Ger

For the next 21 miles, we would travel through a kind of 'no man's land', which, really seems like it's more run by Russia as there was one more checkpoint with Russian soldiers looking on before we were on the other side and surrounded by Mongolian police. All had strong Asian features, and bam, just like that, the ethnicities changed. As did demeanor. Friendly, disarming with a warm sense of humor, the Mongolians couldn't have been more different. A winsome group of people where one man even ASKED Sarah to take a photograph of him. Customs and Passport Control couldn't have been any more different either. Time in and out: 35 minutes.

But also for some strange reason as the ethnicities changed abruptly, so did the insect situation. So much so, that the first station we pulled into in Mongolia, Andy thought that the newfound warmness was contagious as it seemed everyone was waving at the arriving train. When the train stopped, we quickly realized what it was. Mosquitoes. Tons of them started filling the cabins. There goes our windows down/fresh air idea we thought. Luckily Sarah had the idea of putting our mosquito netting over the window and we had a very peaceful night's sleep.

We awoke to the gorgeous plains (and thus now radically different landscape) of Mongolia complemented by a stunning orange sunrise. We could occasionally see Gers (the circular felt tents of the traditional nomads) popping up every now and then as well as cattle and herders themselves in the most random/isolated of places.

After passing what we were told was a 'Ger suburb' oustide of Ulan Bataar, we finally pulled into the capital itself at about 8:30AM.

It is a charming city because of its people and history even if the infrastructure itself appears to be in rubble. We checked out their 'State Department Store' which was pretty desolate on the first floors with much more upkeep and activity on the top floor where all the Mongolian souvenirs are sold.

Lunch included the dish that would recur many times over on our visit: Mutton. This time it was in the form of a stew. We also had Mongolian tea, which really more like hot milk with a little salt. Both were quite palatable and shockingly (for us European travelers) cheap. -- around $4 USD for lunch for the two of us.


With our group came the luxury of planned transfers. This one involved taking us to a more remote section outside of Ulan Bataar where we would spend one night under the stars in a felt ger tent ourselves and meet a few of the local nomads. On the way, we managed to ride camels (they are in fact used here for their hair, milk and transport) and Andy held a white-tailed hunting eagle, a descendent of a more famous local hunting eagle, and this one we were told had recently killed many rodents and 'beavers' that winter.

We met a nomad family, but in this case, use the word "nomad" loosely since their winter camp was a mere 50 feet away, but they still said they wouldn't trade the outdoors, fresh air and milk for anything else. We sampled a staggering array of cheese, cheese curds, milk, and milk products. Even snuff. Some of the curds were quite nice but there were a couple that the sour scale was off the charts and practically inedible for us. The next day we also tried "Airag," which is the famous traditional fermented mare's milk. Two in our group loved it, but we and Andy in particular had a hard time keeping it down, especially attempting to drink the entire bowl offered him so as do as his hosts. He was just praying he wouldn't give the ultimate insult of it coming back up and onto on the floor! Truth was, we'd drink the regular mare's milk anyday -- it was quite full and refreshing.

There was also a "mock" Nadeem festival --- archery, trick horseriding and Mongolian wrestling with the last man standing doing the eagle dance, the Mongolian equivalent to a WWF Smackdown victory dance.


Horse riding was a highlight although Andy's at one point got rebellious and stuck his head into a boulder crevace and wouldn't budge for several minutes. The guide freed him and said he does that sometimes with foreigners, not Mongolians. Sarah got a similarly difficult horse, but at the end she traded with the guide's and immediately it took off on a full gallop. The only thing the guide was afraid about was the clothesline tether ropes which were quickly approaching. What would prove to be more fatal than the ride for Sarah would be the mounting itself, during which the entire back seam of her pants ripped wide open almost as if in a Three Stooges movie.




Back in Ulan Bataar the next day, we went to a crazy market where we were countlessly warned about brazen pickpockets who would work in teams to grab your arms while another went in for your pockets. So, after leaving all our valuables at the hotel, the only suspicious activity we found was a veiled woman with 5 young men around her following Andy closely from behind. When he stopped to let them pass, they all did a U-turn and scurried. They would have only gotten about $10 USD anyway.
The final leg of the Trans-Mongolian is tomorrow. Ulan-Bataar to Beijing, China. A two/three day journey that will take us through the heart of the Gobi desert and a border crossing where they actually lift the train carriages and change the wheels underneath to fit the more narrow Chinese tracks.

The train leaves to traverse the Mongolian steppes at 8am.

Lake Baikal

Lake Baikal is the world's oldest and deepest freshwater lake. Depending of on which Russian you talk to, it contains 15, 20, or 25% of the world's freshwater. It is supposedly true that if the world's drinking supply were to suddenly vanish, the entire world's population could drink the water from Lake Baikal for, like, 15 years. Beyond that, being in remote Siberia, the lake is cold. While the rest of Irkutsk is boiling, a 30-minute drive to the Lake will bring substantially cooler temperatures and downright chilly weather next to the shore. We both saw our breaths there on a sunny day in July! Andy took advantage of the 9 degree celisius (and supposedly healing) crystal clear water and took a dip. The result? Numbness, with a slight aftershock of tingling, shortness of breath and headache. The oddest sensation, however, was to drink the very water you were swimming in and having it taste as cold as anything you've ever had with ice in it.



We visited the smoked fish market, pounding out bargains for scrumptious local catches, took some hikes in some quite beautiful mountains and landscape and generally enjoyed the "non-trainness" of it all.




Then of course, before we knew it, it was back to Irkutsk to board the Trans Mongolian to Mongolia. More specifically the capital, Ulan Bataar.

The train left on time on Sunday night and was crusing quite nicely through our first substantial change in scenery. Now we could see the view more --- rolling hills and evergreens around every turn. Most importantly, this train had windows. glorious windows -- which made it a little rough when stopped (no a/c on this leg), but heaven when moving. Fresh air filled
the carriage and we toasted each other as we cruised around Lake Baikal. Also, the podvinistas on this train also actually seemed to have a sense of humor.

There was one stop (Ilyanskaya) where it was reported you could get out and actually run to the lake shore which we tried to do, but it was dark and after the first two streets we crossed came to a marshy spot that we could see no way around to get to the lake watter which was only 70 more feet away. 20 minute stop or no, we got freaked out that the train could
pull away (the guidebook's not recommending this had also stoked our fears) so we ran back to the train only to realize we
had still about 10 minutes to spare. Oh well, better this, we thought, than be stranded in Siberia with our bags on their way to Mongolia.

So while open windows on the train were welcome, at the same time they made it friggin' cold in the middle of the night. Coupled with the repeated full-volumed, intercom warnings at 2am (we must have been at the main junction) to confirm that you were in fact traveling on the Trans Mongolian line, and no longer the Trans Siberian line, made it a little rougher night's sleep.

But if that seemed bad, nothing yet would compare with the slow, withering agony of the border crossing on the Russian side the next day. Perhaps it was the diesel fumes filling the cabin that was to serve as the omen (they had replaced our electric locomotive in the the night with a diesel one).

We arrived at the Russian border town around noon and were told to disembark (which was odd because we had heard that our passports should have been taken first.) After a couple of hours, we go back and discover that our enitre train had kind of, sort of entirely disappeared. Turns out it was a set of carriages that had been moved around so, after poking around and looking for familiar faces we found it, and thought we might as well board. Even though it was hot, it was still a place to sit (and we wouldn't lose it again).

Another hour goes by -- by this time, mid-day in a carraige with no A/C is no fun. Passport Control boards and takes another couple of hours to make sure no one illegally 'escapes' (we assumed) the country and thouroughly checks storage compartments to make sure no one is smuggling drugs OUT.

After being cleared, you'd think everything was in order to leave. Wrong. For some reason, we waited almost three hours MORE. No A/C, and now, with Passport Control on board, no getting off, and the kicker: the toilets are locked the entire time. The reason for the delay? Absolutely none given. And why should we expect anything different at this point? So we tried to read/play cards/sleep, but ultimately all were impossibile -- being so hard to concentrate in the heat -- the only thing it seemed we could do was have our skin stick to our seats or and form damp pools on on bunks. Later, (after we discovered people on the train behind us who mysteriously appeared on ours) the growing theory was that the Russians simply
wanted to wait for the later train, so they could make more money by pulling more cars with the same locomotive. Nice. As well as a very appropriate final, "how's your father?" Russian send off --- It finally took over 6 hours for
something in every other country we would visit would usually take about 15 minutes and NEVER more than one hour.

Podvinista

We pulled away from Moscow station at exactly 11:52pm. It wasn't so much the shiny red train emblazoned with CCCP that we had from St. Petersburg. It was more like a white-turned-dingy-gray, older train with awful graphics.

Immediately we met our friend for the next four days, the older female attendant of the carriage known as the "Podvinista." Her duties include ensuring riders' safety, comfort and cleanliness of the carriage. As well as trying to scam money as much money as possible out of people. Ours proceeded to set the ground rules early on by questioning anything about each passengers ticket ( i.e. corresponding passport numbers which is odd since the final destination of the train was still in Russia) that tried to board the train. Her aloof indifference to whether people got on or not made sure people knew that she was in charge, even though you knew she had no leg to stand on. One group literally didn't think she was going to let them on until 5 minutes before departure when she finally shrugged her shoulders and stood aside while they scrambled with huge packs for space in their compartments, giving no reason why she 'changed her mind.'

We also made friends with the girl who sold stuff out of the cart, beer, soda, snacks -- namely beer. Found out her name was Tanya, and that she spoke some German and that was it. Communication was difficult from there on out but she hung out in our compartment nevertheless.

Claire and Sarah went to sleep but Andy stayed up and talked to her some more in between the cars. Too bad there were no windows because the air quickly gets rank on this train. At Vladimir stop, a 20 minute diversion, she gets off and tells Andy to come help her buy some more stuff away from the train around behind the station. It's two thirty in the morning and the train is quickly approaching the middle of nowhere. "No way," Andy says, "I'm staying right here next to this train."

Later after everyone was back on safely, the prodvinista was concerned about everyone's sleep. "Go to sleep," she said to us as she motioned with her head on her hands. It was kind of her but Tanya and her started yelling in Russian back and forth about how she should mind her own business and that we will decide when we are sleepy or not.

The next day was a full day riding. The scenery stayed surprisingly the same. Virtually none. Except for a few patches of open land, most of the time the scenery was blocked (similar to the non-openable windows) with either shrubs on either side of the tracks or trees or a high embankment with the train traveling through the bottom of the 'trench.' The stops we did have, we bought snacks and drinks and some interesting dumplings -- which is where I think the mutton began.


The next day brought strikingly similar scenery, and the houses that we did manage to see (through the shrubs, trees or embankment) were remarkably similar. Simple peasant wooden houses amidst large swaths of land.

At this point I needed to charge my camera, and it is also at this point I realized the difference to the prodvinista between using the outlet for 'shaving' or for 'charging.' There is a switch they can turn on which feeds power to all the outlets in the carriage. They usually leave it off and I quickly found out why. 50 Rubles per 1/2 hour, she wrote on a piece of paper. Which of course, she would pocket quietly -- the entire train runs on electricity so it's there aplenty and no skin off her. It was outrageous also because I didn't know how long I would need so I negotiated with her and worked out a price. However, she started making it more difficult because she wanted the time to begin immediately and we were coming to a stop that I needed to film. She essentially said, "sorry, it begins now," after my pleading. She finally relented a few minutes extra after, however and I managed to get some time back as she checked about 20 minutes into my charging and asked if it was working. "No," I said, seeing that it was indeed charging. She went back and fiddled with something then didn't return for almost aother 30 minutes when she said that was enough. She already had my money and she didn't give change. And this is how the war started.

Later that night, Andy had bought a giant smoked fish on the platform to share with everyone. The podvinista must have followed her nose because she throws open the cabin door in disgust as we are all devouring this fish and gives everyone in the group a dirty look. Later, we met others on the train and had a party in our compartment, but didn't care at this point -- forget 'cultural differences' -- we were tired of being 'nice.' The prod. had thrown down the gauntlet. So the party grew and grew and got more and more loud -- so much so that by the time we reached Novosibirsk, Andy had pulled out the video camera and was filming the prodvinista walking around, provoking her, which she seemed to not enjoy although she did try to extort money for being filmed. I mean come on, isn:t it a free country?.... Later, as everything was dying down, the police boarded the train told us to stop.

No one in the carriage seemed to have sympathy for her though as she jacked up everyone's price of beer way high. For the next two days, we would wonder if she would intentionally keep the air conditioning (remember the windows didn't open) at a border line anemic level so it never really got cool, so that she could sell more cold beverages at inflated prices. Or maybe she would just charge people to turn the air conditioning up...

The next two days brought about another astonishing non-change in scenery. Perhaps the most surprising thing about this long leg of the journey was actually the LACK of diversity. It seemed like hour after hour, day after day, we would have the same obscuring views of shrubs, trees, and embankment with the very occasional glimpse of open land with the same exact wooden peasant houses. Even the faces of the people that we would see selling dumplings or noodles or beverages on the platform, didn't really change that dramatically over the course of four days. It was astonishing actually.

The podvinista would prove to make some money off our car but not really. It seems like everyone in our group bought everything from the people selling on the platforms at the stops. Which, some were whispering is probably why the air conditioning remained tepid all the way to Irkutsk. She also seemed obsessed with the floor runners on the train corridor for some reason -- this tacky pink and blue striped long piece of cotton that was supposed to protect an even tackier carpet -- every day, twice a day they would carefully place it back down the length of the carriage and stretch it. Also, at every stop they would wipe the white poles on the outside of the train where people would grab to descend to the platform. we appreciated their meticulousness, but would have preferred it directed at the filthy toilets they tortured people with by keeping locked way longer than they were supposed to outside of stations.

Finally, we made it on the fourth day to our destination - the remote, former Siberian trading town of Irkutsk where we would stay for three days and visit Lake Baikal. As we got off the train, we didn't know how to say farewell to our friend for four days, the podvinista. It turned out not to matter anyway -- she had mysteriously disappeared entirely as soon as the train had stopped.