Day 10 - 31/7/11 - Sunday

Our second train stint went from Ulan Bator to Irkursk, leaving Mongolia to enter Russia. This journey was shorter in distance, however longer in time, as excessive time was required to:

a) Await Passport Control staff to start work when arriving at 5.30am (why schedule the train this way asks a foreign Train Scheduling Manager?).

b) Process Mongolian departure cards within Mongolia, and Russian arrival cards 5 kilometres further down the track-why can't border towns be located together?

c) Change carriage consists and/ or locomotives at stations, which appeared to happen 5 or 6 times during the journey. The train size changed from 2 carriages at one stage, to about 13 carriages by the end.

The station entry requirements in Mongolia were non-existeant compared to China, where entering any part of the station involed bag scanning, ticket checking and gates. The train and track also was not up to the same standard as China, with the train now a Russian train, older, smaller and no air-conditioning.

This time we were placed with an English mother and daughter, and with 4 in the same cabin, it became a little cosy. The daughter Louise had lived in China for the last year, and explained to us how the Chinese language works, which was interesting.

The Russian border crossing had Cinthia envisaging several ex- KGB unshaven guards with hangovers, smelling of Vodka and hassling us about Visa requirements,whilst endeavouring to find Contraband searching through the smalls within our suitcases. Instead, attractive young women politely checked our passport details..... with even Cinthia commenting- gee that Customs officer is beautiful. Sorry boys, no photo, generally not a good idea to be taking photos of customs officials, no matter how photogenic they may be.

A full day (in fact 35 straight hours) on a train may seem like a long stint (and it is) however it is made tolerable by the stunning scenery offered by Siberia.