I had no intention of missing a train that only goes once a week, so on 14th August I was up at 4:15 am to finish cramming things into my backpack. There was nobody on the front desk that early, and it didn’t occur to me until too late that I couldn’t settle my bill. I couldn’t immediately resolve that, and Alison and Charlotte, with Ferdie and the Dutch people were all there and keen to get to the station in the minibus we had arranged, so off we all went. The departure time was 7:40, but we had been told to get there early to make sure we got the right carriage and seats / bunks and resolve any last minute problems.

In the waiting room I suddenly started worrying about the bill that I hadn’t paid, and thought about getting a taxi back to the hotel, but realised there wasn’t time. I tried calling the hotel but there was no answer. Not wanting to have a Chinese criminal record I put the appropriate amount in an envelope, put the address of the hotel, stamped it, and asked someone to post it for me. I almost made the mistake of writing at the end of the address what I had put on all the other mail I had sent from China – that is to say: “England” in Chinese characters – something which I had learnt to do quite well.

Having resolved (sort of) the hotel bill problem, I produced the all important pink booklet that would, I hoped, get me all the way back to Europe. I had been given a green “boarding pass” with my carriage and seat number.

We had been told that the Trans Siberian Express can have (if you are unlucky) Russian carriages which are old and uncomfortable, or Chinese carriages which are new and relatively luxurious. We were in luck – the entire train looked new and was clearly Chinese.

I double checked that my carriage was not only the right number (11), but did actually say “Moscow” on the side. The destination was marked only in Russian and Chinese script, but it said “MOCKBA” and I knew that “C” is the Russian “S” and that “Moskva” is Moscow in Russian, so that was good enough! I boarded and settled down in my compartment with 3 other people.

Departure time got closer. It all felt a little surreal that this same carriage was going all the way to Europe, and that when I finally got off it, my four varied and eyepopping months in Asia would be well and truly behind me. At 7:40 am, several whistles blew, guards and carriage stewards were shouting and, with a jolt, the longest train journey I will likely ever undertake had commenced.

In the compartment next to mine were 2 Canadians called Jenny and Leslie – they looked like they could be sisters – both having short blonde hair and similar features – but actually are not. They and I wandered down to find Alison and Charlotte – the Brits from the Long Tan hotel, and we all went to investigate the dining car. The main low budget offering was boiled noodles.

I still couldn’t help feeling uneasy about the non-payment of the hotel – I’d half expected someone to come running up the platform before departure yelling to stop the train because a foreigner was leaving without paying up! Of course that didn’t happen, but in theory they could still send a message to stop me leaving the country, since they wouldn’t know about the money in the envelope for a day or two.

Also in my carriage were Richard, from the USA, and Giuseppe an Italian journalist, who provided interesting conversation. The day wore on as we headed across fairly dull and overcast parts of northern China towards the Mongolian border.

I felt no enormous sorrow to be leaving China – it has been a challenge to get around, and the frustrations sometimes got the better of me. The good bits will leave unforgettable memories, but the annoyances will also be hard to forget. I remembered that in Xiahe I had started writing a silly tongue-in-cheek story in my Guatemalan notebook, describing a Chinese mother explaining to her child that the strange-looking person who they were both staring at was a “Foreigner”. The story was called “The Forena”…

[The 3 remaining pages of this can be found by clicking this link … ]

As my remaining hours in China counted down, I analysed “The Forena”, decided that it still accurately reflected my frustrations at how I felt I was regarded by the local Chinese people, but decided that this literary creation really wasn’t worth continuing!

Later in the afternoon someone produced a Scrabble set, and a few of us had a game. We played in English (being the common language for everyone) which was a little unfair on those for whom English was a second language. By mid evening we were approaching the border, and tension mounted. I had taken the precaution of writing a letter, and put it in an envelope (another one) addressed to the hotel, with payment in dollars, to show good faith in case some border official suddenly accused me of being the “wanted” non-payer from the Long Tan hotel.

At the border we were all ordered off the train. However this wasn’t for anything more sinister than to change the bogeys on the carriages from the Chinese gauge to the Russian gauge, which is 85 mm wider. We all got stamped out of China and into Mongolia which was a relief, and meant I could start enjoying the trip!

After a couple of hours we were allowed back on the train and soon I set up my bunk for the first of 5 nights on the Trans Siberian Express. Actually it is more correct to say the “Trans Mongolian”, since there are 2 other Trans Siberian routes taken to and from Moscow, one of which goes, of course to Vladivostok on the Pacific coast of the USSR.

I had a good sleep and woke to see vast expanses of Mongolia rolling past. Soon the train halted at a station and we all piled off to get some fresh air. My carriage, number 11, was right at the back of the train, and the platform stopped some way forwards, but nobody cared, we were just grateful to get out and stretch under the impossibly blue sky.

Each carriage has a uniformed steward who is in charge of keeping order, making sure there are no stowaways, and most importantly of all, making sure everyone is back in the carriage before the train starts to move!

I have been given a lot of advice about the whole Trans Siberian trip, which I have written in my notebook. One piece of advice is to take plenty of food and stock up when possible from stations, since the restaurant car can’t be relied on. In fact it looked like the restaurant car had been left behind in China since it wasn’t where it was the previous day when we wandered along to check..! So we went back to the carriage to have bread and cheese for breakfast.

Bread and cheese were the only thing on the menu for lunch. The appearance of some hills announced that we were getting into central Mongolia. I tried to tune into the BBC and found I could still pick up the signal from the Hong Kong relay station.

After another few hours of unspoiled wilderness there was finally some sign of infrastructure and around mid afternoon we pulled into the Mongolian capital – Ulaan Baatar.

According to the timetable the train would be stopped for 45 minutes, but the Steward said “30 minutes”. We were in no mood to push our luck!

Alison, Charlotte and I headed rapidly out of the station to forage for food. We split, and I found a food shop, but it was basically empty of anything useful for train picnics. This reminded me of travelling in Romania in 1986 – supermarkets with no food. I did find a shop selling sets of pre-stamped postcards, and in the absence of any other Mongolian souvenirs whatsoever, I decided I would buy a set…

In fact the stamps on the back were considerably more attractive than the fronts of the postcards!

I have no idea which of these postcards, if any, are stamped for international mail, and won’t have time to write or send them, so they will remain my only Mongolian souvenirs!

Fortunately Alison and Charlotte managed to find a shop with bread, and stocked up. There was just time for me to wander up to the font of the train and take a photo of the locomotive that has been pulling us across Mongolia.

Then I briskly walked back down to the back to avoid being told off by the carriage steward.

Once we were moving again, someone reported that a restaurant car had been added to the train. This was good news as I didn’t really want all 3 meals to be bread and cheese. They were serving borscht and potatoes, which was actually very good indeed after noodles, more noodles, bread and more bread.

Back in carriage 11 there was a party atmosphere as we headed due north. Some of the beer supply from Beijing was produced and the conversation turned to the upcoming border crossing and the fact that within hours we would be in the USSR. For almost everyone it was the first time in the country which, along with the USA, has dominated world events for the last few decades.

When we reached the border everything slowed right down and it was clear that the train timetable was only theoretical on this part of the trip. We were stamped out of Mongolia and then 3 hours went by with very little apparently happening. Finally some Soviet officials came down the train, we all produced the fruit of spending a night camping in the street outside the Soviet embassy, our transit visa papers were inspected, and we were duly stamped into the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics…