Trans-Siberian Train Travel

Since I heard about the Trans-Siberian, the train that runs east to west through Russia with a possible deviation in to Mongolia and China I knew that it was a trip I wanted to try. When we started looking into it I was a little nervous, 5-7 days on a train, in third class, with little to no English once we passed through Moscow. The result was a very easy, interesting and stress free train trip. We used an online website to purchase our tickets so that we could stop in several places and not have to worry about speaking Russian to the ticket ladies. Travelling third class was great, clean and had much more space than I predicted. Besides Nick, whose tallness made it hard to fit into the sleep bed without his feet hanging over the edge, we all had fairly good sleeps and didn't worry about our stuff being stolen or unfriendly passengers. We also met some really nice people who we share our snacks, stories and games of UNO with! 

Train food, vodka, caviar, crackers and chips!

Platform 4

 We broke the trip down so that that our longest train ride was only 30 hours and we traveled from West to East through St.Petersburg, Moscow, Yekaterinburg, Krasnoyarsk, Irkutsk, Ulan Ude and then traveled by bus to Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. We took the bus at the end since it was about 1/5 of the price of the train and took half the time.

Have your ticket ready!

tanks and tanks and tanks of oil

When I pictured Siberia, I thought that it would be vast flat land of nothingness. I happily admit that I was very wrong and there are plenty of villages, forests (mainly birch trees), and farm land to watch as the hours pass by.

Sleeper Class

This week, I traveled with my boss 7 hours by train into the Thar Desert to do some field work. It was not my first experience taking sleeper class in the train, but it was my first experience trying to sleep in it. The whole thing was very exciting as I "slept" in the middle bunk with all my possessions curled into my body. In the middle of the night I was awoke by the women next to be moaning and wailing at she grabbed her head and shaking her ear. People were shouting "Do you have oil?!" I didn't but in a few minutes it appeared and they put a few drops into her ears and she quickly turned her head over to drain it out. With the oil came a white slender bug about 1 inch long, I asked my boss how he knew to use oil and he replied "Indian First Aid".  I covered my ears and went back to sleep but was awoke several times during the night by screeching trains passing by and people turning on and off the light trying to show their tickets. Even though there was a breeze provided by the open window I still woke up covered in sweat and tried to secure my things back into my seat. Although the name may be deceiving I think that if I intend to get a good nights rest I will have to avoid the "sleeper class" and take 3A.