The Amazing Eurasian Odyssey
as told by characters Matthew Garrick and Stephen Williams Part 11: The Russian Federation, Part 1

In the late afternoon, we stopped near the Chinese border to change the train's wheels. Mongolian and Russian trains run on a wider- sized track than China's, so the cars are rolled into a warehouse where the chassis is lifted off the narrower wheel sets and then lowered onto the wider ones. This takes about four hours, so it gave us our last chance to walk around China.

A few hours later, we started to see the outskirts of the Gobi Desert. Air conditioning was nonexistent in our third class sleeper, so we were relieved when it cooled down. We left our window open a bit, and we drifted off to sleep.

The next day my head and hair were covered in a small layer of sand. It seemed during the night, the wind had deposited trace amounts of sand into the car. However, the grit had gradually built up until I was literally covered with it.

In retrospect, this seems like an obvious conclusion to draw: riding through a desert + open window = sand.

The next morning we talked with one of our cabin mates, a Frenchman who worked for AirBus. He played a role with the supersonic Concorde before its retirement in 2003.

We rolled into Ulaanbaatar, the capital of Mongolia, for a 30- minute stop. This is where many backpackers disembarked. We could not because time was limited. Matthew had already bought his plane tickets to go home, and we had just over two weeks to travel through Russia and Finland.

We stepped off the train for a few minutes, which was our first brush with the Cyrillic alphabet that is used in many of the Slavic languages. Ulaanbaatar was not big. Though it is now a democracy, it was once communist like its northern neighbor. Many of its buildings boast the cold cement look communist states seem to favor.

We had barely walked around the streets before the conductor blew his whistle to get rolling again. Russian border control was crazy. They were taking panels off the train to make sure that Mongolians or Chinese weren't hiding.

We arrived in Irkutsk the next morning around lunchtime. We made our way to the hostel, which was nothing more than a converted flat. This style of hostel is much more popular in Europe than in Asia.

First on our list of things to do was to shower. After the sand bath we had two days before, we desperately needed to wash. (Un)luckily, the hot water that was advertised (and was actually the sole reason we booked this hostel), was broken. The water that gushed from the nozzle was ice cold. Literally, there was ice forming on the pipes. I sponged off, which was the only way to do it without fear of hypothermia, but Matthew decided to see how long he could go before the smell became unbearable. He would make it five or six days.

We walked around that night to see some of the sights. There were a number of monuments and ornate Russian Orthodox cathedrals in the area. The first thing that struck us was the majority of people strolled with beers in hand. The second was that most Russian men, despite carrying cold brews, always walked around looking so angry.

Seriously, most of them were cold faced, and they love pointy snakeskin boots. I'm sure we were received as several social classes below them for wearing flip flops instead of boots with our jeans.

(Next week: The Russian

Federation, Part 2) Factoid The General Oliver Otis Howard House is located on the campus of Howard University. Constructed between 1867 and 1869, it was the home of Major General Oliver Otis Howard, the founder of the school and its first president from 1869 to 1873. The house still retains many of its decorative elements such as the high mansard roof, elaborate dormer windows, tower, and decorative iron balustrades. The Board of Howard University was able, through General Howard, to purchase a one- acre lot including a frame building to begin operation of the school. The Howard House was among the first buildings constructed. Although the Trustees voted to give General Howard a lot upon which to build a residence, he instead purchased the lot for $1,000.