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Siberia and sakura
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Siberia and sakura

Moscow to Kyoto by train and ferry. Easter 2018. Read more
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  • Trip start
    March 24, 2018
  • A ticket to ...Siberia and sakuraTraveler

    Almost ready

    March 22, 2018 in Northern Ireland ⋅ ⛅ 8 °C

    Most things seem to fit in the bag.

    Might have overpacked on food. There's an easy solution to that though.

    Three phrasebooks, 1 guidebook, 1 kindle, oodles of chargers, a compass, and enough warm clothes for an expotition to find the north pole.Read more

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    In the beginning was the map

    March 24, 2018 in England ⋅ 🌧 6 °C

    Ten years ago I was looking for flights to take me half way around the world.

    I went to travel agents, and asked what they thought were the best options. Somehow none of the answers felt quite right - long flights, at inconvenient times, with long stopovers in places I had no wish to visit. And an awful lot of air miles to visit an eco project. There had to be a better way, but I had no idea what. Then in one agency I was waiting for them to find a brochure, and while I waited I wandered over to the giant map on the wall and idly plotted all the suggestions I'd heard so far.

    Then it struck me. Although the place I was headed was in the middle of the ocean, there was a whopping great bit of land between Here and There. Land crossed by a famous railway.

    I gave up on travel agents, went home, and got out an enormous roll of paper. I drew my own map - badly - and covered it in lines, post-its, and time zone calculations. I spent a lot of time on the marvellous website of the man in seat 61. And then I went on An Adventure - alone around the world, including Moscow to Hong Kong by train.

    Most of that train journey was on what people call the Trans Siberian (actually the Trans Mongolian). The one the tourists usually take, which goes to Lake Baikal and then turns right for Mongolia, where most tourists get off to spend a few days in a yurt or watching eagle festivals, and the locals unload giant parlour palms before getting back on with a load of jackets to take onwards to China. It was a wonderful experience that I'd recommend to anyone who is able to sleep on a train and doesn't mind shaking Gobi desert dust out of their clothes and bags for several months afterwards.

    But it is primarily a tourist train. The odd Russians far outnumbered by the Vodka Train groups, curators searching for unusual works to hang in UK art galleries, and Americans who are no strangers to long distances but are more used to having a steering wheel to cross them. And a part of me always wondered about the *other* Trans Siberian. The one that doesn't turn right, but carries on across the rest of Siberia. It has a reputation for being more 'authentic' and 'local' - in as much as anything travelling over 6,000 miles can be local. Is that true? What is the far end of Russia like? How would I get home from Vladivostock?

    The last part was answered when I discovered the ferry. Not home, but onwards to Japan. A country well worth visiting in its own right and also, crucially, considerably better supplied with flights to the UK. The other questions remained. This one felt a little more daunting to do alone.

    Years later I finally had the conversation. The one where 'I've always quite fancied ...' is met not with 'Why?' but with 'So have I!'.

    Ten years on and here I am again. Folder of tickets, hotel reservations and visa invitations. Spring rather than Autumn but the same bag as last time. Even a pair of the same shoes.

    This time, we're not turning right until we reach the sea.    Read more

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    Aeroflot menu for those without a prebooked special meal

    Up in the air

    March 24, 2018 in Russia ⋅ 🌙 -3 °C

    Flying from to London to Moscow there are 2 choices. British Airways, which now tries to sell you an M&S sandwich instead of including a meal in the £800 ticket price. Or Aeroflot, which only costs £250 and includes food. We did not go for the sandwich option.

    Aeroflot is a lot more comfortable and friendly than when I last flew with them in 1992. Shiny new planes, smiling staff, and a perfectly acceptable airline lunch. The daal was a little on the dry side, and could have done with a drink alongside. The bulgar salad was about half dill, so we were clearly entering Russia. The fruit bar, despite an alarming mistranslation warning of bones, made an excellent change from.the usual fruit salad. My only real gripe was the passenger in front, who reclined as soon as permitted and talked non-stop - gesturing so violently that even a nod of the head bounced his seat against my my knees. Can't blame the airline for that - he was clearly Liverpool's fault    Read more

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    Snow stratigraphyDrainpipe ice. Coming out of the end in tubes and falling off the roof in lumps.

    Wrapped up warm

    March 25, 2018 in Russia ⋅ ⛅ 3 °C

    The thaw has begun, the river is flowing, albeit with the odd iceberg (and one very hardy duck), but there's still plenty of snow in Moscow. Some of which is blocking the drainpipes, so walking too close to buildings results in a meltwater shower.

    Our map of the city had a suggested 3-day itinerary. We've walked 2 of those days today - and some extra to find dinner at Cafe Receptor (recommended). And we still have to walk up to the station, carrying luggage.    Read more

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    Boreal

    March 26, 2018 in Russia ⋅ ☁️ 1 °C

    Morning on the train. Birch and pine forests for the first stretch, opening up to fields and villages at the first time zone change.

    Wooden houses in various states of repair. Towns still use the traditional construction for most houses, including obviously new ones. Many of the smaller villages clearly only have 1 or 2 houses occupied and the rest slowly crumbling away. Polytunnels are popular, although only the tops are visible at the moment.Read more

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    Platform dog

    March 26, 2018 in Russia ⋅ ⛅ 8 °C

    Balyezino is the first station with platform traders. It is also the first station with platform dogs. Neither belongs to the other, but where there is food being sold to tourists, there is usually a dog willing to tidy up anything that might be dropped.Read more

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    Perm-afrost

    March 26, 2018 in Russia ⋅ 🌬 0 °C

    Perm 2 is the last stop in Europe. By the time we wake in the morning we'll have passed Yekaterinberg and be over the border to Asia.

    It also the first place where the snow lies uncleared on the platform. Up until now every platform, path and walkway has been ruthlessly swept to pristine dryness. Here it is merely trodden down. In some spots where the hoses trail across to replenish the train's tanks it has melted or worn down almost 6 inches, still without any sign of reaching the bottom. There may be a platform under there somewhere, or it may be solid ice all the way down.Read more

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    Exiting Europe

    March 27, 2018 in Russia ⋅ 🌬 -1 °C

    The border between Europe and Asia. We're in the dark, while invisible men crash about making lots of noise preparing to leave.

    Seems oddly familiar.

    But we know where we're we're going. We have a plan.Read more

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    A passion for trains

    March 27, 2018 in Russia ⋅ ⛅ -1 °C

    The Trans Siberian handbook is written with train enthusiasts in mind. So the remarks about points of interest along the route include not only historical and geological features (and which town is the largest manufacturer of jute or plastic seesaws) but plenty of notes on which station has an FD-whatever locomotive on a plinth, or is near a branch to a steam line. The comment that Yekaterinberg's feature of note was a locomotive depot therefore came as no surprise, but also held little interest. I made no effort to look for it in the 3 am dark.

    But as we pulled into a later station this morning, I looked out and thought 'Oh that's a pretty building'. I'm rarely with it at 7.30 am, and particularly not when I've been through 5 time zones in 3 days, so there is no photo. You'll just have to take my word for it that Tyumen has a remarkably attractive locomotive depot.

    You should take a look, if you're ever in the area.    Read more

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    Siberia

    March 27, 2018 in Russia ⋅ ⛅ 0 °C

    In the early hours of this morning we crossed into Siberia. The temperature also rose to just above freezing, but you'd never know it by looking out of the window. Inside the train it is 28°C. Wrapping up to get off at the stations is a protracted business.Read more

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    Omsk

    March 27, 2018 in Russia ⋅ ☁️ -2 °C

    Sadly, we don't also go through Tomsk.

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    Land of the silver birch

    March 28, 2018 in Russia ⋅ ☀️ 15 °C

    Woke still in the birch zone, but with decidedly thinning snow. Rivers are still frozen - solid enough for ice fishers to set their chairs out mid stream.

    My time keeping system had reset itself overnight. You might think a clock is optional for someone on a train for 5 days, but that's not the case.

    Local time is needed to keep up with the time zone changes, and prevent jet lag landing all at once when we reach the next destination. And the restaurant car runs on local time. However, the rest of the train runs (and stops) on Moscow time. So we need that to keep track of where we are (stations are few, and often not well signposted) and when we are coming up to stops long enough to get off, stretch our legs and buy provisions.

    The guidebooks list where we cross time zones, but they disagree with each other - sometimes by 2 hours. It is therefore unhelpful of a clock to have a mad 5 minutes and lose both times. Fortunately Russian trains run to a strict timetable, so you can quite literally set your watch by them. Which I did.    Read more

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    The 7 inch latke

    Adventures in food

    March 28, 2018 in Russia ⋅ 🌧 18 °C

    Illanskaya, according to the guidebook, is one of the best stations to buy home cooked food from the platform traders. It turns out they are no longer allowed on the platforms, but lined up behind a low fence there were indeed half a dozen or so women - all elderly, all short - with boxes on carts. A few factory sausages on display, but almost all the rest looked home cooked/dried/toasted.

    Dried and smoked fish featured heavily, and all the stalls had pine nuts. As expected in a region of lakes and pine trees. The rest varied from stall to stall, depending on the cook - assorted pirozki, different types of potato cake, boiled potatoes with herbs, caramel waffle rolls, home made sausages, bread, and in one case raw carrots and potatoes.

    They speak no English, and listen to little Russian. Any question is initally met with a display of the number of notes needed to purchase an item, rather than an answer to what was actually asked. This makes it a little tricky to establish which of the anonymous dough and pastry parcels are the vegetarian* options.

    I ended up with a giant rosti/latke and a** caramel waffle roll. Mixed success - as in many countries, being assured that an item contains no meat doesn't necessarily exclude the possibility of ham - and the pre-consumption dissection confirmed it's presence in the latke. The caramel roll, however, was ham free. And very good jaw exercise.

    * Potato. Sometimes alone, sometimes with cabbage and onion, occasionally with cheese. But always based on potato.

     ** The observant among you might count 2 caramel waffle rolls. One of them is not mine.    Read more

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    None aboard.

    March 29, 2018 in Russia ⋅ 🌙 -1 °C

    Irkutsk is the closest stop to Lake Baikal. The train has emptied - locals presumably going to the city, tourists are seeing the lake and then changing to the Mongolia train. Nobody got on, so our carriage has gone from full to just 3 people. One of themn is asleep.Read more

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    Lake Baikal

    March 29, 2018 in Russia ⋅ 🌙 2 °C

    The guidebook promised 'splendid views' after the first tunnel. It was not wrong. The lake ice may be thinning, but it is still a complete cover, frozen into waves and glistening in the low morning sun.

    Once down at lake level the chunks of ice pushed up against the shore are clearly visible. The surface is crisscrossed with sled tracks, and ice fishers cluster a little offshore from the villages.

    On the other side of the track the views are less picturesque, but even a goods yard of rusting locomotives glows in the spring light.    Read more

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    Stupa!

    March 29, 2018 in Russia ⋅ ☀️ -1 °C

    You'll need a big screen for this, because I was too busy squeaking 'Stupa!' to take a picture until we were nearly past it. It's on the left.

  • A ticket to ...Siberia and sakuraTraveler

    Road to Ulan Ude

    March 29, 2018 in Russia ⋅ ☀️ -1 °C

    After leaving the lake, the train runs alongside the main road to Ulan Ude.

    It's reached a practically tropical 8°C outside and there are visible buds on some of the trees, so we've had an ice cream to celebrate spring.Read more

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