Train To Russia

This morning we woke up at the Mongolian border with Russia.
Our train engine played crash boom ditch (similar to ding dong ditch, except with rail cars) during the night, and left us in the middle of the tracks. When we woke up we only had 30 minutes to use the border washroom, which we had to pay for. Because from 8am till 10 am we were without passports as we had to surrender them to the Mongolian officials. Just after 10 am we received them back.

Next we were taken to “no mans land” which is the area between Mongolian and Russian borders.

Without going into the glorious details, the Russians were very thorough with their carriage inspection, passport inspection, and dog sniffing inspection. There were about four different officers we had to deal with.

After everything was hunky dory with the Russians we were given our passports back and allowed to leave the train. We had a three hour window to wait until our engine came with another set of carriages to attach to us. We were in the village of Naushki and it was a tiny cute village. We saw babushkas selling their goods, to which I bought my first piroshki!!, a cow just walking down the Main Street, and ramshackle buildings. We walked to this little rustic cafe where we had hot borscht, and drinks. The food was very good, and cheap, just the way I like it!

As we made our way back to the train station we were allowed to explore the area a bit, not that there was much to see, except the cow that was wandering around Main Street was now wandering around the train station. He also picked up a friend too. None of the locals batted an eye, while tourists like me were like Wtf. It was pretty funny.

I boarded the train shortly after, but with time to spare so I could enjoy my warm piroshki. My goody attracted me some new friends, six to be exact. I had dogs follow me to this carriage door, it was quite funny, except for when I asked my cabin mates if I could bring one with us ... I was met with a resounding no, lol.

After this I’ll be honest, nothing exciting happened except good conversation, a beautiful sunset and instant mashed potatoes.Read more