Stories from the Train

We arrived at the proper train station (Moscow has about 8 major train stations) for the Trans-Mongolian railway about 3-4 hours prior to departure in order to make sure we knew where we needed to be. This would turn out to be a smart decision as again in Moscow no one spoke english and the system was not clearly marked. After walking around trying to figure out what to do, Chris and me finally ran into 3 Swedish guys who were traveling on the Trans-Mongolian railway (it became a big joke, about finding new friends who were also travelling, because we stood out big time due to our massive backpacks and big bags of pot noodles and vodka). We talked and figured out the system was real easy. You just wait for your train number (004) to pop up on this big screen and then a platform number shows up next to it.

Finally at about 9pm our train number popped up and we began walking to the platform and found our carriage number. Turns out our new Swedish friends were only one door down from us in the same car. Chris and i lucked out and had no one else in our room designed for 4 people (it would remain like this for the entire 7 days). Once the train started moving i did the only sensible thing someone who will be on a train for 7 days could do - pulled out my bottle of vodka went next door to our Swedish mates cabin and said lets get to know each other :) ... This was an amazing experience as we (Per, Oliver and Joel) shared hilarious stories, told jokes, and talked about our travel plans. Turns out that Per and Joel will be coming to America by the time i return to road trip across the country. I really hope our paths cross while they are in our country so i can show them true American hospitality! During the night Joel kept saying he needed to go to bed because it was too late (3am), and Chris and I responded - "dude your on a train for 5 days and go through about 6 different time zones, time is relative and sleep is pointless". He finally agreed after his mates started ragging on him, needless to say he was the first person to retire later that night. Funny note about Joel, during the night he he went to the toilet but could not figure out how to flush the toilet, and ended up turning a lever he thought was the flusher, but it turned out to be a water valve that floods the bathroom for cleaning. From there on out that night, the bathroom was soaking wet :)

Oliver and Joel (sorry Per, we don't have a picture of you)

Soon a British guy named Lee walked up to our party and joined in. Lee would end up spending two nights in our cabin on the vacant bench we had, and would be our travel buddy through China! Let me say Lee is the man, and his company was always a hilarious exchange especially when i would get lost his British accent and slang phrases which we will talk about later! Finally one of the Chinese attendants told us we needed to be quiet and close the door. So one by one we each faded. Tally for the night was 4 bottles of vodka finished between 6 people!

Our buddy Lee

Sleepy time for Lee

 DAY 2:

Slept till the first stop and jumped out to grab more Vodka, and noodles. Spend most of the day just lounging, until we decided to wounder through the trains and run into LEE who was sitting a cabin with his neighbors from Australia. Their names are Luke and Casey, and they rocked! It would become apparent quiet early into the trip that Luke would act as the ring leader for every party we had, and by the end of the trip he had our entire group of travellers/friends (around 13 people) doing the SQUID hand shake! This is where one person balls their fist as if they are about to do a fist pump with some one and screams "Squid me" and then other person opens their hand and grabs the other persons hand like a squid and then visa versa! Thanks Luke, I'll be bringing that tradition back to the US! Back to the story. We ended up sitting with our new friends and Luke and began taking shots of Vodka at 6ish while telling stories and jokes. At this point Lee introduces us to his room mate, JOSE from Spain. He is around 58 years old and spoke no English and is travelling alone. He was a very funny man, and was extremely happy to find out Chris spoke very decent Spanish. From this point on Chris would become Jose`s translator. We took 4 vodka shots before dinner which set the tone for the rest of the evening. Then we decided to all go to the food car to grab a real hot meal, instead of pot noodles. This would turn out to be a hilarious and failed attempt at grabbing real food.

Luke, the crazy Australian

 Singalong!

Once we got to the car Chris, Lee and me sat down at the counter and a younger Russian lady came up to us and pointed at the bottle of vodka Lee was holding and said NO. Then she pointed to Lee and said why don't go have some fun in the back room. After trying to order and laughing at her crazy antics we soon realized the lady was either crazy or on something very strong. The guys next to informed us they have been waiting forever and that she kept trying to over charge them. They said that she must be high or something becuase every conversation they had with her made little sense. At this point we cut our losses and decided it was better to just make more cup noodles and go hungry once again!

After eating we decide to continue drinking some more in Luke and Casey cabin. Soon a group of other various travellers from different parts of the world wander our way and i go grab our Swedish neighbors and before we know it there is full blown party going down! The video we posted earlier depicts this scenario better than any words can describe, but it involved a lot of singing, card games, drinking songs and us being yelled at by the Chinese attendant even though there was no one else on this carriage with Casey, Luke, Lee and Jose! At this point the Chinese attendant tells us that we need to be inside the cabin our we must leave, so we say cool and one by one we figure out how to cram close to 14 people into a cabin made for 4 people and we succeed (again the picture posted earlier of the aerial view, portrays our success at this the best). Luke was on fire this night as he was every night, and Casey kept trying to tell him to calm down which provided me with great amusement because it was like telling an un-trained wolf to sit down and stay ahahaha. Needless to say i am confident these two will make a perfect married couple as of 11/11/11! Our friend Lee licked a girls ear and ended up getting tackled by her and having his pants ripped. We all lost it laughing at that point. Later on around 3-4 am we are all kicked out of the cabin by the Chinese attendant and all go our separate ways for sleep after figuring out no where will let us continue the socializing. Lee once again fell asleep in our cabin.

DAY 3
Late wake up call and lots of lounging take place until our first stop in which we all rush off to grab food. Nobody had any luck finding new goods so we ended up having more bread and noodles. We also have all run out of vodka, but no one could find any on the next few stops so well all load up on beer for the nights festivities. This time the night begins slow with Luke, Lee, Chris, Kacey and me playing some casual card games, that soon turn into some deadly drinking games like ASS HOLE and F*$K the dealer! Also Chris instigates the "Beer for life" game to everyone. This, if you didn't know, is where each person drinking a beer must do something to their can of beer that identifies it as their own, so i kinda crush/dent my can, Chris turns his tap up, LEE rips his top off, and so on. If you say - "hey john do you play beer for life" and the other person has not done anything to their can then that person must chug/skull the beer. Lets just say i lost this game about 3 times with a full (tall boy) beer each time. No one else was ever caught! Soon our new group of travelling friends (Aubrey, Maria, Martin, Flip, Ghaz, James) join us in the games which due to the sake of not having enough cards for 14ish people turns into the game NUMBERS. This is where, again for those of you that don`t know, involves everyone saying one or two numbers from 1-10 with out repeating numbers and depending on which number you say it changes the direction. It is so simple even a cave man could do it, but i literally had to drop out of the game because i lost every round and it became such an ordeal that the entire cabin had their video cameras out filming how utterly stupid i was. We spent the end of the night trying to stump Luke. No matter how obscure of an actor or actress we named, he was able to link them to Kevin Bacon through six degrees of separation. This night ended like the others with us getting hushed and everyone moving to various places on the train through out the night. By this time we all felt like a real family!

Martin

Aubrey

James

Maria

DAY 4
We go through a major time change during the night and it turns out to be 2am in the morning but fully light out! It messes with me and Chris and we try to sleep it off, except i am as sick as a dog. I m up all night with out one single moment of rest. I am hacking up a lung every 10 seconds, can not breathe through my nose at all, and my throat feels like sand paper. This continues for hours until Chris finally just gets up because i am so loud he could not sleep (sorry man, your a great buddy to travel with). I end up spending most of the day in bed. (Chris writing now)We had a long stop just before the Mongolian border because they had to separate the train and put in a new restaurant car. They also took our passports which was very disconcerting for awhile. We took advantage of the stop to load up on beer and vodka. Casey was furious at Luke because they were getting off the train at 6am the following morning and Luke was buying wine and champagne! We also found a great little cafe where we ate goulash and some unknown dishes which was our first real food on the trip. With great relief, we got our passports back and then got moving. A short time later, we had a customs inspection where a very stern military man came in and rummaged through all our stuff and then two police dogs walked by our room. We had to declare all of our printed materials. I wrote down "Siddhartha" and the customs official got angry and through gestures he made it clear he wanted to see my bag. I'm not sure what he was expecting but when he saw it was just a book he rolled his eyes and started laughing. After we were allowed to leave our cabins, we went to the restaurant car and had a huge party with everyone we had been hanging out with the past few days. We all exchanged information and had shared five or six bottles of vodka. It was a crazy night because most people didn't go to bed till 4 or 5 am. I ended up getting my hair cut in the bathroom and then heading to a car where we took shots of espresso chased with sprite. We went back to the restaurant where we played drinking games and Lee ended up falling asleep on the table. I watched the sunrise and said bye to all the people getting off. We had all spent so much time together that we were all very close. John and I were cursing ourselves for not booking a stop in Ulan-Bator. Thanks for all the laughs and good times everyone!


The Rest of the Train
We spent the rest of our time relaxing and enjoying the downtime now that most of our friends had left. We were all starting to get sick and the heat was oppressive. We watched the cool scenery pass and endured a number of customs and immigration checks. There was a night where I slept with earplugs in because they lifted the train up on hydraulics and were banging around until 1 am. Our last day, they gave us free meal tickets so we got some solid food for breakfast and lunch. We were still sick of bread and completely malnourished.

Burning up in the Gobi Desert