Tales from the Rails A roommate Just before the train departed, another person joined my room. An older guy, traveling for work. He introduced himself and immediately he was kind of a jerk. After exchanging names and where are you from, I don’t really possess enough Russian to have deep philosophical conversations. At which point he begins speaking English with me, asking why I am traveling alone. And how can you travel alone when you can’t even speak the language. Ok, condescending jerk. We don’t generally expect tourists to be fluent in every language of every country they visit. I have done just fine until now and I don’t like…
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Irkutsk and the Taltsy Museum
Irkutsk Leaving Listvyanka So my last day in Listvyanka was simply hanging out in the hotel waiting for my ride to arrive at 11 a.m. Not enough time to go walk around, and it’s cold and I’m tired and really looking forward to sleeping as much as possible on the train. Nikolai makes me another delicious breakfast, this time with an omelette that is somehow fluffy *and* delicious, though I usually hate egg yolks. I take everything out of my bags, and re-pack, trying to take as little space as possible. Getting on and off of the train is a huge task, and the backpack straps catch on every doorknob…
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Listvyanka
So I have 1 full free day in Listvyanka. It’s a balmy -10C out today, snowing heavily and constantly. The lake is not yet frozen, which I was expecting to see. It freezes completely clear and colorless but has mushroom-looking bubbles from natural gas release while the water is freezing. Breakfast I started my day with breakfast from Nikolai, my ever-smiling host. I am in a guest house with perhaps 4 rooms, only mine is occupied. So we agreed on a time for breakfast, 8:30, and I meet him downstairs at 8:30. He is slightly disappointed that I showed up right on time and didn’t wait for him to ring…
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Arrival in Listvyanka
Train Living My lack of sleep has finally caught up with me and I am exhausted. I get on the train at 2:30 and take a nap from 4-5. I try not to sleep too much, afraid I won’t sleep tonight. I wake up, chat with Joe a bit, and eat a ton of cookies with some fruit tea I picked up in China. But the rocking and the darkness and the constant hum finally lull me back to sleep at around 7, so I set an alarm for 9 p.m., as the border crossing is at 9:50 and I need to fill out my customs forms. The train is…
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Final Day in Mongolia
Breakfast and walk Unable to sleep, yet again, I awoke around 5 a.m. I showered and readied myself for the day. Today is again the coldest day so far this trip, at -26C, so I finally break out the snow pants that I’ve been itching to wear. They don’t fit well: they’re made of a waterproof outer layer that doesn’t stretch at all, squishes my trunk flat…now I don’t know what I’m going to do with all that junk. And they make crinkly noises when I walk, but they are made for this exact purpose. I went downstairs for breakfast and I’m not sure there are any other guests in…
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A Day in Mongolia
An Early Start The fire in the wood stove goes out overnight, so they come to your room at 6 a.m. and light a new fire so that when you wake up, it’s warm enough to get dressed. There was a large stack of firewood in the room, so I made sure to add a few extra before bed, and then slept so well. It’s so quiet here. The animal print blankets they left me with were awesome, very warm. So I had no problem staying warm. I woke up at 5, with my nose quite chilly. There were still plenty of embers in the fireplace, so I tossed in…
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Arriving at the Ger Camp
Getting there I had lunch, same pelmeni soup as breakfast, with my train buddies before packing my bags to disembark in Ulan Bator, Mongolia. My driver arrived at the train station and off we went to the Ger/Yurt camp in the mountains outside of town. Along the way he told me many things about the history and culture of Mongolia, and particularly Ulan Bator. We drove about an hour and a half through rush hour traffic, stopping to get gas and then taking a fun side trip to a grocery store. We walked around looking at all the cool things, most of which are imported from Russia. We walked through…
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Train Musings
Reflections on Beijing When I was planning this trip, Beijing was actually the place I was least interested in. Not that I specifically didn’t like it, it just hadn’t cracked my top 10 list of cities I would want to travel to. But Beijing was the starting point for this tour if I wanted to go through Mongolia, which also wasn’t ever on my top 10 list, but seemed more interesting and exotic because who has ever been to Mongolia? So I was really surprised at how much I liked Beijing. I really loved the city. It’s huge, unfathomably huge and populous. And yet things run pretty smoothly, at least…
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History
Tiananmen Square Today, my last day in Beijing, will be a trip from south to north, visiting many historical sites. My new tour guide and I started in the morning, caught a bus, and went to Tiananmen Square. She explained about the history and purpose of the square, a place where a million people can gather to listen to the words of the government leader. In the square, there is the tomb of Mao Zedong, where his body is preserved and you can actually see it. It was fascinating, encased in a glass tomb, with a red hammer and sickle laid over him and a red light shining on his…
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Hutong District and Cooking Class
Facing the day Today was my second full day in Beijing, and I had such awesome adventures! My tour guide, Mr. Slackerson, said yesterday that today it would be too cold for the rickshaw drivers in the morning, so we should go to them in the afternoon. The itinerary was to have lunch at 11:30, go do a rickshaw tour of the Hutong alleys, then a tea ceremony, then visiting Shichahai Lake. After yesterday, I had little faith in his ability to actually arrange the tea ceremony that I had requested, so I got up this morning and hoofed it over to a fancy tea parlor. Let me back that…
