-Food while on-board...
Let’s talk about food. We prepared some snacks and instant noodles but it was surely not enough. Don’t forget to bring plastic bowls and cutlery, otherwise, things might get ugly!
“We walked outside the train station and started looking for restaurants and convenience stores. We found only one convenience store nearby...”
As for the canteen coach, I would say that the food in the Chinese canteen was great and was not so expensive. Too bad that the canteen compartment was changed to the Russian one once we crossed the border.
Don’t take me wrong! I love Russian food but what I complain would be the price! The food tasted really good but was so expensive and we didn’t get much at all, even the sandwich looked like it was too little for what we paid.
We actually kind of saw it coming so once we got out of the train after crossing the border to Zabeikalsk city on Monday morning. We walked outside the train station and started looking for restaurants and convenience stores. We found only one convenience store nearby. The shop assistant couldn’t speak English at all but we managed…to use Google translation!
We got a lot of food and thought that it would be enough until the time we arrived Moscow but turned out it wasn’t. When you have nothing to do, reading and eating might become your favorite hobbies. We also purchased some movies and series to watch offline but we ran out of them so quickly as well.
The restaurant/cafe at the train station in Zabeikalsk, Russia served nice dishes as well, for example, borscht. By the way, there were no food stalls like we saw in the pictures from many blogs about the Trans-Mongolian route.
Some stops/stations had a small kiosk stationed next to the train. They mostly sold instant food which only required hot water to prepare. There was a samovar in each coach so there was no need to worry about hot water. Some shops also had freshly cooked food, like baked chicken, pork burgers with mashed potato, and some types of processed meat….We always got only chicken and pork (They were so good to have with mash potato!) so I don’t know much about other choices.
Only hot water was offered for free. If you don’t feel like drinking hot water all the time, buy big bottles of water and bring them with you into the train or just buy water at the kiosk/shop when the train stops (Water in the canteen coach was expensive). I even brought paper cups that I bought from the convenience store in Beijing as they were not expensive. They were useful for both hot drinks like coffee or cocoa and hot soup (We had sachets of instant soup that we could just pour water in, stir, and eat). It is also convenient as you can just throw them away after you finish eating (We used the plastic bags we had as our trash bags because there was no trash bin in the train and we felt bad about throwing stuff into the trash bin in the bathroom). There were trash bins available at each train station.
We found out at almost the end of our trip that the lady who took care of our passenger coach also had some snacks and instant noodles for sale with a higher, yet reasonable price. She also carried train memorabilia.
Due to the language barrier, we didn’t talk much but she seemed really nice. When we asked to use her microwave to warm our food, she let us! Sometimes, she seemed a bit unfriendly when she told us to do or not to do anything, especially, when she told us to not use the bathroom or go outside while the train stopped (You should ask to see the train schedule so you will know when the train will stop and for how long and I’ll tell you why soon).
But again, I guess, it was just the language barrier and the cultural differences that made us feel this way. Anyway, we were still afraid of asking to take a picture with her…..hahaha.
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