Boxcar-ish adventures: Across Siberia

And months later (sorry!) the story continues....

It was a sad goodbye to Artur in Irkutsk, but I was excited to experience the four day train ride to Moscow. We had several movies downloaded, fully charged Ipods, a few books, the dice for Yahtzee and a grocery bag full of instant potatoes, noodles, bread, cheese, sausage, and sardines that Artur insisted we buy; what else would one need to travel across Siberia?

As soon as we boarded the train we attracted the attention of a group of young, Russian soldiers just released from their military service. When they weren't drinking, they were smoking and trying to communicate with us in Russian. It was entertaining until Matt and I tried watching a movie which was interrupted every 30 seconds as one soldier or another would try to put together a thought in English to try out on us. But that's ok, we still loved them.

Throughout the next day the soldiers one-by-one hopped off in their hometowns. But no worries, the departing soldiers were replaced by more soldiers heading west. These soldiers were younger than the other ones and loved to show off their uniforms, badges, medals, and videos from their phones. I was really hoping one would slip up and show me a video exposing some big Russian military secret but alas, just videos of tanks, guns and the soldiers messing around were shared. Dang it.

The view of winter in Siberia whizzing by out the window of the train was at times magical. Fresh, pure, white snow sitting on top of these small, wooden cabin-looking houses. At each stop we got out to stretch our legs and play in the snow. As the train rolled up to the stations people lined up along the train trying to sell all kinds of random goods: scarfs, socks, toys, gloves and at one stop....a home-cooked meal of roasted chicken with veggies. Best idea I'd seen yet! Matt and I had been eating instant noodles and potatoes for days so when we saw (and smelled!) this lovely food we instantly handed over the amount she was asking without a hesitant thought to bargain. We probably paid 3 times the amount it should have cost but we didn't care in the slightest....it tasted aaaaaaamazing!

Besides the soldiers, Matt made friends with a rolly-polly (we were quite surprised the top bunks held a few of them!) group from Belarus our last night on the train when he drank an excess of vodka. They laughed a lot at us and made sure Matt was safely strapped in his bed when it was bedtime. There was also a less-and-less-cute-each-day toddler running up and down the aisle, giggling early in the morning. But it was all part of the immersion experience riding in the platzkart, aka the cheapest seats on the train.

We had been progressively reading through my guidebook about Moscow, making plans, discussing hostels and whatnot as the Siberian trip rolled on, so after 4 days on the train we felt ready to be in the booming metropolis. Even if it was 4:41 a.m. and darn cold when we arrived. Whatever, we made it!

Boxcar-ish adventures: Lake Baikal

Sorry for the delay in this post. Life became busy all of a sudden due to....a new job! *high fives* More on that when the Trans-Siberian travel stories are properly recorded.

To pick up where I left off...

Our visas were registered and off to Lake Baikal we went. Forty-five minutes in a microbus (aka mini van) took us to Listvyanka, a ghost town on the lake's snowy edge. To be fair, in the summer time this village is probably hoppin' with tourists but in December it's spookishly quiet. We spotted, off the one street that ran through town, what looked like a guesthouse. The lights were all turned off, we nervously shouted "Hello!" across the lobby, and just when we were about to leave an old woman greeted us from the shadows in Russian. Ah! She was as surprised as we were since I'm sure we were probably her first guests in months. An older, shirtless man emerged a few minutes later upon hearing all the English/Russian/body language commotion involved in communicating we wanted a room. We worked things out but without knowing Russian it was hard to tell if they were excited or bothered by our presence.

We threw down our bags then decided to check out the market to find some food. It was empty beside a few brave souls trying to sell us their unappetizing dried fish varieties or overpriced traditional Russian trinkets. Hmm, no thanks. I'm sure they were all thinking, "What are these crazy English-speaking tourists doing here in the dead of winter?" Getting desperate and cold, we finally found a little shop selling meat, cheese and bread. That plus some black tea from our guesthouse lady tasted like a million bucks.

We woke up excited to see and hike around the glorious Lake Baikal. Glorious because it's home to 1/5 of the world's fresh water. Plus it's the world's oldest and deepest lake. Pretty good stats, eh? But then we looked out the window to see snow violently swirling around and lost some of our excitement......MEGA BURRRRR! We bundled up with all the layers we could but it didn't seem to matter. BURRRRR! I don't know the official temperature that day but it was officially the coldest I've ever felt and hopefully ever will feel. It was somewhere around -1,000 Celsius (in my head). Needless to say, the walk along the lake was brief and the hiking was cancelled. That left the seal museum and the Lake Baikal museum as options. Seal museum! Closed. Lake Baikal museum! Expensive, all in Russian but heated and with a small aquarium housing three adorable Baikal seals. A small win amongst a day of losses.

Matt paid too much for the Baikal's famous smoked omul while I paid too much for a mushroom and chicken "salad" consisting of just mushrooms and chicken doused in mayo. 'Twas the straw the broke the camel's back. Now I can laugh thinking about that day but I was surely not laughing at the time. Good riddance,Listvyanka! If we meet again, it'd better be summertime.

Back to Irkutsk for one final night with our dear couchsurfing host, Artur before our long ride to Moscow.