220908 – Russia, Ulaan Ude and Train trip.

220908 – Russia, Ulaan Ude and Train trip.

Everyone woke up hanging.. badly.. there was some serious pain in the cars on the way to the trainstation.
Nat had woken up early to have a shower. She´d done her workout the night before and again this morning, offering some inspiration for me to do a rehab workout. Most of us were dragged back into the living world, working our best zombie impressions until we were on the train.

We snuck out of the group, trying our best not to disturb our hosts. All of the meals today would consist of the provisions we had purchased late last night.. Pot-noodles and vodka..

At the train station, Adam found some Lenin brand cigarettes at one of the little kiosks that are everywhere and never seem to close. Reputed to be the favourite Nicotine-Beverage of Pickle himself, they could only be described as ¨Unfiltered, Russian Black cigarettes¨. There is a comic-book two-headed cat that would like them, I doubt that anyone else who had more blood than formalin could choke them down though... Of course I wanted a pack to take home as a souvenier! After his first taste, I bought the rest of the pack off of Adam.

Nasty

Our Local-Guide, Andre, said his goodbyes at the train-station. The tip was passed on to him, undoubtedly he was disappointed at the fibre of that thin bundle of fabric. He simply had not done anything outstanding, he´d not done his job and not much else. He was pleasant enough, but...

We set up a refugee camp in the train station. Everyone took various steps to find caffeine, nicotine or whatever their prefered hang-over cure could be. The wait dragged on, bags were shifted to make room for the locals who were rotated through sleeping on the floor by the local cops. Some old Russian men made a point of eyeing out the girls in the group. Much scowling in every direction took place.

Getting onto the train, it was an identical series of carriages to the last Russian train. The regular arrangement of bunks, stowing of gear in familiar places, taking our places in the great machine...

First, many of us snoozed.

This was going to be a long day of travel.

Finally, we couldn´t sleep any more.

People read books and wrote journals. Someone put some music on.

People, one by one, grew bored of their book. Sore hands put journals down. The batteries ran out on the laptop.

A couple of people tried to snooze by the time the made its first real stop. The provonista on this train was actually really nice. The Trans-Siberian would have been wonderful if we had of been cared for by her.

Attempts to return to books and journals failed. We sat glaring at the air infront of our noses as the first two hours dragged by, the scene framed by the window boring and unchanging.

Cards came out. Trash-talk followed the games of Hearts, A-hole and S-head, Cheat and poker. Russian officials came past to collect passports and exit forms. This had marked somewhere in the third hour.
Vodka and dirty-jokes tried to help. Everyone grew bored of the cards as tempers deteriorated. My iPhone tried to break the tension with some music, but failed desperately.

About four or five hours had passed. We still hadn´t moved.

The Russian officials returned, searching the compartments for contraband and stow-aways. We had been warned of this well in advance by Anne.

It was well into the afternoon and closer to evening by the time word had come back from the next cabin.. Anne´s entry into Russia had been through the Thai 30-day visa free period. Intrepid had booked her flight in a ~liiiittle~ early, she was now at day 31.

Anne told us, after disappearing for a time, that they had seized her passport.. something about it not being a Breach of Visa, which would have just been a fine. Because she had not needed a visa to get in, this was now Entry Without a Visa, or some such thing. She might need to stay in the border zone until Red Square opened and she could sort it out.

¨Don´t worry, the local guide in Mongolia can look after you till I can catch up with you...¨

The cabin-fever plaguing us boys was now in addition to our concern for Anne. What would happen to her? Should one of us stay with her to try and help out, or even just escort her so that she would be safe?

We all received our passports back, Anne mumbling that they had held onto it.. The train started to roll forwards towards the Mongolian check-point, about 40km away by my guess. What would happen there?

By this point, we had been waiting at the Russian border for 9 hours. Stationary for almost the entire time, meaning that the toilets were off-limits.

Just under an hour passed..

A very beautiful Mongolian lady collected our passports, Anne took a little walk with her.. Coming back she said she would have to stay at the border here until the issues with her passport were resolved.

About an hour and a half passed.. Anne was looking awefully concerned.. scared and might have been crying.

My cabin had passed around a hat to get Anne´s tip. There was a chance that she would not be able to catch up with us before we changed tours, and she might have problems with funding at this little border town.

It was now that she was definitely crying..

Our passports were returned about an hour before the train departed. The cabins were strangely keeping to themselves and the atmosphere was depressed. Anne was visibly upset the whole time.

After about 3-4 hours waiting at the mongolian border, after entry forms and customs forms were filled and compartments had been searched, the train made noises of moving..
The train started to roll forward and Anne slipped a little Purple document out of her pocket..

It was a passport..
A Thai passport..

earlier, the strong emotions we had seen as we had given her the tip-money and little home-made card, it had been her laughing so hard she was crying.
The other cabins had been in on it.. including Greg (as one of the Guys, he would pay for this later...).

None of us were impressed, to say the least.. More than a few words were uttered, generalised at the entire rest of the group, by all four of us.

We made a tactical retreat to our cabin and shut the door, before anything was said that couldn´t be undone later. We calmed down somewhat over the next half-hour or so.. there were a couple of sheepish appearances by key members of the group.. mostly ignored or rapidly departing..

It was decided, there would be a reckonning...

The four of us fumed over a new set of card games, drinks were produced. We transplanted to the shamed cabin that housed the rest of the group, they had finally cottoned on that the little prank had gone on for a little too long and had been about something perhaps a little too serious..

The frosty card-games and beverages had a little bit of humour by the end of the night. It had been a very very very long day and we were all drained. Things had perhaps been a little too much.

Our cabin drifted off to sleep, quietly discussing possible responses to Annes inappropriate behaviour..