Transmanchurian... 7 days on the train!

As the train leaves Moscow, we wave goodbye to Natalia and Kostya and set up our cozy 2 person cabin. We quickly made a friend, Clement from France. We have a couple beers and had a great first night sleep. The thought of spending 7 days on the train seems scary at first, what are we going to do the whole time? We had a TV in our cabin…which did not work. Luckily we brought a lot of books to keep our time occupied. We also had to change our sleep schedule to try to get shift ourselves the 5 hours ahead, which wasn't the easiest thing to do, but we managed. On the first leg of the train ride, we had most of the wagon to our selves. It was only at Irkutsk, where a large group of other people had booked on for the second half of the train ride, that the train filled up. Despite this the train stayed quite clean and the toilet was never dirty, nor did we have to wait very long for it to be free (that is other than the 15 minutes on either side of each stop, where the train attendants lock the bathroom doors).

Our compartment and our home for the next 7 days

The cabin was quiet nice. It had two benches, one on either side, that had a bed on each that would fold down to sleep on. The benches are just wide enough to sleep on and not a lot of room to roll around. They are quite comfortable though. Under the benches and above the hallway, there was a lot of storage space, more than we could possibly fill, even with our huge food store!

We had so much food with us, that it seemed like we over did it a bit, but we prepared well just in case. We even boiled enough eggs for 2 breakfasts so that was taken care of. The train has a hot water boiler in each wagon, so that you can have coffee and tea whenever you want. We also brought a lot of cup of soup and instant mash potatoes so we wouldn’t go hungry. Dinners were a fancy affair in the restaurant car. We were hoping that the restaurant car would be an old school car, decorated in traditional Russian themes, however, the car must have been modernized in the past few years, as there were only a few touches of typical Russian decoration remaining. The restaurant car switched to a Chinese car at the boarder, but it, like the Russian car was only minimally decorated in Chinese styles. The food was a little expensive on the train (about $15-$20 Cdn per meal), and it was a bit cheaper on the Chinese side.

Ewa having some supper on the train!

There were quite a few stops that were long enough for us to get out, stretch our legs and buy some goodies from the Russian babushkas that wait at the train station to sell you food. They have everything, pierogies, bread filled with meat, beer, juice almost anything you want. We didn't realize that along the way, pretty much anything that we stocked up on before leaving Moscow would be available, either through the Babushkas, or through the vendors at the train stations. All the soups, odd veggies, water, pop, beer etc. (surprisingly we couldn't find any vodka at any of the stops). Had we known this before hand we wouldn't have bought nearly as many things as we did.

More of Siberia... and SNOW

The days passed quickly. Reading, staring out the window for hours at a time passed our time. The scenery didn't change all that much and it wasn't too different for us. It did remind us a lot of the areas we've lived in Canada, with plains, rolling hills, small mountains, wisps of snow at the higher elevations and the odd stream and river. What did look different were all the cities and small villages along the way. On the Russian side, the towns looked cozy, built of wood and a little on the outdated or run-down side. The gardens in all of these towns were very well cared for and it was interesting to get a small view of daily life.

Lake Baikal

Random scenery somewhere in Siberia

It was quite interesting to see the change in architecture and development at the boarder between Russia and China. We had a few hours on each side of the boarder while the documentation was checked and the train carriage was changed. On the Russian side, we saw, right up to the boarder, older buildings, mostly from wood in the villages and old square concrete apartment buildings. Immediately on the Chinese side of the boarder, we run smack into a new development designed probably to rival Las Vegas. The town is brand new, shining bright with new buildings, lots of neon lights, theme parks and hotels. From there on, a lot of the cities seem to be newer, and the smaller towns constructed from brick. The change in air quality wasn't immediate but after the first 12 hours or so, the air had taken on a smell, and the hazy smog was apparent... and we arrived in Beijing at 05:30 in the morning local time fully satisfied from our Trans Manchurian experience, hoping that the pollution was more a matter of fog and mist than real air pollution..

The train, clean and shiny and new... well clean and shiny on the outside.

written by

ECRadventure on September 22, 2009 from Novosibirsk, Russia

from the travel blog: ECRadventure's Travel Blog

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