Ikutsk Oblast/Buryatia (Russia)/Mongolia: Transsiberian Railroad

I am glad I only did a small section of Transsiberian railroad – a 32 hour journey from Irkutsk to Ulaanbaatar. Train travel is not my thing – you don’t get to see much, you waste time on stops that are hours and hours long (going by car this route only takes 12 hours, so what a waste of time!), and you have zero comforts. I wrongly expected this to be a somewhat lux experience catering to foreign travelers – but it isn’t. Trains are old, slow, dirty, you are crammed into a compartment with sneezing tourists who have mostly been on this train since Moscow, there is no restaurant carriage (you can buy tea and waffles only). The stop on the border crossing was 8 hours! So all in all – check mark for havin done Transsiberian but I wouldn’t do it again nor recommend to anyone.
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