Drafted on 1st August.
It’s 6am and the view out of the window is very different from this time yesterday and we’ve not even gone far due to 10 hours sat at the border.
The picturesque wooden cottages of siberia have given way to cream buildings with bright blue corrugated roofs. The steppe has been replaced with fir trees and dramatic rock formations poking through the mist that look like they’re straight out of a traditional Chinese watercolour. I think this is the location of the observatory in Three Body (Chinese sifi novel I highly recommend).
I’ve always wanted to cross a border with passport control and customs etc without flying. Maybe its quicker in a car but the experience on the train was quite tedious. We stopped at a station called Zabaikalsky just on the Russian side of the border. The train got carted off to have the bogies changed for the different rail gauge and almost all the passengers headed away from the station.A small band of travellers and tourists were all that was left of the previously full train. A lot of them had been on the train since Moscow and were heading to the end of the line at Beijing. However Desmond, a programmer from Mexico, has done like me and made a lot of stops and travelled on a few different trains. He also quit his IT job in a large company to travel.
I spent my last 200 rubles on some delicious savoury pastry things and we decided to have a wander around the town. It seemed very bleak. There are a few corner shops and bars along the one dusty street. We got to the park where there was the obligatory T34. The hours did not fly by waiting there. When the train came back we could board and customs came to visit each of us in our cabins. They asked questions, brought a pack of sniffer dogs and what I’m sure was a gaiger counter clicking away as they checked everything including the curtains. Finally I got a passport stamp with a little picture of a train on it!At long last we rumbled across the Chinese border which is heavily fortified. We arrived at Manzhouli and some chinese officers came to check our visas and route through our bags. Then we’re shouted off the train and through immigrations. Anyone who stepped out of line (literally) was shouted at. I never thought I’d describe Russian security as relaxed but that’s how it seems now by comparison.
After customs we waited at the station for 5 hours. There were no shops or cafés. The icing in the cake is that the train has no hot water when the engine isn’t running. The guidebook says that crossing the border takes a few hours but none hint at what an ordeal it is. I wonder if it’s more slick going via Mongolia where a lot more tourists go.After the tedium of yesterday I’m feeling happy and excited again now with the thrill of travelling. I’m now the only person in my cabin which is nice for a change but I prefer the liveliness of third class. Out of the English speaking tourists on the train I’m the only one who travelled third class and everyone is envious as I regale them with stories.
Soon I will be going to the dining car for breakfast with Desmond which makes me feel like I’m in an Agatha Christie novel. Then at lunchtime (a mere 6 more hours on a train seems like nothing now) I’m alighting for my first Chinese city experience!
Until I arrive in Japan on the 15th I won’t be able to use WhatsApp, Gmail, LINE, Instagram etc. If you really need to contact me you can do it on wechat (you’ll need to create an account).
Eastward Ho! 