Distance so far: 11,112 km, distance to go: 1,318 km. -10 C, dry & sunny. I know you don’t need a “tourist diary” from me in Beijing, but I do have a couple of updates as I down tools (or should that be “trains”?) for Christmas. First of all, for the record, my Christmas dinner – a rather special whole duck carefully prepared at Da Dong, suppliers of the best Peking duck in the city. (No Christmas pudding, but you can’t have everything!). Leaving the train and getting back into civilised living is an odd experience. Once I left the […]
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Distance so far: 11112 km, -10 C, sunny, GMT +8 Another good night’s sleep – I woke to the feeling of the brakes and fearing a “Crazy Ivan” as we pulled into Datong, our penultimate stop (bang on time). Not much to see on the platform or indeed the station, which was devoid of human life apart from of course about 20 guards from our train standing alongside their carriages. They were supervised as normal by our “C in C” and “RSM”, who clearly are now preparing for passing out parade at Sandhurst wearing their best dress uniforms. I didn’t […]
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Distance so far: 10261 km, -18 C, darkness. Just a quick update from the other side of the border. I seemed to have passed muster again and my passport is back in my compartment – my fourth visa for this trip so far is now in place. Guard A and Guard B seem to be on best behaviour as they are back in their home country. Guard B has just given me tickets for a complimentary breakfast and lunch tomorrow, recognising the prestigious arrival of the “native” Chinese restaurant carriage. The Chinese border is quite impressive here at Erlian. They […]
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Distance so far: 10260 km, -18 C, clear and dark, GMT +8 Greetings from Mongolia! It’s another night on the border, this time we leave Mongolia and enter China. We have covered 1118 km in the last 24 hours. As I write this I’m sat in my compartment in the silence and semi darkness at Dzamyn Ude waiting for customs and immigration clearance. On the plus side, I’m drinking Russian champagne whilst I wait. More of this later! It’s been another great day and I’m sad to be leaving Mongolia so soon. I had planned to get off for a […]
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Distance so far: 9142 km, – 30 C (estimate), clear skies I am currently sat at the Russian border waiting for my passport to be returned before we trundle over into Mongolia. A visa point in passing – Russian immigration don’t seem at all fussed about deregistering our visas. After going to the trouble of registering it in Moscow in the first place, I’m disappointed they don’t seemingly want (or need) to deregister it. Perhaps the exit procedure does this automatically in the system these days? It’s too complicated a question to try and ask, so I’m just going to […]
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Distance so far: 8889 km, -25 C, sunny, GMT +8 The train has just left Ulan-Ude (we are still on time!) after a 40 minute stop, our longest so far. Overnight we passed through Irkutsk and have covered another 1200 km since this time yesterday. We seem to have a fresh engine each day – still on overhead electric at the moment, but changing to diesel tomorrow. We came in alongside the Russian Trans-Siberian “Rossiya” train which I think goes on to Vladivostok – but we soon part company and branch off this line soon to start heading South, bound […]
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Distance so far: 7622 km, -30 C (estimate), cloudy. Local time: GMT+8 Just a short update from Ilanskaya. I got off the train to have a look at the new locomotive whilst we took on more coal. The temperature has dropped considerably since yesterday. There was no thermometer on the platform (often there is a digital clock and thermometer) but a local wrote “-35” in dust on the side of the train. It’s so cold now that my camera shuts down in a couple of minutes if its out of my pocket. Stephan went to see our train commander to […]
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Distance so far: 6582 km, -25 C, pitch darkness, stars. Just a few night time updates.. I had to strip right off this afternoon as the temperature on board my carriage was about 30 C. I was impressed that my carriage attendant understood how I felt and said he could turn down the heat, but I have only just worked out how. He has opened the roof panel above the toilet at the end of the carriage, stuffed a blanket inside and jammed the door open with the giant pair of chop sticks (actually used to unblock the toilet)..Somehow this […]
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Distance so far: 5962 km, -22 C, sunny This morning I woke at a place called Ishim. Our direction has obviously included a bit of South as well as East over the last 24 hours as it was light at 08.00 Moscow time today. Looking at the map we are in fact very close to the border with Kazakhstan. My daily routine starts with a trip to “Little Russia”, our restaurant carriage, for ham and eggs. This morning I spotted someone having sausage and scrambled eggs, so I took a photo and showed it to the lady who takes the […]
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Distance so far: 4207km, -21 C, freezing fog. Morning! I woke at dawn today (that’s about 09.30 Moscow time) – just in time to try getting off the train for the first time at the stop in Kirov. The drill is that the carriage attendant gets kitted up, enters the outer compartment of the carriage (unheated) and opens the door. He then gets down, scrapes off the ice, sweeps away the snow, and wipes the handles so you can get off safely. All you need to do is agree how long the stop is for – but I’m not trusting […]
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