Monday 15th October 2012 - Day 12 - Irkutsk to Ulaan Baatar

So last night we literally sat in the London Pub in the hotel using their wifi for 4 hours! We had dinner and got picked up on time. We drove to the train station and were a bit early so we went to a few mini kiosks on the street that sell snacks for the train and plastic cups! Had we read our itinerary properly before we left we would have realised that we should have brought a cup with us as there is always a hot water urn in each wagon on the train. We jumped on wagon number 8 and piled into our cabin sharing with Carla and Simon again. We could hear other people speaking English and soon realised that we were clearly in a wagon full of foreigners.

　

We left at 10.10pm and soon learned that there was no buffet car, the realisation that we were stuck in the cabin for the next 32 hours was slightly daunting! We also were glad we had stocked up on snacks but we had no beer. Pretty much the first stop we did an hour later was for 15 minutes and both Jon and Simon did a quick beer run over the bridge to find a shop while myself and Carla were in charge of not letting the train leave without them! It was freezing stood waiting on the platform when a lady fish seller walked past. She was followed by two lads also selling fish. We said, no thanks, then they said, beer? They then lifted the fish out of the basket to reveal two 1.5 litre bottles of beer! They only charged the normal rate so we snapped them up. When the lads returned with 2 minutes to spare we jumped on the train and hid our stash of 4 x 2 litre bottles plus ours! Suddenly the next 32 hours seemed bearable!

We played cards and read until 2am when it was lights out. The wagon we are in is slightly more dated than the others we have had however the loos are cleaner so at least that’s a bonus. There was a draft coming through the wooden sash window so we were all sleeping with hats and jumpers on and thick blankets, the type where when you pull them up you feel like you can hardly breathe. We woke up to a vast scenery change with snowy plains, snowy mountains, lakes and rivers. There were small settlements dotted about and cows and mustangs. We were excited as we approached the Russian border with Mongolia at 2pm. Our guide book says that this border crossing can take from 6 to 11 hours, but we thought surely that’s not right!

As we enter towns the toilets on the train get locked. So they were locked from just before 2pm until we were on our way in Mongolia. As we stopped at the Russian border we jumped off and it was cold but sunny. We sat on a bench eating sweets and contemplating building a snowman and used this opportunity to quickly use the drop loos at the station. We watched our carriage remain in place as the engine left it standing and there were no other carriages, we were stranded for ages. Then an engine came so we hopped on but not everyone did. The train started moving off and people that were off the train were panicking and started running along the platform but it finally stopped and reversed back to the same place but just on a different set of tracks.

While on the train the Russian guards came on and checked our cabins and took our passports and it felt like forever before they were returned. We then moved a few kilometres up the track and everyone was busting for the loo. The lady on our wagon is nice and reluctantly let us have a quick wee even though she was not meant to as we were in no mans land between countries and the rock outside is granite. Shortly after we stopped at the Mongolian border. Here the guards came on and they looked very intimidating the way they were dressed. They took our passports and searched our cabin and again we waited. All in all we were at these borders for a total of 8 hours as we got on our way at 10pm! At the Mongolian border we were not allowed to leave the train at all.

The 4 of us were all going a bit stir crazy sitting in area of approx 7 ft long by 5 ft wide for 8 hours. We didn’t stay up too much longer after leaving as we were getting off the train at 6.10am. However, it was getting colder and the draught coming through the window was ice cold. I couldn’t sleep until 1am and our alarm was set for 5am. A man changing money jumped on the train and so we exchanged our last of the Russian currency and probably got ripped off but it was only about £40. As our lady was nice we were able to open the windows slightly for long enough to stick the camera out of the window to try and capture some of the amazing scenery today.