Day Thirteen - Jun 8, 2013
Trans-Mongolian Train
Daily Didactic
Awake already because of the sixteen hours of time zone changes so far, Brian got out of bed at five to look for a Bank-O-Mat at the Irkutsk station. While he had no such luck, he was treated to some beautiful views of Irkutsk across the Angara River. After a few more hours of sleep, we were both up to watch the train wind around the bottom of Lake Baikal. The lake was very pretty and pretty enormous.It may or may not be the largest lake on the planet (if we had some internet, we could check), but according to our guide book it holds 20% of the world's freshwater and could supply the population of earth with water for 40 years. Big. From there we wound inward and were shortly in Ulan Ude, where the Trans-Siberrian and Trans-Mongolian routes split. We are heading south into Mongolia and not east towards Vladivostok. We found our Bank-O-Mat and, as a result, were able to refill our pantry. We found a small grocery at the station and in addition to convenience store provisions, found some local stuffed bread concoctions and a smoked chicken for lunch. We headed directly south and some number of hours later came to Naushki Station, where we had what seemed like an unnecessarily complex three hour passport check. We wandered the small town with our new Swiss friend Omar and managed to score Theresa some ice cream. After a false alarm that involved us running back to the train, we sat on the tracks for another hour and eventually regained our passports. The train then rolled a few kilometers to Suhbaatar, where we then underwent an hour long customs check. Fear not world, Mongolia is secure.
Today's Photos
