Mongolia - Ulaanbaatar

Genghis Khan

The capital city of Mongolia is home to 1.5 million people (about half the population of the entire country) and is a world away from the mountains and steppes we had left just outside the city. We had two nights in a hotel in central Ulaanbaatar before catching our last train on the Trans Mongolian railway ending up in Beijing. The train only runs twice a week and we were catching the Thursday train.

As we arrived by car we could see there were building works going on all over the city; huge cranes dotted the skyline and along every road on the way to our hotel they were building houses, apartment blocks, and commercial buildings. It was development on an unprecedented scale which seemed to be taking place at too quick a pace for a country with such a small population. Although Mongolia is a country rich in a variety of natural resources and was reported to be the fastest growing world economy in April 2012, the level of development was alarming. It seemed Ulaanbaatar was one massive building site.

Mongolia - Life in a Ger

Paul enjoying the sunshine

The 24 hour train trip from Ulan Ude ended at about 7am.  Everyone was a little ragged around the edges for a variety of reasons, lack of sleep being the main one, and an excess of beer and vodka a close second.  The same journey from Ulan Ude to Ulaanbaatar can be made by bus in 9 hours but you really can't break up the train trip and say, hand on heart, that you've done the Trans Siberian!  

We had an epic 5 hour stop at the Russian border town in the blistering heat (and yes, we were still in Siberia!), followed by a shorter but no less tedious 2 and a half hours at the Mongolian Border.  I am dealing with the journeys themselves in a separate post which is proving to be a bit of an essay but thought it would be more appropriate to keep those separate, for anyone interested in actually taking the train.

Ulan Ude - Lenin's Big Head

It's Lenin's Head and it's huge

The train trip from Irkutzk was amazing – it is the section of the railway which follows the south eastern shore of Lake Baikhal for about a quarter of its length and the scenery was stunning (although our window could have done with a bit of a clean so all the photographs were a bit rubbish but we enjoyed it nevertheless!).  And we had the compartment to ourselves which was a bonus.

However, we arrived at our last stop in Russia a little weary after the 8 hour train trip and, to be honest, not looking forward to another homestay or another guided city tour. 

Lake Baikal and Olkhon Island

Our trusty wagon

This part of the trip was something we had been looking forward to for some time.  I had never heard of Lake Baikal a year ago but now knew it was the largest freshwater lake in the world by volume, mainly because of its depth.  It is enormous and breathtakingly beautiful.  The photographs just do not do it justice.  But it is not only the beauty of the place, it is the fact that it is so unspoilt and despite all this, relatively unscathed by tourism.

We had elected to add a 3 day 4WD excursion to Olkhon Island as part of the whole organised Trans Siberian trip which was a bit pricey but it was a bit of a treat.  We both wanted to spend some time there because it looked a bit special, and it seemed like the best way to do it.  We are now glad we didn’t choose a hiking trip!  There was a lot of ground to cover and we have spent hours traipsing round cities.  It was nice to sit back in relative comfort and rest our legs a bit.

Hot and Sunny in Siberia - Irkutsk

The geezer who founded
Irkutsk 350 years ago

Once again, we had an interesting journey from Ekateringburg to Irkutsk, our longest trip so far of over 48 hours.  Once again, this journey warrants an entry of its own and I think is best written, with the benefit of a little perspective.

The first thing that struck us when we arrived in Irkutsk was that the weather was amazing.  It was hot and sunny and we were in the middle of Siberia! 

When you’re on the train you’re in a bit of a sealed bubble – on the newer trains the temperature is displayed in each carriage showing at 20-21⁰.  No more, no less – the provodnista (the carriage attendant - usually female, always formidable- in charge of bedding, keeper of the samovar, and your mum for the duration of your journey, whatever your age) would not allow any variance from this.

Ekateringburg and the Romanovs

Paul said at Vladimir that he wished we were travelling straight through to Irkutsk because there wasn’t a lot to see in Ekateringburg.  Well, apart from the fact that I could guarantee there would be a lot of churches (no longer a selling point), I was glad we were splitting our journey and I was interested to see this city, the industrial capital of Russian on the border between Europe and Asia.
Of course Ekateringburg is infamous as a result of it’s connection to the “demise” of the Romanovs but more of that later.

Vladimir, Suzdal and more churches than you can shake a stick at

Our little guest house

The day we headed to Vladimir did not get off to a very good start.  We arrived at Moscow Kazansky Station a couple of hours before the train was due to leave and Paul was despatched to get coffee.  He returned with a pained grimace holding two plastic cups full of what can only be described as sweet boiling water the colour of wee.  It was disgusting. 

The real tragedy was that he had gone to the trouble of purchasing this rubbish and as the plastic cups were not designed to hold boiling hot water, they had virtually collapsed as he was carrying them covering his left hand with boiling water and scalding himself quite badly.  We established where the toilets were and after first protesting that he would be fine, he finally trotted off to find a tap to run cold water over his hands. 

Moscow and Whistling Policemen

One of the Stalin Skyscapers seen from inside
the Kremlin walls

Our overnight journey from St Petersburg to Moscow was uneventful.  Our cabin mates were an older couple (by that I mean older than us but younger than our parents)  and as we hopped on the train at about 1 o’clock in the morning and arrived in Moscow at about 10 o’clock we mainly slept.

We were met at Moscow Leningradsky Station by a rather stern looking young lady called Irina who spoke very little English and who was to drive us to our homestay in a suburb of Moscow. 

The first thing I noticed on leaving the station, following Irina to her car, was one of the huge Stalin Skyscrapers. 

St Petersburg and the Russian Adventure Begins

Church of Spilt Blood

Our first stop in Russia was probably not an introduction to the real Russia.  There is no denying that St Petersburg is an incredibly beautiful city, built along the banks of rivers and canals, full of exquisite cathedrals and palaces designed primarily by Catherine the Great who was in fact a German!  

I should mention at this early stage that no reliance should be placed on the historical accuracy of anything I say – there has been a lot to take in and I have dozed off and/or glazed over on more than one occasion.

St Petersburg to Beijing is the only part of our trip which was pre-organised through an Australian travel agent and each stop includes a half day city tour with a guide.  Neither of us are particularly fond of such rigid planning but as we only have limited time in each place we thought it would be quite useful.

Sleeper Trains and Russian Border Guards

We glossed over our first experience on a sleeper train for no other reason than it’s taken us almost a week to get over the whole experience.  And frankly this did not bode well for a trip of several months which has been planned around travelling by train.

When booking our tickets from Cologne to Warsaw back in the UK we had settled for a couchette which is effectively 3^rd class – up to 6 berths to a cabin – mainly because we couldn’t really understand the booking system.