From Russia, With Love

The train from UlanBaatar to Ulan Ude takes approximately 24 hours. You spend around 11 of those in customs or waiting for them. The train ride itself is pretty pleasant though. We started at 9PM, so we met our neighbors and then were asleep about an hour later. When we woke up in the morning, we were sitting in a station on the Mongolian side, where we sat, and sat, and sat for about 4 hours total (most of the time our car sat without an engine...just the car).

This is the car we called home for 24 hours. This is what a normal engine looks like.

Soon after we woke up, we were joined by two Russian women with 4 or 5 extremely large bags full of cashmere products. The had extra papers, so I can only assume that they were importing goods into Russia, because they were with 4 or 5 other people who had a similar amount of baggage. When we finally got going, we were treated to views of mountains, rivers, and forests for a while. Then we hit Mongolian customs less than a half hour later. They came on the train, grabbed our passports, had a laugh at my (Richard's) last name, and eventually gave them back after an hour. Then we waited more.

If you order tea or coffee, you rent one of these with a glass. Emily in our cabin.

Finally, we crossed into Russia where the gers turn into houses and the people turn white. Guess what happened next...We were met by Russian customs and waited more. A customs official took our passports, looked us over, laughed at my last name (again...), and then went off to do whatever with our passports. When the officials finally came back about 2 hours later, they talked to the two women and kicked them off the train. They had to take their bags in to be inspected and weighed. A couple hours later, they came back, grabbed their personal bags, and we never saw them again.

Then we were off to Ulan Ude! It only took another seven hours to arrive. The whole time we chatted and played cards with a Frenchie and a Brit who were heading to Irkutsk. I got my ass handed to me in Hearts, which I learned on the go. We arrived in Ulan Ude around 11PM, and went straight to Olga's Homestay (see our review for a description). The next day, we walked around the city, which is small, but quite nice.

Food.

Ulan Ude's main attraction is the world's largest head statue. Of course, it is of Lenin. We are in Russia after all. There is also a beautiful shopping district, and an imposing cathedral. We aren't sure if it is Eastern Orthodox, but that's our best guess. The buildings in Ulan Ude look very new, or at least they have new paint. They are quite colorful. Around 4PM, we jumped on another train to Irkusk.

Lenin's monstrous head.

The cathedral. (Anyone got a name?)

The shopping street.

This time, there were no long stops along the way, and we were joined by a Russian babushka (grandmother) who spoke a little English, but was extremely friendly and outgoing. Completely the opposite of what we had come to expect from Russian people. We spent the next seven hours chatting and using sign language to talk about various topics such as: Putin, Putin's hobbies, Putin driving a tank (complete with illustrations), our lives, and our families. We arrived in Irkutsk at 11PM, got a cab to our hostel, and now it is time to say goodnight!

That is a 1 liter CAN of beer that apparently is only for women, because it weighs in at a dainty 4.8% alcohol, which is quite low in Russia. We had 8.2% beer the night before.

Richard in our much older train cabin on the way to Irkutsk.