on our third train heading towards the border. we've swapped our normal electric train for a diesel engine which is ever so slightly more like the old steam train i'd hoped for. the diesel trains are slower though, and it's a slow 'local' train stopping at all the little stations along the way. we're surrounded by more incredible landscape, another to tick off the box; wide open grassy plains with wide flat rivers meandering through, grey-blue in the morning light. in the near distance on both sides we're enclosed by mountains, a spatter of pine forest a-top each peak. the sun rises promising another stunning siberian day. i'm beginning to become suspicious of this cold, harsh reputation. i've only seen the rich colours of a sunlit world. at most i'd call the climate here "changeable."
it's remote here. very. some of the train stations are simply known by a number, the number of kilometres they are away from moscow.
we will cross the border sometime this evening. i've enjoyed russia but i'm eager to get onto mongolian soil and see what that country has in store for us. hopefully we'll leave russia okay. the border guards have somewhat of a reputation that leaves a lot to be desired. 'corruption,' 'theft' and 'mentally unstable' are words we've heard used about the commandos that guard the edge of the biggest country in the world. fingers crossed that we find ourselves in mongolia this evening, with all our money, passports and possessions still in our custody.
1:06pm
i miss music, good music. i bought my ipod with me, on it a library of music for every mood and emotion. music is important to me and under normal circumstances it'd accompany every waking movement i make. my ipod runs from when i leave the house to work, whereupon it is plugged into the speakers we have in the office and carries on it's duty. i'd even installed speakers into my motorbike dashboard to wish me the odd chord over the whistling wind. there's a great temptation to plug it in on the train and watch the hills roll by with a custom soundtrack. for some reason the opening bars of made up lovesong #43 by the guillemots keeps on repeating in my head.
but i made a conscious decision to absorb only the life and atmosphere of the lands i visit. if i were to fall into the music of my wood green bedroom i'm worried i'll become just another disaffected average british tourist. the sort that get off a plane in a foreign country and immediately seek out the nearest english pub or fried breakfast. or one of those americans with their indecipherable and unique attitude of "we've got everything in the united states, why bother going to other countries?" a notion that i can't even begin to grasp, especially with their opinion of ruling the world. how can you rule a place you're completely unaware of?
am i overtly paranoid?
i'm being very general with my analysis of americans. i'm sorry to those who don't fall into this way of thinking. it's probably the same group that voted for al gore. ahem... i started off writing about music didn't i? basically i've got it with me but i don't want it forming a barrier between me and the heart of russia. the end.
4:39pm
we wait at the border. our carriage - the only one crossing the border - has now been disconnected, shunted and knocked unexplained as we wait to cross into no-man's land. we've been here 3 hours so far, a solitary passenger cart in the middle of a large industrial style station. there's a nervous feeling throughout, probably the impending on-set of the twitchy trigger-happy guards. luckily a package tour from some scandinavian country or other in on the train and their guide speaks fluent russian and english, so he's informed us of why we're waiting and what happens next.
there aren't any turrets or spotlights like you might expect, but there are a lot of official looking uniforms walking about. the guide says none of them really do anything, they just fill job spaces that have been invented to create employment.
we sit and expect burly soldiers with machine guns to jump on and rifle through our bags. a few hours pass. no such luck with the armed troops, instead a red haired girl in her early twenties with a fantastic bottom arrives. she glances over our passports and cautiously filled out immigration forms breathing approving sounds to herself.
"da." she says, and hands them back before moving on to the next cabin.
is that it?
two more women arrive and take our passports and disappear with them under their arms.
...
they've had them an hour now. i want mine back. i've spent too much unnerving time in russia despite none of it ever coming to anything. i want my passport back and i want the train to start moving again. the heat is unbelievable with no air flow through the carriage. it's really hot again.
a group of mongolians have been loading beer from the local shop into their cabin, presumably to sell across the border. about 10 crates of 12x3 litre bottles so far, and they keep on coming. i guess they don't have the same rules of customs as we have in europe. oop, some more uniforms have arrived, gotta go....
10:10pm
we're through! quite a few hours later admittedly, but we're through, we're in mongolia. we can stop chewing on our fingernails and looking at each other in a lost and nervous way. we have passed unscathed out of russia, our money has not been removed, nor our cameras, nor our mobile phones. yet another of russia's sordid reputations failing to appear. a lot of bureaucracy though; one came to look at passports, two came to take them away, two to check cabins another to check luggage and customs forms. it seemed to be without end until two armed guards climbed on our single solitary carriage as a special engine grabbed and took it to the russian border and on into no-man's land.
crossing no-man's land was a very solemn affair. weird atmosphere all about. we entered through the shadows cast by guarded towers and razor-wire fences. 40 passengers stood in silence with their faces against the glass, attempting to take secret photos of the soldiers and the scrubland. it felt like the time of anxious expectation at the beginning of a victorian ghost train. guard towers held shadows of large men with large guns. no-one knew quite what to expect. some softly spoken strained jokes were made. the wasteland lay unclaimed, depoliticised, un-policed, rolling beside us. our book warned us "under no circumstances try and get off here. don't even think about it."
we didn't.
mongolian customs & immigration was a lot less of a nerve-wracking experience. they took our passports, they brought them back. the whole process and the continuation of our travels would have been a lot quicker except - being a single carriage - we had to wait for a local train to arrive for us to be hooked onto. for two hours we stood, a lonesome truck with no engine, in the middle of the platform at the station on the mongolian side of the border.
in broken russian, matt managed to buy a block of ice-cream and two sticks from a little shop near to the station.
i wasn't prepared for the poverty i saw on the platform. i hadn't even considered it. at least 5 children played on the tracks, dirty clothes and hands and faces, eyes expectantly watching the slightly confused and flustered westerners herding off the train for a walk. one peered over matt's shoulder, fascinated by his camera.
the kids' playthings were the stray dogs that hung around the trains. mongrels of various shapes and sizes. one a puppy. they expressed an edgy playfulness, wagging their tails but darting away when non-mongolians came near. their eyes bright, but a bit sad.
11:49pm
it is pitch black outside. flames can be seen in the distance, solitary glints of orange light and no way of knowing how far away or how big.
we have drank a lot of beer with our scottish roommates. like russia, in mongolia beer is cheaper than bottled water or coca-cola. i also ate a cadbury's wispa bought from a local mongol shop. whatever happened to wispas? they were awesome...!
it seems i am a bit drunk at 11:49pm.
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