Sunday July 12 - Entering Russia

It was difficult to sleep overnight. The train stopped so many times, maybe 10, 15, no-one knows for sure. We also discovered in the morning that we didn't have the lower bunks properly set up for sleeping, consquently I kept feeling as if I would fall off and picking up the sheet and blanket off the floor. But it was the little house fly/flies that caused the most trouble as I kept feeling it land on a shoulder, or a bare leg. Evryone else said the same, so I gather he/she had a grand time flitting from body to body!! We pulled into Sukhbaatar around 5:30/6 am and when we de-trained shortly after that to use the station loo and brush our teeth, we discovered that the 2 engines had literally pulled us into the station,dropped off four cariages, and departed! It was a beautifully warm, sunny, morning with blue skies and hardly any clouds. We paid our 150 tugruk to go to the bathroom, washed up as best we could, and sat outside in the sun until the customs guys came along and "herded" us back on to the train to collect our passports. That was about 9:45 am. Our scheduled departure was 10:45 am and we started to move exactly on time. We moved through no man's land and about 25 minutes later came to the statue and "welcome to Russia" sign. We pulled into the Russian border town about 11:25 and sat on the train for what seemed like ages before they finally took our passports, processd them and returned them to us. Aftr that we went for a walk to the river and sat and ate our "picnic" lunch on the rickety wooden bridge, saying "hello" to the people who passed by and watching cows and kids in the river below. After lunch we wandered around town; saw the 1944-45 war memorial, and the vandalized artwork in the central park. Then it was back to the train and at 4:30 pm sharp we left.

The first part of the journey continued with the undulating hills and grass land, but slowly the countryside started to become more treed. Chris bought some vodka and we toastd our arrival in Russia, Chris and Jon in true Russian style; me with a vodka/orange; and Ray with a beer. It is apparently illegal to drink Vodka on the train, but if you do it discreetly, no-one objects. If you get too rowdy however, be prepared to be thrown off the train!! Chris had warned us that there may not be a dining car on the train, but when we found out there was, Ray and I decided to go and get some "proper food" instead of the snacks. We had a lovely stroganoff, but it wasn't cheap and dinner cost us about $25 each. Also, the dining car was empty, so I am not sure about the social life on the train that is so talked about. Shortly after dinner, the train stopped at Ulaan Ude for 20 mins or so, and we were able to get off and wander the platform, go to the ATM machine, buy some water, etc., then back on to the train and settled ourslves down for the night.