As we roll by the site of the Naadam horse races, we are heading toward Lake Baikal and Russia….Siberia! Grasslands give way to steppe then forests. The Mongolian provodnitsa offers us coffee on boarding and tells us about the border crossings and bathrooms.
Speaking of passport control, when we stop at the border both country’s agents come aboard separately. They want all the lights on (no matter the hour of the night) and they none too gently say “look at me” when checking our passports. Their military personnel (Russia’s) checks each berth looking for what I’m not certain while we wait in the hallway. Oh well, last border.
When we wake in the morning the provodnistas are cleaning the hallways. Bravo! Before long we are stopped at Ulan Ude, a city of 400,000 or so that became an important link on the tea caravan route from China. It was a closed city according to Lonely Planet until the 1980’s due to secret military installations that appear as “white” areas on city maps.
We have seen a few faces reappear from time to time on this journey and I introduced myself to Simon, from the UK originally, most recently moving to Berlin after 7 yrs in Australia. He’s an IT guy he says and plans to move to Berlin (no job or lodging yet). On his way he is taking a 2 month “walk about” which began in India, Bangladesh and Everest Base Camp and now he is on the second leg of that journey on the TSR! He is traveling alone for now because his companion dropped out. We talked about SIM cards and how much we both loved Mongolia!
Lake Baikal soon begins to appear through the birch trees…the largest fresh water lake in the word, larger than all the Great Lakes combined.