On 1st November I made my way to Beijing Station, dragging my heavy bags along. After some confusion I found the stately waiting room for the Trans-Siberian train. Intrigued, I watched the other passengers arrive in ones, twos and threes. Some were buying large quantities of instant noodles from the kiosk, others were trying to pacify bored children. The train came in, and I had butterflies of excitement. It was very long and a sort of racing green. Once embarked, I was absolutely delighted by the cabin, exactly how I had hoped it would be with rich, red crushed velvet (worn) covering the seats/bunks and wooden panelling (mock) on the walls. It was all a bit tired, but loved (which reminded me of something, but I couldn't quite place what). There was a tiny wardrobe, and a door to a shared washroom. A slightly less than enthusiastic dribble emerged from the tap, but I didn't mind such trifles, I was on the Trans-Siberian railway! Me! The top bunk folded down and I could spread out on the lower bunk, like it was a settee. A little table separated me from a single seat, with a traditional net luggage rack over it, which I stacked books and useful things on. I strung my fairy lights up and unpacked - putting things in the under-seat storage and nest-building - this was going to be my home for six days after all.
The train chugged out of the station, we were off! I sat with my nose pressed against the window, and stayed there for about three days (well, apart from being in bed at night). And what I saw, what I saw!
As the train moves away from Beijing, it passes through tunnel after tunnel. Between the tunnels were flashes of deep gorges, valleys with waterfalls, sparkling rivers winding round mountains. I'd just catch sight of something magnificent, when the window went black again..... and then flash, out into daylight again and another green valley. As the sun started to set, I could see a regular pattern silhouetted across the top of distant mountains, against the pink sky. I gasped when I realised it was the Great Wall again, stretching out of miles.
After some trying hours at the China/Mongolia border in the middle of the night, we journeyed on into the Gobi Desert. Here were plains, with wild horses stampeding across the grit, kicking up sand clouds behind them. Here were herds of camels, almost comic with their double humps, swaying gracefully as they sashayed along. Here was the lone herdsman, riding bareback in traditional dress. Here was me. In the Gobi Desert.
Time to pinch myself again.
What was truly surprising was that all this was as nothing to the views we were about to see. The train climbed slowly up a great incline, and rounded a bend in the track. As the train crossed the top of the ridge, the vista opened up into one of jaw-dropping beauty. The sky was bright blue and almost shimmering, not a cloud to be seen. The mountains went on for miles, ridge after ridge, each in a different shade of brown, pink or ginger, or gold. It was mesmerising. There was nothing else to be seen, just mountains and sky. No people, no animals, no buildings, no trees or plants. Just the Gobi Desert in raw glory.
It was too good to last forever, and eventually we pulled in at Ulan Bator, the capital. Weather-worn women were selling noodles and water from rusty supermarket trolleys.
The train carried on, at what felt like its cruising speed of around 30 miles per hour. The carriages each had a samovar providing endless boiling water, and the wonderfully decorated restaurant car served good meals. We each had a thermal jug, so could make endless herbal tea, and also use the hot water for washing at the basin. The other passengers were pleasant company. A couple from Ireland were particularly friendly, and some men from New Zealand further up the carriage. A sort of train etiquette developed, where if people felt chatty, they would stand in the corridor, lean on the rail at the window and wait to see who wanted to talk. Alternatively, people left their doors open, so you could put your head in and exchange the time of day. A general topic of conversation was where we might be. It was nigh on impossible to work this out after a day or two. The train timetables were indecipherable as we kept crossing time zones, and all the station signs were in Cyrillic script. One day I wondered why no one else was eating dinner, to find it was 4pm, not 6pm.
Anyway, after the Gobi Desert we had another disturbed night passing through the Mongolia/Russia border. It was cold and annoying and we passengers huddled together in one cabin, hoping our passports would be returned and that we wouldn't be taken to a Gulag somewhere. I eventually got to sleep, and in the morning, raised my blind to see..... snow! From the blazing sunshine of the desert the night before, I had woken in Siberian snow! The train inched its way around the southern side of Lake Baikal, giving us lots of time to admire the distant, snow capped mountains, and the huge expanse of water lapping quite close to the rails. After passing the lake and brightly painted a shacks with half frozen streams weaving around them, we arrived in Irkusk, somewhere else exotic I remembered from the game Risk. Never in a million years would I have ever thought to be there.
We passed through more picturesque valleys and then came into pine forests, interspersed with birch trees. I had been warned about this. I think it was one forest, that went on for three days. The snow was managing to blow little drifts into the joints in the train. The guards were endlessly shovelling coal to stoke up the boilers, and boy, did we boil! The train got hotter and hotter, and as the windows were sealed, the only relief was to go and trample on the little snow drifts at the joints. This was a very noisy place to stand, and also slightly alarming, as your feet would involuntarily drift apart. As I knew there would be lots of trees, I had downloaded podcasts and music to my phone, and sat and read, and drank herbal tea. Occasionally the view was punctuated by a train passing in the opposite direction, but not often.
Eventually we stopped at the capital of Siberia, Novosibirsk. It was a teaming, modern city with glass high rise buildings and curving motorways jammed with rush hour traffic. It was also dark, and very cold.
From here, the views became more urban, with more freight trains passing, and industrial buildings cropping up. We finally pulled in at Moscow, and none of us wanted to leave our cosy train.
The train chugged out of the station, we were off! I sat with my nose pressed against the window, and stayed there for about three days (well, apart from being in bed at night). And what I saw, what I saw!
As the train moves away from Beijing, it passes through tunnel after tunnel. Between the tunnels were flashes of deep gorges, valleys with waterfalls, sparkling rivers winding round mountains. I'd just catch sight of something magnificent, when the window went black again..... and then flash, out into daylight again and another green valley. As the sun started to set, I could see a regular pattern silhouetted across the top of distant mountains, against the pink sky. I gasped when I realised it was the Great Wall again, stretching out of miles.
After some trying hours at the China/Mongolia border in the middle of the night, we journeyed on into the Gobi Desert. Here were plains, with wild horses stampeding across the grit, kicking up sand clouds behind them. Here were herds of camels, almost comic with their double humps, swaying gracefully as they sashayed along. Here was the lone herdsman, riding bareback in traditional dress. Here was me. In the Gobi Desert.
Time to pinch myself again.
What was truly surprising was that all this was as nothing to the views we were about to see. The train climbed slowly up a great incline, and rounded a bend in the track. As the train crossed the top of the ridge, the vista opened up into one of jaw-dropping beauty. The sky was bright blue and almost shimmering, not a cloud to be seen. The mountains went on for miles, ridge after ridge, each in a different shade of brown, pink or ginger, or gold. It was mesmerising. There was nothing else to be seen, just mountains and sky. No people, no animals, no buildings, no trees or plants. Just the Gobi Desert in raw glory.
It was too good to last forever, and eventually we pulled in at Ulan Bator, the capital. Weather-worn women were selling noodles and water from rusty supermarket trolleys.
The train carried on, at what felt like its cruising speed of around 30 miles per hour. The carriages each had a samovar providing endless boiling water, and the wonderfully decorated restaurant car served good meals. We each had a thermal jug, so could make endless herbal tea, and also use the hot water for washing at the basin. The other passengers were pleasant company. A couple from Ireland were particularly friendly, and some men from New Zealand further up the carriage. A sort of train etiquette developed, where if people felt chatty, they would stand in the corridor, lean on the rail at the window and wait to see who wanted to talk. Alternatively, people left their doors open, so you could put your head in and exchange the time of day. A general topic of conversation was where we might be. It was nigh on impossible to work this out after a day or two. The train timetables were indecipherable as we kept crossing time zones, and all the station signs were in Cyrillic script. One day I wondered why no one else was eating dinner, to find it was 4pm, not 6pm.
Anyway, after the Gobi Desert we had another disturbed night passing through the Mongolia/Russia border. It was cold and annoying and we passengers huddled together in one cabin, hoping our passports would be returned and that we wouldn't be taken to a Gulag somewhere. I eventually got to sleep, and in the morning, raised my blind to see..... snow! From the blazing sunshine of the desert the night before, I had woken in Siberian snow! The train inched its way around the southern side of Lake Baikal, giving us lots of time to admire the distant, snow capped mountains, and the huge expanse of water lapping quite close to the rails. After passing the lake and brightly painted a shacks with half frozen streams weaving around them, we arrived in Irkusk, somewhere else exotic I remembered from the game Risk. Never in a million years would I have ever thought to be there.
We passed through more picturesque valleys and then came into pine forests, interspersed with birch trees. I had been warned about this. I think it was one forest, that went on for three days. The snow was managing to blow little drifts into the joints in the train. The guards were endlessly shovelling coal to stoke up the boilers, and boy, did we boil! The train got hotter and hotter, and as the windows were sealed, the only relief was to go and trample on the little snow drifts at the joints. This was a very noisy place to stand, and also slightly alarming, as your feet would involuntarily drift apart. As I knew there would be lots of trees, I had downloaded podcasts and music to my phone, and sat and read, and drank herbal tea. Occasionally the view was punctuated by a train passing in the opposite direction, but not often.
Eventually we stopped at the capital of Siberia, Novosibirsk. It was a teaming, modern city with glass high rise buildings and curving motorways jammed with rush hour traffic. It was also dark, and very cold.
From here, the views became more urban, with more freight trains passing, and industrial buildings cropping up. We finally pulled in at Moscow, and none of us wanted to leave our cosy train.
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