From Switzerland to Viet Naam, overland, 2005. Part Eleven: Ulan Ude to Basel, via Warsaw & Berlin.

Thursday night, 7th April. We're on the Russian border, and have been for the past 5 hours. So... I'm going to send a message to Ursula tomorrow to 'please ask Mila to send me her mobile number' in order for us to get in contact directly, so I can find out what she's arranged... 'cos it looks like we're not going to arrive on time in Moscow! Let's see what happens. My ticket (all the way through) should have been purchased, that's certain, but it might be a good idea to find out beforehand whether I have a sleeper or not, from Moscow onwards. Hmmn... ************** Well... I've been here before ! It's sometime on Friday 8th April. My watch says 9 o'clock, which is still set on Beijing time, so it should be... 4 hours before that... so 5 o'clock in the morning. Snow drifts close to the train, a couple of metres deep, or more... white everywhere... Memory plays tricks, so possibly it only seems more extreme than when we came the other way a couple of months ago. We're supposed to be in Irkutsk at 9.16 Moscow time, which, if my watch calculations are correct, will be in another 4 hours. Irkutsk II for whoever it was -I think it was Anthony Hartshorn who didn't believe it existed- is something like half an hour later. There are two separate stations at Irkutsk for some reason or other... neither of which I saw coming out because it was pitch black in the middle of the night. I've just made myself an Ovaltine (not even an Ovalmaltine which is what it's called in every other country but Britain; so in Viet Naam I obviously bought the British version -or a pirate copy- of Ovaltine) 3-in-1. I've just put boiling water onto it and am going to have a belated breakfast. Belated breakfast, because we had all the problems of going through the border into Russia this morning and that took hours and hours and hours. We're just going across a frozen river... and... there's a scattering of frozen houses, snow all over the roofs and also drifted up to the top of the outside walls... snow built up on one side, so the wind and snow have come from one direction pretty consistently for quite some time. North, I think... the wind, I mean, judging by the place where the sun ought to be, but there isn't any. So, today's going to be interesting. And still the question is: "Are we going to arrive in Moscow on time?", or will I end up in the Lubyanka because I'm in the country with an expired visa. ************** It's still Friday and it's not many minutes since I last spoke, except... I've got a little quiz for you: I've been doing a crossword from an old London newspaper... well, a UK National Daily... and on the back of the crossword it says 'Prince Edward's' (which is a theatre), Elaine Paige in 'Anything Goes!' Tickets now available for performance from 10th July; "Chess" a grand master of a show, over 1000 performances. Last 4 weeks, ends April 8th. 'Prince of Wales': "Aspects of Love", opens April 12th. "Single Spies" by Alan Bennett is on at the 'Queens' and "Eartha Kitt in Concert" is at the Shaftsbury until April 1st. So what year

did I cut out and collect this crossword? There's something for somebody to find out. What year was it? It was either a Daily Telegraph or a Grauniad crossword, judging by the typeface. I brought a dozen or so with me for those odd moments -like sitting in the middle of Siberia- so that's what I shall be doing today, doing a few crosswords. But what year was the one I described? To make it even more fun, I can tell you that 5 Down is: "In concert to win the lady? (2,3,3,8)" The answer being; 'To Get Her Together'. And now I'm almost certain that it's the Telegraph. So not just which year, but you can probably find out which day of the year this crossword was. ************** It's 7.15 Moscow time, 11.15 Beijing time and... 5.15 back home in Switzerland. And we're just about to leave Slyudyanka on time, or perhaps 2 minutes late (boding well at the moment). I have just bought myself a... well I can only describe it as a kind of kipper. It's smoked, it's from Lake Baikal, it's about a foot and a half long, and I'm going to have it for my lunch, together with hot vegetable soup, some biscuits, a can of beer, and finished off with my last orange from Beijing. Irkutsk is more or less 2 hours away from here, Irkutsk II being another 20 minutes further on. And from what I hear, it's a stop whereby they're taking money away from the taxi drivers who were running quite a nice little business, taking tourists from Irkutsk to the place where most of the hotels are. So private enterprise is being wiped out by national railways (whose prices have now nevertheless gone way, way up). The railways used to have to compete with Russian Internal Airline prices during the Soviet era, and those prices were very low indeed. People could fly backwards and forwards to their homes in Vladivostok for EasyJet/RyanAir prices. Which meant that all the various branches of the TransSiberian railways had to keep very low prices as well. Now there's a free market; except that the official prices are still quite low, but some of the agencies that are really profiteering will go to the wall unless they pull their fingers out, because somebody will work out how to do it, on the Web, properly, at a competitive price & reasonable profit. At which point you'll be able to go right the way across Russia for about $500. At the moment, agencies charge anything up to 10 times the nominal price... and if you are planning to hiccup your journey, they charge -and get- anything up to 100 times nominal value. We're now leaving the station. Next stop Irkutsk, still on Lake Baikal. ************** A second clue from that same crossword: 8 across - "Double turn by late Russian dramatist (5)" - GOGOL. ************** 25 minutes to midnight Beijing time, 6hrs earlier in Switzerland and 4hrs earlier Moscow time. So it's 'really' 25 to 8, but it's been pitch black for hours. I had a soup in the restaurant: not terribly good... I think the chef probably wasn't drunk enough. A pity, the last one I had was magnificent. I'm by myself in my little cabin tonight, nobody else here, unless they bang on the door and want to move somebody in in the middle of the night. They'll

have to bang on the door, because I've put the lock down, so their only alternative would be to come through the shower from the next compartment. The water in the shower is -how can I describe it?- well, it's not warm, in fact it would probably be cold in a normal situation, but because it's freezing outside, it feels vaguely luke-warm, but I don't really feel like stripping off and standing underneath it... not tonight, anyway, I'll see how I feel tomorrow. Tomorrow being, in a few hours' time, the 9th April. The situation has now changed (I find from an SMS from Mila): they're putting me on the 7 o'clock evening train out of Moscow. I don't think it's more than 5hrs to the border, but we shall see what happens. I've said I want to be booked 'straight through', not in hiccups where I get dumped off in Warsaw and have to find my way across the city alone with all my luggage and then have to book the rest of my trip myself as she had previously suggested. I could have done that on the internet in my spare time in H Ni; I didn't, because I have an agreement with these people. But I certainly want to have a few words with them afterwards. I'm still reading my Ian Rankin 'Inspector Rebus' novel... I think I've seen John Hannah playing the inspector on Swiss telly -we often have the choice of the original version from the right-hand speaker: bi-canal, it's called. And I'm still trying to ration myself to the equivalent of a chapter at a time of my Vietnamese war novel 'The Sorrow of War', which is very beautiful. ************** It's 6 o'clock in the morning Moscow time and Siberia is certainly living up to its reputation. Some time ago it must have suddenly got warm for about ten minutes, because it RAINED onto the windows. But then the rain didn't even run all the way down; it ground to a frozen halt, then we had a sudden snow blizzard. So we have frozen raindrops on the outside windows, with one side of each of them supporting a tiny build up of snowflakes flurrying in opposition to the train's momentum. Because of the difference in timetables, I really am seeing different things from when I travelled West to East. The biggest disappointment was Irkutsk. People had talked so much about it "You must get off there" and so on. There IS an Irkutsk I and Irkutsk II. 'I' is a sort of little back-street, a little bit like the 'other' station on the outskirts of Budapest (Kelenfld pu), where my son Manoel and I got off last October. And like that back-street in the outskirts, this one doesn't give any indication of what the rest of the place is like. When you get round to 'II', you meet this enormous industrial complex, petrochemical and all the rest of it. It's huge, huge, huge, huge, huge. After the stories I'd heard from people, it wasn't at all what I'd expected from Irkutsk. We got down onto the platform at Irkutsk II, but nobody was selling anything. The only thing I've bought on the platform in Russia this time round was the fish, the smoked fish, at the stop before Lake Baikal, which made such a very nice lunch. As I said, last night I had soup with brown bread in the restaurant car and it was really not very good! Looking back to the wonderful lemon soup I had on the way over, I was really looking forward to a repeat. What a pity.

When they asked me if I wanted a main dish, I said 'no'. Let's see how things go today. If I can buy nothing on the platform, then I'll make do with my Spelt biscuits, Diet Coke and Fanta. And I DID buy a bottle of vodka last night from the restaurant car for 350 roubles, which is a reasonable price, I suppose, for on the train. It would be much cheaper down on the platforms, but as I said, the elderly ladies selling their wares have been conspicuous by their absence so far. So, just after 6 o'clock Moscow time, somewhere in the middle of Siberia. The next stop should be in about an hour at... can't read a damn thing without my glasses... at, at, at... a place called... Achinsk. ************** Finally, some food for sale on the platform at Malinsk; my stomach was rumbling as we approached lunchtime. The chicken that I bought turned out to be smoked. Although it had a touch of the Lake Baikal fish (they probably have to hang everything side by side), it was really very tasty, the surprise flavour was a bonus. And the pancakes filled with ricotta-type cheese were heaven-sent. That was a really worthwhile late lunch today. Malinsk on the 9th. Another day, day and a half, and we shall be in Moscow. ************** A quarter to five Moscow time, but dawn is just about to break and it's still snowing on 10th April. ************** It's now 3 p.m. on 10th April and the tempo inside the train has upped quite a bit, as the attendants have started to 'spring clean' the inside of the train. And at the last stop they were outside with steaming buckets of water and piles of old shirts, washing the grime off the railway emblems and number-plates I've just tried to film two men sitting on the ice in the middle of a frozen river; they were fishing through holes drilled in the ice. I've caught a sort of 'photo fever', rushing from one side of the train to the other, trying to video anything and everything and everybody that moves. Travelling in two, one could probably approach the problem more calmly, but, as I've spent the time since we entered Russia alone in this compartment, alone in this carriage (except for my three attendants and a roster of other attendants making the most of our empty carriage and dossing down in a couple of the empty compartments), I have a sudden urge to look up my fellow travellers on the train, rather than simply passing the time of day with them down on the platform. I wonder if Mila will be there to meet me in Moscow. ************** 17.50 April 11th. Somewhere in Western Russia. Very little time to record and no time at all to film after our arrival in Moscow. We arrived 2 minutes early and Mila and the driver were on the platform to meet me! They had had their own panic stations, because, as the "7 o'clock" train is no longer running, they had had to book me on an earlier train (any later train would get to the Russian-Belorussian border after midnight). As they were

unable to get confirmation that the TransSib was running more or less on time, they had had to book my tickets and then cross their fingers. As I said, we arrived on time at a quarter past two in Moscow, which was just as well because my ongoing booking was for 15.53 from the station across town. However, we arrived there with enough time in hand for Mila and me to have a late lunch in the station snack bar - beetroot soup, yakburgers and chips. Then after fond farewells, I found my compartment, ready to take in the changed faces of urban and rural Moscow as we make our way to the border. I have the compartment to myself, because they booked all my ongoing tickets first class (in February I'd travelled across Europe 2nd class, switching to luxury class on the TransSiberian). This train takes me through Belarus, but again, I shall see very little of Mink because of the arrival time, and I don't want to risk getting off and interfering with the train bookings. I hope to be awake and take in the bogey changes in Brest again, otherwise I shall shoot what video I can between here and when I have to get off in Warsaw. ************** April 12th. Lunchtime in Warsaw. Even though I've eaten and drunk quite a lot of it, my luggage still weighs about 75 kilos. We came in onto another level of the same Warsaw station where I spent several hours on my way out; this time we're underground. Unfortunately none of the shops will accept or change Euros (or Swiss francs), so I'll wait until I get on the Berlin train before I get something fresh to eat. For the time being, I still have a litre and a half of Russian fizzy water (Pepsiproduced this time) and my last packet of spelt biscuits. Because of my heavy haversack and lack of Polish pennies for the Left Luggage lockers, I've contented myself walking slowly around the below-ground shopping arcades, trundling my suitcase behind me. ************** A few minutes of Tati-like farce as we were about to board the train: they announced a change of platform, so the arrival was two platforms away. We had to go up and over, but the up escalator suddenly stopped, resulting in a couple of dozen people falling up the stairs, the rest of us milling around below them. Things eventually sorted themselves out and I was almost at the top when some of the people behind me started to panic at the thought of the Berlin express leaving without them. They started pushing and shoving. Result: another escalatorful of wriggling bodies clutching suitcases. Over the bridge section and onto the down escalator. By now, the first arrivals were arguing with the railway people and insisting on keeping the train doors blocked until everyone had changed platform. I was two thirds of the way down.... when THIS elevator came out in sympathy with its companion. I rolled the rest of the way down, over the top of and underneath the other rolling bodies. Miraculously, no one seemed to have been badly hurt and, judging by the exchanged smiles, lots of us saw the funny side of the situation. We're now whizzing through Polish countryside, every so often catching the eye of one of our companions-in-disaster, and grinning vacuously at each other.

Two American couples sitting behind me were very vocal in demanding names and statements from other sufferers and witnesses, so that they could take legal action, but the mounting derisory laughter from the rest of us quietened them down quite quickly. When they left the carriage (probably to the restaurant, unless group toilet breaks are now the vogue in the US), they were given a round of ironic applause. ************** I've been talking to a group of three elderly Englishmen -they're probably all younger than me, but from my p.o.v. they looked ancient and had obviously long retired. They travel the railways of Europe and beyond, checking the timetables, the use or disuse of railway lines marked on old maps etc.. They made it sound as if it were an official 'job', but when I tried to find out more, they were all three very nebulous. As an enthusiastic train-spotter in my youth, I had expected to find their conversation interesting, or at least informative... some anecdotes from these 'free spirits' of the railways... but the fourth member of their party (the wife of one of them) was much more entertaining, explaining how she filled her time while the 'boys' were talking routes and sidings. ************** 12 April and we've crossed the Oder into Germany. Next stop Berlin Zoo... where my Berlin-based team members: Marcus, Natalie and Kirsten are going to meet me and take me out to dinner, before I catch the night train to Basel. **************