The Mythical Trans Siberian Rail Journey

Like Robert Frost, I like to take the road less traveled. So when Meena suggested to go on the wildest trip across the entire Asian continent spanning three countries on the longest train journey in the world, the Trans Siberian Rail journey, I lapped it up like a kid deprived of ice cream for many days! Most people I knew, had not even heard about this. They thought we were mad to go on a 6.5 days long train journey. They said we’d get bored. But the moment we started our journey, we forgot what boredom was. It was miles away from us. It dreaded to come anywhere near us, coz excitement, fun, adventure, thrill, deep meaningful conversations, laughter and merry making were our closest companions. Boredom dared not come our way! It was THE most amazing journey of my life! I pity the rest of you who haven’t had the taste of the rollicking adventure. Please accept my deepest condolences.

   

Clickety-click, clickety-click

After four days of sight seeing in Moscow, the 8000 kilometres long odyssey in the second class compartment of the mythical Trans Siberian Rail began on the afternoon of 15 th of June 2016. The train would take us across three countries (Russia, Mongolia, China) spanning 5 time zones over 6.5 days. Doing a mundane job in information technology, sitting on a desk all day long had made me forget what excitement was. But now, standing on the platform of Yaroslavsky station in Moscow, got my pulse racing. Excitement was overflowing and there was a mile wide smile stuck on my face at the thought of being able to brag about this. For the rest of my life!

Yogita, Meena and myself checked into the train and made ourselves comfortable in our compartment of four in coach 5. No one else came in, so we had the compartment to ourselves. The cushioned seats had bright blue upholstery and clean crisp sheets. There was TV and radio in the compartment, reading lights at each seat and a huge window. This was going to be our living room cum bedroom for the next few days – our new home on wheels. We stacked in our luggage, sprawled on the seats and made ourselves at home as the train rambled along at a sleepy pace.

      

The largest country on Earth – Russia

The fist leg of the journey was from Moscow to Irkutsk in Siberia, covered in 3.5 days. As we left behind the metropolis and entered rural Russia, the scene changed dramatically. We saw quaint little villages with lovely wooden houses next to gurgling streams, each house with a yard, a garden, a car and lots of beautiful flowers. The backdrop was a brilliant blue sky with milky white clouds and the scene looked picture perfect. Out came our cameras with lenses so huge, they looked like weapons of mass destruction! And off we went shooting and capturing the magnificent Russian landscape in our cameras and minds for eternity and beyond.

  

We played board games, listened to songs, but were mostly looking out the window admiring the beautiful panorama and the soul of Russia. And as I was enthralled by the beauty of the landscape I was reminded of Monet, Da Vinci, Michael Angelo, Raphael and other European artistes. When I pondered why I was reminded of them, it struck me that out of the window I was seeing birches, pines, cedars and other coniferous trees. These are the trees found all across the northern hemisphere and the trees painted by most of these artists! It was the beginning of summer and the landscape was lush green with these beautiful trees, many streams meandering along and glinting in the golden sunlight. Each frame from the window was like a painting! It was like someone kept turning the pages of an art book and we were watching it from our window.

  

Like excited children, we got off at every station and almost everyday ate ice creams and lollies. There were very few vegetarian options on the train and whatever was available was very expensive. So we survived on the MTR ready to eat food packets that we had carried with us. Each coach had a samovar that dispensed boiling hot water which we used to heat our food packets. There was a lady attendant in each coach who was in charge of maintaining order and keeping the coach clean. She was smartly dressed, and kept the coach spic and span. We thought she was very strict and formal in the beginning, but by the end of the trip she became warm and friendly and took care of us like a mama bear when a couple of intrusive men came on board. Amongst ourselves, we fondly called her “Matrushka” after the Russian “Matryushka dolls”!

  

It was summer so the days were long with dusk stretching past 11pm and the sun rose again by 3.30 / 4 am. We didn’t mind it as every minute we slept, it felt we are missing out on nature’s bounty. One evening we experienced the most glorious sunset of our lives! The sky was a riot of colors with peach, pink, light blue, orange, violet! We kept watching the sunset as the world passed by. There were two grey patches in the sky that looked like swans kissing each other. The sky looked stunning, like God’s bestest painting!

  

Even though we were enjoying ourselves, three and a half days in the train is a long, long, very long time! And it reminded me of this line from Eagles’ “Hotel California” number – You can check out any time you like but you can never leave! But finally we did reach our destination Irkutsk.

The land of Chingiz Khan – Mongolia

After a couple of days in Irkutsk and Lake Baikal, we started on the next leg of our journey from Irkutsk to Ulaan Baatar, the capital on Mongolia. Within a few hours, the landscape changed from tall birch trees standing at attention in a straight line, to the vast grasslands of Mongolia. It is here that Chingiz Khan raced across the steppes on his stud. And studs we saw – not in tens, not in hundreds but in thousands! I saw in that one day, 100 times more horses than I have seen in my entire lifetime! Horses running, grazing, engaging in frivolous play with each other. (Me thinks that MF Hussain must have come to Mongolia for inspiration.) Coming from a very crowded city, the endless steppes gave the feeling that the world is limitless, that we could sit in this train and go on and on, forever…

The previous leg of the journey gave us a glorious sunset and this leg gave us a resplendent moon. It was a full moon night and the moon was glowing like a 1000 watt bulb! Dark clouds engulfing the moon and slowly receding away made it all the more beautiful. I was completely mesmerized by the fantastic show in the open sky and could not take my eyes off it even for a second. It is exactly at this moment that I understood why so many poets write eloquent about this piece of rock in space. It was so romantic, it could make poets even out of dimwits like me!

We met an amazing family of 4 from Delhi on this train. They were on a one month holiday in Russia and Mongolia, going deep into the countries and experiencing life like locals. They travel every year to a new destination and spend at least 15 days in a country. Last time they were in Iceland, rented a car and drove along the coast of the entire country and had the time of their lives! I am going to connect with them, get their itineraries and do that trip myself someday hopefully soon.

Made in China

We started on the last leg of our journey from Ulaan Baatar to Beijing. We saw people from many nationalities on this leg of the journey and the there was a lot of commotion and a carnival like atmosphere unlike the other two legs. Within a few hours, the grasslands morphed into the Great Gobi Desert. And all of a sudden dozens of two humped camels came into our frame! We were all so excited and rushed to the window. This whole day we were glued to the window, our cameras going click click click. We also saw herds of deer and cattle and many birds too.

The three of us kept breaking into a song all day. Someone says a word or a sentence and another picks it up and sings a song with that word! Must have sung a hundred songs that day. Meena is a classical music exponent and singer and sang the most melodious and lilting songs. But that didn’t embarrass Yogita and me from singing in our completely besura voice 😉

Within a couple of hours, the train stopped at a desert town and we saw many sand dunes before entering the station. The train stopped for a long time here and the hustle bustle of the town made almost everyone get down, take pictures, talk to the locals with gestures, buy souvenirs and food and ice lollies! Like in Russia and Mongolia, this train too had a woman attendant who was very sassy and spunky!

The highlight of this leg of the journey was not nature but man made. Unlike Russia and Mongolia which run on broad gauge rails, rails in China are narrow gauge. So just before we entered China, the train went into a warehouse. There every single coach was separated and put on three different tracks, at a distance from each other. Then, while all of us were still in the coach, the entire coach was lifted in the air by some kind of a jack like they raise cars! We could see the coach on the right go high up in the air and the mechanics did whatever they had to do and brought back the coach down. Next was our turn and we felt the way God would feel being lifted for processions on Indian roads during festival time! Once the magic was done to all the coaches, they were all assembled together in the right order and chug chug went the train into China…

As we entered into the heart of China, the vegetation changed completely. We saw very scenic landscapes, with many green hills and valleys and lakes. The train went through many tunnels in the hills with the sun playing peek-a- boo with us. No more pines and birches. The trees here were more broader and shorter. We were longing to see the weeping willows and finally did spot them near the water gently swaying in the cool breeze in deep melancholy. We started seeing red awnings in stations and signs with the Chinese vertical script in the old stations and soon our longest train journey ended on a cheerful note.

Bonding and self discovery

Luckily the three of us got along very well and had so many varied experiences to share that made the journey that much more fun and interesting. We spoke of our dreams and goals, shared our secrets and fears and at the same time, were at our silliest best. I think we are ready for more adventures and experiences.

Though not intended, this also became a journey of self discovery. The time spent staring out the window also led to some introspection and an inward journey, a journey of understanding the self.

Don’t ask me what I discovered, I’m not giving the secret away 😉  But I urge you to go on your own journey and for all you know, you might discover a new you!

P.S. I plan to write a blog each on Russia, Mongolia and China so keep a watch on this space.

Trip Notes

We took the second class full package (with English speaking guides) from the St. Petersburg based Express To Russia. Found them on the web, had not heard about them from anyone, but researched on the net, tripadvisor, lonely planet etc. and found good reviews so went in for it. Here’s the link for the journey we took.

http://www.expresstorussia.com/trans-sib-tour.html

We stayed a couple of extra days in Moscow on our own but in the same hotel booked by the tour at extra cost. In all cities, the hotels were in the heart of the city, in walking distance from major attractions. The hotels were all decent, except the one in Beijing was bad. We had local English speaking guides and a private coach in each city. The guides did not travel with us on the train, but we got a different guide in each city.

All the guides were very good, informative, friendly and helpful. We are even facebook friends with one and have the contact details of the rest. They were all accomodative and flexible, even changing the program and times for our convenience. They guided us well and gave recommendations based on our preferences.

Breakfast was included in all hotel stays but the rest of the meals were on our own, except one or two meals in each city. We managed to find vegetarian food in local restaurants. In the train, none of the meals were covered and was difficult to find vegetarian food on the train or on the stations. But bread and butter was easily available and we had ready to eat MTR packets which were our saviour! We also bought some veggies and bread from the supermarket before our train journey to make sandwiches and we carried a lot of India snacks to much on the train.

We had done a lot of research on the net on the places to see in each city we were going to. So apart from the sights covered int he program, we had a few which we wanted to do on our own. Some we requested the guides to cover or replace with what they had planned. And some we covered on our own in the evening. As the days were longer, we managed to do the out door stuff till late in the evening.

All the cities were safe and we never felt scared to venture out on our own. In fact doing things on our own made the trip that much more fun and adventurous. We got the true feel of the place by walking around town, asking for help and info, trying to chat up with the locals and eat at joints visited by the regulars. In fact by the end of our Moscow stint, we were as comfortable using the Moscow Metro as any Muscovite! Doing everything only with the guide in the coach is not even half as interesting as doing things on your own and figuring things out. The experience you get by being on your own is immense and unforgettable. Not to forget the friends you make and things you learn sometime the hard way.

So go ahead and explore this part of the world for yourself. And if you have any queries, feel free to write to me.