LAND CRUISING
has recently reinvented itself with a new dinosaur museum and a collection of larger-than-life-size dinosaurs sculptures – including two towering brontosaurii caught in an impassioned French kiss. As the locomotive drew us through the Gobi, we found plenty to do on board – Russian language classes, vodka-tasting sessions and multicultural meals from simple to gourmet. Local guides mes- merised with stories about life in Siberia. On the ground, we had VIP access to great restaurants, museums, music and theatre
features, wide smiles and fluent Russian. Their cities were well-planned settlements often dominated by a central square over- seen by an enormous bust of Russia’s most famous statesman: Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, or Lenin to the rest of us. In Ulan Ude, capital of the autonomous
Buryat Republic, the stone Lenin looked out sternly over a concrete plaza as skate- boarders and families congregated. These statues looked kitsch to me, but I was still struck by how revered Lenin had remained in these remote parts.
“For the next TWO WEEKS, I was aboard a MAGIC CARPET of a TRAIN RIDE”
There is something uncanny and won- derful about being able to call a train home for more than a few hours. Back home, the railroad is a mode of transport to get you from A to B. But here, life aboard the Trans- Siberian became something completely different. Together, the 300-odd of us – we all began the trip as strangers but many of us ended up close friends – dined, drank, sang, learned and laughed our way through China, Mongolia and Siberian Russia.
Yekaterinburg, Kazan, Moscow. Nothing quite matched that feeling of boarding the train just before the whistle sounded to whisk you off on another adventure. The Tsar’s Gold keeps its speed below 55mph, allowing time to appreciate the vast land- scapes. At night, the gentle rocking would slowly lull me to sleep. From China, we lurched into Mongolia at Erlian, a flat Gobi Desert oil town that
W
e got to know some fascinating ports of call – Ulan Bator, Lake Baikal, Irkutsk, Novosibirsk,
Despite the exotica on display, one memory has been indelibly etched on my mind: Baikal. The world’s oldest and deep- est lake, remote Lake Baikal holds some 20 per cent of the world’s surface fresh water. It is a veritable Galápagos of Russia, and its relative isolation has furnished it with unique freshwater fauna.
performances. Fashion shows featured models who’d stun in Paris or Milan. I made some close friends on the
journey, too. Like the German mother and daughter whose absurdist humour kept me in giggles for most of the trip, or the Ameri- can opera singer who, after a mealtime drink or two, would promptly stand up in the dining car and belt out a beautiful aria. Our travelling routine was ideal. We’d spend a day or two traversing by rail, then disembark in some bizarre town to experience life on terra firma – lunching on cauldron-cooked lamb in a yurt and daintily sipping on kumys, the pungent and unfathomably sour fermented mare’s milk for which the Mongolians are (in)famous. The citizens of Siberia seemed at once exotic and familiar, with their strong Asian
A
s we sped along the coast, the trans- parent water glimmered in the sun- light. Baikal’s water is so clear, if you
cast a 20cm white disk into the lake, you would still see it at a depth of 40 meters. The construction of the rail line along the shore required 200 bridges and 33 tun- nels. Our train moored just outside one of them, in a town so small – and so politically insignificant – that its name was Kilometre 121. As passengers hopped off to hop into the lake for a swim, I joined a sprawling waterside barbecue of kebabs and Omul fish. A dance party erupted, where Spanish women were singing Russian folk songs and once-taciturn German couples shimmied around the samovar. We had come out of our shells and come together as a family. The next morning at dawn, I rode with
the wind. The engineer allowed a lucky Winter 2010 / 2011 I WORLD OF CRUISING 83
All photos by Roger Norum
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