Ahhh, the Trans-Siberian, or more accurately the Trans-Mongolian. We climbed aboard at 7:30 AM on July 27th and the train pulled out of Beijing station exactly 10 minutes later, right on schedule. We had booked a first-class, two-bed berth, meaning that we had our own private little compartment.

We had learned about this train trip months earlier while reading a great travel book called A Fortune Teller Told Me. I was cautiously curious about the train trip. I had never been on a train for more than an hour or two and we were looking at being on a train for six days straight!

And so began our trip in car number nine compartment number three. Most of our neighbors were tourists like us who intended to remain on the train from Beijing to Moscow. There were 4 Japanese men in their 60's on a two week vacation, a Finish couple who were moving back to Finland after having lived in China for 2 years, a Scottish traveler, two people who had been teaching English in Japan and were returning to the UK...etc.

The first day took us through the mountains north of Beijing and under two different sections of the great wall. We enjoyed free meals from the Chinese dining car for lunch and dinner, so we did not have to break into our seemingly immense bags of groceries that we had brought for the 6 day trip.

Around 10 PM we arrived at the Mongolian border. We were a tiny bit nervous because we had not gotten a visa for Mongolia. We had found conflicting information regarding whether or not we needed one...and had decided against spending another day at an embassy and in turn risked being turned back to China. We got lucky, no questions were asked, the officials climbed onto the train, took our passports, stamped them, and we were on our way. Not long after we had a 1 hour stop to change the wheels of the train. Long ago when the tracks were built, they made the tracks in China a different gague (10 cm. different!) than those in Russia and Mongolia (to protect their borders). The process was very involved and quite impressive. They lifted the entire train up about 10 feet after disconnecting the wheel beds rolled them out and rolled in the new wheels. There were a few unsuspecting passengers who got stuck on the train during this noisy process, they were sticking their heads out of the windows to see what was going on.

I awoke the next morning and looked out of the window at a seemingly endless sand-scape. We were in the middle of the Gobi desert. As the day passed, I dug deeper into the new Harry Potter book (which Jim was quasi-patiently waiting for me to finish) and watched as we passed from the desert into beautiful mountains. The Mongolians are nomadic peoples and most who live outside the capital city of Ulan Bator live in large tents called yurts. The hills were spotted with herds of cattle, goats, and yurts. At one point I glanced up from my book to see a Mongolian cowboy riding atop a camel and waving at our passing train. Before I could reach for the camera, he was gone.

Late that night we arrived at the Russian border. This was a long, drawn out process of about 4 hours. Our cabins were searched (presumably for stow-aways...I have no idea why anyone would want to sneak into Russia) by a stone-faced border official and after numerous pieces of paper were reviewed, filled out, and stamped we were on our way.

The Chinese conductors took good care of us. They kept our big metal thermos filled with boiling hot water, which we used to make most of our meals. We enjoyed just about every variety of noodle bowl that is sold in China, tons of green tea, and various other food-like products that you can pour boiling water on to make edible.

Siberia was beautiful. The land was green and lush, wooden houses with immense gardens dotted the countryside. Early afternoon on day three we arrived at Lake Baikal, the largest fresh water lake in the world. For 7 hours our train cruised next to the lake. It seemed that all along the waterfront people were camping, swimming and sunbathing.

As we stopped at the station at Novisbrisk, many of us climbed off of the train and onto the platform with the conductors telling us that we only had 10 minutes until leaving. Many of the Chinese and Mongolians on the train also piled off. In their arms they carried large bundles of clothes (jeans mostly) and in seconds they were surrounded by locals wanting to get a deal on the cheep clothes. We were surrounded by Russian women selling fresh fruit and vegetables from their gardens. We got cucumbers, tomatoes, pickles, raspberries and some cheese and fresh bread to make ourselves a gourmet lunch (well...gourmet for the train).

Days four and five passed much too quickly. I finished Harry Potter and Jim dug in, we celebrated our fellow passenger Matt's birthday with Russian vodka and champagne, took lots of photos of the train, learned about Finland and watched the world go by.

The end of the ride ended abruptly at 2 in the afternoon at the Moscow station. We all filed off of the train uncertainly and lingered in the station together before Jim and I took our leave and headed for the metro.

(Jae, even though the majority of people smoke in China and Russia, the smoke on the train wasn't invasive in our car. Most people smoked in the dining car and in the 2nd class cars.)

Celebrating Matt's birthday in the Russian dining car.