The Long Wait

A couple of years ago we saw a film called the Long Walk. It was about a group of people who escaped from a Siberian Gulag and walked to India via Lake Baikal. They took two years and the film showed some of the scenery we saw yesterday which was spectacular in a different way than before. Miles and miles of grassland and bog as far as the horizon for hour after hour, no wonder Genghis Khan went walkabout!

What we had not expected was for our crossing of the Russian/Chinese border to take what seemed to be as long!

That is a bit of an exaggeration but let me tell you how it was.

Got to the Russian border at about 7.15. We had to get off so the train could have its bogies changed. For details please read our crossing into Belarus about 2 weeks ago! This was done in some sheds down the line

We went into the village with Iris and Lennard and had coffee. We met Magni a young Swedish man who had been born in China, moved to Iceland when he was 3 and then to Sweden. He is now working for an aerospace company in Germany. (and he wondered why he had some difficulty getting a visa!)

Back at the station the train reappears with narrower bogies, or is it wider. Different anyway.

Back on the train and we waited and waited. Two hours later some rather brusque Russians got on the train. They wanted to see our luggage then when we started to get it out from under the bunks they lost interest.

Later someone came and took our passports away.

Later he brought them back.

In the meantime one of the husbands of the train staff Andrei, come into our compartment to talk to us. Fist he has no English, second we have no Russian except please, thank you and two beers please and third he was drunk!

Later some Russians came and searched the train very thoroughly. Again under the beds etc.

Later they put a dog on the train to search

Meanwhile Andrei is snoring some way down the corridor in his compartment.

Later we got moving again

Later, not much later this time we crossed the Chinese border

Then the passport, customs thing was repeated.

Then we had to get off the train

Then the restaurant car was changed for a Chinese one

Then we got back on the train

Then we went to bed

Then the train got gong at about 1.30 apparently. Total time to cross the borders was over 18 hours! Next time anyone complains about terminal 5 at Heathrow I shall have a tale to tell.

To us this felt like an escape by now. So if we are ever in a Siberian Gulag we will have a clue on how to escape.