Mongolia to Russia

We left Mongolia with a sick Jen, she ate some baaaaad Mongolian sheep and it had made her really ill. The train would take two nights and one day so we had plenty of food to keep us going for the trip, not that Jen could really look at it without turning green.

The journey was generally quite smooth till we reached the Russian border. The process I am just about to describe took eight hours.

We first had to leave Mongolia and go through their customs procedure, fill out forms and have our cabin searched. After this we journeyed through no mans land for five minutes and then arrived at the Russian border. Within this five minute journey the people changed from Asian themed to Caucasian themed. A tall blonde woman with blue eyes came asking for our passports, pale skinned customs officials scowled at us and a fierce looking attack dog paced around the platform outside. An amazing eight hours later the train departed and we were officially permitted to enter Russia. It's almost like the country is not keen on visitors...

The next morning after a fantastic nights sleep we arrived in Irkutsk. If you want to see where Irkutsk is on a map then you can click here.

I know I keep on mentioning the cold weather, but it was -21 when we stepped off the train which left us almost in shock after the nice warm train journey. We got a tram from the station to the hostel and then had many cups of hot tea once we got settled. Later that day we explored Irkutsk and also purchased our tickets to Moscow! We are leaving on the 14th of November and arriving on the 18th. What could be better that four days on a train? Well we are going third class, which means we are basically travelling like cattle.


(Jen wrapped up on a train to Mongolia)

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