TRANS-MONGOLIAN RAILWAY — It is interesting how much of this train journey has been spent fully stopped, waiting on the changing of train parts, the exchange of documents, the stamping of passports, the searching of bags by multiple attendants and German shepherds. Every time my face is scrutinized for a proper match to my passport photo, I am drawn to the scrutinizer, wanting to follow them home. See what they have for dinner. See if they have families, or gambling problems, or gardens, or a love for Scottish romance novels. And of course, as a very serious border guard politely asks me for my documentation, I can't help but notice how attractive Russian men are. Particularly those who are particularly serious.
At every stop, a few stray dogs run to meet the carriage, sometimes joined by a cat or two. They are friendly and persistent gatherers of scraps and affection, greeting the passenger cars diligently. Which was both comforting and sad. For reasons unknown to me, during the long hours camped at border stations and other stops between Ulan Batar and Irkutsk, the majority of the train wandered off somewhere else. Very few people could be seen at any station, just the dogs mostly, and every time I stepped out, I saw we had shrunk to just the two passenger carriages. A middle, bereft of beginning or end, the lonely cars seemed much like this life — a bustle of living stuck between two great mysteries. Travelers milled about expressing confusion in various accents, examining the empty tracks to either side. That is either a brief summary for all human existence, or a sign that I have become hypnotized by train travel, and am unable to look beyond its more obvious metaphors. If I start making comments about how it's not the destination but the journey that counts, you should probably just stop reading, as I've likely lost all creative instinct.
The engine returns for us.
Eventually the rest of the train always comes back. Or perhaps they are different trains altogether. We walked into the dining car yesterday afternoon, expecting the white table cloths and simple decor of the Chinese style. Instead of plain walls and roses, however, we entered a car bedecked in ornate wood paneling and heavy gold trim. Golden ivy wound around the posts and doors. Golden buck, complete with golden antlers, peered out between the windows, and thick carpets covered each bench seat. The Mongolian style was ever so slightly more elaborate. It seems simple enough, yes, they just changed the dining car. But it was also unsettling. How very little control we have, when one's dining cars can simple vanish, then reappear with better accoutrements.
We shared a crepe with jam and a beef omelet. Then each had a bowl of dumplings in a savory beef broth. Capped by two cups each of sweet, creamy coffee, it was my favorite meal up to that point, if not a little odd in its combinations. Made even better because I still am not sure how much it cost. Around 25,000 Mongolian somethings. Which we paid for with 180 Chinese yuan. Which I think was somewhere around 30 dollars. But that was yesterday. Unfortunately, today at the Russian border, they took the dining car away entirely, and replaced it with a snack tray. Tonight for dinner we had Russian Cup-o-Noodles, mini-croissants, and chocolate.
Food seems to be a natural focus on slow train journeys. Or maybe just a natural focus for us. For example, Kristina has sung the praises of Starbucks today with Adeline and Lorelei, our cabin mates. I think, like me, she is wishing we thought to buy coffee to take with us, and is expressing this by trying to convince the good French women that they should download the Starbucks app. She assured them that once they get past a year of use they will really start to see some savings in their coffee budget. The girls already enjoy the occasional Starbucks drink, one being quite enamored by the Starbucks latte, but are skeptical about the Starbucks app. They feel similarly about the yoga app, which Kristina also recommends. I have spent most of this conversation, and the day actually, curled in my upper bunk around a stomach cramp, watching small Russian villages go by.
The houses, initially mostly stone, are now timber, with brightly colored doors and roofs. Low fences ring the neat rows of vegetable gardens, and occasionally, when we stop, I can hear a cow or two. During all of these stops for removal of train cars and checking of documents, for listening to cows and watching small dogs, the on board restrooms are locked. I assume this is related to the open holes under the toilets, emptying their contents onto the tracks when underway. Many stations have a bathroom inside for waiting passengers to use, carefully guarded by a serious woman behind a desk. A person in need of relief must hand her the equivalent of a quarter or two, for which she slaps down about six squares of toilet paper and waves you in. Half the time — as was the case in China as well — the bathroom stalls have toilets set into the floor, so one must squat carefully over them.
On my mental list of future traveling preparations I have added: always carry toilet paper and chocolate, practice squats.
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