Beijing | Transmongolian Railway | Moscow & St Petersburg

It hadn't been easy to get my bicycle on the train to Moscow. The ticket I had booked with a friendly employee of the Chinese International Travel Service (CITS) by email. It did cost only slightly more than on the station - but it was a lot easier, as people spoke English there. The box with my bike needed to be on the station one day before departure. Without the friendly help of the hotel owner that would have been quite a problem. He took me to the station, talked to the "assigner in charge" who needed a little "financial support" to show us the way to the excess luggage office behind the station. All forms were only in Chinese language, so help was needed again. My box was taken for a reasonable extra price to the office. I got the hint, to keep an eye on the box on the Russian border that it wasn't "accidentally" unloaded...

Pretty nervous I stood on 11. June 2003 at the Beijing main station. The cues were long because no-one was allowed to enter the station without temperature-check. Although I felt a lot better, I had taken another Aspirin, just to be sure. The carriages proudly showed "Beijing - Ulaan Baatar - Moscow". There wasn't much space for my luggage because the train was stuffed with Mongolian traders who carried heaps of bags. In that very moment I was rather glad to leave China - after all the troubles I had encountered in the past weeks. But I knew it wouldn't last long and I would miss it soon.

The border to Mongolia was reached in no time, all forms were easily filled in. Bogies were changed on every carriage there because the tracks in Mongolia and Russia are wider. Seven hours later the train finally started going again. Full of enthusiasm I was sticking to the window watching the steppe, passing by yurts, wild horses and even camels. In the same evening the same procedure started at the border to Russia. This time I needed to fill in several pages of customs declarations for my bicycle and also pay a little fee. Everything seemed to be correct until I was told 2 minutes before the train left that something was wrong about the form. Then they must have swapped it. I didn't realize it in that very moment and also I didn't see that my signature was faked. As I couldn't translate the Russian explanations and still remembered the warning the Chinese officer had given me in Beijing, I rushed the next day into the luggage compartment. But for my relief the box seemed to be untouched.

I enjoyed the ride in the Russian restaurant car along Lake Baikal to Irkutsk, Krasnoyarsk and Novosibirsk. My company now were funny drinking Russians and Michéle. Michéle was having a break from teaching in Beijing and on the way home to Paris. Omsk, Yekaterinburg, Perm, Yaroslavl ... Europe! ... Time was slipping away. After 6 short days and 7,900 km later we stood on 16. June 2003 at the Yaroslavski-Station in Moscow. I easily picked up my bike by presenting the papers to the conductor.

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