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From Lenin to Mao

Today, I realized that I never wrote about seeing Mao’s body in Tiananmen Square. It certainly was a trip highlight -- in a totally creepy way -- to see Lenin’s waxy figure in Red Square and then finish our trip with another corpse in Beijing.

The thing that I guess I never realized is that countries actually preserve the bodies of their revered leaders. I mean, I guess it’s kind of a modern-day phenomenon. I don’t think that it was probably possible, scientifically, to preserve bodies so well until quite recently. Mummies are the best attempt to do this and who knows how they looked 50 or 25 years out.

The preservation of Lenin’s body is mired in mystery and controversy and it is even rumored that it’s not his body on display but a wax figure. To be honest, Mao’s body looked faker than Lenin’s, but they both were totally weird. Maybe the thing that made Lenin’s body look more “real” was the fact that we could see his hands, whereas with Mao’s body it was just his head. Both were decked out in finery: Lenin in a nice suit and Mao in a military-like uniform.

In Russia, we were ushered in two at a time (I guess if you’re alone, you’re ushered in alone) and, as we entered the mausoleum, a Russian soldier who pointed to his left promptly shushed us. We followed his direction until we came to another Russian soldier who pointed to his left, and so on and so forth. This probably went on for about seven turns and seven different soldiers, all in dimly lit corridors and stairways. When we finally got to Lenin, there was a strange, low light shining on his body, which was placed in a glass box.

For a few moments – ten seconds, max – it was just Rusel, Lenin, and I. We were then motioned on by yet another Russian guard and the same process that had happened before, in reverse, took place until we exited back into the cold Russian winter.

Viewing Mao’s body was a completely different experience and ultimately, it says a lot about the differences between the two countries. We got to the mausoleum at about 11:20 a.m. and it closed at 11:30 so we were cutting it close. The actual building was about ten times the size of Lenin’s, as was Tiananmen Square. The long line outside was crowded with Chinese tourists – we were the only Westerners.

As with Lenin, security was extremely tight at Mao’s memorial. We had to check our bags and cameras and, as we were running late, we didn’t know where to go or what to do. A Chinese man, whom we mistook for an actual employee at the mausoleum, offered to “help” us figure out the entire system in exchange for 50 yuan – about $6. In the end, the mausoleum was free to visit and he did really help us so it was probably worth it. Had he not assisted us we may not have made it in time.

After we hurriedly checked our bags across the street from the building and ran back to the line, we were pretty quickly ushered up the huge stairs with a big group of other tourists. We entered a large room with high-vaulted ceilings and a statue of Mao sitting in a chair (perhaps this is why he’s called ‘The Chairman’?) in front of a huge, tacky mural of mountains. In front of the statue were hundreds of flowers left by previous visitors.

Unlike Lenin, where it was only the two of us, this time two huge lines were formed in their outer area and the foot traffic just flowed into one huge room behind this one. Before we knew it, we were staring at Mao’s body – with about one hundred other people. And then, we were gone.

The experience was definitely a shared one. A baby in front of us was crying and someone’s cell phone went off behind us. Everyone was trying to be quiet, but there was an excited buzz in the room as we actually walked by the body, which was also enclosed in glass. It was evident that Mao was just as respected as Lenin – if not more so – but this experience was more communal.

In the end, that’s probably what I liked so much about China. Today, as we were through the French Concession’s narrow back alleyways, it was evident that so much of China’s space is shared space and there seems to be a totally different mentality about identity and relationship. It’s more like Bali, in a way. Here, people are literally living on top of each other and I get the feeling that they’re happy to do it that way and probably even prefer it.

It got me thinking about New York City as well, where people live in a similar manner. But it’s different. Here, people’s doors and windows are open and friends stop by to chat, play cards, drink tea. In New York City, once you get home the door is locked and the city is left behind. Loneliness seems to be more of a hallmark of New York City, whereas here more value seems to be placed on shared experiences.

But all that is changing in Shanghai and perhaps other places in China as well. Loyal and well-read reader Julie sent me some information today about the demolition of Shanghai’s traditional neighborhoods to make way for new apartment complexes and buildings (read more about it here). I do get the feeling that China is in a current state of rapid change – which is exciting and sad at the same time.

We’ve had such a great time here and I have really fallen for the people here who have been so quick to smile and lend a helping hand. I wish them the best in this transformation, although my sentiment is slightly bittersweet because I actually like it just the way it is right now.

The Track of Luxury

Rusel and I must’ve done something right in a past life – or maybe it’s just everything righting itself after our last train to Beijing – but the overnight train that we took last night from Beijing to Shanghai was first class, VIP, rock star all the way.

We almost didn’t make the train and it was truly a total photo finish. We arrived at the main train station around 7:00 and our train left at 7:44 – plenty of time to find our train, leisurely board, and relax.

The funny thing about Rusel and I lately is that usually, one of us is paying attention and the other person is just kind of coasting. This is an unspoken agreement and not something that I even realized until quite recently. Since we left Russia, where both of our brains were needed at all times, we have been able to trade off regarding brainpower. Rusel likes maps, so in Beijing for the most part I just told him where I wanted to go, or vice versa, and Rusel figured out how to get there and we went. Easy peasy, lemon squeezy.

So we arrived at the massive train station in Beijing to catch our train, and Rusel read the main board and thought that it said “Waiting Room 2.” In Rusel’s defense it was written in Chinese so in the end who knew what it actually said – maybe “Whatever you do, if you’re going to Shanghai, do not go to Waiting Room 2.” Anyway, just like airports elsewhere, train stations here have waiting rooms. So we went up to the jam-packed waiting room and settled in until our train was announced.

I asked Rusel a few times, “Where is our train number posted?” because I didn’t see it on the board in the waiting room. I got in trouble for “questioning his wisdom,” and “micromanaging” so I just decided to give up and let him handle it. A sweet Chinese couple started talking to him with their limited English and I started people watching.

Soon, the couple asked him where we were going and on what train. The husband looked at him excitedly and although he didn’t speak much English, it was easy to see that we were in the wrong area. He motioned for us to follow him and we literally had to run through the station to the completely opposite end. We made the train with only a few minutes to spare and would’ve completely missed it had it not been for that sweet guy.

Once we caught our breaths and wiped our brows (very sweaty from the sprint with both of our backpacks) we looked around in wonder. Honestly, I think that I saw the table in the corner actually sparkle. I have never seen anything like this train compartment. It was from a dream.

The carpet – new and spotless. The sheets and pillows -- a pristine, spotless white. The bathrooms – almost sterile. Everything was brand new. Even the hangers, placed so you could hang up your clothes before you went to bed, were padded satin. Joan Crawford would’ve been pleased. It was honestly the nicest surprise I’ve ever had. Rusel and I were both bracing ourselves for the worst-case scenario and instead we were met with luxury. This train compartment was nicer than the majority of places we have stayed on this trip and to top everything off, we had the entire immaculate 4-person compartment to ourselves for the entire 10-hour trip.

If our trains through Russia had been this nice, it would’ve been such a completely different experience. I guess that’s the point of taking the Russian trains – in a way you’re testing yourself to see how much you can take. I’m happy that we had that experience but at the same time, I was thrilled to pull up the nice clean covers in my sweet little bed last night and fall asleep after growing tired of watching nighttime China pass me by out the clear, clean picture window.

The Best of Times, The Worst of Times On The Horrible, Awful, Appalling Train

Another long train ride down, and Rusel and I couldn’t be happier. In our case, the universe definitely saved the worst for last, because this was the most godawful train we have been on yet.

The trip started agreeably enough. We found our train at the train station and were even at the car door before the man in charge of the carriage was ready to open it up. We could see his shadow inside the train, slowly putting on his uniform. This should’ve served as a small sign to us – on the Russian trains, the sturdy, gruff women whom we feared and revered really kept on top of the cleanliness and overall comfort levels of their train with a strictness that we came to admire. The man in charge of this train (I don’t think that they’re called provodnitsa anymore as we’re no longer on Russian trains – this one was either Chinese or Mongolian, we’re not sure) definitely didn’t take the same pride in his work as his Russian counterparts.

As we were standing there waiting to board, a group formed and we noticed two other backpacker-types. We said hi and they turned out to be very friendly; two nurses from England returning after a year in New Zealand. We all boarded together and they were a few compartments down from us. They had been traveling in China and went up to Mongolia for about two weeks and were now returning back to China before they head home to the UK so they were a good source of knowledge about China.

We left UB on time and soon, the entire train car became a little bit of a big party. We shared our compartment with two Mongolian businessmen who promptly made their beds and got under the sheets and fell asleep. The rest of the car, however, came alive. Apparently there was a huge group of Mongolian businesspeople traveling together in this car and the Mongolian vodka came out.

We went down to our UK friends’ compartment and sat up talking and drinking for quite some time. Everything was going great and it was nice to have some new friends and swap stories. They were really cool girls.

This is when I would say the tide turned. One of us, as it inevitably would happen, had to use the restroom. I believe it was Rusel who ventured down to the toilet first. Usually, there is a toilet located on both ends of the car but in this case, the lazy guy in charge of the car kept the one near his little compartment locked -- probably to keep it all to himself and also to keep it clean.

To say that the toilet was vile doesn’t cover it. Unspeakable? Abhorrent? Sickening, hellish, nightmarish? Perhaps these words, when put together, scratch the surface of what was found in that room. And with a whole carful of drunken Mongolian businesspeople, the state of the bathroom was only getting worse.

After each of us had ventured down to the toilet and came out sickened, we all stopped drinking right away to somehow stop the natural process of things – none of us wanted to go into that bathroom anymore than we absolutely had to. But it was too late for me – I was up and down a few times in the middle of the night. I can barely even think of it right now. I will spare you any more details but it was by far the worst toilet situation I have ever encountered – and I’ve traveled to some places that are known specifically for their bad toilets. And the worst thing about this toilet was that there was no escaping it –we were stuck on this train for 24 hours.

Not only that, but our Mongolian roommate was an Olympic-style snorer. He makes Rusel’s snoring look positively wimpy by comparison. This guy was raising the roof, and to top it all off he would awaken every now and again and clear his throat. It made the most disgusting sound. I just curled up in my little bed, tried not to go to the bathroom, and prayed for the 24-hour journey to pass quickly.

The next morning was a new day and we crossed over to China. That was kind of thrilling, although to be honest I just wanted to get off the train there and figure out how to get to Beijing any other way than on the train. Crossing the border took about four hours or so. The interesting thing was that they had to lift the train off of the track and change the wheels because the width between the wheels is different for Chinese tracks than Mongolian and Russian tracks. So not only did we have to go through customs and immigration on the train but this process also had to take place, further delaying our journey.

We were able to get off the train a bit and stretch our legs, which was nice. It was sunny and spring-like weather at the Chinese border, which lifted my spirits a bit – I am so over cold weather. As our train chugged out of the border station marching-band music was played over the loudspeaker to welcome us to China. It was a nice touch.

Things were looking up again but soon they would take yet another turn for the worst. We got off the train at a small city called Jinjing, where we were switching over to an overnight train to Beijing. We had about four hours to wait before our next train and we went to the train station waiting area with another couple who was doing the same thing as us – although they were a bit older, they were Western (French and German) and so we all stuck together.

At this point – after the filthy train – Rusel and I were in worse shape than even when we arrived in Mongolia. Our present dirtiness made even our worst state previously look as if Mr. Clean himself had polished us. I looked at the couple that we were waiting with and thought to myself, “They look absolutely filthy,” and I realized that we probably looked the same. Reading Anna Karenina and the cares and whims of the Russian nobility just made me feel like a dirty peasant. Anna never had to take a foul, grimy train.

The waiting room for our next train was, quite possibly, the worst introduction to China that could’ve been. It was dark and the lights shining down from above gave everyone a sinister glow. The place was absolutely packed full of people and all of the seats were taken, so the four of us found a spot on the floor to put our stuff down to wait. We had just set all of our stuff down when I heard a loud, clearing-of-the-throat noise and saw a man about 3 feet to my left spit straight down onto the floor. As I looked around, I noticed that there was spit all over the same floor I had just set my backpack down on. After the previous bathroom situation, it was almost all I could handle. For some reason --- exhaustion, feeling sick to my stomach, the darkness of the room – I almost started crying. I was just over it.

We were stuck in this hellish room for four hours (endless throat clearing that was impossible to ignore took place) and excitedly walked to the train when it arrived. But once again, we were in for a bit of a surprise. We thought that we had bought tickets for a kupe (compartment of 4) as we had traveled the entire trip until then – however, we were actually in one huge car that had open rows of bunks of three. And Rusel and I had somehow booked the middle and the very top bunk. I didn’t mind, but poor Rusel. The bunks were built for Chinese people, the majority of which are much shorter than him. He took the middle bunk, I took the top and as I climbed up to my bunk – which was so close to the ceiling that I couldn’t even sit up -- Rusel looked up to me and said, “No more trains. Ever.”

I was too tired and emotionally drained to argue. The romanticism of taking the train, at that moment, was completely gone for me. I just wanted to be someplace clean, that wasn’t moving and that had a toilet that didn't display what the last twenty people had done previous to my visit. Neither of us slept much last night and our train arrived this morning in Beijing at 7 a.m.

In the end, we had a great day exploring Tiananmen Square and the city of Beijing and I've uploaded all of Rusel's photos from today which tell the story much better than I could right now as I'm a bit beat. I’ll write more tomorrow about our first impressions of China but so far, so good.

Dante's Toilet

Rusel and I both had our own (extremely strong) feelings about the train from UB to Beijing. Here's Rusel's take on the situation.....

Occasionally when you travel you come across standards that appall you. Something so horrid the description lacks words and odors are so difficult to taste that you actually feel the earth and thousands of years of moments stop...to what seems like the end of the world.

Our train to China fits this description. My mind wonders at the millions of passengers who fill these trains and their acceptance of these conditions. Yes, the old Soviet trains could at times be trying and perhaps they were cold and the babushkas that cared for your car were impatient, but nothing prepared me for this train.

The train was deceptively welcoming on approach. The Mongolian train station breathed in and out smoky coal; it was about 25 degrees that night. The cover of the walkway protected us from the cold cloudy sky and I became excited at the prospect of entering the dark rectangle of the door and making our way to China. Off- white walls were seen from the window and the soft glow of fluorescent lights seemed acceptable. As I climbed the steps on the train, my eyes slowly adjusted to its state and the filth found there – it filled my eyes like the tears of a child who stubbed his toe.

The carpet, no longer a vibrant river of red, was dark and dull. Unspeakable stains filled the fibers and it was now a hard mat of various red, brown and black hues. The walls were faded and the white only revealed their age. Upon entering the cabin my memory flooded back to the Russians who provided you with two clean sheets, a blanket, pillowcase and a mattress. These trains only offered a blanket and pillow. Both were off-white again, as if to reveal how impure they were. Oh, how the Russian trains suddenly seemed as if a fine palace fit for a king.

On the other side of the cabin sat two Mongolian men, neither of us had words for each other but the disappointment was readily apparent on their faces. Gone were my Curious George days and trying to reveal the secrets of their names and native lands. All I had left was Dante’s Inferno.

I quickly decided to make scout out the lay of the land that I would be occupying for the next 24 hours and made my way to the bathroom. The truth is, the Soviet trains offered a variety of bathrooms; a mixture of somewhat acceptable to awful. After Siberia I was pretty convinced I would never again lay my eyes on bathrooms as horrible.

(Editor’s note: If you cannot stomach a disgusting bathroom description I recommend you stop reading now.)

As I opened the Pandora’s box my body sank. Pools of humans' fluids stained everywhere and pools of urine filled random holes in the floor. The toilet (a cold gray metal) and a plastic bar lined the near wall, presumably to hold on to as the train ached across the tracks. This pole must have failed in its purpose, as the evidence decorated the plastic walls and rubber floor. My nose was greeted with the most awful stank that has ever floated into my delicate American nostrils. I shut the door in pure shame for all of humanity. Perhaps my western sensibilities were putting me out of place, but I could not believe that anyone would accept these standards.

As I made my way back to the cabin my body revealed the truth to Lex and I could see her disappointment. Together we sat, defeated, on the bench and held our breaths for what would be the next 24 hours.

Ocean of Wisdom

From the travel notebook of Rusel Parish...

As we made our way on the train, the Siberian ground had a thin sheet of newly-made snow that crossed the entire horizon. It seemed non-discriminatory as to where it fell and little of it appeared to have melted upon delivery. Beneath it we could still make out the wilted life that once sprouted from the soil. Barren trees and wilted grass attempted to still make the show but you could foresee their grim future. We knew what they knew: that through the next few months the elements of the Siberian winter desert would force them into a greater retreat.

When the Soviet government finally collapsed due to internal bankruptcy, America reported that central government was a failure and that the USSR was a catastrophic failure. China began to open up and the fall of the Berlin wall -- the age of the free market -- had proven itself the winner over central planning. The flat distribution of goods, closed market and price control led to a market that was unable to sustain itself and when the markets opened, the USSR would go through an entire upheaval process that continues to this day. Unlike Germany or any of the given Soviet states that broke off, this land covered a vast amount of space and economic groups who had never experienced an open society. By all accounts it would take years to undo the suppressive Soviet control.

The stark difference between city and rural is beyond the American comprehension. In the city the free market survives, malls are built and the eternal cycle of construction continues, to the point where it seemed they were doing construction for construction’s sake. If you plugged your ears it could almost seem as if you were in America or another European city. Walking across the city you could compare what was old, communist and new. Cold gray communist buildings were quickly being laid flat and smart organic curvilinear buildings built to replace. Historic buildings were kept in place, often being modernized into a shopping complex. The interesting contrast is that monuments to Lenin are remaining in place, usually giving an ironic stare into capitalism’s face. Lenin’s tomb now lies directly across a warm yellow shopping mall. My mind often humored at the irony of this and his stiff waxed body that is being preserved in his tomb is symbolic of his eternal agony as capitalism slowly replaces his dream (it was also against his specific wishes to be made into a monument in his honor). In a way, he is observing his own version of hell.

As we have taken our tour of the country the contrast into the state has been something to behold. Small towns offer tacked up houses and pollution seems beyond repair. The streams long stopped flowing and are now a thick green substance where bottles and trash are frozen floating for all time until they finally rot. The rolling landscapes are not extensions of a free market and farms and goods do not seem in abundance. The communist backlash seems to continue and the drab gray buildings still offer the residents that opportunity to move up from the umber worn houses.

Not that the landscape does not offer a unique beauty to it. It is neither tundra nor a wild forest. The mind does not race with a fairy tale, but stories of survival and perseverance come to mind. The human ability to conquer its elements. The grass becomes a golden mat and the sky while a persistent gray does turn to a romantic blanket after many miles. The houses become treasure boxes and one ponders what treasures lay in the deep dark windows that have become closed eyes seemingly waiting to be woken from their long slumber and offer their ocean of wisdom into the world.

A Humble Home

From the travel notebook of Rusel Parish:

As our little blue train maneuvers its way through the small mounds of the Ural Mountains my glance penetrates the three panes of glass that each of the train’s windows have to withstand the cold heart of Russia. My eyes fall not on the Alps, the Rocky Mountains or even the Catskills. You would expect the mountains dividing the mighty continents of Europe and Asia to be an impressive rock edge that would protrude from the earth in some heroic manner toward the heavens. That somehow, nature would celebrate the separation of these two great landmasses that have had such a profound impact on our world with something worthy of a legend.

Instead, the mountains do not rise more than 1640 feet. As the images enter the train’s window with a small whimper they do call my attention in a way, the golden grass now long dead lays flat and thousands of birch trees rise and fall in simple two-note symphonies that seem grander than Beethoven’s 9th. Along the trails small wooden houses form basket-like patterns here and there.

These are not the cozy suburbs of New Jersey or of the small towns in Nebraska filled with homes with an apple pie at its window set to cool. These are houses built out of any given number of raw umber slabs nailed together, often haphazardly, something more like Little House on the Prairie if Michael Landon built it himself. The cold banal exteriors multiply into small towns where well-covered Russians occasionally emerge from missing slabs onto the landscape and quietly shuffle in the muddy roads. Their breaths stain the soft violet air as they march and you can follow their footsteps as they make the same trek daily. There is no center of town or even anything that would mark a store.

This is not the introduction to the Siberian landscape as I had imagined. My mind fades as we climb five feet higher over an hour and the houses appear to loose shape and often function. I catch myself pondering whether it is some ghostly abandoned town that even Clint Eastwood would shy from, but people do indeed reside and puffs of smoke penetrate each slanted roof like a smoldering cigarette. The smoke almost seems to speak that the house does indeed breathe, that people do survive even under these sunless conditions.

It almost seems as though some mass flood birthed onto these mountain shores and devastated the region, ripping away birch leaves and sides of houses. Somehow New Orleans seemed to happen everyday here and as people washed upon these shallow mounds they took pieces of houses with them that washed up. As they rebuilt they grabbed a door here and a window from over there and prepared for the next flood that would inevitably come the next day.

These hardly seem like homes; especially of a country we once considered a super power. It is hard to imagine these conditions existing in the US, even during the cold war. That these were our enemies, the ones who posed a nuclear threat. These people seem so gentle and fragile, a far contrast of the proud walls of the Kremlin or the sneer of Lenin’s tomb. This landscape seems more out of the Wild West, had it taken place in Northern Canada during January.

China-Bound

Today Rusel and I are going to be hitting the city of UB – we have a long list of things to do. Rusel wants to go to the Zanabazar Museum of Fine Arts to see the work of the famous Mongolian sculptor and artist Zanabazar. I want to go to the Museum of Natural History, which apparently houses a good collection of dinosaur fossils found in the Mongolian Gobi desert.

Then it’s off for some shopping – oh sweet, sweet shopping. Unlike Russia, where we didn’t really see a single thing we wanted to buy after we left St. Petersburg, there is a plethora of amazing things to buy here. The Mongolian people have some interesting handicrafts and style.

And then, it’s off to catch the train to Beijing. We’ll arrive there on Wednesday morning. This may be our last big train ride – although we fly out of Shanghai to Tokyo, we have been toying with the idea of flying down to Shanghai if the flights are cheap.

Regardless, we’ll be on the train for the next 36 hours or so. I have decided to post some writing that Rusel has done on the trip, because some of his descriptions of life on the train and in Russia are so much better than mine, frankly. I have finally learned how to use the “timing” method on the blog so things can be written in advance and posted at a specific time – so although the blog is being updated, we are on a train somewhere between UB and Beijing.  So keep checking back if you’d like to read them as I’ve timed them to appear while we are en route.

I thank Rusel for being a guest blogger on this site, and I hope that you enjoy his writing as much as I do.

Goodbye, Russia. Hello, Mongolia!

We made it back to Irkutsk from the island on Wednesday without much incident. We caught the minibus back – by the time we made it down to the “bus station” on the island (someone’s brown wooden house with blue windows), it was already packed full and we were the last people to board.

Of course, there was a completely insane man on the bus who talked the entire trip. At first I thought that he was talking to the woman next to him, but she quickly nodded off yet he kept talking. And talking. He talked to nobody in particular the entire trip. He was dirty and appeared as if he hadn’t showered in years – I read somewhere that during the Revolution, Siberian peasants didn’t shower the entire winter and it wouldn’t surprise me one bit if this man was carrying on that tradition. At one point, he ate a hotdog without the bun by opening it up from the skin and eating the meat inside, bit by bit, and then throwing the skin out the window with his dirt-stained fingers. At that point, he had dropped little pieces of hotdog all over the van. Nice.

Once at Irkutsk, we went to an amazing market and stocked up on food for the 36-hour trip to Mongolia – the market had whole aisles devoted to cheese, an aisle to meat, an aisle to vegetables – and everything seemed fresh off the farm (although I don’t think we saw one farm the entire time we were in Russia, which struck us as odd). We went to a wireless café but had some problems and had to abandon everything mid-way through our work (my blogging) to hurry to catch the train -- so I apologize for the state that I left it in the past few days. You have no idea how it killed me!

The train to Mongolia was probably one of the nicest we’ve been on yet – and as luck would have it, we had the entire compartment to ourselves for the 36-hour journey. The train was exceptionally clean, and hardly full at all. In the compartment next to us were three Swedish people about our age, and one compartment over on the other side was a very sweet Mongolian family that we befriended. For most of the trip, that was it.

The train looped around the southern end of Lake Baikal and then started heading south towards Mongolia. This is where we have ventured off of the traditional trans-Siberian train journey and begin taking an alternate route down to Beijing. Many people continue on to Vladivostok (the end of the line in Russia) but we have opted to go to Mongolia and then Beijing instead. As we went south, it began to snow and the train went through a little mini-blizzard. We were now going through a desert, ringed by mountains, and it was gorgeous with the snow. Being on the train can be tiresome at times, but then I look out the window and remember what it's all about. The terrain did get a bit monotonous at times in Russia but suddenly, everything outside our window had changed and it was a good change.

The hardest part of the journey was definitely crossing the border from Russia into China – it required patience on both of our parts. We stopped at the Russian border town of Nauski around 1:30 in the afternoon. Our Mongolian friend, Bolor, spoke near-perfect English and told us that immigration would show up at the train around 4:00, and that we should feel free to wander around the village until then.

We ventured into the village, which was completely desolate with only a burned-out car body or lonely babushka standing in front of her house, staring at us. We walked around a bit but quickly realized that there wasn’t much to see and then there was always the idea, in the back of both of our minds, that the train could just leave at any point without us (although unfounded, both of us have had nightmares about this a few times! I have no idea what I would do in the middle of Siberia with nothing at all – although it would make a great book!). We went back onto the train and basically sat there through immigration and customs, and left Russia around 6:00. We slowly chugged along to Mongolia and this side was a bit faster – we were out of there in about three hours. All in all, the process took about 8 hours, all to go about 10 miles.

That was last night – we spent two nights on that train and one day. We were awakened this morning at 5:30 a.m. by our provodnitsa when our train arrived in Ulaanbaatar (or “UB” for short) at 6:30 a.m. Our Mongolian friend had sweetly lent us his phone (our Russian number is no longer, great that I got to talk to you Paige! We’ll update with our Chinese number soon) on the train to call ahead and arrange accommodation once we arrived. As we stumbled off the train into the dark morning, I saw someone holding a sign that said “Gana’s Guesthouse,” the place we had arranged to stay.
“Welcome to Mongolia!” the woman holding the sign sang out. She had the sweetest voice to go with her sweet face framed by a fur-lined hood. Even though it was way too early to smile, I got such a rush of happiness: We were in Mongolia!

Rusel and I both appreciated our adventures in Russia but to be honest, after three weeks, we were ready to move on. I would say that we had some very high highs and some very low lows there – but I loved every minute of it and will always remember the time and the place fondly. We have already promised to return to Olkhon Island one day and I know that we will. It was just one of those spots where everything was aligned, and perfect. We both loved it.

Slow Train To Siberia

This leg of the journey has probably been one of my favorites thus far, although it’s also been the longest. Thirty-one hours have definitely crawled by slowly – I was trying to think of a metaphor but then realized that “As slowly as a Trans-Siberian train rolls along” works quite fittingly here. These trains definitely don’t cruise, they creep.

Knowing that it was our last leg for a few days certainly helped things. As we boarded the train, Rusel said a small prayer out loud: “Please, let our train compartment be filled with young people that we can talk to.”

Well, one out of two ain’t bad. We’ve shared all of the journey with Natalia, who looks about our age although she doesn’t speak English. On the top bunk was a younger guy who could’ve been her brother but then he got off about halfway into the trip and was never replaced by someone new – so it’s just been the three of us. One less person definitely makes a big difference in these tight spaces.

To make everything a little better, both of our provodnitsa on this train seemed to be large, jolly, and have a good sense of humor about them. On extra long journeys such as this, there are two provodnitsa to keep everything clean and in order and they work as a team. I swear that I even caught one of them smiling at me once! I have nothing to prove this statement but my word, but I stand by it.

I really wish that we could talk to the people we travel with, especially at the end of the journey -- if only to get a laugh. We seem to amuse our fellow travelers; that’s the sense that I get. Rusel and I usually barge into the compartment (sometimes at the last minute) with all of our stuff and promptly begin frantically trying to pack everything in while simultaneously attempting to not block the hallway pedestrian traffic of those getting on or getting off at that stop as well. Chaos ensues for the first 10-15 minutes with elevated, excited voices.

“Open up the bench, Lex! Open it up! Put your backpack in! Quick! There’s now a huge line of people behind me, trying to get through! It’s an angry, growing mob! Put the bench down! What’s that? It’s stuck?! Lift up in the lever in the middle! The LEVER in the MIDDLE! What’s that, you got your finger stuck in the lever and it has now chopped off your finger and it is bleeding everywhere? Grab the decapitated finger, pour some vodka on the remaining stump, put the finger in your backpack, perhaps we can get it reattached at the next village! Just lower the bench so I can get in! AAAAHHHHHH!!!!!!!!” is usually the gist of it.

All the while, especially in this case, our two co-compartment-sharers had already boarded and sat watching us – not with smiles on their faces, mind you – but slightly amused grimaces. We’ll take what we can get.

We soon settled in for the long haul. This train isn’t as new as the leg with Nina (that was definitely the standard by which all other trains will be measured), but it’s not as old as the train from Yekaterinburg – Novosibirsk. It’s just fine. As soon as we take off, one of the provodnitsa comes in and starts vacuuming the small area by our feet, and wiping down the benches/beds where we sit. You can tell that they take their jobs very seriously, and I appreciate the cleanliness of this train.

One of the things that I am definitely learning on this big travel of mine is the art of doing nothing. Rusel and I are so well-trained in the art of multi-tasking. But on the train, there is really a short list of things that you can do: read a book, type away on your laptop until it runs out of batteries, eat some snacks, talk. In a way it’s nice but in other ways we both go a little bit crazy sometimes.

Watching Siberia go by outside our window is like watching a long, slow, 31-hour movie with bad dialogue (ours) with other’s dialogue thrown in every once in a while for effect (oh, what I wouldn’t do for subtitles!). The strange thing for me about the Siberian landscape is that there is such an ingrained and unquestionable familiarity to it for me. I’m used to wide open spaces – they were the backdrop for the first 22 years of my life. There are so many similarities between the golden Nebraska plains and the yellow open spaces of Siberia that span out as far as the eye can see. As we moved eastward, yellowish hues gave way to the whiteness of the snow but again, I am used to this as well.

I ponder what it must’ve been like for the Russians who immigrated to places like Nebraska (including relatives of mine in my not-so-distant past): were they disappointed at the landscape – so similar to the place that they just fled -- or comforted by the familiarity of it? Were their lives any easier there, or just as hard? Both places seem to require such a strong survival skill to make it; neither place is for the weak and fragile. In both places, only the strong survive – I know the look that these hardened babushkas and weathered older men give us, because I’ve seen it before in the place I grew up. Life isn’t fun, life isn’t something to be enjoyed – life is about that overarching human instinct of making it to the next day. 

Even the sunset I just witnessed out the window of the train car stirs up something in the deep recesses of my memory: driving home at night, with my family, from a Nebraska football game and watching the sun go down at the end of the interstate: oranges, pinks, purples as far as the eye could see and each color lingering on the flat spaces; the calico skies interrupted only by long, thin clouds that mimic the land.  There is a remembrance of this event now, just as there was a familiarity then.

And so it goes. As the journey continues, the flatness of Siberia gives way to gently, rolling hills. My beloved birch branches are replaced by deep-green coniferous trees. There is a new kind of beauty yet still the same elements are present. Snow, everywhere snow, yet at times some brown or green still peek out. We pass village after village and I am astounded once again by the simplicity and almost medieval-ness that these villages portray. Literally, nothing signifies that it is 2007 in these villages: not a gas station, a supermarket, billboard. Nothing. The houses are all wooden and surrounded by wood piles, a broken-down, communist-era car that looks as if it doesn’t run anymore (sometimes a door falling off its hinges), a fence that needs mending. The streets are all dirt, none paved. Some of the window frames are painted sky-blue – in each village, the same sky-blue, sometimes light green.

These towns have an air of sadness to me, almost as if the great country of Russia forgot about the inhabitants found there. I think of Petroverdets in St. Petersburg, the mighty palace build to rival Versailles. And then I think of the people who live in these tiny matchstick-houses and the basic lives that they live. Russia is such a complex country and these two opposites really say it all to me. In some ways, it is fighting to be beautiful and modern and in other ways people still live in houses where the big, bad wolf could “huff, and puff, and blow the house down,” – all while tourists like me pass through on a slowly-winding, silent train headed towards the endless emptiness of Siberia.   

Pack It In

The next leg of our train journey seemed a bit longer than the previous one for some reason. When we arrived on the train, we noticed right away that the cars on this one seemed to be a bit older and more worn. Whereas our last train with Nina seemed to be made in the last ten years or so, this train feels like something straight out of the 50’s.

It was also the first train that we were on that didn’t originate where we were boarding – this train had already been picking people up for who knows how long. We found our compartment and realized that, contrary to what we had previous thought; we were in fact in the same room.

Inside was a nice-looking businessman sitting across from us. Unlike us, he only seemed to have his business jacket and his coat with him. We both suspected that he wouldn’t be spending the night with us and were secretly hoping that this suspicion was true. It would be so nice to have the cabin to ourselves.

The interesting thing about train travel here is that it seems to be the preferred method of long-distance travel. The extremely nice and outgoing guy who helped us at the train station in Yekateringburg was a businessman who had traveled 2 Ѕ days there, had a contract signed which took him one hour, and then he was traveling 2 Ѕ days back on the train.

“Why don’t you fly?” Rusel asked.

He made a face and looked at Rusel and just said, “I like the train.” To both of our American minds, train travel is a novelty but here in Russia I think it’s the norm. So far, the trains have been filled with children, families, businessmen, older people, younger people – these are definitely working trains, not tourist trains.

About five hours later, the businessman across from us grabbed his coat and hat, said paka (goodbye) to both of us, and was on his way. Yes! The entire cabin to ourselves – we could stay up late, watch the world go by, talk, drink some wine….this was going to be great.

Not one moment had gone by before two new faces opened the door, to replace the one that had just left. So much for that dream. It was a middle-aged man and a girl about my age and they quickly began unrolling the sheets and pillows to make their beds. As soon as the train left the station, they were already tucked safely into their bunks and Rusel and I soon did the same.

I slept well, and awoke to both of the “new” people from the night before gone and a new man on the lower bunk. I then vaguely remembered the man across from me leaving in the middle of the night; I have no idea when the woman left.

As I looked out the window, I saw snow covering the ground and the birch trees I love so much. The windows on this compartment are only double paned (everywhere else has been triple-paned) and the cold is definitely seeping in. As I looked out at the stark, flat landscape for miles and miles, I told Rusel that it reminded me of Nebraska.

“It doesn’t look like Nebraska,” he said – I disagree.

About an hour after I woke up, I started to get a little bit of cabin fever. This haul is a long one, and we have still another long one beginning tomorrow. I don’t know how some people do this train without ever stopping – you can do the journey from Beijing to Moscow in five days straight, I believe. I think that I would lose my mind.

But life on the train isn’t that bad and after I got over my brief claustrophobia I began to enjoy myself again. The new man who was in the cabin was really nice and keeps calling his daughter, who speaks English, to translate for us if we need to say something to each other. I’m sure his daughter is getting sick of receiving these phone calls! A woman selling these delicious, hot potato-pastries came around and we took a chance and bought two and they hit the spot. Another woman came around selling wool items: socks, mittens, and shawls. I bought a pretty pink one for about $12.

We made a stop about an hour ago and Rusel and I ventured off the train – something we haven’t done yet, for fear that the train might leave us. But in the book, it indicates how long the stops are and this one was 15-25 minutes so we decided to get off, as everyone else did. It was freezing cold outside, grey, and snowy. There were many hawkers selling different items, including huge, dried fish. We weren’t off the train for long before we got back on, and away we went. We’re now about one hour away from our destination: Novosibirsk.

Update: We made it to Novosibirsk and ended up staying at the hotel attached to the train station, which was suprisingly nice and probably the best place we've stayed so far. But then again, we were extremely weary and it was nice to not have to venture too far.

We did walk out and get some dinner and marveled at the fact that we are in Siberia. It feels like Siberia. It is freezing. We found a strange, "Applebee's" type of place on the main drag and sat there amongst the smoke and stylish young Russians. It was actually a nice dinner.

We've been walking in the cold for the past hour trying to find an internet cafe and we finally succeeded. Now it's back to the station/hotel to pack it up and jump on our next train -- a 31-hour journey. I'll be glad to get somewhere and stay for a few days, which is exactly what we're going to do when we reach our next destination: Lake Baikal.