Cordonski Bleuski

My first encounter with the restaurant car on the Trans-Manchurian Express... By way of explanation (and you might need it) when I refer to the toilet situation, you should know that all of it empties directly onto the track...

... I don’t have far to travel, as the restaurant car is the next carriage down from ours. First impressions are that it has promise. To my right there is a small bar area, then on either side of the aisle, four cubicles that can seat four diners each. Pink curtains are draped at each window, tied back with lace ties, turning the rectangular picture windows into triangles. There is a large no smoking sign under which two Russians are smoking like steam trains. I miss the entrance to the galley on the way in but I catch its smell. It’s a sort of musty cabbage, not unlike an old peoples’ home at dinnertime.

The waiter pops up from behind the bar. He looks like Charles Bronson from the Death Wish films, except his features aren’t symmetrical. Someone jogged God’s elbow in the design phase. The left side is out of kilter with the right. He’s wearing a black suit, black shirt buttoned to the collar, and a pair of blue furry slippers. It’s the sort of garb I imagine Johnny Cash’s mother might have worn. When he smiles it makes him look ill and me feel ill.

‘Menu An - glee skee?’ I say with a phrase learned this very morning from the back of my guidebook.

‘Da - breakfast?’ he says. I detect mild incredulity.

‘OK.’

‘Eggs, cheese, butter?’

This seems an odd combination, and I’m not sure if he’s offering me breakfast or a recipe.

‘No cheese, please.’

‘No cheese?’ He says this like I’ve just informed him Putin is a lesbian, but nevertheless shuffles off, presumably to meter out some vigilante justice on the chef.

I look out of the window: it’s my first proper look at Siberia. While I slept I missed about 300 miles of it, but I’m not worried, there is still another 4400 miles to go before I reach its eastern border with China, and yet another 900 miles before I jump off in Beijing. This thought catches my imagination.

As I mentioned before, Moscow to Beijing covers 5623 miles of track. Not that I believe it. Who decides where to start measuring in Moscow, and where to stop in Beijing? Have you ever seen, in any city in the world, a marker post heralding it as the centre of the city? The mileage signs showing distance to London used to be marked out from Charing Cross. So Charing Cross was consider the central measurement point for London. Then they moved it to nearer Whitehall, but I bet they never changed all the signs.

I start to think of more reliable ways to measure my progress. What about books? I have four books with me so Moscow to Beijing could be measured as four books long. The benefit of this measuring system is that I can adjust my reading to meet my estimated arrival time. For example, I’ve already started a Bill Bryson book that I know I will read slower than a fast-paced thriller. A little bit of careful planning in this respect and reckon I’m onto a winner. I like this idea and decide it’s the only form of measurement flexible enough, and I decide to adopt it throughout my trip.

However I’m not sure it adequately solves the time issue. I’ll be passing through 7 time zones. Keeping track of this is made more complex by the train insisting on retaining Moscow time throughout the journey. This means just before I get off the train at Beijing it’ll be 2am in the corridor. Immediately I step onto the platform it’ll be 9am. That’s one small step for me, and one giant leap for confusion.

But a solution comes to me. What if I wear seven watches? Set at hourly differences I could use the watch nearest my elbow from today and as I get nearer to Beijing I can progressively work down my arm, until I am using the watch on my wrist. All I need to put this plan into action is another six watches…

We passed Nizhny Novgorad, better known as Gorky very early this morning and the next town of any significance is Vyata, which, not that long ago its citizens called Kirov. Despite my internal machinations I’m becoming quite blasé about the distances which might be why my mind turns back to ablutions. The regimented forest decked out in its early autumnal uniform marches past me at pace outside my window, but fails to deflect me from this thought.

What’s vexing me is this. There are eighteen people staying in my carriage, two Provodniks and one Provodnitsa. That adds up to twenty one arses. Times that by the eighteen carriages and you get 378 rear-ends when the train is full. And that doesn’t include the train drivers, who supply a pair of buttocks each on strict rotation. Stick with me here. Assume, on average, people do their business four times on this journey, a fair average for a week I think. That adds up to an almighty 1512 dumps. OK, the toilets are shut just before, and just after stations, but that still leaves an awful lot of shit on the tracks. From the air it must look like someone’s trailed a thick brown felt tip from the back of the train.

I’m driven from my diversion by the untimely arrival of breakfast. Bronson coughs over it as he places it in front of me. He also places down some black bread that he doesn’t cough over.

‘Beer?’

It’s early but I look at the meal and think it might be a good idea.

‘Da.’ I say in fluent Russian.

The breakfast has been delivered in a sort of miniature frying pan without a handle. Its not immediately clear whether this is because the chef couldn’t transfer it to a plate, or if it’s his take on a breakfast classic. I rather think it’s the former. The contents looks like a large fried egg with a big knob of butter melting in the yellow yolk. The whole is specked with light brown droppings, which I think is ham. I dig in. I can’t tell you what the bottom half tastes like because it is impossible to peel away from it’s casing, but the top half tastes OK.

Despite Bronson handing me the bill as he collects the remains of my breakfast, I linger in the restaurant car drinking coffee, which is awful but improves with my clever remedy of sprinkling pepper in it. The Russian smokers left some time ago and nobody has replaced them. No one has even walked through. The chef came out of the kitchen once, which did nothing for my appetite. He looks like the reflection Don Estelle from it Ain’t Half Hot Mum might see in a Hall of Mirrors. He’s wearing baggy shorts and his legs, like the ends of his fingers, are the color of nicotine.

I’m expecting to see Janet up and about by the time I get back to my cabin but he’s in bed, asleep. Encouragingly, there are signs he may have had some breakfast as a large tin mug the size of a potty has appeared on the table together with some packets of plain brown biscuits. This can only mean one thing. He does wake up from time to time...