Trans-Siberian

Ah - who wouldn't want to spend 5 nights on a train without a shower in a room no bigger than most people's closet with hard wooden beds clearly made for children?

They question in the Lonely Planet if you should go straight through to your final destination or jump on and off at stops along the way. If you're going to do this just in isolation as a holiday - you HAVE to get off.

Our saving grace to what could have been a very dull journey were the friends we made.

Firstly, our next door neighbour that we met on the platform waiting for the train - a Dutch gentleman named Milan who had lived in Germany most of his life named Milan. Having just finished a year in London and about to start his masters in Germany, Milan was spending his final few days of freedom wisely by doing the TS, China and Vietnam. It's worth noting that this platform was the back-end of another much grander station, was outside with no waiting area so everyone just stood around aimlessly. Thankfully this allowed us to meet Milan!

Secondly, our 'cabin mates' Nathan and Matt, freshly out of Marine Biology degrees at Newcastle University. They were taking as long off as their money would allow them to see Asia and South America. We were all about 2 weeks in having tried to get as far by train as we could and as you know dear readers, Sean and I failed from Kiev to Russia, but this clever pair went the long way via the Baltics and managed this task hands down!

We also met several other people on the train, notably Gustavo from Brazil who shared with Swedish beauties Emily and Evelina.

Here is what the journey is like in general. Days 1, 2, 3 and 4 are Russian views of trees, very similar trees, with the odd wooden shack type house/village thrown in. You become thankful for the 20 minute stops to buy beer and freeze dried goods from the various vendors (quality of food on offer varies wildly from station to station). Day 4 at 6am you hit Lake Baikal and have for the first time some great views. Day 5 you arrive in Ulaanbaatar, but only having suffered a few hours in advance a 6 hour border crossing from Russia to Mongolia.

Here is how Sean and Jen's journey went. Day 1 - meet and great with several beers, a fairly civil drinking affair. Day 2 - out comes the vodka for the vodka train, a rather messier affair. Day 3 - when we ran out of beer, the guards had run out of beer to sell us and our only option was expensive restaurant car beer we turned to the rather questionable 'chinese wine' (more like a schnapps type drink) sold to us by the 'providista' who we had affectionable named Chang for lack of any other way of finding out his real name. Day 4 - hang over. But managed to shake that off with.... more beer!!! This evening of course ended at about 8am having decided that restaurant beer would help us stay up to see Lake Baikal (which was a good idea actually). This mission was aided by a card game called 'Ring of Fire' taught to us by Nathan - nice one Nathan! Day 5 - hmmmm, we were very quiet on day 5. No money. No beer. No supply of beer. And a 5am up time the next day for Sean and my departure.

This is described as a 'romantic journey' but it's hard to be romantic when using toilets that are essentially flaps that open onto the tracks, you're so close to two other people and you're unable to wash for days. But it is in the end a must do experience, not least for the wonderful people that you might meet. I hope that since our paths are very similar we have the chance to meet up with the friends we met once more.

BT6_Trans Siberian 27 July - 1 Aug 2010