Traveling on Trans-Siberian Railway: Irkutsk to Ulaanbaatar

Distance:  1,081km
Traveling time: about 26.5 hours
Time difference: -1 hour

Although before dawn, Irkutsk station was filled with a team of European backpackers, a group of Chinese tourists, and a gang of Mongolian natives returning home. We boarded the train already packed with people, and we found our cabin-mates sleeping soundly on top bunks. While we quietly stowed our luggage, one of the bunkers, a Mongolian man of our age woke up and we exchanged silent greetings. That was enough to made us feel easy and to be welcomed.

The train, most retro of all trains we have taken so far, has a Central-Asian taste to it's interior, from the curtain to seat covers. The guy who greeted us in the dark was apparently a leader to all Mongolian boarded on our car, as they came into our cabin for suggestions about where to hide illegal alcohol bottles for the customs, and to ask him to fill in declaration documents on behalf. As arrival time to the border came near we can feel more tention in the air, and then the conductor came around telling us all to get back in our cabin. The train slowed down with extended sound of metal scraping, stopped, and then another sound of metallic sound followed with a small shock. I peeked out the window between curtains, and saw a number of soldiers placed on the platform, ordering passengers to not look out the window. This is Naushki, the final station before leaving Russia by train, and where the customs procedure takes place. Soon after, a group of customs officers marched onto the car, one came into our cabin to ask for the passport. She looked through all of them, said with a commanding tone, "I take your passports", and left us with a big feeling of unease.

The train is scheduled to stay at this station for three and a half hours. After we surrender our identification, we are allowed to get off and walk around the platform. I looked to the head of the train, and noticed the locomotive was not there. The sound heard earlier was disconnecting us with power to move. After a while we were ordered to get back onto the train, and two and a half hour later, we received our passports back. Sahe and I mmediately checked inside for the stamp and felt safe again, but that was not the end. We were soon visited by a soldier asking us to vacate the cabin. She then tossed and turned the small room, checking every crack and corner. Possibly due to their possession of illegal amount of alcohol bottles, our roommates looked somewhat nervous, but none of the thirty-some bottles stashed were not taken away, and the search for unknown substance was now completed.

Leaving the southern edged station of the largest country, we soon came to the Russia-Mongolia border, visible from the speeding train window. It was another hour when we arrived the station, Sükhbaatar, for another immigration. Usually, entry procedure is more nerve-racking than departing, but handing over the passport to our fellow-Asian customs officer did not seem to worry us as much as it did 5 hours ago. Less than an hour, our passports were back in our hands, and we were officially admitted to our seventh country.

Back in Asia.