waited and taken one of our hostess shoveling. 9) Ultra-hot pot noodles that make you cry anyone? 10-11) Changing guages. 12) A little light reading. Got maybe 1/2 way through. Even when you're bored on a train reading can be a chore. 13) "Jenny" sewing up my buttons! 14) The team boarding the train to Irkutsk. 14) Whose shoes are those? Not mine. 15) "I call lion cup!" 16) The team boarding the train to Moscow. 17) Birch bark city 18) When will this train ride end? 19) Ummm....why is this "conductor" logo on my door? 20) Ok. We're here. Can we shower now or what? 21) The team boarding the train to St Petersburg. The easiest one yet. Board train at 1am. Sleep. Wake up at destination. Kind of a waste of a Saturday night but whatever.


*Note that they don't actually say all aboard and all indications are that they could really care less whether everyone was aboard or not. The train leaves regardless. Nothing like a little paranoia about being stranded in the Gobi dessert or Siberia to make you stick pretty close to the train during stops!
**Actually I looked it up and it appears that China uses standard gauge and it's just the Russians who use a narrower gauge.
***If you are the big fat Mongolian dude then just walking around in your underwear was fine.
****Pride in the appearance of the carriage was unique to the Mongolian hostesses and while it was amusing at the time we were grateful for it especially the cleanliness of the toilets which were spotless and a marked contrast to the trashed loos on overnight trains within say China for instance.
*****We, and by we I mean I, had already mastered the Cyrillic for super market - Супер -super маркет -market) so had my eyes open.