Seat 2A

DAY 2
March 22nd, 2017

Despite such a less than ideal bed, I slept surprisingly well. I must’ve knocked off about seven hours, more than enough to leave me energized and ready to take on the day. As with every day at home, the first thing I do is open the window. On the train car this means raising the blind as the window itself doesn’t open.

It was a spectacularly sunny morning and the sunshine highlighted beautifully the snowy landscape we were traveling through. Although the land was mostly flat with the occasional low rise, it was also nicely forested with a collection of white birch, spruce and some other type of coniferous tree. In this regard it was not much different from my home scenery back in Alaska except for the lack of mountains. Between the sunlight dancing off the sparkling white snow and creating pretty shadows amongst the trees, I thought it looked downright bucolic. Although I didn’t know it at the time, this type of forested landscape would comprise the bulk of the scenery over the next three days.



Day 2 scenery


Day 2 scenery


Day 2 scenery


For some people this would be a problem. Over three days of it and they would get bored with this type of scenery. To be sure, it’s not the type of scenery that’ll leave you glued to your window oohing and ahhing as it passes by. Then again, there is a kind of quiet and reliable beauty to it that – as a continuous backdrop – I found rather pleasing. The fact that this entire trip was made under sunny skies only contributed to making this landscape that much more enjoyable. Just as kind eyes and a friendly smile can make even an otherwise plain looking person look beautiful, so it is for me with this landscape. Those who require the constant drama of ever changing landscapes with mountains and rivers and valleys and whatever else tickles their fancy would need to either readjust their values in this regard or travel somewhere else.

So here it is a beautiful morning outside - What’s next on the agenda?

Coffee!

Prior to the trip I’d purchased a bag of instant coffee, a jar of powdered creamer and a bag of sugar. These I redistributed into zip-loc baggies that I carry along for just such purposes. I’d also purchased a few packets of instant soup and a cheap cup while saving a couple of sturdy plastic spoons from a fast food restaurant. At this point, all I really needed was hot water.

One of the nicer features of these Trans-Siberian trains is the addition of a samovar at one end of each car. A samovar is essentially a large urn and aboard the Trans-Siberians, a seemingly never ending supply of boiling hot water is always available. The First Class rooms are also equipped with thermoses that’ll keep water pretty darned hot for six or seven hours. If it’s no longer hot enough, just dump it out and refill it at the samovar.



Onboard Samovar available on all cars


Soon I was sipping good, hot coffee while munching tasty Russian cream biscuits. Not exactly the breakfast of champions but a tasty start to the day nonetheless.

So then, including today we’ve got five whole days to spend on this train, riding through the Russian taiga as we make our way across Siberia. What is there to do along the way?

The answer to this question depends a lot upon the individual traveler. Speaking for myself as a solo traveler, I’m perfectly content to spend my time reading, listening to music, working on this trip report, checking out the scenery now and then, taking the occasional foray around the train and occasionally visiting the dining car. Along the way the train makes stops at a variety of towns and cities and at each of those stops is an opportunity to get off, enjoy some fresh air and stretch a bit. Trackside merchants that sell mostly snack foods and souvenirs will meet the train at some of the larger stations.

Those of you who’ve read my past reports covering travel aboard Amtrak will know that for me one of the most enjoyable aspects of train travel is the chance to meet and interact with your fellow passengers either at meal times or in the lounge car. Unfortunately neither of those opportunities presented themselves in abundance on this trip because for 1.) there were very few people riding this train and 2.) even fewer English speaking passengers. I did meet a couple but more on them later.

The point I’m trying to make here is that when it came to entertainment on this train, for the most part I was on my own. The diner was sparsely populated at the best of times and there was no commons area such as a lounge. For some people, especially those travelling alone, this could become a real problem. The lack of social interaction, of someone to “share the experience” with, would just drive them crazy.

People like this have two choices: Travel with others or book a shared sleeper and hope for the best.

Now shared sleepers – there’s a whole different experience in its own right. On some Russian trains there are cars called Platzkarts that are essentially rolling dormitories. They consist of row upon row of two-tiered bunks with perhaps 40-50 people sharing a single car. In these situations you get to know your neighbors pretty well – even if you don’t speak the same language. The forced intimacy of proximity forces you to get to know and/or deal with your fellow travelers. On a positive side, many people spend the trip chatting, playing cards, eating, drinking or just taking a moment to enjoy the landscape once in a while. It’s a shared experience. On the other hand, some people drink too much, talk too loud, play their radios or video games without headphones, snore loudly while they sleep or fail to practice good personal hygiene. Again, it’s a shared experience – for better or worse.


Although there were no platzkart cars on this train, here is a link to a photo of one:

http://travel.davidmbyrne.com/wp-con...age-Russia.jpg

When I was younger, the platzkart cars are where you would have found me. Back then I didn’t have enough money to travel otherwise and even if I did, my mindset at the time would never have allowed me to spend the extra money on nicer accommodations. Years of stretching a meager $1-5.00 per week allowance had inculcated in me a real appreciation for the value of a dollar and a real talent for budgeting my expenses. Additionally, I was a lot more tolerant to the vagaries of the human condition. Honestly, when you travel in this fashion you really don’t have a choice. You just learn to deal with it and ultimately in my experience nothing most people ever did for better or worse was all that big of a deal.

These days I’m a little different. I have a much greater appreciation for peace and quiet and uncrowded, uncluttered situations – even when I’m not traveling. Whereas back in my younger days I was so excited to simply be going anywhere that I would have been happy to ride in the back of a wagon with ten other people, these days, with 6 million miles of travel under my belt and a lifetime of varied travel experiences – for better or worse – my tastes have become a bit more discerning. Then again, perhaps they’ve become a lot more discerning. These days, I wouldn’t have ridden on this train if I couldn’t have booked the Deluxe First Class accommodations that I currently hold. Though it’s been quite a few years since I last bunked down in a hostel, I still exercise restraint when booking overnight accommodations. On this trip however, I’m staying in some of the nicest places I’ve ever stayed in – at least amongst those that I’ve personally paid for.

As for the social interaction, I enjoy and appreciate its value to a quality travel experience every bit as much as the next person but – failing an abundance of that as experienced aboard this train – I am very well prepared for and suited to a temporary life of quiet solitude if need be. As I mentioned earlier, I’ve got books to read, music to enjoy, a trip report to work on and 4,700 miles of never before seen scenery to enjoy. Life is good.

The scenery is a big one for me. From the time I was young, I’ve always been fond of the different landscapes seen around the state, the country, the planet. When I was a kid I used to collect Colorado postcards – just for the scenery. I was always fascinated with the west and southwest, starting with the Rampart Range out my window to the southwest and extending into the deserts of the American Southwest and beyond across the Pacific to places like Tahiti, Fiji, Australia and New Zealand. Have a look at my International Routes Flown map and you’ll see I’ve covered the Pacific Rim countries more thoroughly than most.



International Routes Flown


So getting back to life onboard this train for the next five days, I guess I’m saying I’m psychologically about as well suited as you can be for a solo traveler. Whereas some people might be groaning about now “Five. More. Dayyyyyyyyyyyys”, I’m looking at it as five more days! Right on!

As I mentioned earlier, I was the only passenger in car 10, so a little later in the morning I decided to take a stroll to the next car up – also a Deluxe Soft Sleeper – to see if there were any fellow fat cats up there. I was dressed in my flannel lounge pants and a Denver Broncos t-shirt, a bit casual by some standards but hey, it’s 2017 and we’re on a six-day train ride.

As I rounded the corner into the long straight hallway, I heard English being spoken with a decided rural American accent. Then I heard a British inflected reply. Say hello to Steve and Wendy from Mexico by way of Missouri and Andy from England. As fate would have it they were assigned adjoining rooms in car number 9 even though they had never met before and were the only persons traveling in that car.

The hallways of the sleeper cars are outfitted with these neat little single seats that fold down out of the wall and as such make the hallways convivial places to get together. We chatted for a bit about their travels and mine – we all boarded in Moscow, Steve and Wendy were detraining in Irkutsk and Andy was going all the way through to Beijing. Everybody was a bit taken aback at my roundabout routing to Fiji but all agreed – if only diplomatically so – that it sounded like a great trip.

One thing I noticed was breakfast plates on the table in Steve and Wendy’s room, whereupon I discovered that room service was available on this train. Apparently they never even had to ask in advance; the lady simply stopped by earlier this morning and took their orders. Well dang! I wonder why she didn’t stop by my room? Maybe she didn’t know I was there.

After a bit we bid our adieus with every expectation that over the next four days our paths would cross again. I headed back to my room and, with plenty of time on my hands, did what any responsible FlyerTalk trip reporter should do: I put in some work on this report!

It was about 1:00pm when I decided to head back to the dining car for a bite to eat. Upon arrival the same waitress from the night before greeted me and handed me a menu. Only I and one other man were having lunch at the time.



Russian Dining Car Ambiance


Russian Dining Car Ambiance


Russian Dining Car Ambiance


Perusing the menu, I knew this time to avoid sandwiches. When the waitress returned to take my order, I said a small prayer and pointed to an item titled as a Sicilian Schnitzel. Hallelujah! She concurred enthusiastically! We both spoke the same language when she asked if I wanted bread and coffee. Yes to both, please.

When my meal was delivered, I couldn’t have been more pleased with the presentation or the flavor. A nicely pounded out fillet of veal had been smothered in mushrooms, onions, tomato sauce, sour cream and melted cheese, then accompanied by deliciously fried and seasoned potatoes with freshly sliced cucumbers and tomatoes. The chef had even taken a moment to apply a little artistry in the form of a paprika garnish around the edges of the plate. Best of all, it tasted every bit as good as it looked. Nicely done, chef!



Sicilian Schnitzel


The veal was good enough that I decided to splurge and have some dessert. I ordered something called “Peaches and Snow” with a refill on my coffee. Alas, this was a bit of a disappointment as it consisted of a serving of canned cling peaches dusted with powdered sugar. They took me for the equivalent of $4.50 on that one.



Peaches and Snow


In fact, they took me for a little more than that. Over the course of the meal, I’d requested some butter for my bread and some milk for my coffee. Those two items were reflected on my check bringing the total for this meal to $19.00 USD. I resolved to live and learn from the experience.

While I was in the dining car, I had an interesting encounter with the other diner – an older man who was having trouble making his needs understood to the waitress. Like me, he didn’t speak Russian and so the waitress looked to me to see if I could be of any help.

“Do you speak English?” I asked.
“No” he replied.
“Habla Español?” I asked in the more formal third person.
“¡Sí, Sí!” he responded excitedly. Spanish was not his first language but at least we were able to then understand each other. In all the excitement I forgot to ask him where he was from but if I had to guess, the French sounding inflections in his speech might have suggested somewhere in the Pyrenees region – possibly even Andorra.

From then on it was smooth sailing as we determined that he was interested in room service, which I was able to convey to the waitress by making eating motions and then pointing to the sleeper cars behind me.

And what the heck – since it’s available, I’d like to order in too, please. An attractive younger waitress named Irina was summoned who took both of our orders and then, since we were unable to convey our car and room numbers to her, she followed us all the way back to our respective rooms so she’d know where to deliver the food. That’s nice service. For the rest of the trip – or at least the portion with a Russian dining car – she came back to our rooms in advance of each meal to take our orders. This was really appreciated because the Russian dining car was not a very exciting or pleasant place to spend time in.

Every day we’d stop in at least one or two big cities. Most of the stops were about 15-20 minutes long, more than enough time to step off, stretch your legs and catch a little fresh air. Some of these cities like Novosibirsk were quite large with modern city centers and populations exceeding one million people. Depending upon the time of day, some – but not all of the stops - had manned kiosks selling various foods and trinkets. I get the sense that you’d see a lot more of this if you rode the train during the busier summer months.



Station at Glazov


End of day 2



DAY 3
March 23rd, 2017

One of the things that make a long train ride like this more bearable for me than most is that I’ve essentially lived onboard trains for long periods of time before. Back in the early 1980s, Amtrak used to sell what it called an All-Aboard America Pass. The national route system was divided into three zones and you could purchase a pass through one, two or all three zones. Each pass would allow you to visit any three destinations within the chosen zone(s). You were allowed to backtrack once (exception for returning to your start point at the end of the trip), and you had up to a month to complete your travels. A one zone pass cost just $125.00. A two zone pass cost $225.00. I used to buy a pass or two and just move onboard the train for a couple of weeks – kind of like a well to do hobo. The destination wasn’t nearly so important as the ride itself.

As an example, back in autumn of 1984 I purchased back to back rail passes – one for the western zone, the other for the central and eastern zones. Again, the idea was to see as much of the country as I could while also maximizing my time on the rails. This I achieved by picking three destinations that were as far from each other by rail as I could. Over the next five weeks I logged 22000 miles aboard 27 separate trains.



Amtrak’s National Map – Three Zones


For those of you wondering how the math works out here, let’s consider just the western zone portion of that trip. Starting from Denver, my three destinations were - in order - Havre, Montana; Deming, New Mexico and Las Vegas, New Mexico. As you can see from the map above, there are no trains from Denver directly to Montana, nor from Montana to New Mexico, etc. The itinerary worked out like this:

DAY 1: Depart Denver, Colorado on the California Zephyr
DAY 2: Arrive Oakland, California at 5:00pm. Connect to the northbound Coast Starlight at 10:00pm
DAY 3: Arrive Portland, Oregon at 1:50pm. Connect to the eastbound Empire Builder at 4:00pm
DAY 4: Arrive Havre, Montana at 12:00n. Connect to the westbound Empire Builder at 3:00pm
DAY 5: Arrive Portland, Oregon at 10:00am. Connect to the southbound Pioneer at 11:30am
DAY 6: Arrive Salt Lake City at 5:00am. Connect to the southbound Desert Wind at 11:30pm
DAY 7: Arrive Los Angeles at 2:00pm. Connect to the eastbound Sunset Limited at 10:00pm
DAY 8: Arrive Deming, New Mexico at 12:00n. Connect to the westbound Sunset Limited at 3:00pm
DAY 9: Arrive Los Angeles, California at 7:00am. Connect to the eastbound Southwest Chief at 6:30p
DAY 10: Arrive Las Vegas, New Mexico at 1:00pm. Connect to the westbound Southwest Chief at 3:00p
DAY 11: Arrive Los Angeles, California at 7:00am. Connect to the eastbound Desert Wind at 12:00n.
DAY 12: Arrive Denver, Colorado at 7:30pm

I didn’t get off to visit in any of those cities. That would’ve cost money that could better be used to purchase food onboard the trains. This was all about riding trains and nothing else. I spent twelve straight days and eleven nights aboard trains covering over 10000 miles on 11 separate trains. And that was just the western zone. Following a five day break back home in Colorado, I commenced an even longer journey where I spent fifteen days and fourteen straight nights aboard a collection of 12 separate trains covering another 12000+ miles.

And here’s the kicker: All of that travel was done in Economy Class or “Coach” as we call it in America. I spent each night curled up on a pair of coach railroad seats.

And for those of you squeaky clean types who can’t imagine traveling without your daily shower and change of pristine underwear, it’s still possible to keep relatively clean under such circumstances. I’m a pro at sponge bathing and washing my hair over a sink if need be. But no, I did not change underwear daily. A couple of layovers were long enough to allow me to get to a coin laundry and in Salt Lake I caught a city transit bus out to a truck stop where I got an actual shower! More to the point – I had a great time! When I stepped off that last train at Albuquerque, New Mexico, the only thing keeping me from doing it all over again was the perception that it wouldn’t be fiscally responsible to do so.

So instead, when I arrived home to find in my mail a challenge from United Airlines’ Mileage Plus to participate in a promotion called the 50 State Marathon, I had to reassess my fiscal responsibilities. After all, a deal like this had never before been offered by a major airline and – to the best of my knowledge – never has since.

To wit: United, in an effort to promote the fact that it was the first airline ever to fly its own mainline jets into each of the 50 states, made the following offer to its Mileage Plus members: If you can fly into or out of each of the 50 states in a set 50 day period, United will award you with a pass good for an entire year of unlimited free First Class air travel anywhere within the 50 United States.

Are you kiddin’ me?!! Free First Class around the U.S. for an entire year?! Even to Alaska and Hawaii?! No way could I pass that up. I immediately set to work putting together this amazing itinerary involving short interstate segments on United combined with a one month Greyhound bus pass to connect me between various cities where needed. Additionally, I utilized the then generous routing rules to put together a great multi-connection New York to Honolulu round trip with a side trip to Alaska. All told that challenge involved 52 flights covering 32,570 miles and another 3200 miles of bus travel. I paid out just under $3500.00 for the airline tickets and bus pass and, upon receiving the pass at a special awards dinner at the O’Hare Westin, proceeded to then fly an additional 532,800 miles over the next twelve months. According to Lynn Swann – the manager of the Mileage Plus program at the time – I had set the all-time record for the most miles ever logged aboard United Airlines within a one year period. By far.

But I digress. Then again, I’ve got plenty of time. Honestly, it’s downright mind-boggling to consider just how long of a train trip this is. Most of the world’s longer train journeys would have already ended by now or would be arriving later today. Not so here on the Trans-Mongolian. When I woke up this morning, we had traveled a little more than 1400 miles from Moscow. We still have another three thousand, three hundred miles to go! That translates to all of today followed by three more full days and one half day before we finally pull into Beijing Railway Station on the 27th.

So then, as we roll along through the vast Siberian taiga here on the third day of this trip, it’s oh so easy for the mind to wander off on diverse tangents. I’ve got plenty of time though, so on with the digression!

First though, it’s time for breakfast. Irina has arrived with a tray bearing a cheese omelet, brown bread and coffee. Although she speaks not a word of English, she has a pretty smile and a friendly disposition. Between pointing at the menu and employing the occasional hand gesture, I’ve managed to do a fair job of conveying what I’d like to eat. Unfortunately, I haven’t yet been able to figure out a way to get across the concept of “toasted bread”. Until I do, it’s plain brown bread for me.



Day three Cheese Omelet


I might add that although the bread you see in the photograph may look like a slice of soft wheat bread, it is actually fairly dense. I think from now on I’ll just have one piece. That’ll also come with a cost benefit as bread is billed by the slice.

As I’m sure you must know or at least strongly suspect by now, when it comes to travel I’m not like most people. I’m talking pure travel not in terms of countries visited but rather in the motion and distance sense of the word. I’m in a class of travelers (some might say weirdos) that very few others care to be part of. Obviously I don’t mean that in a negative or superior way but honestly, how many other people do you know who’ve done stuff like the air and rail marathons I’ve described above, not just once or twice but literally dozens of times including multiple mega-mileage runs written about here at FlyerTalk. Although I truly appreciate the status gleaned and mileage accrued from such trips, at the root of it I still enjoy the pure enjoyment of just going somewhere. Traveling for travel’s sake or, as Robert Louis Stevenson so succinctly put it:

”The great affair is to move.”

Even so, my hobby – my passion as it were – is just eclectic enough to mean absolutely nothing in the great scheme of things other than to the person most involved in it - me. Few of my friends and none of my family have even the slightest interest in any of it. Indeed, if God forbid if I should perish in a fiery train wreck tomorrow, all of my travel “accomplishments” will simply vanish with me. All of the thousands and thousands of hours spent painstakingly handwriting the 5,297 entries and compiling the multiple statistics that highlight my personal flight log won’t mean a thing to whoever comes across it and has to decide what to do with it. It’ll just get thrown out. As for my having flown five million miles flown aboard 192 airlines, ridden 250,000 miles aboard trains on six continents or driven through every single county in eleven western states… yeah, yeah, whatever. None of these things have any intrinsic value except to me.

In a way it’s kind of sad, but hey – I knew the score going into this when I was just a kid and couldn’t find anyone with similar interests. Regardless, I have continued to pursue it to the utmost. And the bottom line is that I’ve had and continue to have a great time while flying all those planes and riding all these trains. As an added bonus, every once in a while, I stop long enough to spend a week or two in somewhere beautiful like Fiji or South Africa or New Zealand.

That’s right, I do run a bit deeper than just simple transport highs – I actually have on many occasions spent multiple days or even weeks truly enjoying my destination for its people, its culture, its attractions, its food, for just simply being there and staying long enough to become one with the country and its people. I used to write well detailed and – if you don’t mind me saying so – well written travelogues describing all the great people I’d met and fun things I’d done over the course of my travels. Then I discovered FlyerTalk. Finally, a chance to write about my real passion – getting there in a stylish and/or entertaining way. As for the travelogues, those have been relegated to postcards and verbal accounts amongst friends and family when I get home.

Anyway, I suppose the point of all this extraneous dialogue while ostensibly describing Day 3 on the Trans-Mongolian is to give you a better sense of who I am and what I’ve done travel wise with regard to how that’s prepared me to undertake a “marathon” train journey such as this. I have every confidence that I could do one twice as long and still look forward to every day of it.

So – rather than looking at the prospect of four more whole days of train travel and half of the fifth as something to be endured (Are we there, yet?) I’m instead looking forward to each and every day of it while focusing on the simple pleasures of the here and now such as the beautiful sunny day out my window, stepping off the train at the various stops made along the way, visiting with Steve and Wendy and Andy in the next car up as well as whoever else I may meet along the way, having a couple of cold beers later this afternoon and last but not least, putting in some work on this trip report.

That’s right – what better environment to get caught up on this report than here in my comfy compartment while occasionally glancing up to check out the landscape of Siberia rolling by outside my window.



Day three scenery - village


Crossing one of many large Siberian rivers


Over time, as I’ve settled in for the journey, I’ve learned through trial and error a few adjustments I can make to my bed and seat to make them more comfortable. On my seat, two pillows placed in a particular way makes for a most comfortable accommodation from which to write. On the bed, I’ve found that my personal wool blanket is much softer and more comfortable to lie atop than the warm but dense Chinese blankets, one of which I instead use to stay warm at night.

Speaking of warmth – every car is different in regard to its ambient temperature. Thankfully, my attendant Li likes things on the cool side – especially at night – which allows me to sleep much better than I would if my car were as warm as the First Class sleeper three cars back. Who knows though – maybe it’s not the car attendant so much as it is the heat distribution system on these old cars. Either way I’m thankful to have a car which is comfortable to travel in throughout the day.

Amazingly, nobody else has boarded and I continue to have this entire car to myself – well, just me and Li. Li mentioned early on that during the winter months this train doesn’t always see a lot of riders. Based upon the people I’ve seen wandering around at various station stops, we might not have any more than 20-25 passengers on board. Apparently, the Russian operated Rossiya sees a lot more patronage on its journey to Vladivostok.

For lunch today I decided to try out what was listed on the menu as “The Businessman’s Lunch”. This was a complete fixed price meal with a main course of a seasoned pork cutlet served with a side of rice and the standard garnish of sliced tomatoes and cucumbers. Also included was a bowl of borsht, a tomato salad and a beer. A cold beer.



The Businessman’s Lunch


Outside my window, nothing had changed. A bright sunny day illuminated a continuation of the landscape from the day before. Siberia is hardly the barren wasteland it is so often depicted as outside of Russia. For those of you familiar with the American Midwest, imagine central Illinois or Nebraska but with less roads and people. Then, dot it with the occasional Peoria or Omaha sized city – placed a few hundred miles apart. There are plenty of trees but hardly what you’d call a dense forest. There are plenty of open spaces that were either cleared or are naturally occurring. Now extend this landscape for a couple of thousand miles.



Day 3 scenery


The big blue railroad station at Omsk


The entire line between Moscow and Vladivostok is electrified


One of the highlights for me on this day – or night as it were – was our arrival in Novosibirsk, a city of approximately 1.4 million people located 2000 miles east of Moscow. The attractive downtown district had numerous modern and tall buildings, many of them bearing bright colorful titles. How nice it would have been to have viewed them from the vantage point of a dome car. Alas, that marvel of railroad car engineering never really caught on outside of the U.S.

One of the other things I learned during the trip is that Li has a small refrigerator. He was kind enough to offer to keep my bottle of Jack Daniels (purchased at Duty Free in Helsinki) in his fridge but when I saw on day three that his fridge included a small freezer, I got an idea.

I like my whiskey on the rocks. I tried it refrigerated last night and it was not particularly to my liking. However, I always carry with me a supply of zip-loc baggies and it occurred to me that if I were to pour some water into the baggie and seat it, then freeze it, I could later break it up into smaller pieces and have my whiskey on the rocks. So it is that on night three, as we eased out of Novosibirsk, I closed out the day while savoring a glass of perfectly chilled Jack Daniels.