The Waiting Game

Day 7 - Another cold night. According to Sam's handbook (sigh), we should be passing Lake Baikal, the world's largest fresh water lake, at about 1am. Lisa sets her alarm clock. I tell her and JD not to bother waking me.
The train is relentless...
View of Lake Baikal (taken from Tim's camera.. we were sound asleep)

We are now approximately +8 hours GMT. The train stops at Nauschii (?? I'll confirm name.... when I get my damn Handbook) for Russian Customs inspection which lasts for 4 hours. The russians as always are extremely, well russian. The front guy explains in perfect english that our passports will be taken away for inspection and held for 2 hours. We hand over our passports (after the officer looks at JD about 3 times) and white immigration card (in many respects, the white card is more important than the passport so don't lose that).

Then a lady officer and an accompanying military officer enters the carriage and proceeds to search each cabin Our provinista (bless her) gives our cabin a quick glance in case the people she put with us in the first place left anything behind. When our turn comes, we are asked to step outside our cabin whilst the soldier searches its compartments (not the hidden ones though) and underneath our mattresses. We can hear soldiers walking on the roof of the train tapping it as they go along.

JD gets cabin madness so we get off the train and walk about the platform. We take a couple of photos but are told not to take any of uniformed personnel.

4 hours later, we get our documents back and the train resumes it journey. Half an hour later, we stop at the Mongolian customs. The same drill applies (I don't know why they bother because everyone knows the good stuff has already been shifted) and we are kept at the stop for a further 3 hours. There is no hot water and everyone is cold and tired.

7.30 am (Moscow time) - the provinista taps on our doors and collects our bedsheets. I look out of the window and see a rather large sprawling city loom ahead of us. As far as we knew we weren't scheduled to arrive at Ulaan Baatar till afternoon. A couple of minutes later, the provinista opens our door, points at the window and says very firm and urgently the words "Ulan Baatar -- 5 minutes". She repeats this again in case we don't get it. A minute later the train pulls into the station. We scramble to get our belongings together (Lisa did hers whilst still in her sleeping bag) and get off the train within its 5-minute stop.
Bridge crossing

At russian customs...
..