20.06.09
I currently write this inside a little VISA/customs office on the russian side of the russian/mongolian border. Apparently, my lax travel ititnerary has caused my trans-siberian travel to be abruptly interrupted.
I reuqested a russian visa online at visahq.com for the shortest amount of time allowed: 30 days. I did this on April, and I thought that I should be leaving Russia by early June. As such, I thought a reasonable interval to request the visa for was from the 17th of May to the 15th of June. I thought that a month and a half of touring western Europe would be enough for me, and that I'd want to move on sooner than expected.
But almost a month had passed when in Paris, I began using a brand new 3-week Eurail pass I bought online, shipped to me in Orleans. The dates would've still held, if my train trip would've lasted exactly 3 weeks. Sadly, this was not so. I arrived late on Sunday 7th to Athens, Greece, and since it was a cool-sounding destination, I spent an extra five days there.
Arrived at Moscow on June 12th, took the first trans-siberian train out to Beijing on the 16th. "Oops", I thought, "well, maybe the russian visa allows me to stay 30 days AFTER entry? Oh well, we'll see anyway", I thought.
4 days later, we arrived at the russian-mongolian border, and we had to fill out customs forms. A border inspector saw a problem with my visa, though: "Date of exit: 15/06/2009" But it was the 20th! "Problem", he said. "Pack up your things and come with me". A little anxious, I obeyed him and left my cozy trans-siberian train. About 20 min later, another military guy in Russian uniform came out and told me: "You cannot go into Mongolia today because your visa is expired. You must pay here 2000 rubles, then go back to Russian embassy in Ulan-Ude, get a visa there, and then come back here to go to Mongolia".
I felt pretty non-plussed, but not as devastated as I would've imagined I would've. I did not have 2000 rubles on me, but after getting some important remaining possessions in my cabin, kind swedish Emil lent me 900 rubles and now I have a total of 2010. Plus 7000 mongolian currency units that might be fake.
So here I am, waiting to see what happens. Hoping things get better... =)
***
About 90 min later, I'm still here. A semi-pretty female russian officer made me sign around 15 times on different pieces of paper, charged me 2000 rubles, gave me a receipt, then the english-speaking guy gave me specific instructions to go to the russian embassy tonight. He showed where the ATM (baHKOMAT) was. I withdrew 3000 extra rubles for my extra, unexpected future expenses here in "Mother Russia", then paid 8 rubles to go to a toilet with no seat on it - just a ceramic hole in the floor. "Better than nothing", I thought, and I expelled my wastes as best as I could, using my trusty blue notebook to purge off residual feces from my body parts. This little black notebook was useful too as a surface to rest my left hand upon.
And now, here I am again, sitting in my little wooden chair inside the customs office that seems to be, at first impression, either under construction or abandoned. Less than an hour for my ex-train to leave...
**
And now, little after 1710 Moscow Time, my ex-train has turned on engines and is ready to leave. I watch it from a window, it whistles several times, as if waiting for me. But I can only watch :S.
CO150(LT), C2150(MT)
**
So far, so fine. The train I was on, going to Beijing, left without me, of course. A russian lady officer handed me my passport as the train was leaving. I still had thoughts of dashing out to the platform and jumping on a back wagon, but I dared not upset the armed russian officers.
The whole military brigade at the station left as soon as my train departed, and I was left alone in the station. Not entirely alone, I noticed, since there was a waiting passenger in the neighboring waiting room. He looked kinda russian, but I wasn't sure. I looked at the timetables and there it was: a train departed for Ulan-Ude in about an hour's time.
As I looked up at the timetable with cyrillic characters, the other waiting guy approached me and spoke in russian. "HET PUCCKN" was my universal response, and he moved his head negatively when I asked him if he knew "AHGLOCKN".
He continued talking in russian, and I managed to single out a few consecutive syllables: "Ulan-Ude"! "Ulan-Ude?", I asked him. "Da!" "Cool!", I thought. "I've got a buddy!" I asked him about the ticket because the office was at that time closed. "Billiet?", and he pointed to the same ticket office I knew about and again, spoke in his unintelligible (for me) mother language. At least I knew now that we referred to the same ticket office.
We sat down together in the waiting room, happy to have found a travel companion. I offered him a pack of my "moloko" cookies, and he gladly accepted. We were eating the cookies, when an old russian lady came in, walked into the ticket office, and turned the lights on. "Yes!", I thought, and signalled to my russian buddy. He nodded agreeably, and after a while we got up to buy the tickets.
"301,10", the lady said when the russian guy told her what we wanted. I handed her a 1000-note, but she refused. She showed us the money she had: litle change. "Problem", she said, and she sent us off to somewhere else in the town of "HAYWKN" to make some change.
We began walking out together, but although the russian guy seemed nice, the streets were dark and the language barrier with everyone else was way too high. Prudent mistrust made me tell the guy that we should go back, since there was a bAHKOMAT at the station I could withdraw some small money from. He accepted.
I thought a withdrawal of 500 rubles would get me several 100's, but the inconsiderate machine gave me only 1 500 ruble bill. The lady seemed to be OK with that, though, and I was able to buy my ticket to Ulan-Ude.
After buying my ticket, the russian guy started talking unintelligibly in Russian again. After several shrugs and faces of confusion from my aprt, he signalled to several numbers and made me understand. "100". "CTO", it was in PUCCKI. "Oh no", I thought, "is he ALSO charging me for his 'services'?" I could've done that myself! But after further over-expressed gestures, I noticed he only carried 200 rubles with him. He did not have enough for his ticket. "Ah", I thought. "That changes things". I gladly accepted and gave him 100 rubles, with which he quickly proceeded to buy his own ticket to Ulan-Ude.
Through markings on this very same little notebook, I found out his name was Sergei, told him mine was Antonio. Then our train arrived, and we got on - wagon 3. He took out the cookies, I took out the hot chocolate Mr. Scotland had given me. He took out some teabags, I took out my Pollo Campero brown ceramic cup. We ate some, we drank some, I told him I was 25, he told me he was 22. I was from Guatmeala, and after some more fast russian, I understood that he was from Chechenia! :O
"Oh", I thought. "Isn't that where violent stuff was happening?" His shaved head and military-looking ID docuemnt brought my alert flag up again, but his attitude and actions were friendly enough. I woudl not be a target, but a travel companion for tonight.
And now here we are, inside wagon #3 en route to Ulan-Ude. Sergei is... sleeping and I was too, but woke up due to uncomfy posture which I adopted due to my initial mistrust of this russian train. It seems O Know - a russian-looking family with an attractive platinum blonde girl covered in a fur coat entered the wagon a few minutes ago, and the train inspectress looks serious and responsible enough. We have boiling water here, just like in my previous chinese train, and though our cabins are not very private, or comfy, or well-equipped, I find everything sufficient, and comfy enough to at least bring me acceptably comfortably to Ulan-Ude tonight. 2245 MT, June 20.
(MT) 0037 June 21
It may be the excessive caffeine and/or chocolate ingested a few hours ago, or the slight paranoia I have of the train I'm in, or maybe my vivid mental imagery of what would occur to my body in the event of a head-on collision with another high-speed train, but I'm having trouble conciliating sleep for more than an hour at a time. I don't really feel tired, but we're still more than 90 min away from our destination: Ulan-Ude. What should I do?
My solution was to write. Maybe to attempt mental exhaustion or boredom, maybe just to kill time - in either case, it's better than looking longingly at the last 2 cookies left in the package but deciding they would be more wisely consumed when we reach our destination. Sergei still sleeps soundly - he may have had a more taxing day than me yesterday. I'll go get some boiling water...
And back again. 0547 local time - and outside the sky is as bright as7AM in Guatemala. I'm thinking that maybe going back to Ulan-Ude is my 2nd chance at taking a look of Lake Baikal - I believe the town is right on the edge of this lake?
I thank my fortune that it's summer... vagabonding around between non-insulated trains in winter in Siberia sounds to me particularly... uncomfortable.
0123 MT (Hmmm...)
Someone else in the train seems to like electronic music...
Several people, including Sergei and an old lady beside us, have woken up to the sound of a semi-loud music coming from this same wagon, about 3 cabins away.
The south-Siberian morning sky is pretty - the sun is not yet over the mountains, but it sseems that some kind of reflection on or hole through the clouds lights up directly only the plains and towns at a certain range - not farther or closer, and that looks quite nice.
June 24, 10:57
Luck, fate, an imprecise trip itinerary, and a slow, bureaucratic migration protocol keep me still in Russia, almost 4 days later than the original plan meant me to. I have spent at least 12000 more rubles than I meant to, backtracked to a town called Ulan-Ude I had never known of before, met 3 english guys, a very helpful english teacher (referring to his teachings, not to his nationality), experienced a russian banya, and had a useful though expensive interpreter called Ol(g)a, a compassionate opliceman called A?yuri?, and a militarily-dressed guy called Sergei in the migration offfice save my day yesterday by helping me get a temporary visa to get my traveling body out of this federation that I hate the most.
I am currently inside wagon #27 (not that they are consecutively numbered) of a train following route 240 from Moscow to Vladivostok, but which I am occupying fro Ulan-Ude to Zabaikalskaya.
Oh look, another place I've never even known existed. Why not take the train I was origianlly taking to Beijing? Well... that one's a weekly train, and the next one goes through Ulan-Ude on Saturday June 27th. Oh, but when does my new shiny temporary visa expire? On JUne 26th! So if I took my same route to Beijing, the wouldn't let me out of Russia again! How INconvenient! Strangely graceful, too. So my possibilities were either winging it at the Naushki border with Monoglia and risk MORE migration fees and delays, this time Mongolian, and then having to take individual trains, all the way to Beijing, this time gesturing Mongolian instead of Russian, OR take a plane direct, OR find my way out by any other method.
I decided not to risk the mongolian wrath, so I thought I could get back my time expensively by flying direct. So I tried booking it online, which was really my best option unless I wanted to spent yet another night & day in Ulan-Ude, book it directly at an airline office or travel agency, forcing me to take expensive Ol(g)a again as my linguist the next day. So I tried Kayak and Expedia. And cheapflights, Momonda, Hainan Airlines, & others. Several times each. Many times each. And each site had a different reason NOT to let me buy my ticket! "We're sorry. For external reasons, we cannot make an e-booking for this trip, adn there is not enough time to deliver a paper ticket".
Right, you tell me AFTER I've chosen all my trip details and entered all my passenger information. Another one let me choose my flight itinerary and then tells me "we're sorry, we will not be able to emit e-tickets between June 22 and June 24. We apologize for any inconvenience". Or "we are redirecting you to the airline site. Please enter your flight information", and when I get there my departure airport is not on the list! Quite a frustration. That added to a flaky WiFi. And even when I called Hainan through Skype to make a reservation through the phone, I got voicemal. Not waiting, not a time to call back. Voicemail. I don't ever recall a 1800 number using voicemail. (This one was actually 1-866, but I'm guessing they're similar).
So I was left with my last choice: desperation. Ol(g)a, through ther handy domain of the russian language, found out about a town called Zabaikalskaya, placed right on the border between Russia and China. Nice! (Not France). And there was a train going in that direction, departing from Ulan-Ude that very night! So we made the 30-minute queue to buy it, I paid 1057 rubles for my one-way ticket, I spent 5 hours last night waiting in the railway station using some internet on my quickly-discharging iPod, I took the train at 0423 local time (Moscow time, June 23, 23:23); found wagon #27, found bed #13, made my bed with the bedsheets that the wagon supervisor gave me, and now here I am, at 11:55 local time (6:55 MT), writing some memories & thoughts away on my rapidly-filling, unexpectedly-obtained, and surprisingly-useful little black notebook. If you see the cover, you'll stie preciNote Book". Quite precise.
PS: A couple of HOT girls are in the cabin beside me. I can't see them all the time, but there's a free seat across from them right now, I'll sit there and see how it goes.
June 25th, 06:27
Fully repacked, I now await this train's final destination: Zabaikalskaya. We will arrive in 1 hour, according to the itinerary, and I'm anxious to get there quickly.
I'm concerned about what will I do after reaching Zabaikalskaya. It is now only meant as my escape point from the Russian Federation, but though I'll be in China after that, I will not be exactly in Beijing. The closest city which I have previously heard of is Haerbin, and it's not exactyl a day's walk away from the border. I think I'll need a train to Haerbin, or maybe, actualy, preferably, to Beijing. I just hope it doesn't take me ages to get there - my time's running short.
I personally consider more important meeting Scarlet than touring Beijing, so I've even thought of using Beijing only as a layover and going directly to Qing Dao. Could be...
In any case, I honestly admit tha tmost of the excitement of my trip has worn off. It may have been my head-on encounter with russian bureacuracy, or the endearing messages from Jerol, or maybe even that the numbers in my bank accounts don't seem as large anymore, but I want to go home. I want to meet Scarlet, see Qingdao, and have a taste of chinese culture, but soon after, I'm going home. I still have many pending activities back in Austin and in Guatemala, and I still need to prepare myself for Pittsburgh and CMU. I still don't have an apartment, roommate, or arrival plan, and time is dwindling fast.
The view slowly changes between gentle hils and plains, and now a town, and back to hills. The train lady just asked me for a towel - apparently she gave one to me and I did not give it back. I do remember her giving me a package, with a towel inside it, but I have no idea what happened to it. I'm gonna go to "talk" to her to make sure she doesn't call the police or something. Almost there now... about 1-2 minutes left for arrival.
June 25th 2009, 17:06
After having successfully exited the territory of the Federation of Russia, many hardships lose their sting, and I begin to see my situation with a whole lot more optimism.
This morning I managed to cross the border from Zabaikalskaya to China. Neither the russians wanted me to leave nor the Chinese wanted to let me in, but in the end, my best misery face, my honest intentions, and quite a bit of patience got me through. Hurray for people!
I just saw marker 666, I guess standing for # of km, pass by on my right window. My Manzhouli-Beijing train has just stopped at a station whose name I know is written somewhere around but which I would not be able to pronounce even if I knew where it was.
Anyway, the mere fact of having crossed the border from shady-looking russian towns and people into the much cleaner, more populated, more developed China makes me feel a whole lot better.
I can't understand a single syllable anyone is saying, except "ma" at the end of a sentence, but still, I feel a lot better. I know that at least I am free to leave the country when I want to. I just have to register my visa at a police station, apparently, to make my stay here totally legal. I will do this as soon as I get to Beijing.
This little useless-looking notebook has proved more useful than it originally looked like. It helps me pass time, register thoughts and expenses when the environment looks too seedy to take out my iPod, and helps me diminish the language barrier with many people with markings, drawings, and numbers. I'm even considering stamping a "Tony" sticker on it =). Unfortunately, it's kinda running out. That's why I'll stop writing now, right after I see the next distance marker: 656.10km in a writing. Yay. =)
June 25th, 20:24
I could almost bet I'm the only guatemalan on this train. Actually, it's even probable I'm the only latin american person on this train... maybe even American? This route doesn't seem to be too popular with tourists.
Almost 7 hours since the train departed from Manzhouli, and the marker says... (after looking for a long time), 458. Probably the last time I'll read today - it's quite dark already. (Now, THIS time zone makes sense). My chinese trainmates were trying to tell me something but I couldn't understand them... then one of the train guys came and closed the curtains, then I asked to try one of the weird flaky snacks they were eating, and then gave me a whole one. It was GREAT! It was flaky, kinda greasy bakery surrounding this sweet mush of something... like nuts & sugar, maybe a little fruit like apple? Delicious! (Paste! That's the word I was looking for! (Not mush)). So... still on the train at my third pack of cookies out - they should last me until *almost* Beiijng, I guess.
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