China to Russia
The two-day journey from Beijing to Vladivostok was one of contrasts – between, of course, China and Russia, but also between the new China and the slightly less new China.
We left from the gleaming Beijing South (北京西站, Běijīngxī), another airport-like station with huge light spaces, security checks including baggage scanners, a big, airy departure lounge and 'gates', which opened to allow access to each platform shortly before departure.
The train was a single-decker seat train, gleaming white and sleek both in and out and very, very fast. There was a small electronic display at the front of each carriage, which periodically told you the speed and it was always much faster than it felt; in fact, it was probably the smoothest train ride I've ever been on!
The scenery from Beijing to Harbin
We arrived in Harbin West station (哈尔滨西站), another gleaming new station; so new in fact, that we'd read, in our admittedly brief peruse, nothing of its existence! We tramped around following the 'Metro' signs in vain, before we concluded that it must be behind the closed-off areas with the sound of banging going on! We finally got out and hopped on an equally gleaming bus, so new that the fan above the driver still had its plastic wrapping around it and got into town, wandered around slightly lost along a lively road and found the main Harbin station ( 哈尔滨站, Hā'ěrbīn Zhàn), a much older (by which I mean probably 1970s!) station; grubbier, run-down, relatively chaotic, picked up our tickets, dropped our bags and went for a wander.
Harbin was a friendly place with a somewhat Russian flavour, with old Russian buildings and Russian signage – in fact, when we went into a hotel to ask directions, after establishing that we didn't speak Mandarin, the staff fetched a European-looking colleague to speak English with us; this wasn't easy, until Niamh suggested she might be Russian and we chatted away in Russian getting all sorts of useful information!
We wandered around the very pleasant streets of Harbin for a couple of hours, had some dinner, then got on a fairly run-down sleeper for an overnight trip to Suifenhe ( 绥芬河, Suífēnhé).
During the last part of the journey from Beijing to Harbin the scenery became more picturesque, less flat and open, more hilly, with more trees and older-style buildings with tiles roofs and a more human scale. We could only imagine the scenery after Harbin, seeing dark shapes loom above us, suggesting wooded hills, but, due to the absurdities of one time zone for all of China, it was bright by 3.30, so I caught some drowsy glimpses of pretty wooded hills. We arrived in Suifenhe, a small border city, at 6.30, with little idea of how we would continue on to Vladivostok, a state of confusion that lasted a few hours! I'd read and been told a number of differing things about how to continue on, but it took a while to find out exactly what to do – which was wait for a ticket agency across from the railway to open at 8.00 and get a train at 9.30 to Pogranichny (Пограни́чный) in Russia, a 26 km trip that took almost two hours – and that didn't even include passport checks, which were done at Suifenhe station for China and at Pogranichny station in Russia!
Before leaving Suifenhe, we had a bit of a wander around, looking for some breakfast and getting the vibe. There was lots of Russian signage around, the architecture had a distinct Russian influence and lots of Chinese people spoke some Russian – but English was very rare, both in signage and language knowledge. It was an interesting experience to see both Russian and Chinese together, but no English. By the reactions of people we came across, and the immigration staff on both borders, it must be very rare for Australians and Irish to come through that way!
After travelling – very slowly – around winding tracks through beautiful wooded hills near the Chinese-Russian border, we came to Pogranichny, had a fairly painless experience with Russian immigration and customs and were in Russia!
In a very small town outside a very small railway station – luckily, we'd met a young Russian couple from the next big town, who'd gone to Suifenxe for a short break, and they'd offered to drive us to Ussuriysk (Уссури́йск), where they live, halfway to Vladivostok, 100km away. So, we headed off at breakneck speed, through open, rolling country to Ussuriysk – and I even got to hear my favourite Russian band кино (Kino) on Russian radio while driving through Russia! What an authentic cultural experience!
Once in Ussuriysk, Artyom, one of our saviours, took us to a bank to get roubles, then to an informal bus station to get to a minibus to Vladivostok. The buses only leave when full – or close to – so it was a bit of a wait, but finally we were off, at even more breakneck speed along a lovely new freeway, interspersed with bumpy, dusty sections still under construction to Vladivostok!