To our great surprise, sleeping is quite easy, perhaps because of the rocking motion and general din. Of course, we are frequently woken up, whether by bright lights, loud bangs, violent motions or by the train stopping at intermediate stations. To my greater surprise, I suffered no motion sickness whatever, and as the day passed, I was able to get stuck into my 700 page history of Australia without being nauseous.
Had, I felt nauseous, I would have to visit the toilet, which is at the end of the carriage. The toilet is functional but quite neat. It is also quite entertaining because the flush pedal simply opens a flap (like on an aircraft), so you can watch your jobbies strike the railway line beneath. This would have been less entertaining if the reason for your visit had been nausea.
All photos of the jobbie hitting the tracks have been censored.
There is a dining car which serves very basic meals and barely cooled beer. But the server is a very friendly Russian who has just enough words to explain the menu. The Russian "special" soup (£3) is very tasty and as is the Russian “Green Beer” (£2 for 500ml) … although those of you who like your beer very cold might struggle ... as a fan of room temperature British bitters, I have no problem.
Food can be also bought at the various stations where the train stops. These platforms either have kiosks or little mobile stalls, but the range of products is extremely limited … water, beer, crisps … but like in an English pub. There is also the time pressure … most stops are for 10 minutes, but occasionally they are limited to 5 minutes … and when the time expires, the train just moves away … no whistle, no announcement . It is quite common to see passengers clutching beer and crisps while running to a train already moving away slowly.
Beside the toilet at the end of each carriage is the samovar. This is a tank of boiling water from which you can fill your thermos flask whenever you wish. Great for coffee, 5 minute noodles, 5 minute porridge, etc provided you had the presence of mind to bring such delicacies. The amazing aspect of the samovars is that the water is heated by a coal-fired furnace … and this on a railway line that is electrified the entire journey. It’s quite strange to hear the shoveling of coal when you step between carriage to carriage.
Today, we chat with some fellow passengers. Most of the passengers on our carriage are elderly Dutch people who speak no English, but there is also a German lady and her mother, as well as 2 English blokes travelling separately but sharing a cabin. The German lady speaks to her mother in German, to us in perfect English, and to the train conductors in Mandarin. She’s here because she wants to escape everything and have a few weeks with no stress.
One of the English blokes (who later turns out to be American) never speaks, but the other talks more than I do. He’s a professor involved in climate change and he’s on a business trip to conferences in Beijing and Shanghai. Being a serious climate person, he won’t travel by aircraft, so his travel to the conferences involves a train from North of England to the Dover, Eurostar to France, various trains through Belgium and Germany to Poland, a diversion down to Ukraine and then back up to Moscow (because he couldn’t get a Belarus visa in time) where he catches the Trans-Siberian. After 2 weeks of conferences, he will do the very same trip to get home. Now that’s what I call a business trip.
The difference in objectives just among our initial acquaintances is Interesting … a German lady looking for stress relief … us looking for excitement … and the English bloke reviewing papers on a business trip.
The trip itself is unvaried … over the first 1,000 kms, we saw no change whatever. The track is endlessly long and straight, the view is endlessly flat and covered in trees. (no photos because our windows are so grimy that the camera's autofocus only sees the dirt) The landscape is not unlike some parts of country Australia … even the trees look a little like gum trees. Of course, there are a few more villages and a few large towns compared to Australia. But what makes it unique are the vast train stations … 10-15 parallel lines of track … each with trains of innumerable carriages, mostly carrying minerals, timber, coal or oil. These trains are so long and so frequent that many towns are completely invisible from our train. On entering a town, we might encounter a train travelling in the opposite direction … and it will take so long to pass that we’re well past the town before we can see through our window.
Unfortunately, there is also a lot of litter, mostly accumulated wherever the community feels it should be dumped. And we’re not just talking household rubbish … there are old cars, old trucks, trains carriages and even old locomotives … just rusting away on this flat empty terrain.
Various other photos ...
You really met someone who talks more than you, Peter????
ReplyDeleteOh yes, as Churchill might say ... I was completely outclassed ... it wasn't even a competition ... it was a walkover ... or should I say a talkover.
ReplyDeleteI think the rest of the passengers were glad when Karen and I got off at UB ... because their evenings were so calm for teh remaining 2 days to Beijing ... without the highly animated political debates in the corridors.