Trans-Sib part one: The real journey begins
Writing this from our hostel in Irkutsk, we are over half way to Beijing, it’s been about 2 weeks since leaving Suzdal and it truly has been a crazy journey. We have now crossed right over Siberia and have made it to our last Russian destination. People often told me that Russian travel was difficult and it seems that it is! It has been a pretty hard week or so with some very intense days but good and not impossible obviously as we have made it this far! Doing the Trans-Sib journey the way we are doing, a full month stopping lots on the way is a very different experience that the usual straight through or only stopping once or twice that most people do. As I have said before buying train tickets can be a very frustrating experience and finding accommodation is a nightmare as there are no hostels and very, very few budget hotels. I am sure if you spoke Russian you would have a very different experience, although I think sometimes in Russia things just don’t make sense regardless of whether you understand the explanation or not. But, in saying that it’s still pretty cool, no other backpackers and you really feel like you are off the beaten track.
So I will explain the last few thousand miles in the next few posts…
Suzdal to Nizny Novgorod to Kazan
(fluffy hat Police men…don’t piss them off)
This was probably the most intense and frustrating 24 hours of my life. We bused in to Vladimir, where the next train to Nizhny Novgorod where we could change trains to Kazan wasn’t for about 4 hours. We hung around, stocking up on a bit of food for the next few train journeys. Eventually our train pulled up. It was really flash-only about 3 hours long, but nice compartments and we even got a little food packets and bottled water. We arrived in Nizhny at around 10pm where we were hoping to find an overnight train that night to Kazan which was about 9 hours away. Unfortunately we worked out (with a bit of difficulty) that the train wasn’t until 5.45am the next morning. As it was already late we didn’t want to pay for a hotel so decided to spend the night in the train station. We moved to the main station area from the suburban bit we had arrived in to the waiting room, of course filled with the crazy type of people that usually spend all night in a train station. The security guards were pretty tough and wouldn’t let anyone sleep for very long before coming and waking them up. A kid came and sat close to us before the police took him away and warned us about keeping our ipods out of sight. There were random puppies cruising round and some drunks. At about 3am we tried to buy a train ticket but were turned away. Nyet. No explanation, just no ticket. Eventually we got the tickets, waited out the next couple of hours, by which time it was freezing cold. Outside was icy. So we got on the train for the 9 hour journey managing to sleep most of the way.
Arriving in Kazan the first hotel we tried was expensive, the second was cheap but full. That was about all our budget options exhausted. But this stage we were exhausted and hadn’t eaten anything all day. We stopped by the tourist office where the girl found us a room at the first place we had tried for much cheaper, even with the 25% “reservation” fee they charge. So she made a booking and we walked (with our packs) back to the first hotel who apparently had not made us a booking and wouldn’t let us in. Eventually after phones calls and a lot of arguing and pointing we worked out they she would give us a room but not till 7pm. We agreed and waited the 4 hours in the McDonalds next door. By the time we got our expensive room we were totally exhausted, dirty and needing to sleep. Intense…but we held it together reasonably well, it’s just carrying packs everywhere gets a bit much and it is so difficult to explain things with our no Russian.
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Kazan was nice though, cold and cloudy but a nice city. The white walled Kremlin with a big mosque inside. There is a main pedestrian street with some nice cafes along it. We shifted hotels to a cheaper and nicer place the next day and secured a train ticket for the following night and managed to book a hostel in the next town. We were not interested in turning up with no place to stay again. So we spent a 2 days in Kazan making use of McDonalds free wireless, drinking coffee, going out to see the might Volga in a semi-abandoned port, and looking around the mosque and Kremlin. We also saw the university where Lenin went, celebrated by a statue out the front. What it fails to mention is that he was expelled for revolutionary behaviour. Selective memory sometimes….but overall nice city with really pretty main streets and the Kremlin was beautiful, especially all lit up at night.
Tags: blogsherpa, Kazan, Russia, trains, Trans Siberian, TRAVELS 2008, volga-region
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