Trans Siberian Railway: Moscow to Mongolia

Hello there everybody,

Firstly we would like to apologise for the horrific delay in updates!! We lied when we said you would hear from us on the 26th...the reason is that we didn't have any access to the internet in Mongolia, and in China the blog (and facebook) was blocked, and then in Vietnam there haven't been any accessible computers untill now. But it's alright because we're here now.

So lets start from where we left off:

We packed up our bags in Moscow to get on the train to Ulanbataar in Mongolia. We thought this journey would only take four days...imagine our disappointment after four days of no showering that we had an extra day left.

Vodkatrain group before getting on the train

Anyway, the train was wonderful, we ended up in a four berth cabin with Snorelax. Bloody brilliant. Julia and I bagged the top bunks and kept our earplugs in for the entire journey. No not really but we should have done.

Our room

We said goodbye to our guide Marina and as soon as the train pulled away from the platform the havoc began. Small Mongolian men started sprinting up and down the carriage corridor (they will be referred to as the druglords from now on) carrying bags twice the size of themselves and piling them up in the ends of the carriage blocking all the exits. In each train there was a small monoglian woman who acted as the carriage attendent (she will be referred to as Mama Baboushka from now on). She turned out to be a shifty but nice sort of character who spoke no english. We heard scuffling in the corridor and looked out to see Mama Baboushka opening one of the cabins and 15 people came out whispering and shushing and quickly ran into the next cabin...mind you there were only fourberth cabins on the train, where Mama B locked them in again. We named these people the illegal immigrants as we never saw them come out of the cabin again.Picture that almost got Hanna killed as she snapped a photo of the druglord with accidental flash
Bags blocking up the hallway and exits

All of a sudden Mama Baboushka and a drug lord burst into our cabin and started unscrewing a ceiling panel, the drug lord took out laptops, handbags and packages. He turned around and made a sniffing noise at Mooreen and said "Cocaine" whilst waggling his eyebrows.

"Noooo..." said Mooreen uncertainly in her dutch accent

"Nooo..." Said druglord laughingly whilst making cocaine snorting sounds

So we weren't quite sure what to make of it. Druglord and Mama Baboushka also took things out of the luggage compartments under the bottom beds. After our brief but pretty badass encounter with smuggling, things started to quieten down in the corridor and Julia and I made ourselves at home on our top bunks. Especially Julia as she commenced the train journey by climbing strait into the top luggage compartment, she also learned how to levitate. I felt really lucky to be travelling with such a felixibly talented friend.

Druglord and Baboushka kisses