Basic HTML Version
30 | FireFlyz
get
away
They say it is the journey – not the destination – that trulymakes travel special.
Sarah
Rees
proves the theory truewithanunforgettable tripon theTrans-MongolianExpress.
The Great Affair
The Trans-Mongolian Express is a
weekly sleeper train that takes seven days
to cover the 7,621km from the Russian
capital Moscow to Beijing in China, pass-
ing through Mongolia and the endless,
flat terrain of Siberia on its way across
countries and continents.
While many eager for a mind-boggling
train trip pick the Trans-Siberian, which
connects Russia to Vladivostok, the train
to China offers more of a cultural contrast
and a film-screen of scenery that will stay
with you long after the train has reached
its final station.
The current Trans-Mongolian train
line follows an ancient tea-caravan route
that connected China and Russia via the
Mongolian capital of Ulaanbaatar, with
scrubby paths and horses replaced with
track and trains by 1955. The journey takes
approximately seven days, with passen-
gers able to stop off on the way or, for the
hard core travellers, stay the duration and
embrace an experience like no other – a
week of life in a small compartment on a
train rattling across the world.
Life on the rails
While first class cabins with two-berths
and a private bathroom are popular with
couples and the nervous, a four-berth
compartment in second class is the more
W
hen
it comes to travelling
across the world, we al-
ways end up looking for
the fastest and the cheap-
est route, hopping from
city to city, country to
country, driven only by
the destination. Travel means soulless airports and
screaming children, and the journey is something
to be endured rather than savoured, the destination
awaiting us as our reward.
And so I thought too, until a trip on a train across
one of the harshest, most spectacular landscapes in
the world showed me that, if you pick your route
carefully, the great affair can really be to move, with
the destination becoming the truest reward.
The Trans-Mongolian Express
Seven thousand kilometres does not sound all that
far in this era of air travel, yet endure that distance
on a train across one of the emptiest terrains in the
world and you may begin to understand distance
better. From thewindowof a train travelling 7,000km
across three countries it is possible to see how the
world changes, and realise that countries melt into
one another in shades of similarity.
sociable option. There are six compart-
ments in each second class carriage, with
all inhabitants sharing one, rather basic,
bathroom and a small team of Chinese
station workers who tend to the running
of the train, clean the carpets and bring
around slices of fresh watermelon.
My ‘home’ for a week was an upper
berth in a four-bed room that mercifully
had just one other occupant, a Polish poker
player who spoke impeccable English
and ate pork fat on toast for breakfast.
He proved to be an unobtrusive but jo-
vial companion on a journey that never
stopped surprisingme and occupiedme so
fully that I never had time to readmy book.
Siberia is vast and empty.
Travelling hundreds of miles
without seeing another soul