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THE BORDER BETWEEN ASIA AND EUROPE — Today is our last full day on the train — hurrah! — and since I’ve already told you about what we do and what we eat onboard, I thought today I’d tackle the question of what the digs are like. For all of our train rides within Russia, [...]
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SIBERIA — As you cross time zones and borders on the Trans-Mongolian, the days blur together and it is easy to forget where you are, exactly. One way to remind yourself is to visit the dining car, which changes at every border. You eat in a Chinese dining car while in China, a Mongolian car [...]
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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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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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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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The Trans-Siberian Railway has been on my “bucket list” before I knew what one was. I first remember hearing about it when I was 8 or 9. Later, I fell in love with Russian literature and became even more determined to see the country. In three weeks, it’s finally going to happen. Getting to this point [...]
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Travel stories and advice from an independent traveler and expat in China. Full bio
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