Waiting for the Train – Page 2 – Dan and Anna prefer not to fly

Moscow

Our trip from Kazan to Moscow was a very fast 12 hours. We shared our cabin with a lovely older woman who boarded the train with a big basket of apples (she kindly shared them with us). We arrived early in the morning and took the metro to our hostel. The Moscow metro stations are amazing; it’s worth riding the subway just to see them.

We had hours to occupy ourselves before we would be able to check into our room so we went to get breakfast at the aptly named Breakfast Cafe and then walked to Patriach’s Ponds. The opening scenes of The Master and Margarita, one of Dan’s favourite books, take place at the Ponds and this spot was one of Dan’s must see places in Moscow. Although the Ponds and the surrounding parks have been dramatically reduced in size since The Master and Margarita was written, the space is still really nice and we enjoyed people watching in the sun.

After sitting and wandering we headed over to David B for coffee. The coffee was fine, nothing special, but the croissant was excellent. We walked further still and then sat down at Pinch for a second breakfast. We’d seen a crowd of people outside Pinch earlier and it definitely looked like the place to be. Our food was really lovely (porridge for me and amazing coconut chia mango pudding for Dan) but it was really expensive and the servings were teeny! It was a far cry from our favourite Kazan canteen.

After our second breakfast we headed back to our hostel to check in and nap. In the evening we walked over to a street called Bol’shaya Nikitskaya Ulitsa to have a drink and a snack at Apartment 44. The street looks like one of the hippest in Moscow, with tonnes of people out drinking cocktails and eating at very sleek Japanese restaurants. Apartment 44 was lovely and cosy and made a decent negroni. We figured we might as well go all in on Moscow restaurants and so we headed to Cafe Pushkin for dinner. We sat at the bar to wait for a table, having been told it would only be a few minutes. Half an hour later and starving, we still hadn’t been seated. We decided dining with Russian businessmen and nobility probably wasn’t our scene anyway and decided to walk over to an Australian restaurant called Glenuill. This was an excellent call. Of course I’m biased, but the food was so good and a very welcome change from the nice but relatively unchanging Russian food we’d had over the past couple of weeks. Sated and happy we headed home to sleep.

On Sunday we set out to see the major sights of Moscow. We started by going to Table, an excellent but definitely off the beaten track cafe for breakfast. The coffee was great, Dan was able to get his fill of cheese pancakes and I was thrilled to have a (vegan!) breakfast of roasted vegetables and hummus. From breakfast, we caught the subway to central Moscow, where we started by walking through the elaborate Metropole, a famous hotel that is also frequently mentioned in The Master and Margarita. Next up, we headed for GUM, an incredibly intricate and extravagant department store that opens onto the Red Square.

We left the store and walked through to the Red Square, where we bought tickets to Saint Basil’s Cathedral. I enjoyed this stop so much. We were lucky enough to hear a quartet singing and I’d never walked through a church which is constructed like this one before. Rather than a single alter and rows of seats facing it, the cathedral was made of lots of smaller chapels, each containing a single large alter, without seating. I’m not sure how Orthdox services are conducted given that there is no space for a congregation to sit. I also loved the decoration inside, which felt more to me like a lot of Middle Eastern design, rather than the churches I’m more familiar with.

From Saint Basil’s, we walked over to Zaryadye Park. The park, which was designed by the same architects who did New York’s High Line, was somewhere I really wanted to visit after reading about the incredible spaces it includes which jut out over the roads below towards the Moscow River. It did indeed look amazing but the crowds were insane. We needed a break and headed to a hip, quiet area which had a few shops we’d been wanting to check out. We had beer in a quiet leafy square and then it was home to get ready for our most extravagant meal in Russia (by faaaaar!).

White Rabbit is often included on lists of the world’s best restaurants, and with a rooftop overlooking the Moscow sky line, we decided it would be worth the stop. The walk there took us past the incredibly imposing Russian Foreign Ministry. The Ministry is one of the “Seven Sisters”, a collection of enormous skyscrapers built at the behest of Stalin in the 40s and 50s. The Ministry is full of Soviet symbolism, including workers towering over you, and I found the size and proportions of the buildings unsettling. (You can see another one from Zaryadye Park; and here are some photos of the Moscow State University).

We went with a 10 course tasting menu which, while not our usual style, was a cool experience. The highlight was a cabbage wedge served with champagne caviar sauce (three types of caviar!) and tiny red tomatoes. The desserts were also great. They included a caramelised milk sauce with mousse, burnt hazelnut and vodka and a black bread, milk ice cream and black garlic dish. Strange, but really good.

We woke up on Monday morning to gloomy weather and the sense that colds were coming for us. We took it easy, heading to a hip area for a late breakfast in a very sleek cafe. We had great coffee and I loved my tempeh sandwich (tempeh! in Moscow!). After wandering through the streets and spending some time at a nearby mall, we walked to an Australian cafe called One Teaspoon. The walk was lovely – the parks that run down the middle of Moscow’s streets are so nice. And One Teaspoon was great! I love the cherries that show up in so many Russian desserts and I had a delicious cherry tart while Dan went savoury with a salmon rocket pasta and a bottle of Russian pear cider.

For dinner we took a long walk over to my favourite part of the city, the streets around Patriarch’s Ponds. We ate at a very cosy Russian spot. And then it was home to pack for our fast train to Saint Petersburg the next day.

Kazan

Before I start just wanted to mention the change to the layout of the blog, I wanted all the words and photos to spill out on from the very front page.

Kazan is the capital of the Tartarstan state of Russia, more than a thousand years old it’s one of Russia’s oldest cities and a legacy of Ivan the Terrible’s conquests.

The city was only an overnight train ride from Yekaterinburg, having left at just after six, we arrived at the crack of dawn in Kazan at just past five. Compared to experiences on a red eye flight, we were very much refreshed after our sleep on the train.

Kazan isn’t a standard destination on the Trans Siberian, in fact it’s not part of it at all, but from our research Kazan seemed fascinating, and seemed to be recommended by locals everywhere.

After hosteling most of our way, we ended up staying at the Double Tree in Kazan, a welcome upgrade, and also a hotel happy to give us our room keys 6 hours before check in. After some warm showers, and some research we were back on the street in search of a hot breakfast which would lead us to a place we would frequent over and over during our time in the city.

Anna enjoying some good ol cafeteria food

Добрая столовая (Dobra Stolovaya), which in english translates simply to “Good Dining Room”, is an awesome cafeteria we found that is serving eager customers from early in the morning until the evening. The food was delicious and a meal between the two of us would usually be less than $3. There was so much variety that we came back over and over never running out of new things to try. Anna’s favorite dish ended up being this sweet cottage cheese cake in a shortbread crust (Sochnik), mine was a sort of meat pie with cabbage. Delicious.

We spent the rest of the day walking about the city, eventually taking a long bus ride into the middle of nowhere to see the Temple of All Religions, an unfinished religious site made by an eccentric man who wanted to honor all the “great” religions of the world in one place, the man died a few years ago, but his disciples continue to work on the building (construction continued as we walked about the site). Anna thought the place was very creepy, it seemed fine during the day, but I suppose I wouldn’t want to be running around the place at night. Seems like a place where the occult may take place.

Selfie in front of the The Temple of All Religions

After a long public bus ride back, we headed to Kazan Kremlin, built by Ivan the Terrible in 1500 interestingly has both a Eastern Orthodox Church and Mosque on site, a symbol of the two religions coexisting peacefully in Kazan for half a millenia. Both sites required Anna to wear head scarf, because a woman exposing her hair is clearly indecent.

Dan’s first time in a mosque. At the top.

We were allowed to climb to the top of the mosque where we had a view down on the prayer room. We then walked over to the church just in time for the 4pm bells. If you’ve never heard an east Orthodox bell ringing ceremony, I would describe as quite… creepy. The bells are rung unmelodious, near cacophony, almost like a clock gone haywire. I actually loved it. The church (which we were not allowed to photograph) had a very gilded, but dark and sombre tone and the bells matched perfectly.

After walking the rest of the grounds (some of it still being used for active government) we headed back to the cafeteria for dinner. Little did we know we had basically saw all of Kazan before we spent even our first night.

That wasn’t so bad though, the rest of our time in Kazan was spent eating great food and the excellent coffee, two of our favorite things to do!

Reading while drinking from the Chemex and munching on donuts at a lovely cafe.

Getting ready to board the train to Moscow!

Yekaterinburg

Yekaterinburg is one of the major stops along the Trans-Siberian and a hub for trains coming from all over Russia but despite its size we found it to be a pretty boring (and not particularly attractive) city. No doubt it was a necessary stop as we were so ready to shower and eat a proper meal after the long train ride from Irkutsk but we certainly don’t feel the need to return.

After great food on Olkhon and in Irkutsk we also ate some terrible meals in Yekaterinburg, which did not do a lot to endear the city to us. We started our first morning off with a dreadful breakfast that included soggy waffles and an utterly undrinkable coffee (in Yekaterinburg’s hippest cafe) and things did not really improve from there. After breakfast we walked across town to Yekaterinburg’s most famous site, the Church of All Saints (also known as the Church on the Blood). Yekaterinburg is most famously known as the town where the last Tsar of Russia, Nicholas II, and his family were executed in 1918. This church, which opened in 2003, is built on the site of the house where they were killed. It’s a somewhat strange place now. It’s located on the main high way that runs through Yekaterinburg and we found the grounds to be almost completely deserted. With no information in English, we poked around for a while, enjoyed our first glimpse of an Eastern Orthdox church and then headed off in search of a second breakfast, hoping that it would be better than the first.

We landed at Mamma’s Big House. We tried the fried cottage cheese cakes that Dan has loved so much throughout our trip and I got a passable coffee. Not great but an improvement at least. Next up, we decided to walk along the Iset River, that runs through the city. It was very green and lined with a few nice old buildings and some public art. We had fun playing at an enormous key board on the side of the river and then walked back to our hostel for a Russian siesta. Somewhat restored, we went in search of lunch. We landed at Khachapuri Dlya Pushkina, a cafe serving traditional Georgian flat breads. The vibe was really nice and cosy and but again the food wasn’t the best. Dan commented that “it was good for bread submerged in cheese”. An accurate review. Sooo cheesy it was overwhelming (Kate, Matt might enjoy this?!).

We continued our walking tour after lunch, before landing at Intouch for what the internet says are the best cocktails in Yekaterinburg for a pre-dinner drink. Our cocktails were comically bad and were followed by dinner at an equally disappointing restaurant. (Hopefully this is the most negative post I write about our trip!).

We woke up in the morning very ready to get on the train to Kazan. Sadly, the train didn’t leave until 6pm so we had the day to fill. It started off better than expected with the best coffee we’d had in a while at Duo. I had mine with a Russian biscuit called kartoshka. It reminded me a lot of hedgehog slice and some research online suggests that they actually have a lot in common. Kartoshka is made with very similar ingredients – cocoa, crushed biscuits, condensed milk. Delicious! And something I hope to recreate in the future. The food options at Duo were pretty insubstantial (hence the kartoshka for breakfast) so we followed up with another forgetful breakfast nearby.

We spent the next couple of hours packing and then went in search of lunch. Thankfully we found a decent meal at Pelmeni Club. I had cabbage pelmeni with a really nice vinegar sauce, Dan had some meet stuffed dumplings and we ended our meal with an enormous piece of very delicious honey cake (our first of the trip and another cake I can’t wait to try making). After lunch we got coffee and then it was finally time to board the train to Kazan! (With a detour for another burger at Burger King, because it might have been the best thing we ate in Yekaterinburg?).

Irkutsk to Yekaterinburg – a very long 56 hours on the train

After arriving back in Irkutsk on Friday afternoon, we headed straight to the railway station to wait for our 5.01pm train to leave for Yekaterinburg, our next stop on the Trans-Mongolian. The journey was to take us 56 hours and cover well over 3,000 kilometres. We also crossed through three time zones, moving back in time as we travelled west. At about 4pm a huge rush of people left the waiting area, including a couple that we recognised from our train ride from Beijing to Ulaanbator. We realised that there was another train leaving for Yekaterinburg an hour before ours and that it would have got us there eight hours quicker than the train we’d booked. Ooooof! We had some serious buyer’s remorse when we realised that our trip was going to be eight hours slower than it needed to be.

For this leg of the journey, we booked second class tickets as all the first class tickets from the Russian rail authority were sold out and to buy them from an agent would have cost a fortune. Second class cabins have four beds, rather than two and I was anxious about sharing a cabin with two strangers for such a long time but it wasn’t so bad in the end. For the first 24 or so hours of our journey we shared with a friendly older Russian man. He didn’t speak much English but proudly told us that he had four grandchildren. He was incredibly organised and seemed to have travelling by train down to a fine art.

We spent our time on the train reading (The Master and Margarita for me) and watching a K drama called Something in the Rain (started of great, went down hill fast) and The Great British Bake Off. The time also passed quickly watching the Russian landscape pass us by. You could see the first hints of autumn in the trees and I imagine that in a couple of weeks the landscape will be wonderfully glowy. On our first morning, we woke up to a beautiful foggy morning. It felt so wintery. Passing brightly painted wooden houses with blooming gardens covered in mist was so lovely.

About 30 hours into our journey our cabin mate got off the train and we were lucky not to have to share with anyone else for most of our second day on board. About 3 hours before we arrived in Yekaterinburg we were joined by a very stern Russian gentleman who did not break a smile or say a word to us for the duration of our shared journey. We’d read that Russians tend to get on board and immediately change into an outfit for the train and this was true for both people that we shared with. Our second companion was not very discreet in making his wardrobe change and whipped off his pants in the middle of our train carriage in order to change into his pyjamas.

Perhaps the worst part about such a long train ride is figuring out what to eat on board. Before getting on the train we stocked up on snacks and they got us through the entirety of our trip (though I never want to see another packet of instant noodles). Apart from lots of instant noodles, we ate Snickers, dried apricots, pistachios, granola, peanut butter on rye, dark chocolate, delicious Russian oat biscuits (that made a pretty good breakfast dunked in coffee) and instant mashed potato. When I was growing up, instant mash (known as Deb in Australia) was often served at school camps etc and thinking about it still makes me shudder. Disgusting is the only word for it. So I was not excited about the possibility of instant Russian mash but it turned out to be quite tasty! Good enough that we both wished we’d bought more. We’d heard from the Australians that the food on board their train from Moscow to Irkutsk was decent and so we planned to eat in the dining cart at least once. As it turned out, the food there looked extremely unappetising and it was expensive so we passed on it and survived on our snacks. We think that the faster, newer trains have much fancier and better equipped dining carts so if we’d booked that speedier train to Yekateriburg, we may well have found a good meal on board.

So, that’s how we passed 56 hours on board – snacks, sleep, television and books. Surprisingly, we didn’t really get cabin fever. It was quite nice to have an excuse to hang out and do not very much for a couple of days. Having said that, by the time we arrived in Yekaterinburg at about 10pm on Sunday night, we were very excited for a shower and a proper meal. We thought the station we’d arrive at was a 15 minute walk from our hostel but we arrived at a completely different station, further out of the city. Exhausted, we sat down in Burger King (Hungry Jacks) for burgers and a chocolate milkshake. I’m not sure fast food ever tasted so good. Some what restored, we got an Uber to our hostel, showered and climbed into bed, very happy to be in a bed that wasn’t moving.

Hanging out in Siberia – a few days on Olkhon Island

On Wednesday morning we were picked up early from our hostel (so sad to leave!) and headed off to Olkhon Island for three days. Olkhon is in Lake Baikal, the largest fresh water lake in the world. Getting there, and particularly getting around the island, is something of a logistical challenge so we joined a small tour, led by a local man called Ivan. We were also joined by a Swiss-Czech Australian couple from Adelaide. Ivan organised everything seamlessly and it was really nice to have someone else make all the decisions for us for a little while. Our tour mates were really fun too so it turned out to a be a great trip.

It’s a 5-6 hour journey to Olkhon from Irkutsk. We started off with a long drive, stopping along the way to look at important local Shamanic spots and to get a glimpse of Lake Baikal. We also stopped at a local cafe for a delicious lunch of fried noodles, a fried pie, a fantastic vegetable noodle soup and posy (a type of dumpling eaten by Buryat people, the indigenous people of the area around Lake Baikal). I am really enjoying Russian food so far and though Buryat food has a lot in common with Mongolian food we’ve found it so much fresher. After a 4 hour drive, we reached the car ferry to Olkhon. We drove straight onto the ferry, zipped across the water in about 15 minutes and then we were on Olkhon!

Olkhon has no paved roads so next up we had a very bumpy, hour long drive to our guest house in Khuzhir (the island’s main village). We were lucky to arrive on a warm, cloudless day with a bright blue sky and amazingly clear and calm water. Photos don’t really do justice to the scale of Olkhon, or its rugged beauty. I’ve never been anywhere else like it. To see it as the seasons change must be really cool too – I imagine it feels totally different in the winter when you can just drive straight over the ice to reach it.

After dropping off our bags at our guest house, we went for a very long walk to some famous spots close to Khuzhir. The water was unbelievably clear, but still pretty cold, and none of us were keen to swim. About 1,700 people live on Olkhon and we enjoyed popping into the local stores too. I think they’re like old fashioned Australian general stores, where you can buy ice cream and lollies as well as fresh fruit and vegetables, cleaning supplies, frozen food and shoes.

It was fun to stay in a guest house, something we haven’t done before. It looked like every house in the village had a guest house in the garden. Ours was pretty basic but spotlessly clean and quiet and the food was good. At 6.30pm we all sat down to dinner together. There’s no menu – a simple meal just arrived at our table. We had cucumbers pickled in vinegar, dill and sesame seeds, vegetable rice and a kind of meatball ish thing with gravy. For dessert there were huge sweet yeasted buns stuffed with curd cheese and topped with crumble. After so many carbs and a long day of driving and walking, we crashed early.

After a breakfast of porridge, cheese toast and fried dough drizzled with condensed milk (a very sweet and heavy start to the day), we spent Thursday driving and walking through the north of Olkhon Island, which is a protected area. We spent the day in a UAZ (a vehicle initially designed for the military). They look old but apparently we were in a 2013 model (it definitely did not feel or look like it from the outside). Parts of the drive were so incredibly bumpy we felt like we were in a washing machine. At points the van looked like it would just tip sideways. The drive was fun but we were looking forward to a paved road by the end of the day. We stopped off at lots of different spots on the coastline, including places of significance for the Buryat people and the site of a former Soviet gulag, where prisoners fished huge quantities of fish from the lake. We were able to walk out along cliffs, which are all completely free of fences or warning signs. (This definitely would not be the case in Australia or the US).

We ate lunch outside. We had soup made with a fish found only in Lake Baikal, called omul, delicious sandwiches (something about Russian bread is really so good), home baked biscuits (cookies for our American readers), candied lemon and orange slices and tea brewed with local herbs (it tasted like liquorice, in a good way!).

We made it back to the guest house at about 5pm and despite having spent much of the day driving, we were exhausted. We napped, had dinner (a potato and vegetable stew with pork, tomato and cucumber salad with lots of garlic and a simple butter cake for dessert), did some more travel planning for our upcoming European adventures and then we crashed early again.

On Friday morning, we enjoyed our last meal at the guest house: potato bake, eggs on toast and crepes with condensed milk (I did not realise how popular condensed milk would be here – it’s everywhere!). Then it was back on the road so that we could get back to Irkutsk in time for our afternoon train to Ykaterinberg.

Irkutsk

After hopping off the bus in the centre of Irkutsk, we headed to our hostel, Rolling Stones. We had a terrible hostel experience in Beijing and were a bit nervous about staying in a hostel again but Rolling Stones turned out to be a true gem. It was the best! Super comfortable rooms, perfect location, great staff and we enjoyed chatting to the other guests too.

We were in Irkutsk for three days. The train from Irkutsk to Yekaterinburg (our next stop) only runs a couple of times each week so we had to choose between stopping for two days or for five. We chose to stop for five days (three in Irkutsk and then two nights on Olkhon Island) but I was worried we’d be bored. Those worries turned out to be totally unnecessary as Irkutsk / Lake Baikal was my favourite stop along the Trans-Mongolian and there was more than enough to keep us occupied. The food in particular was SO good in Irkutsk.

Our first meal was at Antricot. The food was fine, with a very American vibe, and a funny menu (sausages, burgers, fancy iced teas). It also doubles as a hookah bar? Heading out from Antricot we wandered around the city for a while and stopped to watch people dancing by the river. The city is so charming, full of old wooden buildings that are painted so colourfully and as we were there in high summer it was spectacularly green with flowers blooming everywhere.

After resting for a while, we had an excellent dinner at Bierhaus, one of many Belgian beer spots in Irkutsk. It was great German food, a bit pricier but by no means expensive. Dan tried a Baikal vodka that was infused with pine nut, which was really yummy. We also had excellent fried fish, crispy potato pancakes with local cured fish, dill and onions and grilled vegetables.

We took it easy over the next few days, alternating between going out to eat, reading, making travel plans (so time consuming!) and wandering around Irkutsk, which has a really charming vibe.

We had fantastic coffee at a cafe called White Crow and a wonderful dinner at Rassolnik, which staff at Rolling Stones recommended to us. Highlights included a Georgian wine and a delicious rye and cherry cake. I would really love to find a book about Russian baking, as we have tried so many interesting and delicious cakes and biscuits along the way. We also had crepes and condensed milk for the first time (a Russian staple, it seems) and tried lots of types of Russian dumplings (pelmeni, varenyky and chebureki). We tried a sweet varenyky (recommended to us by a waiter at the local dumpling place) which was stuffed with a cream or cottage cheese and served with sour cream and strawberry sauce.

True to form, I also loved exploring Russian supermarkets. I think honey must be a local speciality as there were rows of different types of honey. There were also lots of different types of grapes and tiny, bright orange apricots. We tried cheesecake bars for the first time (a skinny bar of cheesecake coated in chocolate that is apparently a popular breakfast food). Dan also discovered Zhigulevskoye beer – delicious and cheap at 60 roubles.

So all in all, we had a really chilled and enjoyable time in Irkutsk doing not that much. We left Irkutsk rested and relaxed and looking forward to three days on Olkhon Island.

(Written by Anna)

A pit stop in Ulaanbaatar and onwards to Irkutsk

We woke up in our ger on Friday morning very keen to get to Ulaanbaatar (UB to the locals!) and have a shower and a good meal. The food options and bathroom facilities were very limited at our Airbnb and at that point it had been four days since our last shower (WAY too long in Anna’s opinion). We packed up, had a very quick (mediocre) breakfast and then our host drove us back to UB.

When we finally arrived at our hotel in UB the woman at the check in desk told us that there was no hot water at the hotel but that we could go to a nearby hotel for the same price. A quick google made it obvious that the alternative was much cheaper and not nearly as good so we asked for our reservation to be cancelled. We quickly made a booking at a nearby hotel and headed over there instead. I think it turned out to be a blessing in disguise. Our back up option had views of the city, a comfortable bed and plentiful hot water.

After showering and putting on fresh clothes, we walked over to Modern Nomads, a chain serving contemporary Mongolian food. Although there were a few tables of tourists, most of the guests looked like locals having a late lunch or early dinner with family on a Friday afternoon. Dan ordered some local beer and milk tea (the former much better than the latter). We had buuz – a Mongolian dumpling filled with mutton, a dumpling soup and Japanese noodles (so called because a Japanese tourist reportedly fell in love with them). The thick wheat noodles were sautéed with onions and mutton and were certainly the highlight. Mongolian food, from our brief survey, is pretty monotonous. We didn’t see any spice or chilli being used and most dishes involve mutton and wheat noodles in some form. Although we had some acceptable meals, there is little doubt that Mongolia is not a foodie destination.

After lunch we headed over to the state run department store, looking out for some cashmere for Dan (it’s widely produced in Mongolia and relatively cheap). We didn’t find anything quite right. Although it’s lovely quality and a great price, a lot of the styles were very outdated – think sitcom Dad c. 2000. But we did enjoy the supermarket on the ground floor of the store, where we stocked up on supplies for the next leg of our trip. I was so happy to find Bob’s Red Mill granola in plentiful supply. (And the next day we found a much cooler cashmere store where I found amazing cashmere joggers that I very much regret not buying).

We started off our only evening in UB with drinks at at Irish pub called Great Khan. And then it was onto dinner at Rosewood, an Italian spot that is highly rated on Trip Advisor. The vibe at Rosewood was really lovely. Even though it wasn’t the best Italian meal ever, the atmosphere, a glass of good red wine and a change of pace from the mutton and noodles of the past three days was so comforting and calming. After dinner it was back to our hotel and early to bed.

The next morning we enjoyed a surprisingly good breakfast at the hotel and hung out in our hotel room for as long as possible, enjoying all the luxuries we wouldn’t have for the next part of our train journey. After check out we went in search of our last proper meal for 24+ hours. We ended up at Millie’s, a little cafe that services mostly tourists and expats. Dan had waffles with bacon and eggs and I had a BLT and took some carrot cake for the road. Then, it was off to the train station! Our destination was Irkutsk, near Lake Baikal in Siberia.

The Russian train that we boarded was not nearly as new as the Chinese train we took to Mongolia (and we did not have the luxury of our own bathroom) but we actually enjoyed the old Russian train more. It had lots of character (certainly it was more Agatha Christie-esque) and the bed was so much more comfortable.

Dan surrounded by our supplies for the journey to Irkutsk

At the Mongolian / Russian border we had another lengthy stop, though without the need for a gauge change it took only four hours instead of six (phew!). We were officially in Russia by about 1.30am, very happy to be there and relieved that everything went smoothly with our visas. The next morning we woke up to see that our train was running along the banks of Lake Baikal. This turned out to be my favourite part of our Trans-Mongolian adventure. The lake was lined with lovely colourful and ramshackle homes with gardens blooming with flowers and vegetables. We also saw lots of people camping and boating on the lake.

After skimming the banks of Lake Baikal for a few hours, we arrived in Irkutsk mid-afternoon to a beautiful warm day. The train station is on the opposite side of the river to the main town so we had to find a way to get ourselves to our hostel. After a couple of misfires with taxis, a wrong minibus and standing at the bus stop on the wrong side of the street, we eventually found ourselves on a bus heading in the right direction. Next up, a few days in Irkutsk!

Mongolia – New meets old, staying in an Airbnb Ger

After a long night at the Chinese-Mongolian border we woke up to the sights of Mongolia. Already quite tired of eating instant noodles we opted to get “brunch” in the Mongolian train car.

Quite tired of instant noodles (it doesnt take much), we decided to try out food in the Mongolian dining car. It was a sparse menu, but seeing as we’d only had processed carbs for the past day, we opted for what vegetables we could along with some lamb sauteed with onions. It wasn’t the best meal we’ve ever had, but given our state quite delicious!

Although Ulaanbaatar would be considered small at 1.8 million people is small to us fancy New Yorkers, it houses nearly half of the population of the entire country, and sprawls wider than you could imagine. With more than an hour until reaching the station the reach of the city became evident as sparse Gers became tightly packed shantys with tin roofs, and horses were replaced by Priuses.

We arrived in Ulaanbaatar just after 2pm, where we were greeted by our AirBnb Ger host Sainaa who would be taking us to the Genghis Khan monument before the camp site.

It’s incredible to think that less than 1000 years ago Genghis Khan and his sons lead the peoples of this sparsely populated country in a conquest that would have them close to taking over the entire Eurasian continent. Mongolia, now much quieter on the global scene still holds Genghis Khan to great esteem to the point where insulting him could put you in jail.

A panorama from the top of the monument. Khan looking over his vast country.

After checking out the monument we hopped back into our host’s Prius and headed to the camp, about an hour and a half from the city and close to the national park. When we arrived we placed our bags down in our home for the next two nights and headed to his “Ger Restaurant” where we would have our first true Mongolian meal of our trip. Tsuivan a traditional type of Mongolian stir fry noodles with beef and or lamb, and Khusshur a type of meat patty wrapped in dough and deep fried. Both were delicious.

Eating Tsuivan with Khusshur in the foreground.

The climate was a pretty significant departure from the endless heat and humidity of Taipei, Shanghai, and Beijing. Quite a relief, but it would mean that the nights could get below 10C. Fortunately (for us and not the environment) our Ger was equipped with a wood and coal burner which kept us more than toasty overnight.

After our late lunch we headed to a nomadic family where we tried Airag, a mildly alcoholic beverage made from fermented horse milk. Definitely a unique taste, slightly fizzy, a bit sour and an aftertaste that I would probably rather not experience again. It’s the national drink, and beloved by locals, so maybe with due time I could learn to enjoy it (who liked beer their first time drinking it?).

About to answer Anna on what I thought of airag.

At this nomadic family I also got the chance to ride a horse for the first time. Not something I’ve ever been particularly interested in doing, but coerced by our host, I present to you Dan on horse.

Thank you for letting me sit on you Mr. Horse.

After getting walked around on the horse for about 5 minutes, I got off and the family’s young daughter no older than 13 hopped on and showed me how it was done. Across Mongolia you see this everywhere, young teens on horse back herding sheep and cows, it’s quite impressive.

The next day was spent at Terlj National Park, which we both have to say was a bit of a disappointment. The term national park seems to have a very different meaning in Mongolia, having entered the park we were greeted by Ger resorts, restaurants, and various other capitalist enterprises that would never be seen in a “national” park in the US or Australia. There were two man attractions in the park, Turtle Rock, which you can guess is a rock formation that resembles a turtle (which neither of us had the foresight to take a picture of). You could also climb it which meant navigating a very narrow opening.

After hanging out there for a bit we headed to the Aryaval monastery, a temple that sits at the end of a long hike and is something of a spiritual destination for Mongolian buddhists.

Looking back at about halfway on our hike to the temple.

The inside of the temple was colorful in a way that is common in Mongolia and makes it distinct from Chinese buddhist temples which are typically more subdued in decor.

After a long afternoon in the park we headed to Khaan Jims by the river where we had a nice lunch before heading back to the Ger camp to hang out by ourselves in the vast fields before heading to Ulaanbaatar the next morning.

Anna not so keen on eating Sheep’s head.

Anna looking small in the vast meadows of Mongolia (which btw looks like the Windows XP background)

Beijing to Mongolia – The Trans-Mongolian Begins!

Our Trans-Mongolian route, sans stop in Novosibirsk, but with an extra leg to St Petersburg.

After a short sleep, we got up at about 6am, packing up what we hadn’t last night, and with one last double check of our room, headed to the Beijing Railroad Station, located conveniently and intentionally across the road from our hotel. We were on the cusp of beginning our Trans-Mongolian railway journey.

Our experience with Rail stations in China could be described simply as erratic and hectic. Beijing Rail Station, even at six in the morning was no different, but with both of us a bit more seasoned in Chinese rail stations, we were able to make our way through confidently. Enough time for Anna to have a Taiwanese breakfast (wonton soup with youtiao), and myself shamelessly indulging in a sausage egg mcmuffin. Just a few minutes later, it was boarding time.

Tired but excited to start our Trans-Mongolian Journey!

We dropped our bags in our two bunk room with our very own private bathroom, a perk of being in first class, and spent a bit of time figuring out what knobs did what, and how to keep our space somewhat uncluttered.

At just before a quarter past 7, we felt a slight bump in our compartment, and like a ball rolling down a hill we were off. Our journey has begun. First order of business, take a nap.

First Trans-Mongolian meal, Taiwanese noodles for Anna, Macca’s for me.

A wider view of our train car. Anna stretching out on our sofa chair.

Leaving Beijing the landscape was filled with dramatic cliffs and mountains eventually turning into endless green fields and the power line that would hug us in parallel all the way to when we reached the border.

We had our first of what would be many instant noodles during our trip, meanwhile our conductors were busy making dumplings, stir fries and various other delicious looking foods that would be unavailable to us on the less than appetizing dining cart menu.

Most of our train ride involved a lot of relaxing. With free hot water for our trip we indulged in cups of hot tea (the Trans-Mongolian was in fact originally a caravan that brought tea from China into Russia) while reading books and watching movies, and of course staring out the window.

With our door open we eventually made some friends, an older Canadian couple who were also doing the Trans-Mongolian, but were going to be in Mongolia for nearly two weeks doing the whole big trip to the Gobi desert via small propeller plane (which as our blog title suggests me and Anna were not keen for). They were a lovely couple and were nice to have some other English speakers to grumble for our upcoming long delay.

At 8pm we reached Erlian, where a Chinese immigration officer came by and added our passports to a stack on her sleeve and walked off leaving us passport less through the changeover. This would turn out to be a long, long process due to the fact that the rails on Mongolia’s side are exactly 85mm wider than the rails we sat on. This meant that we would all be locked in our train cars with no access to facilities for the duration of the change, where each car would be individually lifted and a cohort of questionable competency changed the wheels to the wider gauge. It wouldn’t be until close to midnight before this was done and the officers politely returned our passports.

Of course once we coasted for about 30 minutes into Mongolia, another passport check was necessary, and a now Mongolian officer would come by and just like her Chinese contemporary would add our passports to her sleeve, and spend the next two hours examining whether we were who we claimed to be. The process went smoothly but we would not be free and clear until after 2am. The both of us exhausted, but relieved, finally went to sleep.

We would wake up the next morning to a dramatically different landscape in a new country. Endless rolling hills spattered with the occasional ger accompanied with flocks of sheeps, and lazy cow herds, not to mention a significant drop in temps from 31C to 20C, quite a relief for both of us.

From Beijing to Mongolia, quite the landscape change.

Our Mongolian Dining Car, much nicer than the Chinese car

A few days in Beijing

On Saturday morning we took the high speed rail from Shanghai to Beijing. Organising tickets was a stressful experience but we got there in the end. The fastest high speed trains were sold out but we found seats on one that averaged a measly 300 km per hour. It was great zooming through the Chinese country side although we immediately missed having Chris around to help us. We didn’t have enough time in Shanghai to organise snacks so we tried to buy some on the train. It didn’t go as smoothly as hoped – thanks to language barriers and miscommunications I accidentally ordered Dan an entire braised chicken as a snack. Still, we made it to Beijing in one piece (albeit hungry).

After getting off the train we headed for the subway and were immediately surrounded by the chaos and crush of Beijing. I was totally overwhelmed by the scale of the city. Something that looks like it is next door on the map is miles away. The crowds were intense, the roads were huge, the subways were packed and the passengers definitely didn’t appreciate our backpacks. Although we found some great spots on Beijing, both of us prefer the vibes, the more relaxed pace and the green streets of Shanghai.

So many bikes lined up outside a subway station in Beijing

Anyway, after checking into our hostel we headed out to grab dinner. We went in the direction of Sanlitun, an area that turned out to be full of malls and expats. We didn’t want to fall into an over priced tourist trap so we were a little flummoxed about where to go but we managed to find a great hot pot place called CouCou. Dan had his fill of lamb and I ordered so many vegetables and stuffed myself with watermelon. It was all so welcome after lots of salty packaged snacks on our six hour train ride . I tried to order jasmine tea but our server couldn’t figure out what I wanted. She used a translate app to ask me if I wanted green tea after the rain. How could I say no to something so poetic? What arrived was very different to what I expected – I think it was an iced jasmine tea latte? Not something I would ever order for myself but really tasty and so refreshing against the heat of the chilli packed hot pot. After dinner we had a quick drink at Janes & Hooch and then crashed.

On Sunday morning we headed out to explore Beijing. We started with Peking duck (a Beijing specialty) at a famous spot near our hostel (we had tried to go the previous night but there was a two hour wait!). Duck is not something I seek out as a mostly vegetarian but it was very delicious and the attention to detail was incredible. Everything was so beautifully presented. Even the grapes served with your meal arrived on a plate piled with crushed ice and swirling with dry ice. We ate the duck with the most delicious pancakes, sweet soy, cucumber and pickled vegetables. And I ordered lots of steamed greens to have on the side.

After breakfast we rode to a cluster of hutongs west of our hostel to explore. While wandering in and out of lovely alleys sounded like a lot of fun, we had not anticipated the insane crowds of a Beijing weekend. Walking around tested our patience and stamina. I think we made it out alive thanks to a combination of caffeine (at the beautiful Voyage coffee shop and a mountain of churros and vanilla ice cream topped with a sweet milky syrup called hazelnut milk).

Ever optimistic, we headed towards the Forbidden City and Tian’anmen Square. Of course, it was also eye wateringly busy. We came, we saw, we made our best attempt at admiring the sights and then we admitted defeat and went looking for more coffee and somewhere quiet to read.

We found the much quieter hutong south west of the Forbidden City which was very pleasant to wander along. We looked in at some very chic boutiques and got more coffee and read our books at Berry Beans.

For dinner we headed back to the hutongs where we started our day, thinking it might be quieter at night. Ha! No chance at all. It was still packed. Despite the crowds, we made it to Nina’s, a negroni bar Dan had read about. Not sure what we’d find at an Italian spot in Beijing, it turned out to be great! It seemed to be packed with every Italian person in Beijing. The negronis were delicious and the food was pretty good too, especially the fried pizza.

Monday was our last full day in Beijing before leaving for Mongolia. We started the day by moving to a hotel just by the train station. Our train was leaving at 7.27am on Tuesday morning and we didn’t want to have to deal with public transport or taxis and risk missing our train. It turned out to be a great move as the hotel was a few minutes walk from the station and far more comfortable than our hostel.

After moving we got lunch at Yoshinoya (very much inferior to the Japanese original), coffee (pretty good cold brew from Starbucks) and shortbread from Wagas (excellent!). We needed to stock up on snacks for the train ride so in the afternoon we went to a supermarket – one of my favourite things to do in a foreign city. Errands completed, we went for dinner at another hot pot place. There was a long wait but Beijing makes waiting for a table a big event – restaurants line up chairs on the foot path outside the restaurant and offer snacks and drinks to pass the time. So, we sat and snacked for about an hour until our table was ready. Dinner done (the hot pot was fine, but not as delicious as CouCou), we headed home to pack and sleep ahead of our train journey. Next stop, Mongolia!