Days 5, 6, and 7: the long haul to irkutsk.

hey, jasmine here. after khabarovsk and the mishap of missing our train, we scratched ulan-ude from our plans so we could keep on track with getting to irkutsk on time. that meant three straight days on the train. alex and i took over a thousand pictures all told… as you might expect, this warrants a ton of photos. if the blog isn’t letting you see them in their full-sized glory, i’ll post them all to flickr later.

crossing the amur river. khabarovsk is on the left, china is just behind on the right.
lunch on-board the train! alex slices cucumbers for some sandwiches.
the samovar, keeping the hot water ready
we prepared by hitting up the supermarket and buying some supplies like bottles of water, a loaf of bread, cheese to put on the bread, yogourt, and various snacks to complement our stash of cucumbers and apples. and of course, copious amounts of chocolate. russian brand chocolate isn’t too bad, maybe a little much sugar for my tastes. i’ll post later about russian junk food, seeing as junk food shopping is one of my favourite tourist activities.
russian steppe, just outside of birobidzhan, heading toward chita:






kilometre marker 8196… we still have a long way to go to get to km 1!
so far, it’s been amazingly, indescribably beautiful. i’m hoping some of these photos can do it justice. many of the vast stretches of trees and steppe and rolling hills make me think of the drive between ottawa and toronto, one i’ve done frequently in my life, and yet at times it’s nothing like back home. matchstick forests of birch trees slide by in the afternoon shade. long grassy plains are lined by green hills, and marked by trees burned and felled not by humans, but by lightning. after the wreckage of china’s polluted air and toxic rivers, all this unspoiled wilderness makes me very, very happy. the skies are huge, filled with clouds that range from fluffy and sweet to dark and menacing. there are cows and horses nibbling freely at the blue-green grass in the fields. it’s been nice to have this stretch of time to rest, relax, and do a little studying and reading. that’s the best part about taking the train - having the time in between hectic adventures to relax and collect yourself. 
ladies selling salted dried fish to us while we take a ten-minute outside break
woman walking past a lumber yard
power station
villages
sleeping on the train has been wonderful and comfortable, whether on a firmenny train or a regular kupe train. we’ve been doing most of our trip in second class, where there are only four bunks to a room, and the compartment has a door that closes and locks from the inside. we booked bottom bunks as well, which means we get to spread out on the little table. we’ve been lucky over the course of these few days to have few if any people staying in our compartment - usually they show up late at night, fall immediately to sleep, and then leave again early in the morning.
our second day was a rainy one.

one morning, we did attempt to chat with a sergei and an alex who worked as train conductors and were about to hop off and begin their shift. they seemed to be in their early or mid-twenties, bright blue eyes burning with curiosity. with the little russian that i’ve learned we managed to communicate - sergei asked me if canada looked similar and i smiled and said yes, it’s not too different. alex seemed puzzled about why we’d travel across russia, and sergei, with a sweeping motion of his hand toward the landscapes outside, seemed to answer him. it’s just gorgeous out there. makes me hope that i can do a similar trip across canada when i get home!







there have been tiny, colourful cemeteries dotting the hillsides, with plots circumscribed by bright blue iron fences and memorials decorated in heaps of colourful plastic flowers and ribbons. i’m not sure whether these cemeteries are a european russian tradition, or if they belong to one of the asian russian ethnic groups of the region. in either case, they’re really sweet.

with a view this nice, who cares if your house is imitating pisa?

more shacks posing as viable domiciles…

the domicile of choice appears to be listing wooden shacks, which makes me wonder how they can survive winter without suffering a drafty death; then again, china’s northern countryside is dotted with similar houses [albeit with some concrete reinforcement] that have external furnaces that stick into part of the house [炕 kang] to heat it up in winter. who knows what ingenious methods the eastern russians employ. at least they paint them nice colours - bright blues and greens and yellows abound.
cows roaming to eat by the tracks. i think we might have actually had the train stop for ten minutes waiting for a cow to get off the tracks.

a horse nibbling on grass
dusty brushland
old cars everywhere
i think it’s worth noting that as we write this, the two of us have spent three full days on the train, in the same compartment no less, without a disagreement or tiff of any sort. alex and i are good friends specifically because we can read each other so well. we became the best of friends in shenyang because there’s nothing that one of us wouldn’t do for the other, but we know how to give each other space too.
inside the car
outside the window



a man and his cow. oddest thing i saw was a shepherd in the middle of a field, surrounded by goats… on his cell phone.
reflections
crumbly industrial remains
however, we have faced a few difficulties as we finish our three-day stretch on the train. we’ve been having trouble getting adequate drinking water, as the water on-board is boiling hot from a samovar and will melt our bottles, or lukewarm and yellow in colour from the spout next to the carriage-minding provodnika’s room. it’s been hard keeping our electronics charged, as there are two 220-volt outlets in our car and they are often switched off or occupied by others [i write this from a little room the provodnika kindly let us use to charge up!]; my little battery pack hasn’t worked with alex’s ipod charger but between knitting/reading/studying russian or chinese/blog updates/staring out the window we’ve got enough to keep us occupied. 








the moon and the mountains

for those of you who may someday do this trip, i’ll list some of the practical items you’ll need on-board the train:
- cutlery, particularly a serrated knife for cutting your fruit, bread and cheese, or spoons for your yogourts
- little garbage bags for the things you need to pitch
- wet wipes - they provide you with hand towels and bedding, but there aren’t real showers unless you’re in first class. wipes are great.
- extensions cables and power adapters and/or power banks. keeping things charged so we can read or write updates has been maddening at times, as noted above
- one thing i’ve wished i had was a mug for drinks on the train. each train comes equipped with a samovar, which is a giant kettle of constantly boiling water. since the “drinkable water” next to the provodnika’s bunk has been anything but, it would have been nice to enjoy some tea. most russians have a train-specific glass that inserts into an ornate metal holder with a handle on the side. i want one of those too, but they’re expensive!


goats and cows
mountains flanking lake baikal
jasmine in what we like to call “train chic”
the biggest problem is buying food, as both my chinese bank card and my canadian visa card have been getting rejected at the bankomats/ATMs at the stations. each stop at the stations along the way averages about 15-20 minutes, which is barely enough time to get wifi to ask people for the bank numbers, try the cards at the ATM with no luck, and then scramble back on-board. so, on this last day, we’re down to no cash, some peanuts, margarine, half a cucumber, and a few kopeks’ worth of bread… i’m really starting to feel like a character out of dostoevsky. hopefully we can report back with better news once we hit irkutsk. for now, we hope you enjoy the photos we took. 



lake baikal is a sight to behold - i’ve never seen water so still or so clear!






























































































here is some 