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SIBERIA — The name Siberia evokes bleakness. It was where criminals were sent into exile, a place inextricably associated with freezing temperatures and endless snowy tundra. But as we crossed Siberia on this train ride — the longest of the trip at 54 hours — nothing we saw matched that stereotype. The landscape alternated between [...]
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LAKE BAIKAL — Thanks to yesterday’s rainy weather, we postponed our trip to Baikal until our final day in Irkutsk. This was a great decision — just look at the blue sky! But it meant that we had a little less time there than we had originally planned, since we had to be back in [...]
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Disclosure: The following story is not representative of our experience in Russia so far. Almost everyone we’ve met has been very helpful — and very accommodating of our inability to speak Russian. Today was nearly uneventful: Morning rain led us to defer our trip to Lake Baikal till tomorrow, so we spent another day wandering [...]
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IRKUTSK — “Quaint” is not the first word I expected to use to describe the former Soviet Union. I imagined blocky concrete buildings and lots of grey. So Irkutsk was a charming surprise. There are plenty of modern buildings, but every block seems to have at least one wooden house that’s been hanging around since [...]
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THE MONGOLIA-RUSSIA BORDER — In case you were wondering what it is we do all day on the Trans-Mongolian, here’s a snapshot of our second train leg, which took us from Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, to Irkutsk, Russia. 9 p.m. Board train in Ulaanbaatar So far, all of our trains have been remarkably on-time. Train 263 from [...]
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ULAANBAATAR — When we walked into the Gandan Khiid monastery this morning, I immediately felt I was somewhere familiar. The gold-painted prayer wheels, the square, white central building and the many colorful stupas all reminded me of Tibetan monasteries I have visited in western China. L: Gandan Khiid, Ulaanbaatar; R: Ganden Sumtseling Gompa, Shangri-La It [...]
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TERELJ, Mongolia — There were two things I wanted to do when we were in Mongolia: ride a horse across the grasslands, and sleep in a yurt. We weren’t going to be able to do those things in Ulaanbaatar, so for one of our three days in Mongolia, we headed out to Gorkhi-Terelj National Park, [...]
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ULAANBAATAR — We got into Ulaanbaatar at 1:30 this afternoon, a mere 30 hours after boarding train K23 at Beijing Railway Station yesterday morning. Since we’ve only had a few hours to explore the city and change our renminbi for togrogs, the delightfully-named Mongolian currency, I thought I’d share a few photos from the train [...]
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INNER MONGOLIA (CHINA) — After 12 hours on the train, we’ re still less than halfway to Ulaanbaatar. To be honest, not much has happened so far — we won’t even cross the border until midnight. In between reading, napping, and gazing out the window, I’ve had plenty of time to think about why I [...]
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I’m writing this from a hotel room in Beijing, where I’ve come to catch a train to Ulaanbaatar, the capital of Mongolia. This will be the first leg of my trip on the Trans-Mongolian Railway. As with the Trans-Siberian, there’s no single Trans-Mongolian train; the term simply refers to the route between Moscow and Beijing [...]
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Travel stories and advice from an independent traveler and expat in China. Full bio
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