Today is the 5th day on the Trans-Siberian Express and the last day in Russia. We will leave Russia tonight and enter Mongolia. Though we realized that the cold thing in Russia is not only the weather but also some people's mind, how will Mongolia welcome us? We were looking forward to it already.
Incidentally, the time defference from Moscow was already five hours in this morning. Then I awoke 3a.m. today. It's very healthy life because it was 8 a.m. in the local time. Though I would be sick if I look my watch displaying in Moscow time. After inbound to Mongolia, the time difference from Japan is only an hour. So we could adjust our body clock reasonably. It seemed to be successful that we had shifted our life phase by an hour per day.
Well, the stops of today would be Irkutsk-Sort, Slyudyanka, Ulan-ude, Zagustai, Gusinoe-Ozero, Dzhida, Naushki and Suhe-Bator.
Lake Baikal
I could see Lake Baikal which is said the largest lake in the world because I had gotten up early. Though it looked like just snow field. The area is less than the Caspian and Aral sea but the largest in Asia, and the lake has the depth of 1743 m, the deepest in the world. Then the volume is the largest in the world. This is the place where there are the most volume of water in the world except the sea and the river. Though it was frozen.
In the past, it seems that people built tracks on the surface of the frozen lake to cross the lake in winter though people crossed by ferry in summer. According to Mr. K, accidents the train had broken through the ice had happened in spring.
The window of train was dirty despite the nice view...
Train window
Theare were a unvaried and peaceful scene in Siberia today.
But just after then, a freight train came.
The continental train was very long. It differed from Japanese freight train. I could see the train was longer than the brigde.
The train continued...
Continued...
Where is the tail of this train?
Finally, the whole train passed.
Ulan-ude
We arrived at Ulan-ude station after 8 o'clock, Moscow time. Our train No. 4 would leave the Trans-Siberian railway and leave for Mongolia. The same route as the "Rossija" for Vladivostok is up to here.
It was 8 o'clock, Moscow time. The temperature was -21 degrees C.
The next train was the train No.4 for Beijin departing at 8:33.
We went out of the station because we had time. It seemed a peaceful country town.
There were bears.
Disposal of bad assets
We went southward because we leave for Mongolia from Ulan-ude. There wasn't a difference in the view and climate so much even if we moved east and west. But there was a significant differences in the climate if we moved north and south. Is it because we moved from taiga climate area to the steppe climate area? The railway track was single track after Ulan-ude and seemed to change from a main line to a local line.
Though there were some snow, the vegetation seemed to be in the desert. So we realized that we were approaching Mongolia.
By the way, it became known that many Ruble remained even now. I had no choice because we had spent most of our time on the train and hardly used money. Normally, it's no problem that we go back to Japan with foreign currencies and exchange them in Japan. But here is Russia. It's not the same as advanced countries. Ruble can't be brought to out of Russia then we can't exchange it even if we bring it to Japan. Of course, it's the same in Mongolia and China. Furthermore, the view was risen suddenly that we couldn't exchange currencies in the border station. So Ruble would be just paper if we left Russia with Ruble. Though we would rather use all Ruble than have waste paper, what we could spent money was limited on the train. Going to the restaurant car to drink acid soup, buying vodka, buying korean noodle in kiosk of stations or... We tried but Ruble of about a few thousand yen remained. All we could do was to hope that we could exchange currencies in the border station.
Bye-bye, Russia
Finally, it was the time we leave Russia. We arrived at Naushki, the border station, after 13 o'clock, Moscow time. We had to stay here more than three hours, and the border control would ride on our train and perform passport control. During that time, we weren't permitted to get off the train. Then we couldn't exchange currencies. Our bad assets were fixed...
When I read a book for a while in my compartment, a lady of border control came and started passport control. It finished normally if I showed my passport and submitted an embarkation card because I was just a tourist......it was supporsed to do so. However, the lady asked me "No weapons or drugs?" for the formal question with no attempt. I thought that I had neither then the answer was "yes". So because I answered "Yes", the lady was surprised. Then I was also surprised.
I thought "Why?" and thought twice then I noticed it was the negative question.(In Japanese, the answer in this case is "Yes" if I have neither. If the question is "Do you have any weapons or drugs?", the answer is "No" the same as in English.) I said quickly "No. No!", then she laughed at me. I realized that the Japanese mistake the answer for the negative question naturally. Though I had learnt in my high school and thought I wouldn't mistake if I had learnt once, I mistook normally in real conversation. I had laughed at Mr. T mistaking it in Moscow and thought he had been foolish but I was more foolish because I mistook in such situation.
After we finished passport control in safety(?), the train departed on time. Finally, it was the time to cross border. This was my first time to cross border by train, so my heart was skipped a beat. There was a gate around the track in border, and people of border control lined up on both side of track and made a reverence to our train. I was touched.
I said goodbye to Russia I wanted to visit never.
Good evening, Mongolia
It took about an hour from Naushki. We arrived at Suhe-Bator, the border station in Mongolia. The train also stayed here for two hours for immigration. I adjusted my watch because I had moved to Mongolia from Russia. Then the time was changed from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m.. I thought time was lost...
The immigration officer in Mongolia was a friendly young man. He came and talked to me friendly in Japanese. "It's a new year now in Mongolia". "What are you doing in Japanese?". The immigration was only small talk... I wanted to ask "Is your work no problem?"... Incidentally, in Mr. K's room, he said "give me your juice" and went back. Mongolia is an unfathomed country...
The immigration control finished in peace(?), the train departed again. The date had been changed then we decided to go to bed immediately
It had already passed five days after taking the train. And we finiched trip for a week in Russia. If we are asked "How about Russia?", we would answer "a terrible country". But don't take it the wrong way. It's only we want to visit never, and we're grad to visit once. We enjoyed the trip and got meny memories. We may visit again if we live. I hope Russia will become a more peaceful country then.
