Introduction

I think that I was in my upper secondary class when I read the American novelist and travel writer Paul Theroux's travelogue "The Great Railway Bazaar: By Train Through Asia. In his book, Theroux documented this 4-month journey by train from London to South East Asia and his journey back to Europe via the Trans-Siberian Railway. During that time, I had never sat on a plane before and had never been outside of Sarawak. Little did I know that this book would greatly impact me when I was bitten by the travel bug. I ended up taking two of the train journeys that he described in his book. The first was an overnight train ride from Butterworth (Malaysia) to Bangkok (Thailand) while I was in my early twenties. Later in my mid-fifties, my wife and I would embark on the Trans-Siberian Railway.

By Source, Fair use,

The Trans-Siberian Railway Adventure was by far the most epic travel adventure for me and my wife. We had been planning the trip for years and kept putting it off. However in 2017, I told myself, it's now or never. Already in our mid-fifties, my wife and I agreed that we should do the trip since are still healthy and able to rough it out. So over a period of 24 days, we took the train from Beijing, passing through Ulaan Batar, Irkutsk, Moscow all the way to St Petersberg. This journey was unlike other trips that we have taken before because of the long hours we spent onboard the train. I like to share my adventure from the perspective of a passenger observing the passing world through a train's window.

Part 1: From Beijing (China) To Ulaan Batar (Mongolia)

I have divided my post into several parts. Part 1 will cover the train journey from Beijing to Ulaan Batar. Our first destination from Kuala Lumpur was Beijing where we boarded the train. It was extremely hot and crowded in Beijing so we were very happy to leave for Mongolia. Even the train station on that day was very congested.

The landscape after leaving the Beijing Train Station was still quite urban. We passed through huge bridges, a hydro-power dam, windmills, modern highways, factories, farms and other trains. I was very impressed with the excellent infrastructure along the journey.

After a while, the scenery was more rural as we passed by mountains, smaller towns, a church and open fields.
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Stops at various stations gave us the opportunity to stretch our legs, grab a bite or just to engage in a bit of people watching.

We had to make a rather long stop at Erlian Station in the middle of the night for the changing of the train's wheel. Erlian is a border town between China and Mongolia. Because the train tracks between China and Mongolia are different, the train's wheels need to be changed to enable it to travel on Mongolian tracks. This is also the place where the Mongolian officials boarded the train to check our passports.

I was quite amused by the English signage found at Erlian Station. Take a look below:

I suppose that the right wordings would be "Mind Your Steps".

Would the wordings "Please Throw Garbage Into Dustbin" be sufficient?

One of the first things that I noticed after entering Mongolian soil is that Mongolia uses the Russian alphabet, something that I was unaware of before. This would pose a problem later in the trip as signage in English was rather rare. The Mongolian landscape was more rural. We could see vast pastures and animals grazing.

A Mongolian train station with Russian alphabets.

We are passing a mine and can see cartloads of minerals.

Animals grazing in vast land of pastures with majestic mountain range at the backdrop.

The Mongolians are very enterprising. At this train station, they pack their goods in shopping carts and sell them to train passengers. Food onboard the train is very expensive, I usually buy my meals from the stations.

A huge religious statue.

A rural Mongolian settlement.

The train journey from Beijing to Ulaan Batar was only 1 night, just a brief introduction to what my train journey would be like later on. The next day, we were greeted by the imposing Ulaan Batar train station.