Our Mind Blowing Trans-Siberian Rail Journey Autumn 2019

Yes! Yes! Yes!, Ticking off my bucket  list again!!. 

This time round, we are going to experience the legendary "Trans Siberia Express"  Of course, we "hopped-on and off", in-between our train journey to visit exceptional and beautiful cities and towns. This took us almost a month to travel from Beijing to St Petersburg. 

Yes of course! Emily, my lovely sister was with me throughout this awesome and incredible journey.

While... (at this very moment).. blogging about this, mind blowing journey..... made my mind goes giddy with all those fond memories came rushing back to me, even-though it had been almost 2 years ago. Many will ask next, why take so long to blog about it? Well, I am sure you all know....alot had happened during this recent years with Covid-19 ruling our lives. With all our border closed, I kept myself busy, apart from taking up a part time job at McDonalds, I volunteered actively as a Silver Generation Ambassador, at the very same-time planning our next adventures and blogging, reliving passed-awesome adventures!!

Ok.. back to this journey, its took me almost 2 years to plan this trip, while doing a consulting gig. There were lots of post-travel works needs ironing out before traveling especially to Russia. Three months before travelling to Russia, we need to apply for a Russian Visa from an appointed agency or Russian Embassy as of 30 June 2021 :  https://www.vfsglobal.com/russia/singapore/Tourist.html  all the details are in this link. The hardest part was getting our Trans-Mongolian Express tickets, for our route 1, I had to involve my brother: CK, who was based in Beijing to help purchase our tickets through the ticket-counter at the Beijing train station, when the tickets were open for sales the very same day. The Trans-Mongolian Express is very popular its sold out within the same day. Hostels and hotels booking at strategic locations needs researching and to co-ordinate trains schedule from town to the next town needs precise timings too. But of course, we did not only visited Russia, we indeed....took an extension after St Petersburg and visited Eastern Europe too, which I will definitely blog about it after Our Trans-Siberia Express.   

Our break-down routes through Mongolia & Russia

Route 1 - Beijing to Ulan-Bator ( Trans-Mongolian)

Route 2 - Ulan-Bator to Ulan-Ude (Trans-Mongolian)

Route 3 - Ulan-Ude to Irkutsk & Lake Baikal (Trans-Russian)

Route 4 - Irkutsk to Yekaterinburg (Trans-Russian)

Route 5 - Yekaterinburg to Moscow (Trans-Russian)

Route 6 - Moscow to St. Petersburg (Trans-Russian)

In total; we traveled about 6,054 kilometres, crossed 5 time zones and 2 continents in 22 days, we started in Beijing on the morning of 3rd September 2019 @ 7:27 am and ended our journey in St Peterburg and left on the night of 24th September @ 8.30pm for Vilnius, Lithuania via Liga, Latvia.

Route 1 - Beijing to Ulan-Bator

 

           Our 1st class 4 soft-beds ticket from Beijing to Ulan-Bator

In order to catch the 7:27am train, we had to stay overnight in Beijing, so we flew in the day
before from Tokyo via Seoul. Prior to this, we were in Tokyo attending my daughter Eva's graduation ceremony  a few days before embarking this journey. We flew in to Beijing mid-day and checked into Howard Johnson Paragon Hotel, right opposite the Beijing Railway Station.

Pix taken either from my hotel window or the overhead bridge.

In the evening we went over to the near by supermarket to pick up food provisions for our 31 hours train journey to Ulan-Bator, which will reach our destination at about 14.35 local time the next day. Right now we are still at the same time zone with Singapore, as well as Mongolia too.

We woke up at 5.00 am the next morning, packed our backpacks and checked-out our hotel at 6.15am. Leisurely walked over to the Beijing Train Station, we were amazed to see the station was already buzzing with peoples outside the Station, some were still asleep on the ground with only a cardboard as their beds. We have to produce our tickets to the security at the entrance before we can actually enter into the station. After the security check we proceeded to the upper-level to look for our platform 807. We met a group of about 10 Malaysian and quite a number of Caucasians waiting at the same waiting area with us.

We proceed boarding the train at about 7.00 am, through the waiting area's doors, down a flight of staircases we are at the train platform-tracks......there I saw the TRANS MONGOLIA EXPRESS awaiting for us to board!! I was so overwhelmed with mixed emotions and kept reminding myself I am actually going to realize my dream of experiencing The Trans-Siberia Express!!

Trans Mongolia Train @ Beijing Train Station, Photo courtesy of Derek Low

Very quickly we found our cabin, its was a 1st class 4 soft bedder, ours was the 2 bottom beds. We were lucky throughout the whole journey, we have the whole cabin to ourselves.

Our cabin and just outside we found the hot water dispenser.

 

We slowing traveled North-West across China towards Mongolia, throughout the journey our eyes were glued to the breath-taking scenery outside, we passed the outskirt of Beijing very quickly...gradually the scenery turns into lusciously green mountainous terrain, some with streams trickling along its valley.  

After many many hours, the rugged terrain turns into flat grass land , I quickly realized, we were nearing the Inner Mongolia region. It is almost evening by then, the scenery continued to be breath taking in a 'wide-open' way, even its sunset are magnificence.

The glass plateau of Mongolia

Mongolia Sunset!

Around midnight we reached Erlian, the boarder-town between China and Mongolia, where we alighted and gone through the Chinese custom and waited about 3 hours for the changing of under-carriage bogies. Was told, the Mongolia and Russian train tracks are narrower then the Chinese's track, hence the changing process every single time. We were all locked into our carriage during the changing and worst of all toilets were locked too during the process. At the same time, they also changed the dinning carriage too. All our passports were taken by our train attendant to be stamped by the Mongolia custom and was returned once we resumed our journey into Mongolia.

     Our stop at Erlian after Chinese-custom before the 3 hrs lock-down

The changing the under-carriage bogies  at Erlian to Mongolia's tracks

pix taken from my cabin window

We woke up mid-morning the next day; ate our instant noodles, packed our belongings and prepared for our arrival to Ulan-Bator at about 2.00pm. We also took a quick visit to the 'famous' Mongolian Dinning carriage too, it was beautiful and elaborate like a piece of ART with lots of woodworks and carvings.

Our brunch: instant noodles purchased @ Erlian station                                                                                                                                        

We arrived at Ulan-Bator (Ulaanbaatar) at about 2.30pm, very quickly we sported our pick-up from our Hostel. We will be spending a night in Ulan-Bator, early next morning we will be spending the rest of our Mongolian experience at Gorkhi-Terelj National Park - My Mongolia Eco Ger Camp for the next 4 days.

Sukhbaatar Square - Gengis Khan Statue

 

 Ulan-Bator Train Station                                                  Sukhbaatar Square

Found a Singapore food court here??!!

Dinner - our first taste of Mongolian cuisine

We had arranged transportation to and fro from Ulan-Bator to the National Park @ US$50.00 per pax, this also include a stop at Turtel Rock plus entrance ticket for the Terelj National Park.

The overview of the Park

Gokhi-Terelj National Park is about 58 kms from UB, but driving is about 103 kms and takes about 2.5 hours.

 

 

All the above pixs were taken on the way to the National Park, we did passed by a small village called Nalaikh, the river flowing there is called the Terelj River.

  

Turtle Rock

Trust me....You will never get tired for this view, very morning for the days we stayed here.. this was the view we woke up to when we hiked up here. The air were so fresh that its hurts when taking too deep a breath! Our camp is the cluster of white GERS on the left.

Most morning, this very friendly German shepherd-mix would accompany us on our hike, acting as our guide or body guard.

After lunch we usually hung around the Camp area or took afternoon naps. Watching the care-takers of the camp playing cards or playing with the kids in the Camp were also our usual activity to cure our boredom. We did some horse riding too at a very affordable fees and there was one afternoon we made a trip @ USD40 each to the Great Chinggis Khaan Complex about 1.5 hours car ride from our camp. The Statue is Genghis Khan on horse back, measuring 40 meters tall, made of stainless steel and was build in 2008. Its was early Autumn, the weather was fantastic...cooling in the afternoon and a bit chilly during the morning or night. 

We made a new friend too, a Japanese girl from Tokyo.
Our time spend in the National Park were relaxing, simple and peaceful. Our main tusk were to just enjoy the view, weather, people and getting bore. In the nights, we could clearly see  gazillion stars in the sky. Never have I seem so many stars twinkling away, its was magical. There's nothing I would want to change with of my stay here. Maybe only one tiny bit ie. I wish our ger comes with attached bathroom!! Ya, the bath-room were quite a distance away from our Ger, especially for a person like me who will wake up in the middle of the night to pee!

 

At the Chinggis Khaan Statue Complex

Our last day at The Gorkhi-Terelj National Park. After our morning breakfast, hung around for a while, our transport came to fetch us back to Ulan-Bator train Station for our 2nd leg of our Trans-Siberia Journey to Ulan-Ude departing 3.25pm.

Look out for my Route 2 - Ulan Bator to Ulan Ude (Trans Mongolia Express)