LIFE> Travel
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LIFE> Travel
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Losing track of time
By Katherine Danks (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-07-02 11:46
 A monk at a temple in Ulan Bator, Mongolia. As we dumped our backpacks on the platform at Beijing West Railway Station and looked at the train, my friend remarked: "It looks so romantic." The dark-green train was gently lit by a dim autumn light and smartly dressed guards standing next to the carriages gave it a sophisticated edge. Dressed only in a pair of jeans and a T-shirt, I felt a little under-dressed for the 30-hour journey to the Mongolian capital of Ulan Bator. There was already a lot of activity on the station and more and more passengers were beginning to crowd on to the platform. In front of us, one stern-faced female guard checked passenger tickets as a vendor sold last-minute items like fruit, nuts and water from a wooden cart nearby. The train blew its whistle. My friend and I had been planning a train journey from Beijing to St Petersburg for many years. We had chosen to travel now because I was moving to London and wanted to approach England overland through Asia and my friend was a PhD student looking for a study break. We had traveled separately before but were now in the mood for a proper adventure and a railway journey seemed ideal.
As we stood on the platform looking at the train, I admit that the scene did look cinematic. However, while train journeys are deliciously slow, invite contemplation and are about sharing vodka with fabulous strangers in the dining car, they are also smelly, cramped and hot and should never be called romantic. The first leg of our journey was across the breath of Asia on the trans-Mongolian railway. After leaving Beijing the railway travels north through China, then cuts across Mongolia and the Gobi desert. It then winds through Siberia, the historic city of Irkutsk and Lake Baikal, the deepest and largest freshwater lake in the world. At Ulan-Ude on Lake Baikal's eastern shore, the trans-Mongolian railway meets the historic trans-Siberian railway, which connects the Russian cities of Vladivostok and Moscow. The line then continues on to St Petersburg. The journey from Beijing to St Petersburg is more than 8,000 km and we chose to break up the journey over 21 days. We traveled on four different trains, with the longest journey being a 77-hour trip from Irkutsk to Moscow and perhaps the greatest exercise in patience that I have ever endured. On the train to Ulan Bator, my friend and I were surprised at how quickly you settle into train life. It is very easy to sit for hours and be mesmerized by the endlessly barren landscape. One of the highlights is the 5-hour stop as the train bogies are changed at the Mongolian and Chinese borders. Mongolia and Russia have a different gauge railway network to China and Europe. After exploring the curious city of Ulan Bator - which has an expensive monument to the Beatles in the middle of the city - we traveled by bus across the grasslands to spend two nights in a traditional Mongolian tent or "ger". We were repeatedly bombarded with images of Ghengis Khan, who is intimately linked to Mongolia's sense of national identity, and whose name is used to sell everything from vodka to hotel rooms. Afterwards, it's back on the train for our journey toward the Russian border, Lake Baikal, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and Irkutsk, known as the "Paris of Siberia". By now that gentle chill that required a light jacket at Beijing West Railway Station has developed into frost and snow. It looks like poorly applied cake icing as the train whizzes through the endless nothingness. Meanwhile, inside the carriage, the characters are as bright as a Tokyo night. |
