"Don't be afraid of the big bad Babushkas"

Don’t be afraid of the big bad Babushka’s.

'Watch out for the Babushka’s man, 6 days is a long time to be on a train!'

Sámi had warned me of the big Russian women on the train, but after spending 7 months among petite Asian women I was looking forward to the change. Anyway how scary could they be? I'm sure they have locks on the cabin doors at night, don't they?

I flagged down a cab outside my hostel just next to the Forbidden City.

'Where you go?' asked the chirpy Chinese taxi man.

'Beijing Train Station please' I replied with a slight slur (too many Tsingtao's the night before with Sámi).

'Ok only twenty minit walk, you vewy wazy'

It was far too early for banter with the taxi man and I was not going to miss this train after spending the last 6 weeks traveling from Bangkok to make it on time. Shortly after I was bustling through the aggressive Chinese passengers trying to find my home for the next 6 days. They were screaming and shouting at each other and kept barging passed me to get more boxes onto the train. Please let me get some decent travel companions I thought. I couldn't stand 6 days with these crazy Chinese guys.

'Is this cabin 19?'

'Sure is'

'Great, normal people'

'Yeah it's kinda crazy out there'. Brilliant, I had a cabin sharing with two normal looking people, one American girl, Lauren, who spoke fluent Chinese, very useful at boarder controls and finding out when the next stop would be for food and beers, and a French Girl, Marie, who was stopping in Ulaan Baatar, in Mongolia to be an Economic Analyst for 6 months.

Things were looking good, I was on The Trans-Siberian Railway ready for the longest train journey in the world, in 6 days I would travel 7621 Km from Beijing to Moscow across some of the most deserted areas for mankind. No sign of the Babushka’s yet I was in a good mood, time for a quick nap.

I was woken up by a Chinese train worker banging on the door. He started bleating out in Chinese and handed me a pink ticket. I then realised how useful it was to have a westerner who could speak Chinese in the cabin. We had all been given a free lunch voucher which was available in the dining cart. Lauren had been working in Shanghai for 4 years and was more or less fluent in the lingo; it was amazing listening to a westerner speaking Chinese. I had heard westerners speak Thai before but somehow Chinese seemed more impressive, especially considering there are 56,000 characters in existence, 'of course only about 6,000 to 8,000 is the amount a Chinese person may know' Lauren informed me. 'I think I’ll just stick to the 26 I know thanks' I replied.

I was starving so wandered up to the dining cart on my own to see what delights were on the menu and who was lingering about to chat to. Considering there were about 15 or so carriages and each could hold about 30 people the dining cart sure wasn't built for any late night discos. I managed to get a seat by the window opposite a couple.

'Gday spruce, how ya going?'

'Fine mate, anything sexy on the menu?'

'Well me wife here's taken I’m afraid, so you'll have to do with this funny meat and celery stuff with rice'

Craig was a hard nosed Aussie. He was on his way to Ulaan Bataar with his Chinese wife for horse-riding holiday before they settled down back in Australia. Luckily I found the meat and celery stuff pretty tasty, well it was free anyway so I tucked in. Craig ripped into the Mongolian Consulate about the difficulties they faced getting visa's for a weeks holiday.

'They didn't know what they were doing in there mate, I tell ya, couldn't organise a piss up in a brewery.'

'Oh look is that The Wall again?' I pointed out trying to change the subject, we had passed several sections of The Wall since I had woken up, I used to think it was just one long wall around Beijing not realising it spread for miles all the way up to the Gobi Desert.

'Is anyone sitting here?'

'No mate go ahead'

'Sweet, hows the grub?'

'Alright if you like celery'

Steve was a chef and didn't look too impressed with the funny meat and celery stuff, 'well it's free isn't it?’ I could tell we were going to get along fine. Steve was on his way home to Leicester; he had been working in New Zealand and needed to pay off some credit card bills. Like me he had discovered that if you book the Trans-Siberian on your own and don't pay for an agency to rip you off and organise everything yourself it's actually really cheap. Sure you have some hassle getting visas for China, Mongolia and Russia but isn't that all part of the fun? The total cost to get from Beijing to Moscow with 3 visas was only about £250, not bad for 6 days on a train and some tasty meat and celery stuff.

'No sign of any Babushka's yet eh?'

'Not yet, I’m hoping to see some when we get over the boarder in Mongolia.'

'HOPING to see some?'

'Yeah of course Barry, everyone knows Babushka's are the best lover's in the world.'

'I'll take your word for that one mate.'

I arranged to meet Steve later for some beers and Babushka hunting and went back to practice my Russian.

Marie had been on the trip before and said we should be at the Mongolian boarder at about 9pm. She told me and Lauren about the famous changing of the tracks.

‘What do you mean they lift the train up?’

‘Errr, dis is what appens, we stop at de border and we ave de choice of staying on de train or we can watch from de outside.’

Apparently the reason for changing the tracks is because Mongolians refused to change their tracks to coincide with the Chinese developments and cause problems with trading. I wasn’t expecting the train to physically lift in the air. I spent some time practicing Russian with Lauren’s phrasebook, trying to sound as masculine as possible to perfect my accent incase we did run into any Babushka’s.

I sat on one of the chairs in the tight corridor, cranked up a bit of INXS on my CD player and watched the sun setting over the Desert, it stretched out for miles. All I could see was the sun, the sand and a few electricity cables in the distance. Then two new guys turned up our carriage with backpacks, how did they get on? I thought.

‘Hi, we have changed carriages and are in with you now’

‘Nice one, the more the merrier’

So now we were five, the two Israeli guys had managed to slip the train workers some cash and were upgraded to our carriage. Luckily they had some beers; I had bought some cheap Chinese whisky so we were all getting a bit jolly. Everyone was bombarding Marie with questions about the boarder crossing; do we have to get off the train? How do we get a stamp? Do the officers come on the train? And most importantly are we allowed to be drunk?

By this time no one was really paying any attention to where we actually were or what was happening, then all of a sudden the cabin jerked, we all looked at each other in silence. We had stopped.

‘We’re off the ground’ said one of the Israeli’s. Everyone cheered and we stumbled out into the corridor to see what was happening. I stuck my head out the window and looked down. The train was 1 meter off the ground. The Chinese train worker was speaking frantically to Lauren.

‘Ok everyone you either have to get off now or stay on the train for about 1 hour’

‘What about the toilet? Asked one Israeli.

‘They lock the doors at every stop’

So we all got off the train with our valuables. I bumped into Steve who had befriended a Kiwi and Canadian guy who were heading to UB too, and also had a crate of beer with them. This was starting to look like an 18-30’s train party. We all sat and watched in amazement as each carriage was lifted about 2 meters into the air whilst the tracks were removed and changed so they could run on the Mongolian railway.

After abiut an hour´s wait we got back on, there was now 8 of us in a 4 man cabin. The beers were flowing nicely and everyone was telling their stories, we could have been anywhere. The Chinese Train worker came and told us that the passport officers were coming round and we needed to have our passports ready.

‘This has got to be a great photo opportunity’ I said to everyone.

‘Yeah but if you get caught I don’t fancy your chances of keeping your camera’ Said Kiwi.

He was right, but I was in a cheeky mood. The passport officer knocked on our door, she looked pretty shocked to see 8 people in our cabin. She took our passports in turn, looking at us a couple of times in the process. We all got our stamps and customs declaration cards for the next boarder and she left, pretty harmless.

‘What happened to the photo?’ asked Kiwi.

‘Why don’t you have a look?’ I had managed to take a photo of her whilst she was checking someone else’s passport, a classic. We spent the rest of the night chatting and I seem to remember a few Queen Tracks being belted out at 3am. Unfortunately the Chinese people next to us weren’t Freddy followers and started banging on our door, sending everyone back to their cabins.

We arrived in UB at about 2pm the following day, everyone said their goodbyes and I, Steve and Lauren stocked up on some beers and Vodka for the next night. Not long and we were off to the Russian boarder about 8 hours away. I and Steve went for some food, only now it was in a Mongolian dining cart and there were 2 good-looking Norwegian girls on the train.

‘This is a very pretty dining cart don’t you think?’ Steve started the conversation.

‘Yeah I guess so’ said the cute blonde one.

‘Where did you to come from?’ I started with the basics.

‘We got on in Beijing? And you?’ I took an instant liking to the cute blonde one. After a pretty sober getting to know each other conversation we arranged to meet later in our cabin for some beers, vodka and cards. Weren’t we the charmers? Elisa and Anne were on their way home after 6 months traveling, they had paid slightly more than us through an agency know as Monkey Business. Monkey Business organize everything for you including visa’s and tickets and give you lots of useful information about the train, Beijing and Moscow. The girls were very happy with them. Time had flown by and we were now coming up to the Russian boarder. Unfortunately as expected the Russian passport control were slightly stricter which meant Steve, Elise and Anne had to go back to their cabins.

It seemed like it was about midnight because we were still on Beijing time, then as we stopped at the boarder I spotted a clock next to a Russian flag, 6.55? We just lost about 5 hours, so we changed our clocks and thought nothing of it.

As we stared out the window it hit home that we were actually in Russia, there were no Asian’s waiting for trains anymore, only scary looking big Russian men, and women. I tried to spot my first Babushka but had no luck. We sat tight and waited for the passport control, after seeing the size of the blokes coming round I decided against a photo on this occasion. They were very friendly and one of them even spoke English, they checked our cabin for stowaways and dangerous animals, gave us a stamp and moved on. Since it was now only about 8pm me and Lauren decided to carrying on with the beers and vodka, I went to find the others but they were asleep. I and Lauren stayed up talking about what we would expect of Russia, we had both been working in Asia for a while and were ready for the culture shock when we got to Moscow. We already felt very far from China and after two years I was feeling closer to home, seeing the westerners waiting at the train station made me realize I would not be one of the tallest people walking around anymore and hopefully no one would stare at me. It got to about 12am and we were running low on supplies, then all of a sudden it was as if someone had flicked a light switch on. We had forgotten about the time zone and we realized we’d been up for 24 hours.

‘I think it’s time for a snooze, I want to be able to see the Lake tomorrow’ Lauren reminded me of one of the highlights of the trip. Lake Baikal, the deepest freshwater lake on Earth, it has been reported to hold one fifth of the world freshwater; there was no way I was missing that. We agreed to wake each other in the morning to see the Lake.

‘Am I at the beach?’ I gazed out of my window half asleep, I couldn’t remember buying a ticket to the coast. Oh yeah, the Lake, I’d never seen this amount of water in one place without sand or a pier with amusements at the end. It was a beautiful Lake; I took a few photos and tried to wake Lauren,

‘I’m not sure if she normally drinks that much’ I said to Steve.

‘Well you were drinking for about 15 hours Barry’

‘Yeah I guess so, come on lets go and get some grub’ after walking through about 4 carriages we came to the end of the train.

‘Where’s the dining cart?’ Steve was puzzled.

‘They must have changed it at the boarder, its must be at the other end’

‘Do you realize what that means?’

‘Yeah we have to walk to the other end of the train, come on’

‘No no no, it means that they changed the dining cart from Mongolian to Russian’

‘This means we can get some Russian food, great!’

‘It also means that maybe the Babushka hunting has come to an end!’ We looked at each other and smiled. Was it possible? Were we finally going to meet a big Russian grandmother?.

I was nervous and excited as we headed to the dining cart, we joked about being taken as sex prisoners by the Babushka’s and then sold to the Mafia for some cheap vodka. Then as I opened the door of the last carriage I heard a burst of Russian music, I had never heard Russian music before but it definitely sounded Russian.

‘Spaseebo’ I said in my most Russian accent, two huge Babushka’s and one mafia looking bloke stared at me. I smiled and they all smiled back and we sat down.

‘What did you just say?’

‘I think I must have said thank you’

‘Why did you say that?

‘It was the first thing that came into my head, oh Jesus’.

One of them came over and gave us a menu; she smiled to reveal a gold tooth. She was small but she was a wide woman with a strong build, she seemed very friendly, maybe a bit too friendly.

‘She just touched my arm’ I whispered.

‘Maybe your in there Bazza, check out that other one, quick look, check out her hot pants’ She did indeed have hot pants on, tight orange ones. Her thighs were like rugby players and she too was butch looking. Elisa, Anne and Lauren tuned up, me and Steve ordered some sausages, bread and cheese whilst the girls had potatoes and chicken. Real Russian food.

‘She just touched my arm again, and she winked at me’ she was showing an extraordinary amount of affection for a waitress. The hot pants Babushka was the chef and a lovely chef she was too. The food went down a treat. We stayed in the dining cart playing cards and listening to the Russian music. The scenery had totally changed, it was raining for a start, the mountains had been flattened into small hills and we started to see the odd house, it was an incredible difference from two days ago in Beijing.

‘Is it beer o clock yet?’

‘I think it must be’ Goldtooth seemed impressed that we were ordering beer at whatever time it was in the afternoon. Everyone seemed to have a different time, we were either still on Beijing time, Mongolian or Russian. Beer o’clock seemed to be the only universal time so we stuck to that. We came to a stop so we all got off for supplies; everyone stared at us as we walked along the platform looking for nourishment for later. The Russian women were either gorgeous or had taken a fall down ugly lane and the guys all looked like they could kill you with one punch, Russia certainly was living up to what I had expected.

Back in the cabin we sat and I tried to play the guitar, I only knew Don’t look back in Anger so we didn’t get very far.

‘How long have you been playing mate?’ I hadn’t heard an Irish accent for a while.

‘Not long mate, can you play?’ Luckily Ronan was a bit of a Hendrix and definitely livened up the failed attempt at Oasis. Ronan had been teaching English in South Korea with his Canadian girlfriend Tammy who was an excellent flute player. Our cabin had turned into a band wagon and we had turned into an international cabaret show, I think the Chinese passengers were impressed with our varied knowledge of cheesy songs as they walked passed smiling. We continued until it was light, still not sure what the real time was.

‘I’m not drinking tonight mate, I need a night off’

‘Stop being a soft lad Barry’ Steve was a bad influence; my body really could do with a night off the booze. It was day 4, only 2 and a half days left, it was going surprisingly quickly. At this stage though I could have done with a shower, the only showers on the train were in the posh cabins. Steve said he had spoken to a girl who was in a posh cabin and she had mentioned we could use her shower if we wanted; instead we went to check out how the Babushka’s were doing.

‘Zdrasvute Goldtooth’ she greeted me with a sparkling smile.

‘Zdrasvute, like beer?’ I looked at Steve as she touched my arm again, that was four times I'm sure. I pointed at my watch; I didn’t fancy a beer for breakfast and did the universal sign for menu. I ordered some vegetable soup and bread, Steve went for the chicken. I was missing Asian food already. I could have died for a nice plate of egg fried rice. Then Hotpants came in the room with the food, she winked and smiled at me.

‘Why are they winking at me? You’re not that ugly’

‘Cheers Barry, it must be your beard’ both the Babushka’s were clearly taking a liking to me and I wasn’t that keen on being eaten for breakfast. Luckily the girls turned up for some food. There were now 3 Russian guys with Goldtooth and Hotpants.

‘Where did they come from?’ Elisa asked.

‘Maybe they were hiding from the authorities and are wanted for murder’ everyone looked over at the guys, they were discussing something with Hotpants and it wasn’t food, she was stroking one of them on the head and I saw him pat her on the arse. Maybe I was safe. We stopped a couple of times for the usual supplies. The scenery had changed again, there were lots of houses now and we were traveling through lots of small towns. The houses reminded me of home, very European looking. Using the railway tracks to walk between towns seemed to be a popular route; I wondered how many accidents there had been?

‘I can’t drink warm beer’ Steve was particular about his beverages.

‘Maybe Goldtooth will let us use her fridge to keep our beers in?

‘She will probably expect a favor’ He grinned at me stupidly.

‘No harm in asking I guess’ I wondered down to the dining cart with our stock of warm beers and asked Goldtooth. Well I didn’t actually ask but used international signs for horrible beer and motioned that a cold beer is always better. Luckily she was on the same wave length. These Babushka’s were starting to seem less harmless as the journey continued. What were we worrying about? Then it all changed. About two hours later we went back to the dining cart, as I opened the door Hotpants was standing there in some new blue Hotpants, she looked at me and winked, I smiled back.

‘You, me, sex, yes?’ She was standing smiling at me; I laughed it off nervously, tapped her on the shoulder and said

‘Ok Ok later’ and returned the wink.

‘Are you crazy?’ Steve demanded to know why I had agreed to have sex with the big crazy Babushka.

‘I didn’t know what else to say, I’m sure she was joking anyway, wasn’t she?’ Steve was probably right, I would have to steer clear of her in future, locks on the doors and no walking on my own, it seemed a bit over the top for a train journey. Back in the cabin with Ronan and Tammy we were back in full stretch with battle of the bands, although I may have won one battle with an Oasis track Ronan was definitely winning the war. We continued until it was light again, we were only getting about 4 hours darkness a night by this stage.

With only one day left I was ready to get off the train now, I really wanted a shower, I had been wearing a hat the whole time and my hair hurt from all the knots. Everyone was lagging a bit, our body clocks had been messed up over the journey, the food wasn’t that great and plus we had drank more beer than water; I was looking forward to arriving in Moscow. With that in mind we all decided to have a last party on the final night, we stocked up on beers and vodka at the next stop. The towns were looking a lot more developed now and there were a lot of people at the stations and in between. One thing I noticed was the fashion, had we been on a time travel train and gone back to the 80’s? Why did all the guys look like tough a Wham fan and all the girls like strong Blondie’s?

I had managed to steer clear of the Hotpants but when one has to eat, one has to eat. I made sure I was in between Steve and Elisa as we walked into the cart.

‘I think she’s forgotten about it’

‘Let’s hope so Barry, it would be a shame to get all this way and not make it to Moscow’ The mafia guys were back in the cart, they seemed to be a big hit with Goldtooth, she was sitting on one of their laps, I think she would have crushed me or Steve. After some more grub and more cards we headed back to the party wagon for our last night. Everyone seemed quite subdued; we had all gotten on so well and had a great time. I think we were all getting the holiday blues, we knew that once we were in Moscow it was only a matter of time before we would be home, we had all been away for some time and were dreading going back to reality.

‘Only about 5 hours left Barry, I think you’re gona make it’

‘Yeah there’s no way she can get her wicked way with me now, come one lets go and get some photos’ It had to be done, photo’s of the Babushka’s was a must. They seemed flattered that we wanted to take their picture; Hotpants seemed a bit too excited. I sat down and hit my leg and pointed to her, THUMP, she sat on my leg, threw her arms around me and tried to give me a kiss, I moved away but she managed to plant one on my cheek.

‘You, me sex?’ I laughed again and pointed to Steve.

‘No no no’ Steve pointed to me so I took the camera of him and showed her the photo to distract her.

‘Spasseebo, Da sveedaneeya’ It was time to make a sharp exit. We shook their hands and gave them a kiss on the cheek.

‘She winked at me that time’ Steve seemed chuffed finally. We arranged to meet on the platform at Moscow. I spent the last hour listening to INXS and thinking about the journey, it had been one of the best experiences of my life, the contrast of cultures as we traveled through was amazing. All the people I had met were so interesting and fun, it had been well worth the £250 I paid. It was starting to look like Moscow, tall grey communist style building were abundant, the people looked more attractive and stylish, maybe Moscow had escaped the time warp. We finally arrived, 4 minutes behind schedule, not bad timing for 7621km. We arranged to meet each other for dinner and drinks in town, me and Steve went for our first kebab and a pint by the station. House music was being played everywhere and there were lots of people about.

‘Where’s the underground station?’

‘I don’t know, let’s ask this bloke, excuse me, train? Underground’ we followed who looked like a rail worker; well he had an aluminous jacket on. Then I felt a hand on my shoulder.

‘No No No, come me’. It was Hotpants, it seemed like the guy we had asked couldn’t be trusted so we followed her, and sure enough she took us to the underground and helped us buy a ticket.

‘Maybe guys in aluminous jackets are mafia?’

‘Who cares man, Hotpants rocks, she shaved our bacon’ It was true, big bad scary babushkas weren’t actually that scary after all. It was time to explore the delights of Moscow.

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