DAY 300: It's somewhat fitting that I stumbled upon a interracial wedding party taking a big new family portrait in Soviet Square in Ulan Ude (picture below, which I took by posing as one of the many wedding photographers). The bride and her side of the family had Russian Caucasian faces while her new hubby had an East Asian one, just like the ones on his side of the family.

Ulan Ude, Russia, a former trading post for the tea caravans between Irkutsk and China in the 18th century, is one of the main crossroads between East Asian peoples and stereotypical Russian ones -- I say stereotypical meaning Caucasian because let's face it, two-thirds of Russia is in Asia; concurrently I say "East Asian" because Indian faces are Asian faces too. It lies in the region of the Buryat people, the largest indigenous group of Mongols in Russia. The Buryats have had a strong cultural identity that they wanted to preserve, from the days of Russian colonization to the days Soviet Communism was spreading like wildfire. While they might not have stopped the onslaught of either, they did preserve their identity and it is evident in the people and the culture of the city today.

My stay in Ulan Ude was brief -- only a total of about six hours -- but it wasn't too big and I had just enough time to see the major sights. My train pulled in early in the morning before 6:30 and I bid my compartment mates goodbye, including Asian-faced, Ulan Ude-born Alexander, the cop from Irkutsk who gave me "'Um...'-Smile" combos when he stumbled on his English. After catching a bit more sleep in the station waiting room, leaving my bags in storage and wasting an hour wandering the wrong side of the train tracks by accident, I found myself in downtown Ulan Ude, most of which was still in earshot of the train station's loud and obnoxious pre-announcement musical tone: a crude electronic beep rendition of the first eight notes of "We Wish You A Merry Christmas."

East Asian faces surrounded me -- I would have fit in perfectly if my skin tone was a bit lighter -- in a pleasant little town in the mountains where East Asian faces were even seen on local statues, like the ballet dancers in front of the Buryat Theatre of Opera & Ballet. In fact, the only remnant of Soviet sculpture (and the most obvious) was the big massive head of Lenin in the center of Soviet Square. (He looks like Captain Picard with a moustache, no?)

I walked the main street through town, passed the classical architecture and the ordinary type too. Like in Moscow and most of the cities along the Trans-Siberian Route, construction of new buildings was well under way. I thought seeing the Hodigitria Cathedral would be something to write about, but it too was closed off for renovations.

THE PIERCING ELECTRONIC TONES of Ulan Ude Station's pre-announcement "We Wish You A Merry Christmas" filled the air multiple times as I boarded a train around 1 p.m., which had come in all the way from Moscow, with service to Ulan Baatar, Mongolia and all the way to Beijing, China (still labeled as "Peking"). The train was a Chinese one, with courteous Chinese conductors that gave us bed sheets for free. (The Russian lines charged about $1.50 for sheets.) In my car was another international group with faces of young travelers from Poland, Japan, China, Russia, Mongolia and Spain.

The train head southbound through the countryside on the tracks of the Trans-Mongolian Railway, built section at a time between 1936 to 1956, each construction dependent on political climates between China, Mongolia and the Soviets. In the 1960s, the borders -- and therefore the line -- were shut down during the China/Soviet split, but it had only been reopened in the 1980s, providing access for locals and foreigners to go straight from Moscow to Beijing or vice versa if they so pleased.

A young couple from Barcelona I met were two of these people, having been in the same compartment in the same car of the same train for the past five days. When we stopped in Naushki, the Russian border station before entry in Mongolia, it was the longest time they had been off the train in the past week. It was probably the longest time anyone had been off the train though; the Russian exit formalities took four and a half hours for the entire train. Teams of stern-faced Russian immigration officials in uniform went to each person for his/her forms and passport in a formal military manner, so formal that you just had to hum the Darth Vader theme when they walked by. Another team of officials searched the train for contraband, even using screwdrivers to open access panels in the ceilings and walls to see if anything was hidden. The Russian officials marched around the train, and even saluted a higher-ranking officer like a platoon, before going back to the station office.

"Russian red tape," my young Polish compartment mate Mark said. He was no stranger to the formalities of Soviet culture, but knew that in Poland things were way more relaxed nowadays. "Everybody thinks Poland is like Russia, but it's a different country."

My two other compartment mates, two Mongolia women, had been subject to the strict Russian formalities; they had not registered their Russian entry form and had to pay a fine.

WAITING AROUND WASN'T SO BAD; the pre-announcement musical tone was the pleasant sound from Microsoft Word after you "Save As..." Plus, it was at Naushki station that I met the people on the train, sitting outside on the platform outside the station building. Vendors on the other side of a fence sold beer, fruits and snacks to keep up happy. Smiles were also brought about by a group of little dogs that walked around, jumping through the bars of the fence back and forth.

It was about nine thirty by the time we all had our passports returned, again, individually by the stern Russian officers. The train continued southbound through the night to the Mongolian border. After a brief 30-minute stop for a train inspection, we continued to Sükhbaatar, the town for Mongolian entry formalities. The process didn't take as long as the Russian one -- only about two hours -- but that wasn't to say it wasn't just as strict, or even stricter. A humorless Mongolian man in a uniform like a military general came to each compartment of our car and briefly interviewed up individually with our passports. It's funny how the East Asian-faced Mongolian official really scrutinized passport photos against the actual faces of the Asian passengers (me included); even he believed in the politically incorrect adage, "All you Asians look the same." For me and my American passport, he gave me a simple test -- to say my name -- which I did in a perfect American accent.

AND SO, after over six hours in border crossing formalities, the train finally continued on its way southbound to Ulan Baatar, Mongolia under the nighttime sky. I slept fairly well in my compartment top bunk as the fourth part of my trip began: The Global Trip 2004: Asia.