Welcome to Datong, We've Been Expecting You...

2009 09 18 – Day 84 – Datong

Datong is an industrial city with no particular reason to visit. It is, however, well placed to use as a base for visiting a few otherwise remote sites.
As with most of the Chinese stations I'd experienced, the arriving passengers spill out into a large square in front of the station without passing the ticketing or departure areas. So there I was, in the fading twilight, knowing that it's wise to buy your onward ticket as soon as possible, trying to decide whether to stay one night or two, as I really didn't want to stay any longer than possible, and whether I should even try and answer that question now, when I didn't yet have a bed for the night and didn't know if I could get on a tour the next day or not.
Not knowing anyone in the city, I was unnerved and on guard to see a middle-aged guy in a brown corduroy jacket striding purposefully towards me. I glanced around, confirming that there wasn't anyone else he was aiming for. Nope. It was definitely me...
Thankfully he turned out to be well intentioned. He was from CITS, the Chinese state tourism company, and he often looked for foreigners arriving from Beijing to see if he could help, despite it being beyond his normal working hours. Chatting about the tourism scene in Datong, he revealed that most visitors were, as I was, only passing through, not keen on staying and with a mind to see two or possibly all three of the tourism-worthy sites within range of the city.
Back in his nearby office, we struck a deal over a tour of two sites the next day and sorted a dorm bed in the basic hostel run by CITS.

With my objectives for Datong 'in the bag', I returned to the station and was delighted to be able to also secure an onward ticket for the following night. Sometimes everything just seems to fall in to place so effortlessly it's amazing. I'd arrived in Datong with nothing booked, having never been there before, barely able to utter a word of Chinese and yet within a couple of hours I had a bed for the night, a tour for the next day, an onward train ticket and was sat enjoying a basic but tasty local dinner! Incredible.

The Early Bird Catches the Tour

2009 09 15 – Day 81 – Chengde

Arriving in Chengde at 04:30 or thereabouts, I expected a bit of a wait before I could find out about visiting the tourist sights. I was wrong. Riding the high-tide of arriving passengers, I was teased out of the flow like a tickled trout and, before I knew it, I had negotiated a tour deal and was sat in a minivan on the way to a hotel to dump my stuff, splash some water on my face, find some food and wait for the sun to rise!
After freshening up, I had a bit of time to wander the chilly pre-dawn streets.

This square was virtually empty just 20 or 30 minutes earlier, but now was alive with people exercising, some individually, but mostly in groups. Aerobics, dancercise, tai chi and foot-badminton were the most common.

And while some exercised their limbs, others exercised their songbirds

Now most of the city was awake I could get breakfast:

On my morning stroll, I'd seen one of the reasons American fast food chains like McDonalds and KFC are making headway into the Chinese market – because, at certain times of the day, they're the only places open!
I'm glad I held out for a genuine Chinese breakfast.

Hitting the Ground Running

2009 08 14 – Day 49 – Beijing

You might not describe spending most of my first full day in Beijing on the internet as 'hitting the ground running', but the work I did that day was the coiling of my spring, a gathering of strength through knowledge and connections before launching myself into a month of action!
I planned to be in Beijing so long in order to learn a little Chinese and acclimatise to the culture if possible, before setting out into the rest of the country, so I wasn't in a hurry to do any sight seeing.
Thanks to my solid groundwork, by the end of the first weekend, three days after arrival, I had arranged daily language classes to begin on Monday, made some local friends, eaten the classic street barbecue 'chuar', played mahjong, partied in three different club venues and slept on a couch.
Not bad going I'd say.

Chuar outdoor restaurants

Chinese Funk! At trendy live venue/bar/club Yugong Yishan.

Arriving on a Thursday had proved a good strategy. I felt vindicated that I had chosen to continue my journey to arrive in time for the weekend rather than stay longer in Almaty

The Bells of Beijing

2009 08 13 – Day 48 – Beijing

Beijing! I was finally there! A mystical far-away place I'd previously only been able to wonder at. The epicentre of a land and culture I'd long had a nagging curiosity for... now I'd be able to explore it for real! I was nervous as I readied myself to leave the train. I didn't know what to expect....
What I did not expect, once I'd navigated the straight-forward but alien interior of the station and found myself on an escalator to the first patch of open sky, was to be greeted by the chimes of Big Ben!
Did I catch the wrong train?!
I'm not actually 100% sure it was the same tune, but it was very similar and only half way through did I realise it was some kind of electric 'out-of-speakers' bell sound rather than the real deal.
Gathering myself from the disorienting soundtrack to my arrival, I strode out into the light.

The monumental Beijing West Station.

Stepping into the Night

2009 07 27 – Day 31 - Aralsk


As the sun went down on my second day on the train I steeled myself to step out into the night for the second time. This time I was buoyed by the social and fun day I'd had and was a little bit sad to be leaving the community that had developed in our carriage in these two days. As my arrival time approached, I sought advice from my new friends and local experts – Roman & the train guard.

They gave me all the usual warnings anyone gives about unknown or poor areas, particularly at night, which only served to heighten my nervous anticipation. The stop would be a short one, so I'd have to get off quickly. The three of us stood by the door as the rhythmn and pitch of the sounds and shakes said the station was near. Aralsk. Remarkably roughly on time after more than fifty hours from Moscow. It's so dark outside it's hard to imagine there is an 'outside'. Ready to leap off the train, primed by my 'advisors' words of warning and 24 hours waiting, I'm full of adrenaline and feel like a prize fighter about to enter an unknown ring and face and unknown opponent... or a bull, caged and about to be released!... I mime running like crazy and we all laugh.
Before the train has stopped, the guard opens the door and yells for a taxi... three middle-aged men scramble over the first tracks, two sets over from ours, and negotiate a deal.... Roman translates the agreement – 100 Rubles – and urges me to go with the successful bidder. As soon as the train stops I descend and scuttle over the tracks. I'm hesitant, because I'm not sure if someone will be at the station to meet me... there's supposed to be someone, but then I was supposed to arrive 24 hours ago. I glance around as I move and give myself a chance to spot someone looking for me, but no one stood track-side carries the body language I'm looking for and so I duck into the passenger seat of the battered Lada. His catch secured, my driver then wanders off to look for other passengers! His actions are met with vocal disapproval from other drivers and my train guard, so it's not long before he returns to fire up the aged engine and we rattle, shake and bounce out of the station grounds, into the night. The 'main' road is unlit and my driver seems more concerned on quizzing me in Russian and weaving around the numerous potholes than avoiding the oncoming traffic! Fortunately there's not a lot of the latter and we avoid any collisions. Young people appear to be out in numbers at the few cafe-bars scattered down the length of the road.
It doesn't take too long to arrive at the hotel and I leave him validating the Rubles of the fare in his headlights. The initially empty lobby is soon populated by three women of various ages, shapes and sizes, all of whom, it is rapidly apparent, have a limited grasp of English. I present my Sundowners Overland voucher that is supposed to be a kind of booking/payment receipt. It becomes clear that they don't recognise the voucher and they try to sell me a 4000 Tenge room... I protest – I've already paid for one! I need a room, but they don't recognise my receipt/voucher... what to do? We stand off for a little while, neither party budging or with much else to add to the debate mainly due to language incompatibility. One of them gets on the phone, speaks to someone on the other end and then hands me the receiver... I'm greeted by Sirik, the local fixer who had been at the station to meet me last night as he had the same bad information I had. Sirik fills me in on the hotel point of view – I hadn't turned up last night to take my booking, so they'd given away my hot water room and so now they only have cold water rooms available. Add to that the fact that Sundowners have not yet paid them for the room and their position now seems entirely understandable. The next problem is that I don't have any Kazakh currency! This is not for lack of trying on my behalf, but because Kazakh Tenge is not easily available outside the country. I need access to a bank tomorrow and so to secure me a bed for the night all parties agree to Sirik's plan of submitting my passport to the hotel owners until I have money to pay for the room. I'm nervous about my passport being off my person for the first time since my Finnish Rail lapse, but I have to trust them with it, and am led by the granny of the group up unsettlingly angled steps and down darkened corridors to my second floor room - 125 – identifiable only by the fact that she led me to it and my key opens the lock that could fall out at every interaction.

I have two single beds to choose from and after a bounce on each my first pick is relieved of pole position when an alien bug, reminiscent of the X-Files ones that crawl around under peoples skin, scurries over it! I'm unable to hunt it down and kill it, so I convince myself that I'll be safe enough in the other bed. Even at night it's hot, so I'm relieved to see I have a large air conditioning unit in the window and turn it on... some cool air comes out, but it sounds like I'm back on the train! The large noise makes me realise that my antics must be highly visible from outside. There are no street lights and I have big windows... I feel like an exhibit. I retrieve my head torch from my bag and use its light to guide my final maneuvering to bed... an experience that provokes comparative thoughts of The Blair Witch Project... unsettling mental images that are difficult to un-think, so I avoid looking in the corners and hurry to turn off my light. Thirty minutes or so later I trade temperature for silence, turn off the 'train', and try to sleep.

False Arrival

2009 07 26 – Day 30 - Train to Aralsk


Approaching 24 hours on the train and watching the sun go down, I prepared myself mentally for alighting in Aralsk, Kazakhstan. I was due to arrive at 01:10 and so stayed up into the night, when most of my fellow passengers had gone to sleep. 01:10 came and went and the train didn't stop. Maybe the train is late, I reasoned, we'd been travelling over 24 hours now, so that seemed likely enough. At some point I tried to confirm the delay with the train guard in our carriage, but his English and my Russian combined to prevent any useful information passing between us. Around 03:30 we slowed to pull into a station and I scrambled to extract my bag from under my bed, doing my best not to disturb the sleep of my compartment companions. The train guard intercepted me before I could make it to the door and made it clear that I wasn't to get off here! The ensuing rudimentary, place name based, conversation led to the conclusion and mutual understanding that we had in fact arrived at Uralsk, not Aralsk! Looking closely at my itinerary from Sundowners Overland, my ticket (in Russian) and the onboard timetable (also in Russian) and talking to the guard made me realise that I had been trying to step off the train a whole day early! Stumped at this unexpected turn of events, I returned my bag to under my bed and, too mentally awake to immediately go to bed, I stood in the corridor staring out into the night, mulling over the idea of another 24 hours on the train... it wouldn't be so bad if I'd known it was coming, but as it was I had no food and no water for the day to come and though the carriage had a boiler of free hot water, and I could buy supplies at the first station stop of the day, for the first time since leaving home I wasn't looking forward to tomorrow.

Moscow Arrival

2009 07 24 – Day 28 – Moscow

Despite a fairly comfortable ride and hassle free border crossing, I didn't get enough sleep and so my core is drained but, like downing an octuple espresso, I'm charged by my situation, my first solo steps of adventure in the first truly unknown country on my journey East!
You know you've arrived in Russia when your station is called Leningradsky!
But that's a good name if the central feature of the station is this fine bust:

Now I really feel like I've arrived somewhere foreign. The cyrillic characters are close enough in form to latin ones as to make my eye scan them but my brain can't comprehend what my eyes are delivering – I'm a linguistic infant again.
I'm tired from the train journey and I only have a rough idea of where I am in Moscow, the largest city in Europe. My limited information, lack of language and physical state convince me that getting a taxi to my hostel would be a good idea.
I'm not sure exactly why, maybe the space and building styles in front of the station or maybe the language thing still, but I really felt alien and a bit disoriented walking out of the main entrance. Taxi drivers spy me a mile off (no, not literally a mile) and scurry to scam me. I, the sceptic, don't pay them too much attention and begin to walk away from them and the station down the road, but not too fast. It has the desired effect of thinning out the crowd and I'm left with one taxi driver who has passable English. I'm kidding myself that I can make it on foot, which helps me be more convincing in my negotiations on price. In the end I think I do ok, paying a bit more than I might expect to in London.


A pricey hotel not so far from the station.


The eight lane ring road.... note that it's eight in each direction!

Reaching Godzillas Hostel, I speculate that I could have walked... but I would have taken a lot longer and would be an exhausted sweaty mess! With only two days in Moscow, it was worth the taxi fare to save my energy for sight seeing.

St Petersburg Arrival

2009 07 09 – Day 13 – St Petersburg


Navigating our way to port in the industrial shipping capital of Russia that is St Petersburg, we are reminded of the brutal reality of modern seafaring.

A far cry from the romance of our fairy-tale tallship, we are greated with giants of steel in the form of tugs, tankers, cruise-liners, cranes and submarines.