Phantasms

In the theme of the title of this blog, I will be occasionally relating random images and events I have jotted down in a notebook.

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Boarding the train in Beijing early in the morning, the station smelt of coal and axel grease, as it should.

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Visibility is low leaving Beijing. Stark winter trees are but black outlines against the smog grey world.

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We passed a small cemetery. A score of mounds in an overgrown field, each with a grey stone obelisk indicating ownership. The trees surrounding the graveyard are bare and the ground is barren.

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In a jeep in the middle of the Mongolian steppe. It is dead flat in every direction. There is not a road, person nor structure in sight. Suddenly there is the familiar sound of a Nokia ringtone, somehow our driver has mobile reception.

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Our jeep driver Gamba was a captain in the Mongolian army. He is as cool as ice in his black beret. He says he doesn't speak English and I have had limited success communicating with him in Russian. I suspect he understands much more than he lets on, as he occasionally laughs at jokes told in English.

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The toilet on the train opens straight onto the tracks. An blast of ice and snow rushes up and in as the sleepers fly past below.

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Arrived in Ulaan-Baatar. Quite cold. Too cold for pen. Should have brought pencil. (Written in patchy ink)

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Siberia is full of wood and snow.

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Old wooden houses with brightly painted blue and white windows.

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Another cemetery. Another rubbish dump. Rows of silos. A woman with dyed red hair and striking blue eyes. Log trucks lining up at level crossing. A man and child pick their way through the mud and snow.

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Many bridges in Siberia have guard posts with barbed wire and dogs at either end.