Trip of A Lifetime (Trans-Siberian Railway (Russia))

Member Name: cezzybunny

Product:	Trans-Siberian Railway (Russia)
Date:	24/08/09 (41 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great scenery, interesting people, lots of cucumber

Disadvantages: Long time to be on a train if...you don't like trains

I finally got round to carrying out my trip of a lifetime in July this year. Instead of writing about the journey in general, I will stick to tips in the hope this will be useful to travellers doing the same route. I travelled from Moscow to Beijing, stopping off at Irkutsk and Ulaan Bataar.

1) Take a Nalgene bottle. Nalgenes can carry boiling water, so I used mine for water, for hot drinks, and also as a shower (sterilising between uses of course). There was no hot water in the bathroom I used, so I mixed water from the hot water samovar with the cold water in the tap and hey presto, instant shower.

2) Take a head torch or reading light. Our first train did not have individual reading lights, so we were confined by the timescales of our provodnitsas (train attendants)

3) Earplugs. I never knew so many Russian people snored.

4) Travel platskartny (3rd class). It was the best part of my journey and meant we got to meet and share food with Russians going about their daily lives. The second class carriages later on were full of travellers, which was nice but it was the 3rd class experience which will stick in my mind.

5) Make sure you take instant noodles if nothing else. Yes you can buy food on some of the platforms, but we were surprised by how little fresh produce there was at some of the larger stops. Stock up and buy stuff to supplement this.

Basically it was the trip of a lifetime and very little could have changed this, but these were some of the lessons we learnt which made the trip a bit more comfortable!

Summary: Trip of a lifetime, take an MP3 player and watch the world go by