Taking the Trans-Siberian from Ulan-Ude

I had spent a week in Ulan-Ude. Two of those days, I was stuck mostly in bed with some intestinal bug from hell. Luckily, it didn't last long. I extended my stay because of the time I spent in bed, and I planned out the rest of my stay in Russia...at least the rest of my stay in Russia THIS time. I hope to return in a month or two. I made all the rest of my hostel and train reservations.

But now it was time to move on.  In planning the next phase of my trip, the first train out was going to be at around 6:30 in the morning. The weird thing is that all the Russian trains are on Moscow time, no matter where you are in Russia. And Ulan-Ude is five hours later than Moscow time, so I had to account for that when booking my train reservations. The next bookings I made on the Trans-Siberian were the first bookings I had made myself. This whole trip, I had had an agency book my trains on the Trans-Mongolian, because it was a necessary component of my Chinese visa that I have an itinerary and that I leave the country (before I even got there), and it was a necessary part of my Russian visa that I at least arrange the first stop. So I had planned that far ahead. But now I was on my own.

So I got up at 4:30 in the morning, to give myself a couple of hours to walk to the train station and be there at least an hour early, in case there were any glitches. I had already gone to the train station and printed out my boarding pass a couple of days before. Strangely enough, a boarding pass was necessary for this first leg, but none are required for the rest of the journey; the e-tickets are enough (even though the next leg is on the same train at a later time).

Russian trains have four classes. There is spalny wagon, which is first class, and the most expensive. Then there is kupé, which is second class, and what I booked most of the next legs on. This is the equivalent of what I traveled on the Trans-Mongolian, though it wasn't called that. It has two lower and two upper berths that can be used for sleeping, and a compartment that closes. Also the lower seats lift up, and underneath there is a compartment for storing luggage.  If you have an upper berth, there is an open space next to the need to store luggage. I was issued sheets even though it is a day trip; that worked out because I did nap some. It is really quite comfortable; I can't see the need to pay nearly twice as much for first class.  Then there is third class, or platskarny. I booked a later leg or two on this. It differs in that it has open compartments, and six berths rather than four. There are four on one side of the train that are like kupé, but without doors, and then two on the other side of the aisle. There is a fourth class; I can't remember what it is called  (it starts with an "o"), and it only has seats rather than sleeper berths. The seats are much like the berths but they pack three people into each one.  I think they are phasing out this class, and I didn't see any fourth-class seats for sale on any of the trains I booked.

I got to the station early after walking through just-above-freezing temperatures right before dawn. I had to walk across a huge, crumbling pedestrian bridge over the street to get to the train station, and there were gaping holes in the concrete where I could see below (sort of like on the Tappan Zee or George Washington bridges).

There was a railroad worker at the station waiting to start up his shift, and we struck up a conversation in halting English and Russian. His name was Sergei, and he was talkative and friendly, even given the linguistic difficulties we had. He asked me if I had any American coins to give his daughter; I did, but they were packed away somewhere deep in my backpack.  But I had a few dollar bills in a decoy wallet I had in my pocket, so I gave him one. He was really, really impressed with it, and inspected it for quite a while in wonder. Note to self: next time I travel, I want to bring about twenty dollars in ones just to hand out as souvenirs to people I meet along the way. He told me I was on the wrong platform, but rather than walk up to the pedestrian bridge again and take the right set of stairs down, I could just walk across some tracks to get there. He told me it would be the second train to arrive, so once it arrived, I just puttered across the tracks to get there.

I came up to the train as it was boarding, and there was a young provodnitsa (car attendant) taking boarding passes. She took my boarding pass and passport, and made a mock shocked face when she saw my passport pic with short hair and no beard. She was really warm and friendly to me throughout the journey, unlike the dour provodnitsa on the last leg of the Trans-Mongolian. She was even maybe a little flirtatious. She got replaced in the middle of the trip by the other provodnitsa on a shift change, who was also nice and friendly, though I didn't have as much of a rapport with her.

I shared my compartment with an elderly Russian woman, who was very chatty only in Russian even though it was apparent much of what she was saying to me was not getting through. She was highly insistent that I make my bed and set up the sleeping pad on the seat, though I would have been perfectly content to just sit and lay on the plain seat. She kept chatting on and on about stuff, and I probably only caught less than a tenth of what she said;  I would either just smile and nod, or say, "I don't understand," if I had no idea what she said and it seemed to require an answer. But that didn't seem to deter her from keeping her stream of conversation going. 

Unlike the Trans-Mongolian, where there were a large number of foreigners and English-speakers, I think I was the only foreigner and English speaker on the train, and the object of much attention from everyone. Every time I told somebody something about myself by communicating in halting Russian, English and pantomime, it got around to EVERYONE on the train through the gossip circuit. I didn't mind; it was interesting to be the center of attention. Now I know how British guys feel when they come to the US...with the exception that they can communicate.

There were a number of elementary school-age kids at the other end of the car, and for a while, they were just looking at me in amazement, whispering and giggling. Then they all formally formed a line to come up to me and say, "Hello, my name is ________," in slow English. So I shook each of their hands,  and told them my name too. After this, the boys didn't seem too interested in me any more. But the little girls kept shyly coming up to me in groups of two, after painstakingly rehearsing a sentence or two in English, and presenting their well-practiced few words to me formally, whereupon I would answer, and try to throw in as much Russian as I could. Then they would go back, practice another question to ask me, or a statement to tell me, and I would reply, and they would run off triumphantly. Sometimes the little girls would conspire with the provodnitsa in formulating questions for me. One of the girls asked me if I liked apples, and I said, "Yablki, da." (I just happened to know the word for apples in Russian). And then she shyly brought me an apple and said, "Apple, for you." I said thank you very much in English and Russian as she blushed and left, and I ate the apple.  It was delicious. Then another little girl brought me an apple, and I said,  "No thanks, I just had one." And I immediately felt bad. She seemed embarrassed, and said, "Spasiba" (thank you in Russian) as she backed away.  Aaack, my faux pas.

Everybody on the train was very friendly and curious. Most did not talk to me, but they all seemed to catch the last thing I had said to somebody else on the whisper circuit. This whole experience was not anything I would have necessarily expected on a Russian train.

The train arrived in Chita, which is in Zabaykalsky Krai, Siberia...the next administrative region over from Buryatia. We got in about 6:30 in the evening after traveling for 12 hours from Ulan-Ude. This is probably not a huge tourist destination for Europeans and Americans, and many guidebooks recommend avoiding it. But it seems like a really vibrant city to me, and I'm really glad I stopped here. The hostel was about a kilometer and a half from the bus station, but it was very easy for me to find walking there. I'm looking forward to exploring this place.

The Weird Visa Registration Oxymoron Dance

So, Russia has this requirement that foreigners must register their visas with the authorities within seven days.  That is, only if one is staying in a city for more than seven days. Sounds pretty straightforward. But it is anything but.

I arrived in Ulan-Ude originally only planning to stay for four days. But then I got some abdominal bug that had me wishing I was dead for about forty-eight hours. I was pretty much confined to bed that whole time. Since I didn't get to see as much of the city as I had hoped, and since I hadn't made ANY plans beyond Ulan-Ude, I decided to stay in the city for another three days, and make some plans to see more of Russia. So now I figure I have to register my visa.

But I can't actually register my visa myself. Only the place I am staying can register it. No big deal, I'll just get the hostel to register my visa. As a matter of fact, they have a giant placard on the wall telling people they have to get their visas registered within seven days, that the hostel does it, and if they don't, they as well as you can get in huge trouble. So I figure that they will just register my visa.

But when I ask the folks at the hostel to register my visa, they refuse. They are really polite about it, they are not, like, complete dicks or anything, they just won't. And I can't get a straight answer as to why they won't. They have a sign on the wall (that they themselves put up) saying they have to do it, but, regardless, they just won't register my visa. They tell me, variously, that the person who does it is not there, that they used to do it but don't do it any more, or that they just don't do that because they are "not really a hostel," whatever that means. They sure advertise that they are one.

Now I am staying to freak out. I look online and find info that says that there is a possibility that I can be fined a huge amount of money and banned from Russia for five years if I get caught not doing this. But the chances of getting caught are low. It seems that the right hand of bureaucracy just doesn't know what the left hand is doing...as is the case just about everywhere. Also, hostels down the line could also refuse to let me stay there if I don't have a registration.

I try several times to get the hostel to do this and every time reach a dead end. So I figure I have to find another way to do this. I contact the agency that got me my Russian visa, tell them my host will not register my visa, and ask if they know any other way I can get it done.

What I get back is boilerplate that I had already seen online. They just Googled it and gave me what I had already found. They told me to first try the migration office in my town, next the post office, and then try other hotels and hostels, but you might have to pay for a night and some sort of *ahem* fee, well, let's just call it a bribe.

I'm not terribly optimistic at this point, and with good reason. First, I tried the Migration Ofiice. When I looked it up on Google Maps, it gave me two different locations, neither of which was actually there. I ended up running all over town for phantoms. And when I tried to call the number, I got a recording saying the number is no longer in service.

OK, so it doesn't exist. Or, it probably does, but not in any form I can find, not speaking fluent Russian. But as far as I am concerned, it is a dead end at this point.

Next, I try the post office. There is a machine to take a number, but you have to type in which service you want, and I don't know enough Russian to figure it out. So I am meticulously typing each option given to me into Google Translate, to see which one I need, when a guard comes up, and asks me what I need. I say, "Registracja Visa," having no idea whether that is a correct statement of what I need to do. He doesn't seem to care, and just punches the first option, and I get a number to wait in line.

I already know from the get-go that this is probably damn well not going to work. But I wait in line, I type into Google Translate, "I need to register my visa. Please help me."  I scan the clerks in line and try to figure out which of them might have enough compassion to carry out a pain-in-the-ass non-standard task for some foreign person who means nothing to them, and who is basically aphasic and developmentally challenged, as far as they are concerned. And I try to figure out which clerk has the bureaucratic attitude that they don't give a fuck about anything, and just want to get me out of their sight as soon as possible. And if I choose wrong, it won't happen. Not that it matters, because one of them will just call my number anyway.

My number is called, and I go up to the counter crossing my fingers. Please help me. Be a human with compassion. And what I get back is "Nyet!" Well, shit. That didn't work. I ask where I can go.  I get "Nyet!" They don't really care, and just want to finish their shift with a minimum of hassles.

Tears of frustration are welling up in my eyes, but I decide to try random hotels and hostels. The results I get are somewhere between body language that says, "are you fucking kidding!?" and failure to acknowledge that I am standing in front of them asking a question at all.

So this is just not going to happen.  As a last ditch effort, I call the US Embassy in Moscow, and ask them how in blazes I can get this essential task done if nobody will cooperate. They agree to try to help, but what happens is that they call my hostel and put pressure on them like there is now an international incident. Oh, fuck. Now I am not looking forward to walking into that hostel in just a few minutes.

When I get to the hostel,  Ivan, the guy sort of in charge, is pissed. He wordlessly buzzes me in, and the first thing he says is, coldly, "We have a problem. Unfortunately we cannot register your visa." No greeting or anything. He had dug in his heels in the face of a potential threat of an international incident, with the United States of America coming down full force, and apparently, he had come out on top. I explain to him that I had called the US Embassy just to find out how I could accomplish this essential task to keep me out of trouble, not to get them to lean on them. I apologize profusely for the inconvenience, and I think the feathers stopped being ruffled after a day or two. And, the thing is, he is the nicest guy, willing to bend over backwards to help with just about anything BUT THIS.

So I'm basically back at square one, where this shit is just not happening. I call the embassy again to see if there is any last-ditch Hail Mary thing going on as a possibility here.

Well, look, they say. You spent seven days there, but the law says seven BUSINESS days. In the meantime, there was a national holiday from the first to the third, an intervening weekend that didn't count, and another national holiday on the ninth. So I haven't reached the seven business days, and I ought to be OK under a strict reading of the law...but who knows if some minor player who wants to shake me down at some point will interpret the law correctly. I figure that is the best I can get, they tell me to save all my receipts that show where I have been and when, and the odds are that it will work out. And there is always a record of this call where I proved my case that I tried my best to meet the legal requirement, but things happened that were beyond my control.

I guess that is all I'm going to get. So I put it into the "out of my control" drawer and wipe it from my psyche as best I can. Then I check into a hostel in Chita, the next town.  They ask me for my passport, my exit migration card (I have both those things), and my visa registration. I don't have that. No problem, the clerk takes it in stride and says nothing. I check in, go around town, and when I come back, they have prepared and have ready my visa registration for me, official stamp and everything. On a national holiday. Without me even asking.  For no additional fee. I could just hug and kiss them. I just can't stop saying, "thank you, thank you," but they are perplexed and mystified at my gratitude, sort of analogous to how Spock would react at a soccer riot. It's like it is no big deal. So now I'm legal, bitches. Fully loaded and ready to Russia. Russia is awesome. I'm planning a month here in Russia in various parts, then if I told you what is next, it would spoil the suspense. A girl's got to have a little mystery.

Ulan-Ude and Lake Baikal

I took a taxi from the train station to the hostel, which was not too far away, but since I didn't know where it was, I decided to take a taxi. And it was kind of a convoluted route there since there were not many bridges over the railroad tracks by the station.

But I got to the hostel, and it was a pretty cool atmosphere; very cordial and friendly. The first night I was there, I walked in and everybody was speaking Spanish. So naturally I just joined in. There was Federico from Italy, Anna from Spain, Gabriela from Brazil, and me, all talking in Spanish all night. The other three dissipated and went their separate ways over the next few days, but I stayed on.

Then I got really sick. I don't know if it was food poisoning, or what, but I was miserable and weak for about 48 hours, and mostly in bed. It might have been the water, too. I had asked Ivan, the guy seemingly in charge at the hostel (actually, nobody was really in charge...the owner/manager was off traveling, and had just left his employees there doing their thing), if the tap water was safe, and he said it was, so I drank some. Later he told me they usually boil it. Great. I looked online and found that it wasn't safe because of giardia. Oh, great, again. Then I got the sickness. After that I either boiled water or used water purification tablets that I brought with me.

While I was sick, a couple of women from the US checked into my room,  Gwen and her daughter Anya. They both spoke fluent Russian. They had bought tickets for themselves and a local friend of theirs from the States who lived in Ulan-Ude, Carolyn, to go on a regional bus to a section of Lake Baikal at Goryachinsk on the east side of the lake, which was a lesser-traveled area that mostly locals went to. But then Gwen got the awful stomach funk, and got too sick to go,  so they asked me if I wanted to take her place so their ticket would not go to waste. I was happy for the opportunity but sad that she could not go. It was definitely an experience I would not likely have found by myself at that time. I would have had to chase down a local bus that stopped in an out-of-the-way place, figure out which one was going there with very little information and a language barrier, and then figure out how to get back.  But now I was traveling with Anya and Carolyn, who spoke fluent Russian, and were kind enough to provide me with experiences and foods from the local culture that I would not have experienced.

It was a three-hour bus ride to Goryachinsk, and we stopped at several towns along the way, sometimes detouring down rutty little dirt roads. It was a bus mostly for commuters, and definitely not a tourist staple. Though Goryachinsk had some hot springs, they didn't seem open (the "Gorya" part of the town's name means "hot"), though we did use a bathroom at the springs that was a board on the ground with a hole in it in an outhouse.

We walked on a path around the town to the lake, and weren't sure exactly if we were on the right path, but, sure enough, we got there. The lake was beatific, covered in ice, and surrounded by mountains. Lake Baikal is the biggest freshwater lake in the world, and bigger than all the Great Lakes put together.

We spent most of the day there, and had a picnic by the shore. We also waded in the icy waters there, and I happened to have a Buddhist prayer shawl in my bag that I tied to a tree that already had several prayer shawls attached.

We walked a different way back to Goryachinsk, taking the main road to the town, which was fairly long, but a nice walk. We got back just a little before the bus was due to go back to Ulan-Ude, so we just looked around the main square there while we waited for the bus. Then we took the three-hour ride back to Ulan-Ude. Upon getting back to the hostel, Gwen was feeling a little better, so she accompanied us all to dinner. Strangely enough, all three of the people on the hostel staff knew Carolyn from different connections, so we stored to chat with the members of the staff before taking off for dinner.

The next few days, I just spent looking at the sights of Ulan-Ude. All good things must come to an end at some point, and I prepared to leave the city, making the plans for the rest of this leg of my Russian journey.

The Trans-Mongolian Experience

So I got on the second leg of the Trans-Mongolian train, from Ulaanbaatar to Ulan-Ude, and unlike the previous leg, it was completely packed. Every seat was taken. I shared the compartment with two Thai guys and a Dutch guy named CJ, who was kind of a hippie-looking train enthusiast. He had been working in Hong Kong, and had gotten laid off, so he was headed back to Holland. The two Thai fellows were not very talkative, but CJ and I got into some conversation on the train. Since there were four in the compartment, all the berths were taken, both upper and lower. The two on the to say on the lower seat until bedtime, when they clambered up to bed. I had previously thought there was no ladder to the top berths, but it turns out there is one that unfolds from the wall on both sides of the compartment door.

All the tourists on the train were pretty friendly, and there was vodka aplenty generously passed around for anyone who wished to partake.  Some of CJ's former co-workers had given him multiple bottles of vodka for the journey. Most of the tourists were with one tour group led by a Russian guy named Alex. The people on the train were from a mix of countries all over the place. I spoke in Spanish to Isidro from Coahuila, Mexico, and in French to Linda from Quebec. There were a lot of Canadians, some Brits and Australians, and many others.

We had a pair of female provodnitsas, or car attendants, on our train car. The provodnitsas share a living compartment and work in shifts out of the working compartment. The first provodnitsa was really nice, but the second one was from hell. She kept snapping at people to go back to their compartments when they were taking pictures ("go back to your compartment!" was probably one of the few things she could say in English), or doing just about anything outside their compartments. So I decided to be super-nice to her all the time, even when she was being a complete dick to me. Of course, this pissed her off more, almost to the point of losing control. I just kept engaging her with smiles and hellos, and she would yell at me to return to my compartment, and as soon as she turned the corner, I would be in the exact same place as though nothing had happened with a smile, a hello,  and a thank you.  I was probably lucky I didn't get abandoned in the Gobi Desert somewhere just so she could be rid of me.

This whole series of interactions I had with the provodnitsa was a source of complete amusement to people in the compartment. I was in an unusual travel situation where the average age in the car was about my age, and many people were older. So I felt well accepted and part of the group. Dang, maybe it is ageism when I'm traveling among a bunch of twentysomethings and they blow me off, or don't include me in their group. But the folks on the train would watch my antics with the provodnitsa and laugh, realizing that she didn't like anybody, but she didn't like me especially. CJ started calling her my "girlfriend" and a couple others picked up on that. People were making faces behind her back when she would pass by, and sometimes when she would snap at me, I would make an exaggerated face of mock chagrin.

There was only the one international car, though some domestic cars would get periodically attached and then detached. We got to Sukhbaatar, Mongolia at four in the morning as most were asleep. I woke up around five just in time to see the sunrise. But we were all locked in the train car, and not only that, the bathroom was locked as well.  Guess they don't want it emptying its contents on the tracks at a station. So people were slowly waking up, and howling when they found they couldn't relieve themselves. Then the Mongolian authorities came on board to do their exit check. It wasn't terribly intrusive or anything.  After the Mongolian inspection, around seven-thirty in the morning, they finally unlocked the car so people could use the restroom at the train station. Along with many others, I zoomed over to the train station to use the restroom. But you had to pay an attendant, and I hadn't gotten my money off the train in my haste. I thought I'd have to return to the train to get money, but a kindly gentleman paid my fee. It wasn't much, just 200 tukriks, which is about ten cents when you convert Mongolian money to US.  We were stopped at Sukhbaatar from four to eleven in the morning, but after they unlocked the train car, they gave us two hours to explore the city, so I wandered around and checked it out, taking pictures. In Sukhbaatar, one of the wives of CJ'S former Mongolian co-workers met him at the station with a load of Mongolian food and some beers.

At this point, the train car was just sitting on the tracks by itself. There was no locomotive or caboose, and all the other cars had been detached. But by the time we were ready to leave, they had attached an engine and a few other cars, and we rolled on.

When we passed the Russian-Mongolian border, there was a small marker, a few buildings with some soldiers, and a chain-link fence along the border with razor wire circled on the top. We didn't stop there, but we speed at the next big town, Naushki, for the Russian border inspection. They came aboard with about four groups of officials, some asking redundant questions. The last group came through with dogs. We were stopped in Naushki for four hours, and they have us a couple of hours to wander the town. It was just a tiny Siberian town with hardly any businesses, and the ones that were there were just in houses. I walked all the way across town and found a little out-of-the-way cafe, and ate lunch there. Then about fifteen minutes later, Alex the tour guide led his whole group in there. Hey, I picked the right place...the same place the experienced guide took his people to. And I was glad I got there and got my food before they arrived, because I would have had to wait a long time while the large group of at least twenty or so ordered and got their food.

After returning to the train, we all had a lot of stops. Some were just in the middle of nowhere for no apparent reason. We spent much more time on this train stopped than moving. I looked on Google Maps and saw that it was only an eight-hour drive from Ulaanbaatar to Ulan-Ude, but the train took about twenty-five hours.

When it was time to get off the train, I was the only one getting off at Ulan-Ude. Everybody else was going to Irkutsk, which was another night's journey. But the train kept stopping as we approached Ulan-Ude. I was pretty sure that the provodnitsa would not tell me when the stop was, so each time it stopped, I would gather my stuff, hobble out to the end of the car, and get snapped at by the provodnitsa to "go back to my compartment, not yet!"  Of course, I would smile at the mean lady and sweetly say thank you in Russian. This repeated overt and over in what seemed like an interminable pattern, until we finally did actually arrive at the Ulan-Ude station. I got off, made a point to say thank you and goodbye to the provodnitsa while she coldly ignored me, and set off to find a taxi to take me to my hostel.