My recent ride on the overnight train to Moldova prompted me to revisit my longest and favourite train trip in 2019. From frozen wilderness to desolate desert including; 8 nights on trains and overnight stops at Lake Baikal, Ulaanbaatar and a night in with a Mongolian nomadic family in a Ger (Mongolian yurt). It could only be the Trans-Siberian Railway.

5,772 miles from Moscow to Vladivostok, the trains snake through taiga forest, frozen rivers, Siberian tundra, and windswept steppe. It’s the longest railway in the world bucket list trip!

My 16-Day Trans-Siberian & Trans-Mongolian Itinerary

Instead of the “traditional” trans-Siberian route all the way to Vladivostok, my 4735mile trip branched off at Ulan Ude, heading south on the trans-Mongolian branch through Mongolia’s vast landscapes ending in Beijing. With more time, I would have added a ferry to Japan via South Korea. Mad or Nomad has an incredibly detailed blog on this trip. It’s also on my bucket list!

I made a last minute decision to travel to St Petersburg before meeting up with my friend Stacey in Moscow. I could have taken a more direct route from the UK but had already booked (non-refundable flights) to Moscow. So I flew Edinburgh to Brussels, Brussels to Moscow and then took a Russian-Ryanair S7 flight* to St Petersburg

*(budget airline with free sandwiches for an hour flight!)

Day 1 – St Petersburg: The Venice of the North

With just 24 hours in St Petersburg, I squeezed in as much as possible — from pastel palaces and onion-domed churches to the intricate canals that earned the city its nickname. This quick stop before the main trip set the tone for the adventure ahead. I was so lucky to be picked up from the airport by Vlad, my Uber driver. In the short time from the airport to the hotel, Vlad told me about his and his parents views on soviet times and his views on Russian politics, best and worst food spots for food in St Petersburg and how “warm” it was for the time of year.

I only had 24 hours in St Petersburg so spent the day wandering taking photos and soaking up the breathtaking architecture. Here’s why they call St P’s the Venice of the North…

Day 2-4 – Moscow

The next day, I was back on another plane heading for Moscow.

Landing at Moscow Domodedovo Airport, I scrambled on to the express train towards the city centre. With no Google Maps for navigation, I managed to get lost at a metro interchange station much to the amusement from the railway staff and commuters. Eventually through a lot of pointing, smiling and sheer luck, I stumbled across the Hotel Vega, a curious blend of Ikea colour pallet and Las Vegas budget hotel where Stacey was waiting with a bottle of prosecco.

There was just time for some hugs and to guzzle a bottle of prosecco before we headed off to meet the rest of our group (kinda tipsy) and enjoy our Russian dinner.

The next two days we rushed around Moscow trying to take in as much of the city as we could manage…here’s Moscow in a nutshell…

Day 5-8. Life Aboard the Trans-Siberian Railway

On the stroke of midnight, we hopped aboard ‘train 100’ towards Vladivostok. Stacey and I lucked out, acquiring two lovely Canadians, Monica and Tony (cribbage sharks) to share our second class ‘Kupe’ with. This rather joyful quadruple spent the next 4 days and nights staring at endless trees interspersed with grape therapy* in the evenings.

*Grape Therapy – drinking copious amounts of cheap Russian wine and setting the world to rights into the wee small hours of the morning.

4 days passed surprisingly quickly on the train, any stops were an hour or less, giving us time to rush off the train, stretch our legs and replenish our clandestine wine supply. Or shower if that kind of thing bothers you ….

I had read about the fierce Provodnitsas (train attendants) who kept their assigned carriages running smoothly. They absolutely rule their train roost and you are left in no doubt who’s in charge. They take enormous pride in ensuring that everything is spotless and running smoothly. They kept the hot water urns topped up so a bowl of instant mash to soak up the wine and vodka was on tap any hour of day or night.

A visit to the onboard dining car broke up our days. Plain pasta with butter for breakfast and beers and vodka for lunch. The dining car waiter didn’t allow nursing drinks when the table could be occupied by heavier drinkers so after a while we were shooed away to make space for some more lucrative customers.

Day 9-11. Lake Baikal

Our jumping off point was Irkusk where we boarded a bus and headed straight for the shores of Lake Baikal – the deepest freshwater lake in the world.

That afternoon we arrived at the Ger camp with traditional nomadic tribes-people being our hosts for the night. I don’t think I’ll forget the experience of sitting in a cosy Ger tent, drinking fermented horses milk (local traditional alcoholic drink).

The next day, our limited time in lake Baikal meant no down time. We squeezed in a visit to the local museum followed by a quick lunch at the local food market to sample some delicious smoked fish (omul and oil fish) fresh from the lake.

I had planned a swim in the lake but as it was still frozen, I decided against showing off my Scottish anti-freeze blood and blue-white legs and opted instead for a hydrofoil across the lake to where the Baikal to Amur railway snakes past the shore. To be clear, this train only runs in summer – I’m not advocating taking pictures on random train tracks!

Back on dry land, we headed off up a VERY steep hill in VERY bright sunshine to find a VERY big sundial and snap some dramatic pictures across the lake.

Final order of business for the day was to experience a Russian Banya. Similar to a Sauna but waaay more sweaty. Stacey volunteered to be beaten with hot birch twigs by our convivial host, Aleksandr, while we looked on in sweaty interest. (Sounds rather kinky but I assure you it really wasn’t!!)

 

Day 12-16. Trans Mongolian railway and Mongolia

It was yet another very early start to board our next train at Irkusk which was to take us across the border from Russia to Mongolia and onto the capital city of Mongolia Ulaanbaatar.

The border crossing was uneventful and involved us lounging in our bunks until some friendly Mongolians in uniform smiling and glancing at our passports and asking us to open our bags which they glanced at, nodded and moved on.

The landscape began to change from permafrost to endless yellow dust, our short stops off the train became warm dusty and the people we passed by looked less Russian and more Mongolian. This is one of the reasons I enjoy travelling overland -seeing how different groups of people have traded, fought and settled together over the centuries.

I found the Mongolian train the least comfortable. For some reason the pillow was stuffed with what felt like dry pasta and sand (?!) and I don’t think I slept a wink on this uncomfortable night. But it wasn’t all bad, the instant mashed potato was going down a treat!

Eventually the cold grey of dawn signaled we were arriving in to the Mongolian capital – Ulaanbaatar, Now I have to confess my first impressions of the city weren’t great. It was snowing! The station was dirty from all the coal powered trains and our drive through the outskirts showed off ex-soviet, run down buildings and lots and lots of traffic.

However by the time we had breakfast the snow had disappeared and the sun was out in a crystal clear blue sky. Spirits lifting and full of breakfast (chicken nugget anyone?) and we were off to explore.

The city centre has been modernised and shiny tower blocks have gone up everywhere. We headed through the Ger suburbs and up to the Gandantegchinlen Monastery in the hope of catching a glimpse of the monks doing their morning chanting and lessons. The bright colours, warm smiles and waft of incense and the lulling chanting of the monks make for such an enriching feeling and I couldn’t stop smiling as we went from building to building, twirling the prayer wheels as I went.

Bloody Hell, this is turning in to a really long blog post! Other highlights of Ulaanbaatar I ticked off included:

• a visit to the dinosaur museum to see T-Rex’s cousin (T-Baatar)
• A quick pit stop at the State Shopping Centre (I broke YET ANOTHER pair of sunglasses!)
• Some shots of the random Beatles monument – just because
• A free coffee and some impulsive purchase of Mongolian cashmere in The Wool Shop
• Oh and the adrenaline thrill of risking life and limb every time I crossed the road – the traffic in the city is REALLY bad!
• An absolutely gi-normous helping of local dinner – dumplings, meats, vegetables served on a charger (serves one to two apparently but would have fed a football team!)
• Climbing up to the Zaisan Monument – a crumbling relic celebrating Soviet life (with dramatic views across the city and beyond)
• Nearly breaking my ankle on a dodgy pavement!

The next day we headed out in to the desert in search of the massive statue of Genghis Khan. This behemoth statue has the accolade of being the largest equestrian statue in the world (!) and oh my goodness it’s big!

Next we were off deeper in to rural Mongolia to stay with a Ger family. On arrival, we were shown our comfy beds and after a hearty dinner of meat soup washed down with airag (fermented horse milk) I fell soundly asleep.

Ulaanbaatar to Beijing

The final 30 hour train journey would take us to Beijing. All the exciting blogs I’d read about sitting on the train whilst they changed the carriages on to different wheels are now out of date. Instead, we were offloaded with all our luggage to an airport style border crossing and had to hang around inside the train station for 5 hours whilst they changed the wheels in an area off limits to the prying eyes of the passengers.

Beijing provided quite the juxtaposition from the quiet life of the Gers in the Gobi desert. Skyscrapers, bright lights and noise abound.

Another early start delivered us to The Great Wall of China as the sun rose and, just for a moment or two I had The Wall all to myself.

…Unfortunately I acquired a rather unpleasant souvenir from the Great Wall from a Subway sandwich – horrendous food poisoning.

This started to rear its head as I was ambling around the Summer Palace and continued its unwelcome, frequent and explosive appearances for the next 3 days.

As the adventure came to an end and I headed home, I was terrified that the Chinese border sanitary controllers would catch my furnace-temperature, uncontrollable shakes and clammy sweats and ban me from travel.

Of course this had to be the time that my return home became 30 hours in transit. Touching down at Moscow Domodedovo airport, we were greeted at the transfer area by a wall of Russian staff shouting flight numbers telling us to wait as flights delayed, problem with aircraft. Minutes before our touchdown, a plane had overshot the runway burst into flames Completely the opposite of the days of calm spent aboard the trains in my comfy bunk. And when I eventually arrived back in Scotland, my car had decided to reward me with a flat tyre.

Inspired? Read on for my tips on Trans Mongolian Adventuring…

1. Top of my packing list was a hot water bottle but the trains were furnace-temperature so next time I’d pack a fan and flipflops. Oh and a toilet roll!
2. Packing enough Siberian-suitable clothing into my small backpack and keeping it to 10kg was a challenge – my instant mashed potato weighed half a kilo alone!
3. Restaurant cars vary in price! So you don’t necessarily have to take a huge tin of mashed potato or a giant wad of cash. My first train – the Russian train to Vladivostok had a very very reasonably priced restaurant carriage serving everything from small snacks and salads to full-size meals and soups.
4. Be inventive with your picnic! If you read a lot of tans-Siberian rail blogs, people will tell you that you that instant noodles are your only culinary friend…this doesn’t have to be the case! There are plenty of opportunities to stock up along the way and you can bring fruit, instant mash, instant rice, cup soup, tea, coffee, biscuits, nuts, salami, cheese and cake will all survive in your cabin. If you’re feeling particularly like it you could take tinned meat/fish (be minful of the smell!) bread and crackers. Oh, and copious amounts of cheap Russian red wine is a great alternative to vodka.
5. Digital Detox – In 2019, there was no WiFi on the trains and I didn’t bother with local sim cards so it was a delightful two whole weeks of minimal contact to the outside world and digital detox – just chatting, playing cards, drinking awful Russian wine and watching the world go by.
6. There is no common space so choose your travel companions wisely! The attendant of the restaurant car will not tolerate you sitting in there nursing a drink for too long so either be prepared to drink a lot (!) or spend most of your time standing in a corridor or sitting in your cabin.
7. Personally I preferred the privacy that the top bunk affords. People who stick their heads in the door could only see my toes most of the time allowing me to sleep, read, write or crochet. Personal space is at a premium on these trains!
8. Toilets on board the trains vary from train to train, some are still long drop and some are modern vacuum toilets but they are all very clean.
9. There are no showers on board so I’d recommend a flannel and a small bowl that you can fill with hot water to have a ‘pits n bits’ wash.
10. Even in remote areas of Siberia and small stops along the trans Siberian railway and Lake Baikal pretty much everywhere accepted Visa and Mastercard cards even for small transactions of under £1* .The train restaurant car does have a card machine but it doesn’t always work until you come into station so bring some cash if you want to use the restaurant car. *This may be different with current geopolitics and sanctions…
11. (politics aside please!) Russian people can come across as pretty formal but that doesn’t mean their hearts are any less warm and friendly. Our train attendant came across as initially stern however she was an absolute angel and the first night I was struggling to get the tap to work in the toilet she came and showed me with a slight roll of her eyes and smile and nod.
12. In Ulaanbaatar, watch out for the crazy drivers and make sure you climb up to the Zaisan Monument to get a great view of the city.
13. The Great wall of China – go at sunrise because the wall gets busy extremely quickly. Oh and another thing…. do NOT eat at Subway at the Great Wall as I’m pretty sure this was where I picked up my food poisoning!
14. Don’t forget your sun cream! just because you’re heading to Siberia doesn’t mean you won’t get sunburnt – I applied factor 50 every day and still came back with a lot more freckles.
15. Be prepared for a lot of sleep deprivation. The trains can be too hot, noisy or you can end up with a pillow that feels like it’s stuffed with dried pasta, sand or rocks! The way our itinerary ran involved early starts nearly every day. I survived on around 3 to 4 hours of sleep per night.
16. Plan carefully or get someone to do it for you! Don’t let logistics put you off having an adventure – we travelled with G Adventures on their Trans Mongolian Express trip and it was the perfect mix of guided/self-guided for us.