Us2tm #3 The Trans Mongolian express

Trans Mongolian Express

After our three-day stay in Moscow it was time to get on the train. The train would take us in a five-day ride all the way thru Siberia with destination Irkutsk also known as the pearl of Siberia.

On the train we had a coupe with four beds and met a variation of different people, our first “roommate” was a bus driver from Tajikistan who worked in Moscow but had to travel all the way to Perm to get his legal documents stamped (almost 1.400km). He was a nice guy and when he found out my girlfriend spoke Polish (similar to Russian) he couldn’t stop talking what was nice!

At the Perm train station the bus driver got of the train and we got a new roommate, he was not a big talker and slept most of the time, but we got some good Russian candy from him. He didn’t stay long on the train, just for the night and got of in the morning.

That day we had the complete room to ourselves. We had already walked around the train and no test a couple who where also traveling (tourists). We started talking and they where from Thailand. During the trip we spend some time with them and are planning on visiting them in Thailand when we pass thru.

The fourth day we got a new roommate a guy around his thirties, who didn’t talk only slept and had this strange snore. It would start of and building up louder and louder, then making strange sounds to the point we thought he would suffocate and then it would start all over again. THE WHOLE DAY AND NIGHT.

At that point we thought we had the worst we could have had, but no the train stopped at the station and new people where coming in. We where sitting in the hallway talking with the Thai couple and a group of drunken Russian guys and a girl came walking towards our part of the coupe. The Thai couple just said goodbye to a really friendly lady the travelled with from Moscow and I think you already guest. The drunken Russian guys took over their room and the girl just put her stuff in our room.

We where still sitting in the hall way talking and one of the guys came up to us and tried talking English, well it started with hello and the rest we couldn’t really figure out what he was trying to say. He wanted us to join them in the coupe to have some drinks but the didn’t look that good of a company so we decided to go to our own room. After a few minutes the same guy pulled open our door and came sitting in our room still trying to get us to drink with them, until the sleepy, snoring roommate of us was done with his chitchat and told him in Russian to go away. That whole night we felt sorry for the Thai couple because even we could not sleep duel to the talking and noise they made.

The next day we woke up a bit broken from the last night but we where there finally, Irkutsk.

We had booked a bio farm homestay thru Airbnb and the host would come and pick us up at the train station. After a while a small Russian lady came walking up to us and when she recognised us she started smiling and calling our names.

It was a short drive to the farm as it was in between Irkutsk and Listvyanka. That day we stayed at the farm, looked around and talked with the host and there son. We stayed with them for dinner and they started talking about a Banja and if we would like to use is. As we didn’t really knew what it was we just went with the flow and checked it out.

The lady put on a fire in our carbine and showed us the Banja near the shower. A Banja is a typical Russian sauna with a higher humidity then a normal sauna. So after the dinner she showed us how to put water on the fire (to get the humidity right) and gave us some towels to put around us. She also put a big bucket of water with some dried leafs in the corner of the Banja but didn’t explained where they where for. We thought it was to create a pleasant smell or something. After the explanation she left us alone and we got in. But after a few minuets we heard her coming back in the carbine and knocking on the door.

She to got undressed, wrapped in a towel and joined us. She first gave me a funny hat and told me to put it on and go lay down on a special bed and relax. Then she took the wet leafs out of the bucket and started waving them over the hot rocks in the Banja. The water would drop on the rocks what released an even stronger aroma. Kind of smelled like eucalyptus.

Then she dipped them back in the water and started waving them over my body and started hitting me with them! The waving created the air humidity to rise and the hitting would heat up your body even more.(DUUUH) and it was not unpleasant. After this she gave the same massage to my girlfriend and left us alone again.

The next day we left our stuff at the bio farm and took the bus to Listvyanka.

In Listvyanka we stayed at the Belka hostel what was a bit out of the centre but was still doable.

Listvyanka is a small village located at the famous Baikal lake, the worlds deepest lake almost 1.5km deep. In winter the lake is completely frozen some parts even 2m thick.

Sins the winter was over the lake had smelted for the most part, there were only some small parts floating around.

After watching the sunset we decided to go back to Irkutsk the next morning. First we picked up our stuff at the bio farm and got dropped of in the city.

We walked thru the city like two camels with our backpacks in search for a hostel. After we found one we thought was soothed, we went to a Belgian restaurant just around the corner to get a hamburger and Belgian stew after this would be our last day in Russia.

The next day we took the bus towards the train station what turned out into a bit of a struggle, Russian busses don’t have timetables and almost nobody we asked knew what time it would come. So ended up walking 3km towards the train station.

Follow me if like my stories and want to see more of these posts!