Hong Kong – Featured – Matthew Woodward

Enter the Dragon – the Z823 to Hong Kong

Matthew Woodward — Fri, 08 Jan 2016 04:29:00 +0000

After the experience on the train from Lhasa, I gave myself 48 hours in a reasonably plush hotel to decompress. I must have had some train related PTSD, as I found myself on sentry duty during the night, guarding my bathroom from non existent smoking Chinese passengers. Also without really thinking about it, I worked out that the square footage of my bedroom would accommodate 32 people in the density of soft class. My time in Guangzhou was short, but I felt very relaxed here. I last visited in 1990, and of course hardly recognise the place now.

I took the concierge at his word and hopped into the hotel courtesy bus just 37 minutes before my train was due to leave. I didn’t spot that my ticket says to arrive at the station 45 minutes prior to departure, but fortunately I had no problems on this occasion. Departing from Guangzhou East railway station you ascend some huge escalators to get to the long distance and “international” waiting rooms. Chinese exit formalities and customs are completed here before boarding the train. If I had known this I would have given myself some contingency time to be safe (my rail travel rule number 5).

The Z823 is one of two different direct high speed train types that travel between Guangzhou and Hong Kong. This one is run by KTT. It’s not quite as swish as the other type, but the timings of this one made more sense, as I had to go and see a man about a snake in the afternoon. More on this in a later post.

The train is a double decker. Today there are only a few people on the top deck so I can spread out and relax for a couple of hours. I haven’t been on a day train (one without beds) since I left Berlin more than a month ago.
I decide to confront my inner demons and visit the toilet. It’s very shiny inside and there are some great notices on the wall. One says there is a 5000 RMB fine for smoking, and the other is a cleaning inspection rota with a telephone number to call in the event of any dissatisfaction. I have written it down just in case I need it. You might wish to make a note of it too – (852) 2947 7888. Happy days. I’m now very much in “new” China rather than “old” China – but confusingly I suspect to many, both are called “Z” class trains..

Immigration and customs at Hung Hom (Hong Kong’s station) take 10 minutes, and I’m in a taxi to downtown Kowloon in no time. My driver looks like he might have other things on his mind. He is clearly good at multi-tasking. A bet on the horses at Happy Valley, a debt for equity swap deal, and maybe what’s on TV tonight are all coming through thick and fast in Cantonese on his custom built head-up display.

My immediate priority is to resolve some kit issues. Owing to the dryness of the atmosphere in Tibet there was a lot of static electricity flying about, and I received some big visible blue shocks when touching my iPad whilst it was charging. Since this happened I can no longer connect my camera SD card. As my blogging is dependent on being able to do this, I head straight to the Apple Store in Canton Road. Unlike in mainland China, it is a real one, and the support is reassuringly brilliant. The diagnosis isn’t good though – I need a new iPad, as the Lightning connector has apparently been fried. They offer to give me a replacement on the spot, but that’s no good to me as I have no back up of my work. But I have a cunning solution, and it takes me less than an hour to get hold of a wireless SD card reader (from Sony) that does this job perfectly. I’m back in the blogging game.

Z266 – The Slow Train to Canton – Part One

Matthew Woodward — Thu, 07 Jan 2016 04:12:00 +0000

I’m back on the train. My plan is a bit mad, and even I can’t remember why I decided to do this. I’m on the Z266, which runs daily from Lhasa to Guangzhou. It takes three days. This is a big trip, but yet in my mind I’m treating it like a short journey for some reason. I bet I am actually the only person travelling the full 4390 km to Canton. How many Chinese people would want to do this? Perhaps like wanting to take a single train journey from Edinburgh to Istanbul.

I’m on a Z train again, and to prove that “Z” trains are really not actually that slow, this train only makes 11 stops in total. Tomorrow it will stop at Lanzhou at lunchtime (12.49), then not again until it gets into Zhengzhou later the next morning at 03.13 – a journey of over 14 hours and 1200 km between stops. I should not underestimate the distance and good speed that we are covering – it is nearly 20% of my total trip mileage owing to the good average speed.

Lhasa station is pretty new, and once you are inside it is a fairly easy place to navigate. I’m sad to report that my lucky black handled Swiss Army knife has been seized by the police here. This is a shame as it has covered the last few years of travel with me and has opened some quite interesting bottles of wine. After surrendering it I realise that I could probably have just offered up my cheap KFS set that I keep in the same part of my bag – I don’t think their x-ray machine actually revealed my scary Swiss Army knife, it was just a random question as foreigners tend to have such things. Nothing I can do about it now, so no point in getting fraustrated..

Once on board the carriage seems a bit different to the Z21 service that I used to get up here. My first reaction is that it is slightly more civilised. So far I am sharing with a couple of Chinese chaps going to Xian. They have been super helpful rearranging the place and making space for my luggage – the spaces in this carriage type seem quite small.

I’m in carriage No 6, berth 25. The good news is that it’s a lower bunk this time. The mountaineering up to the top bunk on the last train was hard work at night, and I’m glad not to have to repeat this (although my technique was improving). There appears to be no extra oxygen being pumped in at the moment. In just a couple of hours we will be back up at the Tangulla Pass at over 5000m, so I would happily have some were it on offer. On the plus side, altitude will cease to be a problem later on tonight when we get back to Golmud, so all things being equal, some sleep might be on the cards.

Chinese rolling stock is more modern than you might think it to be. I think the carriages often look older than they actually are because of the way that they are painted in a dull green colour (If I were the Marketing Manager for Chinese railways I would immediately rebrand and paint them all in some sort of more modern and appealing “airline” style). At one end of our carriage there are some pretty sophisticated climate control systems – I can read the exact altitude, and even the pressure inside the carriage.

Rather bizarrely I have just been made to complete a “health declaration”. No form was required on the more challenging route up to Lhasa, and we have set off today from over 3500m. Anyway, it’s no problem once you have an English version of the form. I had a Chinese one at first, and thought it might actually be a tax return.

The drill here is to doze and sleep whenever you think you can, because when you normally would be trying to sleep it might not be possible. The door has been open to our compartment and whenever I look up there are a couple of Tibetans or ethnic Chinese standing there staring at me like I am an alien from another world. This gets quite tiresome, but I’m not closing the door, as I like the open “drop in” feel of the carriage. The kids also like to shout “hello” at me and then disappear before I can further test their English.

Later on in the day we leave the specially constructed permafrost part of the line, and the train immediately speeds up to express speed. I decide to switch from speaking Tibetan back to Chinese at this point. It’s not a big deal though, as I speak perhaps a dozen words of Chinese and only four of Tibetan (“Tashi Delek” and “Tujay-chay”).

I have noticed the marked effect that altitude has on my appetite. I really haven’t been interested in food for a few days. I have eaten nothing again today. I am going to force myself to eat some instant porridge for breakfast tomorrow. Signing off from the Z266 for now.

The Man Who Would Be King

Matthew Woodward — Wed, 06 Jan 2016 11:50:00 +0000

My time in Lhasa is fast drawing to a close. It’s been a wonderful and unique experience to be amongst all the pilgrims. The winter is a good time to visit Tibet. Okay it’s cold – just a couple of degrees in the daytime and freezing at night, but the climate is dry and the days are generally clear and sunny. Best of all though, there are hardly any (non Chinese) foreigners here.
I’m hoping that you might have seen the epic British film from which the title of this post comes from. It’s Kipling fiction of course, but there have been several moments during my stay when I have really had the sense of just such a mythical place. I have had to remind myself that I have no lucky arrow in my bag, or an all seeing eye pendant around my neck. This is not actually that surprising, as parts of the monasteries and palaces here date back to before the 7th Century. The place feels completely untouched by the progress of time.

I have had a brilliant guide here in Tibet. His name is Tenzing. You have to have an official guide to get the permit to travel, but I think it has really improved the quality of my time here – there is so much to learn. Tenzing is “Mr Tibet” and he makes a real effort to show me everything. Occasionally this goes a bit too far, and I spent some time one afternoon being accidentally locked in a room in the Sera monastery. Our “escape” had a slight Indiana Jones feel about it.

Lhasa is one of those places where the sense of place and history is such that it really touches you. It’s history needs careful explanation, and Tenzing has been great at this.

The Potala Palace looks amazing at this time of the year. I started my ascent of the many hundreds of steps at around 10am on my final day in Lhasa. This has been deliberate to give myself the best chance to acclimatise before attempting the climb. Tenzing keeps telling me not to push myself too hard, and we stop about every five minutes to allow me to recover my breath. Some of the pilgrims have the same problem as me, whilst others (I assume from the mountains) just skip past. After about an hour we reach the top of the religious part of the palace (the red bricked area in the photo above). Inside there are hundreds of people giving offerings at each of the shrines – and there are lots and lots of shrines. There is money scattered everywhere. The pilgrims exchange their Kuai notes for thick bundles of near worthless “Jiao” notes, and this enables them to proffer money at every deity they see – in exchange of course for good fortune in this life and the next one.

Tenzing knows the place like the back of his hand, which is just as well as I would be hopelessly lost in moments without him. Inside the dark wooden chapels of the palace we peer through the smoke of freshly made juniper incense and take in the remarkable stupas and shrines, most made of gold and precious stones. The pilgrims are mesmerised. Monks and holy men chant, offer prayers and generally supervise the process of receiving the offerings. He tells me that only 700 individuals are allowed entry each day and tickets have been issued to us in advance. Today it is 696 Chinese pilgrims, myself, Tenzing and a couple of Americans I spot outside, who are dressed like climbers.

As we leave one of the galleries a monk with a lady follower approaches Tenzing. Tenzing has an amazingly polite and respectful way with anyone he meets. He nods his head from side to side and smiles at the end of every sentence. There is a lot of nodding and smiling going on in this conversation. He tells me that the monk notices that I wear glasses, and would I like my vision restored? I think about this for a moment, but it becomes clear this is not a service one declines, so I follow him to a special mandala where with an offering is made and a blessing is given. I will let you know what my optician says about my eye sight when I next have a check up. No photography is allowed inside any of the palaces or monasteries, so I’m really sorry not to be able to share what this looks like.

Lhasa is at 3650m, and I have had no problems acclimatising. After the Tangulla Pass it feels quite forgiving until you actually try to do anything – when you have to stop almost immediately and take a break. My hotel is used to dealing with people who live at more modest altitudes, and offers an oxygen lounge for people to recover in. It also has pure oxygen cylinders available on room service. I have declined both as I feel I am dealing with things well “naturally” – albeit with the help of a bit of Diamox.
The food has been interesting and very yak based. It seems to be the “go to” ingredient of many Tibetan dishes. I have enjoyed yak steak, even spicy yak pizza, and of course yak butter tea.

I have given my final offerings, made my wishes for world peace and safe onward travel, and tomorrow I’m rather sad to be back on the train – destination Guangzhou. It’s with some trepidation that I get back on the rails, as I’m feeling like I have had quite enough train based hardship this trip. But I only have one more “tough” journey to make, one that will cover nearly 5000 km in around 54 hours. So stiff upper lip, and as Shackleton would say “keep on going”.

Climbing to the Roof of the World on the Z21

Matthew Woodward — Tue, 05 Jan 2016 08:54:00 +0000

We reached Golmod at 10.30 last night. This is the place where the climb really begins. I didn’t get off to supervise, but I could feel lots of shunting going on. I’m guessing that this is where the high altitude engines are added and whatever changes are made to the air supply take place. I was trying to get to bed early. Some hope!
Once we set off there was a new noise in the darkness of our cabin. At first, it sounded like I might have accidentally switched on the radio, and all that was coming out was static or white noise. I found my headtorch and had a look round. The answer was that oxygen was now being pumped into each of the connectors, one per berth.

It made me wonder how they can do this, as to keep this up would surely consume vast amounts of O2 – we would need a tanker of the stuff. I wondered also if it might be just air enriched with a bit extra O2. If it is pure I hope the smokers on board are aware of the inherent dangers that now give our carriage fire characteristics similar to an Apollo spacecraft.
I would like to tell you that I slept soundly, but it was another dreadful night. I lay in my berth panting and suffering from what I think they call “periodic breathing”. From what I understand your breathing pattern changes and getting rid of CO2 becomes more important than breathing air at altitude. This can cause problems with sleep, and the result is that you can actually stop breathing for short periods, then wake up in a panting panic. My dreams were about running out of air whilst diving. When I woke I would find my ears popping and my body was very hot – the train seems not to be able to support both air con and enriched air supply at the same time.

For the record, here is the altitude profile of the journey –
Local time/elevation above sea level (meters)
16.40 3200m
19.36 2980m
22.30 2828m (Golmud)
00.39 4159m
00.55 4767m
04.10 4500m
06.11 5072m (Tanggula Pass)
07.36 4594m
08.35 4513m
11.02 4306m
13.03 3641m (Lhasa)
I am sure that without the Diamox it would have been much worse, but the other complication with taking this drug is that it makes you want to pee more, so I had to negotiate my way down from my upper bunk and through the wet end of the carriage several times in the darkness of the night.

Dawn broke and I could not bear to be in bed any more, so I got up and perched on a pull-down seat in the corridor whilst watching the sun slowly rise. I thought my own experience last night was a bad one until I went back into the cabin to make tea. Both of my Beijing friends were in fact plumbed into the oxygen supply on nose tubes. They looked far worse than I felt. I did recall some coming and going in the night – they must have summoned help. Later in the morning, a guard I had not seen before came by to see how we were. I’m not sure if he was genuinely concerned for our health or just compiling a report on overnight casualties on his train, but by this time we had crossed the Tanggula Pass and the train was slowly descending towards Lhasa.

I hopped off at a tiny stop to sip some fresh mountain air. The guard who did most of the paperwork and ticketing agreed with me that it was a 20 min stop, and this was denoted by two fingers and a pointing gesture at one’s watch. However, what she meant on this occasion was that it was just a two minute stop and I had to perform my emergency boarding procedure further up the train. This was a tad scary as I had foolishly left all my paperwork and even my jacket on the train.

The Chinese passengers continue to consume stunning quantities of instant noodles as we push on towards Lhasa. I have found that the altitude has taken away my appetite, and have had one meal in three days. I have made an extra effort to remain hydrated though and have been adding sugar to my tea to keep me going as best I can.

It is comforting to know that I shall hopefully have a big bed and my own bathroom in just a few hours time.

Heaven and Hell in Zhongwei

Matthew Woodward — Mon, 04 Jan 2016 10:36:00 +0000

Last night I went into a bit of a negative thought spiral. This annoys me as I like to think that one of my most precious skills on the rails is remaining positive and even madly happy in the face of adversity. The subject of my thoughts was the rapidly deteriorating state of the train. The toilets had become seriously bad so quickly that I secretly wished I wasn’t on the train. Then just to push me over the edge, I returned to my compartment to find an overpowering stench of stale urine. I lay in my berth desperately trying to understand this. Is the toilet plumbed into the aircon of the carriage? Or have my cabin mates just been caught short and relieved themselves on our floor? After half an hour I come up with something I like to think is more plausible. I think that they must have been eating Durian, also known as stink fruit. It can sometimes be all about mindset. I give myself a stern talking to and resume positive thinking.
I tossed and turned and failed to get any real sleep. The air is very dry and I sleep in fits then wake with a dry mouth and eyes. A small boy in the compartment next door kicks and screams through the night. My last boss used to say to me that “the darkest moment of the night is just before dawn”, and I felt considerably better as we stopped just after dawn at Zhongwei. I pulled myself together and tried to embrace all that was going on – the man next door singing at the top of his voice, the lady with the trolley passing by every few minutes shouting what I guess is the Chinese for “breakfast”, the endless phone and text ringtones, the wet end of the carriage. It’s all about the experience, so I should just suck it all in – right?

There are some very good things to say about this train. Firstly, it is air conditioned to the right temperature – about 21C. It heats up then cools down in cycles, but the system seems to work. Secondly, it is very very smooth. At some points in the night I could not even feel movement. I can only imagine the line is modern and the track has been laid in a straight line. Thirdly, it is authentically a long distance Chinese “Z” train. Although I feel I am on the edge of my comfort zone, this is where I get a lot of personal satisfaction from.
Jenny leaves the train at Lanzhou, but the couple down below are travelling with me all the way to Lhasa. They are very nice (despite their love of stink fruit) and insist that they share their food with me. This includes a frequent dose of a rather severe looking glass vial of “health medicine”, sucked up through a straw. I hope no endanged species has been involved in producing it, but have no way of telling.

On the platform at Lanzhou there is quite a bit for sale. One woman is selling some sort of tasty looking ethnic food – what look like flatbreads stuffed with fried chicken. But I dare not risk it, as a stomach upset at altitude would be seriously debilitating. Instead I score some nectarines and hang out with the locals, who are very friendly. They all insisit on having their photo taken with me, and I oblige with a genuine desire to set a good impression as the resident single foreigner travelling on the train in their remote province. If I had remembered to pack the right map, I could even tell you which province.

The landscape outside the train is very unfamiliar to me. I sit for a few hours in the restaurant car drinking green tea whilst looking out at the steep bare mountains and huge flood plains. Everything starts to feel good again. Like any adventure, the negatives are quickly forgotten and it is the positives that become lasting memories.

From Beijing to Lhasa on the Z21

Matthew Woodward — Thu, 31 Dec 2015 10:50:00 +0000

If you have followed my blog on some of my other Chinese adventures you will know that I’m not a big fan of Beijing West railway station. Once you have managed to get into the place, the design is based around a number of huge waiting rooms. I don’t think “waiting room” describes it very well though. “Shouting Room”, “Spitting Room” or “Standing Room” would all all be better descriptions in my experience.I showed my ticket to a couple of guards and they concluded between themselves that my best shot was to hang around ticket check no. 4, where my train would board after a delayed train to Xian. At this station where you wait for your train has no bearing on your platform. You might wait in room number 1, go through ticket check no. 4 and then board on platform 9. All the announcements are in Chinese and make little sense, so I would advise that you use my “river” technique – get swept towards your intended gate by the crowd for the train departing before yours, and then pull out of the scrum right by the gates pretending you thought it was your train. Once there you shrug your shoulders point at your ticket and have no where to go – but you are then in poll position and have access to a guard on the gate to talk to prior to boarding on your train. This is the Chinese railway equivalent to “Speedy Boarding”.Getting on the train itself is straightforward enough and it’s not long before music plays on the platform and we pull out of Beijing West platform 4, bang on time.

For this trip I am in carriage No 5, and one of the best things about it is that is coupled directly with the restaurant car next door. The carriage is “Soft” class, which is made up of eight four berth compartments. It seems mainly full of Chinese couples headed for a short break to Tibet. The atmosphere is actually quite nice, as for now the shouters and the spitters are mostly back in second class hard as far as I can see.At the end of the carriage is a samovar. It’s a fully fitted one, not like the exposed polished boilers that you find on Russian trains. It’s very popular and there is an orderly a queue of passengers (as orderly as it’s possible to have on a Chinese train) waiting to make their instant noodles. In case you are interested, I can report that Chinese instant noodles are considerably more sophisticated than those that can be found in the U.K. Inside the carton there are a series of packets that need to be added in just the right order. Some patience is required, and you can’t just dive in like a student back from the pub on a Friday night.

I’m pleased I bothered to bring my Crocs in my daypack, as there is very much a “wet” environment at one end of the carriage. There are three sinks in an open plan bathroom, next to two toilets, one squat, one western. The area is part flooded and seems multi purpose. For some it’s for vegetable preparation, for others it’s for waste disposal. All I want to do is brush my teeth and get far away as quickly as possible.

On the subject of luggage, my latest strategy has paid off. As my big bag is soft sided, it can be squeezed into the roof space which is quite deep in this carriage (not all are like this). The trick is not to have to get anything out of it during the journey, so all the kit I will need access to is already in my daypack. I have been allocated one of the the top bunks in the compartment and I wish I had completed a mountain climbing refresher course before setting out. I clearly don’t yet have the technique required. The first step seems far too low and there is no rope to pull on to get up and onto the bunk. I have developed a technique, but it involves perching on both upper bunks with my knees, like parallel bars. I think this scares a girl called Jenny in the other upper bunk as she is not sure of my intentions. If only I could tell her in Chinese that they are purely honourable, and simply to remain up here without falling into the abyss.
Once up in the berth it’s pretty comfy, with a small TV (not working), air conditioning (working), and a place to plug in my own oxygen mask (not yet working).
The restaurant carriage is busy. Inside it is a lively mix of off duty police and slightly drunk and shouty passengers. It has beer of sorts – Chinese Budweiser for 10 RMB (£1). The bottles are not cooled though, just out of a cardboard case stacked on the floor at one end of the carriage. This is probably a blessing in disguise, as I should not be drinking – I started taking my diamox this morning and I need to get hydrated. But I have about 30 hours until we start getting up to serious altitude, so allow myself a beer to celebrate having Beijing West behind me.

I have been given a special card to prove that I am a legitimate passenger on the train. They take your ticket and give you this instead after you board. Mine is a gold one, so I wave it at the staff in case it’s going to get me into some sort of special lounge, but I haven’t found this yet. Or the executive washroom.Time to turn in for the night and see if I can grab some low altitude rest.

Escape from Zabailask

Matthew Woodward — Mon, 28 Dec 2015 09:33:00 +0000

Sergei hurries me off the train once we reach Zabailask, I have no idea why. I literally just grab my day bag and get off the train. I’m not clear how this is going to work. There seem to be some immigration people here, but all they seem to be interested in at present is their lunch. I play it cool, and see if I can do the same.

Once inside the station, all I find is an empty waiting room next to an empty immigration room. There seem to be about six of us and I think the others are Chinese. The bad news is that apparently I’m going to be here for an indeterminate number of hours – had I known I would have brought some more suitable clothes with me. The train is already being shunted away. I hope I get to see it (and my luggage) again.
I met a couple of very friendly Swiss chaps in the local station cafe. They have been on the train since Irkutsk but I have not seen them before. They must be living in a different time zone. One of them speaks a bit of Russian and a lot of Chinese, which to me is deeply impressive – it is like a super power, and it must floor the average Chinese person. Just imagine the joys of negotiation – it must be like being telepathic! I drink cheap coffee with them and eat a “Manchurian Pasty”, which contains an unexpected combination of hot dog sausage and mashed potato.

Three hours later..

I’m none the wiser, but it turns out I need to get back on the train without completing any formalities, so I don’t know why I ever had to leave the train. I later find out they have changed the bogies and wheels whilst I have been enjoying the local pastry culture. Sergei seems keen to have me back in his carriage without delay. He has changed into full uniform and even splashed some aftershave on. Does he know something I don’t?

Some more hours later..

This has proved to be one of my more stressful border crossings. Basically the Russian police thought that my passport might be forged, as it was valid for more than ten years. I tried to explain that if you replace a “full” passport in the U.K. before it expires you get to keep the remaining validity period on top of a new ten years, but it wasn’t well understood. Eventually a young customs officer acted my as translator and we got it all sorted out, but I could see the immigration officer didn’t like my passport at all. She kept thumbing through my visas and just staring it me. It doesn’t make much sense to me, as they let me into the country with a biometric visa and now I’m just trying to leave. Maybe they don’t see too many UK passports on this particular border. I understand that I’m doing it the easy way – if you come from China into Russia over this frontier I’m led to believe that it can be a proper grilling..

In other news, the customs people have had the train in bits – literally. They even walked over the roof of the carriage. They have mostly left now and I’m sat in the dark amidst a pile of my clothes and gear wondering what treat we have in store next.

A couple more hours later..

We have been shunted into “no mans land”. There are cameras and lights everywhere. Cameras watching cameras even. In another railway first, a single carriage Chinese train with the immigration team on board approach on the other line and get onto our train whilst it is still in no mans land. It’s just so Cold War, but I immediately feel more relaxed when the first person I meet welcomes me once he finds out I’m from the U.K and he even wishes me a “Happy Christmas”. The immigration proceedure takes place but without any further concerns over my passport. My luggage gets a further really thorough search, but they are polite enough about it.

Once we get into Manchzhuriya (on the Chinese side of the frontier) Sergei explains that the train is going to be here for a few more hours and I can get off and wander about. I wonder what there might be to do in such a place, but I follow him into the station anyway, as he knows where to find a black market currency trader. It’s a husband and wife team with a money counting machine and a big calculator on top of some upturned cardboard boxes.

This turns out to be an instructive experience for me. Firstly, for trusting a Chinese black market currency trader in the first place, and secondly for my pointless anger at myself when I realise I have been ripped off. However, it turns out its not as bad as I first think, but still a useful reminder to be in better control of myself “on the street” in China – where there are a few well practised traveller scams. Most revolve around art shows, tea ceremonies and accusations of paying with a fake note. Like a tetnus shot in the bottom, my immune system is now on full guard, so that’s a good outcome even though I’m slightly down financially on the deal.

I sit in my compartment for the evening whilst going absolutely nowhere. We have no electricity and no hot water, so I eat an emergency can of corned beef and have a couple of glasses of cheap Spanish wine that I have (legally) smuggled in from Moscow. I smile and remind myself that I have endured 11 hours of red tape and hassle without any complaint or sense of humour failure on my part and give myself a little pat on the back.

Ice Cold in Barabinsk

Matthew Woodward — Mon, 28 Dec 2015 09:29:00 +0000

It is perhaps a bit of an obvious subject, but I feel I have mention the temperature. It has been getting progressively colder at each stop for the last couple of days, and it has now reached the point where I can confirm to you that it is “proper cold”. This isn’t a technical term or an absolute temperature, but based on the fact that I can feel the air being sucked out of my lungs as I cough and splutter when making the perilous jump between carriages. Over the last 24 hours on average I would use Sergei’s carriage readings to say it has been around -25C.

Conditions were perhaps best summed up by the Kiwi chap who lives down the carriage. He reported back to his wife after a stop in Ishim “my feet are alright, (my) legs are a bit numb, but it’s my face that I can’t feel..”

The temperature is getting so low now that I’m wondering if the Baltika in the fridge of the restaurant carriage will be warmer than the supplies in the unheated cupboard next to it. My beer of choice this trip is Baltika No 7. As it says on the tin, “Made by Russians”. I think advertising standards would prevent this line being used by most EU beers today, unless they can prove the pure nationality of their workforce.

I wondered if it would be even colder when we stopped at Novosibirsk at about 9pm, but it wasn’t. Possibly the heat effect of the city, as it was a slightly warmer -21C. Our carriage is being progressively heated up to combat the lower outside temperature, so it is now +26C inside and -21C outside. The thin skin of the train must be working hard to maintain a 47C temperature differential.

"Vostok" – the Midnight Express to Manchuria

Matthew Woodward — Fri, 18 Dec 2015 16:25:00 +0000

The “Vostok” leaves Moscow’s Yaraslovsky station every Saturday night at close to midnight. Yaraslovsky is not a particularly sophisticated place, and once through security there are really just a few seats, a ticket office and departure board inside. Outside, a few drunks and mad men are on the streets looking for people to accost and share their stories with. I give them a wide berth.

I had stocked up on supplies earlier in the day at my local Sokolniki supermarket, and now had an extra three bags to carry containing assorted noodles, biscuits, and porridge, not to mention a stash of reasonable quality European wine. Such was the scale of my luggage that the lady guarding the “special needs” seating area inside the station took pity on me and let me me park myself somewhere easy. The other people here are all families, the old and the infirm. So much for my adventurer credibility!

As I arrived on Platform 1 I was greeted by that very distinctive smell of lots of coal being burned to heat up the carriage samovars. An industrial smell, necessary as the carriages have no connection yet to the electricity from a powered locomotive.

Train No 020 was a middle-aged but very well presented set of Russian carriages (NB if you are reading this and have also seen the photographs on the excellent Seat 61 website, these are not the carriages used on this service any more, look instead at those on the 001/002 train).

I said goodbye to Rita, my ever so kind “helper” and immediately went for a quick walk up front. I was a bit confused what was going on for a moment as the train started to move off without me (don’t panic!) but it was actually just a shunter positioning the carriages on the platform before the main locomotive arrived and was attached for the night’s journey ahead.

I was in for a few surprises onboard. The biggest of these were Sergei and Rimma, the carriage provodnitsas (I think that’s the feminine version of the word). Sergei was a well presented man in his 30’s wearing a carefully pressed RZD uniform and fashionable business type glasses. I was pretty surprised when he came to see me to collect my ticket and spoke to me in near perfect English. This has never happened to me on a Russian train before. Deeply impressive. Rima, his co-worker, is so different from the provodnitsas on my last train – she is a blonde lady in her late 30’s who is perpetually happy, and enjoys her work. She only speaks Russian, but is an expert in sign langauage.

Just when I could not have imagined anything could be better, a lady from the restaurant carriage popped her head into my compartment introduced herself and a basket of goodies on permanent offer. She was also happy to go and find me an icy Baltika No 7. When she returned I noticed she had hidden my beer under her menu, and it reminded me that I think technically you are not allowed alcohol outside the restaurant carriage on a Russian train, but I think this is very flexible if you behave.

Looking round my compartment, it is the modern RZD type, similar to that of the train to Vladivostok (002). Not quite as good though, in that there is no power supply inside the cabin, but my trusty Power Gorilla should mean this is no big deal. There is a TV and keycard locking system, but but for some reason they do not work. But most importantly to me, there is a locked window, and it takes me 30 seconds to open it up using my special key, and I am rewarded with a blast of fresh wintery air. I can’t work out the system, but seemingly randomly, some carriages have occasional windows with skylights that open up, mixed with others that have totally sealed windows. Once again I have struck lucky.

Sleep didn’t come easily to me on my first night, but after we left Vladmir at 02.52 I turned in and got some reasonable rest. I find the good thing about a train journey of this length is that a shorter night’s sleep and a short afternoon nap can be quite restorative. I dont know why this is, maybe just the decadence of knowing that you can sleep when you want to and set your own agenda each day – or even operate your very time zone. No one is going to tell you that you are late for breakfast, or tell you when to go to bed!