After deciding to move to Siberia for a year to teach at the Chita State Technical University, I embarked on a travel odyssey unlike any other. In this entry, we pick up the trip leaving the train station in Khabarovsk.
A Train To Nowhere?
In deciding to travel to Chita, Siberia, I had originally estimated a travel time of three days. Okay, maybe three at the outside figuring time changes and such.
As day 4 of the trip headed into the afternoon, I was finally on the train that would take me to Chita and figured I would be there in a day or so. I would finally get to see the beautiful and extreme landscape of Russia. To make things even better, I would get to brag to my friends about riding on the famous Trans-Siberian railway. This was going to be great. As is often the case with anticipated events, reality threw an ugly wrench in the proceedings.
StopGoStopGo
In California, there are two types of trains you can take. The first is an express train that pretty much takes you from point A to point B with few stops in between. For those traveling shorter distances, there is a slow train that stops at every little town and station. In Russia,...