PENowiec&Sonya Louise Barham: Podróż Koleją Transsyberyjską

"I’ve been slicing through Siberia in a tin can for the last seven days and I’ve finally arrived in Beijing. It’s glorious. Living showerless in a ten square foot area, eating only ramen noodles and non-perishable food for a week really gets you amped up over vegetables, water on your head, and walking.

The majority of my fellow passengers on the first leg of the train trip were over fifty and into their seventies, many traveling alone for a month or more, just because they’re curious about what’s out there. I’m impressed. When I tell people about what I’m doing a common response is that they’d love to do it, but they’re too old. I wish they could meet the travelers I just met so that mythology could be shattered to bits. It’s just not true.

Although towards the end we were all antsy to escape the confines of the train, all in all, it’s a pretty relaxing experience; watching the landscape change, passing little villages full of crooked wooden houses with lacy curtains, reading books (Actually, I think I was the only person reading. Most others were watching movies on their laptops.), and trying to make yourself understood in conversation through a patchwork of words and phrases that you hope will spark the right association and simulate the word that’s missing as a result of the language barrier. Chitchat is kept at a pretty simplistic level because of this. No philosophy, nothing too weighty, and it’s almost impossible to crack a successful joke. It’s pretty much guaranteed to fall flat. The entire year I lived in Paris I said nothing funny in the eyes of the French. If you’re hoping for some kind of favorable response, you have to get comfortable laughing at your own jokes.

The Trans-Siberian Railway has Russian trains and Chinese trains. I was on a Chinese train, the décor minimal and the conductors surly. With the exception of Vladimir (Our Russian snack peddler who would aggressively troll the cars with a continuous smile, sporting only four teeth, all rotten, and not taking no for an answer, offering “Birra, juice, chips, water. You want?”) none of the staff spoke a word of English. My guess is they actually did understand a fair amount, but something I’ve realized is that if you say even a word or two in another language it invites a barrage of words that you have absolutely no understanding of. It’s almost better to just stick to sign language and small words in your own language, that maybe the other will understand. Which is exactly what everyone did, and we managed fairly easily that way.

I chose to stay away from the train food, because it costs a fortune. Instead Victoria took me shopping in Moscow and I stocked up on things that would last me through the trip; noodles, bread, black tea, chocolate, sausage, beer! I thought maybe the locals would be selling fruit and fresh stuff at the stops, but no such luck. I think it’s the off-season and not worth their time, our entire train was practically empty. The conductors were making us all jealous by cooking up delicious smelling stir-fry over the coal fires between cars.

The conductors were all around envy inspiring with their train-life-know-how. As passengers, we were all stinking and greasy haired, only having small “baths” with cold water on wash cloths, while they were all rosy cheeked and scrubbed. I accidentally walked in on one who had forgotten to lock the bathroom door. He had a hose attached to the faucet and was lathered up to the neck in the kind of bubbles you only ever see in body wash commercials. The man has talent. After seeing this I decided I could attempt to wash my hair. Having no hose of my own, I had to pour the frigid water over my head with my teacup. Not dignified, but effective.

If you ever decide to take this trip yourself, here’s one very important thing you should know; don’t fuck around when it comes to wandering around at the stops. On average they are scheduled to be about twenty-five minutes, but I think in reality they ended up being more like five. They don’t blow a whistle, no “all aboard” nothing, they just straight up get on the train and leave your ass if you’re not on it. I know this because it happened to one of the passengers. He was left standing on the platform, as the train was zooming by, no money, no phone, no passport. He had left it all on the train, along with his wife.

It was kind of a problem. Tanya and Paul, the couple, were Australian. No one working for the train spoke English, so between everyone and the bits and pieces of other languages they knew (Norwegians speaking English, Japanese speaking Chinese, Mongolians speaking Russian, Swiss speaking French, and no one speaking direct Russian to English or Chinese to English) we had to try to piece some sort of a plan together. The conductors didn’t have phones and claimed there was no phone number to the station where the Paul had been left. Oh snap. Eventually Tanya had to walk through all the cars knocking on cabin doors trying to find an English to Russian speaker. It worked and we managed to find out that they had put Paul on another train and Tanya had to get off in the night and wait for him to catch up. Drama.

Tanya sent a text later letting us know they found each other. They made it. I made it. We all made it! Below are some photos from the week on board. Many of them were taken through dirty windows, so they’re a bit foggy. At the end of the trip two boys from Switzerland got on carrying their own window washing kit with an extension rod to reach the windows outside from the platform. They scrubbed up their window, and mine too! Professional train travelers, for realz."

I’ve received a request for some photos of me, so here we go… This is my last day on the train. Be grateful this is not a scratch ‘n sniff.

Mongolian Dining Car. Olympus E-P1

Chinese Carriage, Olympus E-P1

Mongolia. Olympus E-P1

Chinese Border Station. Olympus E-P1

Changing of the wheels at the Mongolian / Chinese border. Olympus E-P1

A stop at the Mongolian border to change from Mongolian to Chinese gauge wheels for the train. Olympus E-P1

I have just landed in Beijing and it’s poppin’. I’m scrubbed and showered for the first time in seven days. Hallelujah. There’s a lot of weird stuff going on here, like crotchless pants for kids. It’s more “economical” my Swiss friend told me. We’ll talk more later. It’s about 21:00 and I’m ready for bed. Olympus E-P1