This train only stops at a few stations overs its journey. Most are for just a minute but every so often they pause for 15-20 minutes to let the dogs out for a poo and let the passengers coat their lungs in enough nicotine to make it to the next stop. People come, people go, like a bath being filled with the plug out.
Almost Madness
- Thread starter monkeyboy
- Start date
That is what I was wondering?I am home .. but is The Bitch
Looking forward to the next installment.
Got to Novosibirsk about 10pm, said до свидания to my temporary train mates and trudged to the same hotel I was in here about 10 days ago. I wouldn’t have predicted this but maybe that’s what the constant tightness in my chest was warning me about. Maybe that was the finger of fate pushing trying to push me back from trouble ahead. Who knows how it works. As long as I have a plan then it keeps the gate of my mind’s chaos corral closed. It’s when I don’t that things very quickly get out of hand.
This morning I have a plan for a plan, but looking at the Russian train website there are only 2 tickets available on leg 2 and 1 on leg three
. At this point the corral gate gets shaken. Someone goes to my armpits and turns the irrigation on max while another goes downstairs and draws in the cock drawbridge to the absolute max to the point where I now have what looks like the small red on/off button to your remote control in place of any male identifying equipment. I’m currently identifying as “plangender”
Go to the station, get a ticket for a ticket and manage to not loose it before being directed to grumpy nana number 5. Google translate is great, for opening the door to a verbal torrent. I show nana the details of the first train I want to take tomorrow. She’s bashing the keyboard and asking quick-fire questions and I get flustered. You’re speaking through mics and it’s all very fast and she looks furious
. I just keep nodding and sticking my thumb in the air until she stops talking. Seems the easiest way. And I get a piece of paper that looks right. Then I do it again for the train to Moscow, getting the last 3rd class bunk on the train. Thank fuck for that. Either shit and happens are taking therapy or they’ve got their little arses arrested somewhere. Well they overstretched themselves this trip and they deserve it
Coffee and cake. Sit and unwind the drawbridge out a bit and let the steam flow from my armpits. Lock the gate. I have a plan.
I have all day to kill. I step into the Novosibirsk pinball machine, someone pulls out the hammer and BOOM, off I go. Taking whatever direction pedestrian crossing is showing green, listening to the chimes, watching the lights flash, pinging off to the next bump stop.
I’m in a small mall. Walking off the top of the escalator. It’s the gun shop. I imagine it feels like walking towards a sex shop. I’m intimidated but curious, slightly stimulated but scared. My Winkyometer can’t decide on a drawbridge setting either. I set it to “stumpy” and in I go.
FUCK ME This is serious stuff in here. There is absolutely everything you could want here. I’m wandering about thinking Jeeesus Christ Almighty. I think about taking some surupticious pictures but I’m worried they might put a rocket up my arse, quite literally. So I hatch a plan.
This morning I have a plan for a plan, but looking at the Russian train website there are only 2 tickets available on leg 2 and 1 on leg three
. At this point the corral gate gets shaken. Someone goes to my armpits and turns the irrigation on max while another goes downstairs and draws in the cock drawbridge to the absolute max to the point where I now have what looks like the small red on/off button to your remote control in place of any male identifying equipment. I’m currently identifying as “plangender” Go to the station, get a ticket for a ticket and manage to not loose it before being directed to grumpy nana number 5. Google translate is great, for opening the door to a verbal torrent. I show nana the details of the first train I want to take tomorrow. She’s bashing the keyboard and asking quick-fire questions and I get flustered. You’re speaking through mics and it’s all very fast and she looks furious
. I just keep nodding and sticking my thumb in the air until she stops talking. Seems the easiest way. And I get a piece of paper that looks right. Then I do it again for the train to Moscow, getting the last 3rd class bunk on the train. Thank fuck for that. Either shit and happens are taking therapy or they’ve got their little arses arrested somewhere. Well they overstretched themselves this trip and they deserve itCoffee and cake. Sit and unwind the drawbridge out a bit and let the steam flow from my armpits. Lock the gate. I have a plan.
I have all day to kill. I step into the Novosibirsk pinball machine, someone pulls out the hammer and BOOM, off I go. Taking whatever direction pedestrian crossing is showing green, listening to the chimes, watching the lights flash, pinging off to the next bump stop.
I’m in a small mall. Walking off the top of the escalator. It’s the gun shop. I imagine it feels like walking towards a sex shop. I’m intimidated but curious, slightly stimulated but scared. My Winkyometer can’t decide on a drawbridge setting either. I set it to “stumpy” and in I go.
FUCK ME
This is serious stuff in here. There is absolutely everything you could want here. I’m wandering about thinking Jeeesus Christ Almighty. I think about taking some surupticious pictures but I’m worried they might put a rocket up my arse, quite literally. So I hatch a plan.I’ve spotted some army rations. I ask if I can eat these cold because I want some for the train but he says they are better hot. He shows me some special bags you can buy to warm them up with “in the field”. I ask if I can take a picture, he says yes, and just points around the shop. Ok then
You’ve got rifles, scopes, pistols, knives, crossbows, axes. You’ve got all the kit. Camo, boots, gloves, hats, numerous fuck knows what to do fuck knows what. You’ve got full on body armour including thick metal plates tag weigh a TON. You’ve got helmets and full forest camouflage/chubacca suits. Everything.
You’ve got rifles, scopes, pistols, knives, crossbows, axes. You’ve got all the kit. Camo, boots, gloves, hats, numerous fuck knows what to do fuck knows what. You’ve got full on body armour including thick metal plates tag weigh a TON. You’ve got helmets and full forest camouflage/chubacca suits. Everything.
Including RPG launchers
With clear instructions
I’m guessing they’re doing good trade at the moment. There are certainly significant numbers of soldiers walking about round here. I’ll go back tomorrow and get my rations, and maybe a few grenades for presents when I get home. The kids will love them
Ping. Off I go. Another unknown street. And this is where you quickly see how thin your cloke of invincibility is. I’m walking along and a bloke approaches me quickly from the shadows by a shop. He looks like he’s on something. He’s in close and he says something to me. I reply английский and that’s obviously not what he wanted to hear. He immediately shouts “Fuck. Shit. He starts hissing like a cat dragging his feet on the pavement like a bull. My body goes into distraction mode. My sphincter collapses quicker than the Titan mini sub, launching my butt plug with lightening speed across the road and through the window of a florist resulting in an explosion of glass and petals filling the street. I make haste and flee the scene before the flower police turn up. Still, these things happen. Nobody was hurt, bar a big bunch of begonias.
This city has a bit of a fizz about it to be honest. Like Moscow. There definitely bad stuff happening here. Lots of high end performance cars absolutely belting about and obviously above the law. I saw one just now. A police car was going along at about the speed limit and a white Mercedes went past him like a fucking missile. Maybe his flashing lights are just broken
Wander about in the sunshine, watching the world go by. There is a park with some old attractions in. You can imagine that Americans wouldn’t get a thrill out of any of it but the Russians have balls for sure. Would you get on an old roller coaster whose repair and maintenance schedule is, I suspect, solely dictated by the intermittent deaths of its punters
.Anyway, tomorrow is another day, and another train. I just hope The Bitch managed to catch her train.
This was supposed to be a story about a motorcycle adventure. It’s quickly turning into the unamusings of a mixed up mind trying to self diagnose and treat itself. Walking round the edge of a bottomless pit and trying not to fall in.
Today is another hiatus. A stutter. A pause. Today’s train doesn’t leave until 5:30. Another 20 something hours 3rd class 1000 mile upper bunk journey to Yekaterinburg. More time to kill. If I was my old father-in-law I could easily waste a whole week sitting on the toilet, no problem at all, but I can’t. Mind control. Keeping the dark clouds at the horizon. Time is a fierce foe. You try wishing it away it just crawls slowly over you instead. I feel like I’m standing in front of one of these, and that’s days not minutes.. I fucking hope not
My tottieometer has finally gave up the ghost this morning too. Russia, in summer, with diaphanous dresses and fierce sunlight has simply overloaded it with too many targets. I was walking back from a coffee shop and I could see one on the horizon. As we got closer the totteometer moved quickly into the red and by the time she was within 100m it just exploded in my hand. You can imagine the mess. I’m just going to have to go manual from now on.
I don’t take pictures of them anymore though. I know I’ve crossed into the creepy zone. Time and decomposition has reduced me to a rattly old bundle of bones loosely wrapped in a bag of wrinkled skin with a small sprinkling of grey on top. A human no woman under the age of 170 would look twice at. I’m like a pencil with a rubber. A thin artist’s brush that’s lost most of its hairs. Pointing a camera at young women nowadays will quickly get me onto a register I don’t want to be on, especially out here. I just have to let the adolescent male in my head run about trying not to trip over his tongue whilst the old bloke on the outside carefully walks the tottie tightrope and shows no interest.
I went to the gun shop for my rations. Walking about in leathers in 30 degrees puts a certain shine on my five foot forehead and the bloke took me to show me the things I should be wearing to reduce perspiration. Nice, but expensive Seeings as I’m unlikely, hopefully, to be targeted by a heat seaking drone, I gratefully decline. He asked me if I was riding alone too. “Da” I think he was genuinely surprised. I’ve not seen another foreign plate here anywhere except for the Mongolian bikers. Certainly makes me think. Maybe it makes me think what some of you are probably thinking too. But it’s too late now. The only way is west. Shit or bust.
Walk all the way up to catch the train. I’m like the bike, leaving a trail of water as I go. Sit down, I’ll have a read. Or maybe not. I’ve left the fecking bloody toss twatting tit wringing kindle at the hotel Back I trudge. Spend 10 minutes in the bogs trying to turn my sweat glands down. Everyone looks at me like I’m a vagrant. I’m a baggy bag man. Two plastic carriers in my hands. Stinking like a hostage thats been held underground for 3 years without a wash.
Get the kindle back, drip drip drip my way back and get on the train. This one turns out to be 2nd class. I wondered why it was twice the price but grumpy ticket nana was on such a roll I couldn’t stop her. This one is 4 berth cabins. 28 to a carriage rather than 50 odd in 3rd. Twice the price but half the fun
This was supposed to be a story about a motorcycle adventure. It’s quickly turning into the unamusings of a mixed up mind trying to self diagnose and treat itself
. Walking round the edge of a bottomless pit and trying not to fall in. Today is another hiatus. A stutter. A pause. Today’s train doesn’t leave until 5:30. Another 20 something hours 3rd class 1000 mile upper bunk journey to Yekaterinburg. More time to kill. If I was my old father-in-law I could easily waste a whole week sitting on the toilet, no problem at all, but I can’t. Mind control. Keeping the dark clouds at the horizon. Time is a fierce foe. You try wishing it away it just crawls slowly over you instead. I feel like I’m standing in front of one of these, and that’s days not minutes.. I fucking hope not
My tottieometer has finally gave up the ghost this morning too. Russia, in summer, with diaphanous dresses and fierce sunlight has simply overloaded it with too many targets. I was walking back from a coffee shop and I could see one on the horizon. As we got closer the totteometer moved quickly into the red and by the time she was within 100m it just exploded in my hand. You can imagine the mess. I’m just going to have to go manual from now on.
I don’t take pictures of them anymore though. I know I’ve crossed into the creepy zone. Time and decomposition has reduced me to a rattly old bundle of bones loosely wrapped in a bag of wrinkled skin with a small sprinkling of grey on top. A human no woman under the age of 170 would look twice at. I’m like a pencil with a rubber. A thin artist’s brush that’s lost most of its hairs. Pointing a camera at young women nowadays will quickly get me onto a register I don’t want to be on, especially out here. I just have to let the adolescent male in my head run about trying not to trip over his tongue whilst the old bloke on the outside carefully walks the tottie tightrope and shows no interest.
I went to the gun shop for my rations. Walking about in leathers in 30 degrees puts a certain shine on my five foot forehead and the bloke took me to show me the things I should be wearing to reduce perspiration. Nice, but expensive
Seeings as I’m unlikely, hopefully, to be targeted by a heat seaking drone, I gratefully decline. He asked me if I was riding alone too. “Da” I think he was genuinely surprised. I’ve not seen another foreign plate here anywhere except for the Mongolian bikers. Certainly makes me think. Maybe it makes me think what some of you are probably thinking too. But it’s too late now. The only way is west. Shit or bust. Walk all the way up to catch the train. I’m like the bike, leaving a trail of water as I go. Sit down, I’ll have a read. Or maybe not. I’ve left the fecking bloody toss twatting tit wringing kindle at the hotel
Back I trudge. Spend 10 minutes in the bogs trying to turn my sweat glands down. Everyone looks at me like I’m a vagrant. I’m a baggy bag man. Two plastic carriers in my hands. Stinking like a hostage thats been held underground for 3 years without a wash. Get the kindle back, drip drip drip my way back and get on the train. This one turns out to be 2nd class. I wondered why it was twice the price but grumpy ticket nana was on such a roll I couldn’t stop her. This one is 4 berth cabins. 28 to a carriage rather than 50 odd in 3rd. Twice the price but half the fun
And just like any country we see the difference between propaganda
And reality
What do you need at 10:30pm in the middle of bum fuck nowhere? Smoked fish. Of course you do
And a couple of Nanas to see you through the night
Maybe I’ll have to order the special services nana I see disappearing into a cabin.
Still, eating Russian army rations (very nice by the way) at sunset on the Trans Siberian railway is a memory that I’ll keep coming back to I’m sure.
Maybe I’ll have to order the special services nana I see disappearing into a cabin.
Still, eating Russian army rations (very nice by the way) at sunset on the Trans Siberian railway is a memory that I’ll keep coming back to I’m sure.
I do love sleeping on trains. Maybe it takes me way way back to being a small child and being rocked to sleep by a parent’s foot. The trains put a proper spurt on in the night and you can hear the worn wheels hammering along the rails. Shuddering and struggling to hold on. I have visions of the train leaving the tracks and our chubby nana flying through the carriage like a massive meaty meteorite wiping everyone out.
She’s a nice lady though, and gets some tough gigs on these trips. It turns out these army rations have the added benefit that the consumer produces food babies the size of tank shells. I sat and stretched to near breaking point this morning, sweating and growing like a wounded animal and gave birth to a pair of shiny 30 pounders, let’s calls them Ant and Dec, that flatly refused to succumb to the super suction of a Russian train toilet. They blocked the hole and it poured water in to make a concoction like a massive messy latte. The train’s motion made it like two year old trying to carry a cup of coffee full to the brim across a school playground. I tried various solutions but only made it worse. It was definitely Nana Time. She went in without any fear armed only with rubber gloves and a stick and beat Ant and Dec into submission with a satisfying “POP”. Big up chubby Nana
Sweet lord!It turns out these army rations have the added benefit that the consumer produces food babies the size of tank shells. I sat and stretched to near breaking point this morning, sweating and growing like a wounded animal and gave birth to a pair of shiny 30 pounders, let’s calls them Ant and Dec, that flatly refused to succumb to the super suction of a Russian train toilet. They blocked the hole and it poured water in to make a concoction like a massive messy latte. The train’s motion made it like two year old trying to carry a cup of coffee full to the brim across a school playground. I tried various solutions but only made it worse. It was definitely Nana Time. She went in without any fear armed only with rubber gloves and a stick and beat Ant and Dec into submission with a satisfying “POP”. Big up chubby Nana
Get to Yekaterinburg. It’s grey and cold and the area round the station feels like Precinct 13. I’m often such an arrogant twat I just assume everything will be fine. That bad will pass me by. But sometimes, like this, I get a sudden reality check and all my antennas start emitting warning signals. It can be a bit disconcerting. At least it’s light at the moment. And it all adds to the turmoil going on in my head.
Last time I counted eggs someone dropped the whole fucking box on the floor. Lesson learned. I’m taking this “two weeks” the woman at the freight office with a small pinch of salt, but she counted the eggs, not me.
My Russian mate worked out the tracking link for The Bitch. I looked at it last week and it estimated delivery 30th-3rd. But I never saw the link move. She said it was due to be leaving 25th (last Friday). My inner voices have negotiated a very fragile truce between themselves. The worriers won’t break out and attack as long as long as nobody checks the link. What they don’t know they can’t worry about. It’s a very delicate agreement and my head aches trying to keep it. I’ll have a look when I get on the train tomorrow.
I borrow an umbrella from reception and go for a long walk in the wind and rain. I have to keep telling myself I have the means to get out of this place and back to my reality. It’s all that’s keeping me sane. Poor poor me
After dinner i need to run the gauntlet into the ghetto to get something from the supermarket. It’s not something I would usually do but I leave the phone and my wallet back in the hotel, take the big underpass and pop up into the bad lands. Someone sitting on a railing motions to my risk to ask me the time, yes mate, you think I’m stupid? Get to the supermarket and they’ve blockaded the entry door, I’m guessing because people were running in to grab something and running back out. Never seen that before. So go in the out, get my stuff and queue. Bloke in front is so fucked and drunk he can’t work out why the music he’s hearing isn’t coming from his headphones. Maybe it’s because the cord (yes, this is Russia remember) is hanging round his waste and not plugged in to his phone. It takes him 5 tries to open his wallet, then at least 10 tries to get his card out. Then there isn’t enough money on it for the two bottles of vodka on the counter. She takes one off, his card works, and he does a weak, dribbly smile before staggering away to find a dark hole out of the rain. Fuck this. I’m increasingly feeling like a fish out of water, and I’m beginning to drown.
There is only one thing for it now. Porn.
Wake up and I find myself unable to get out of bed. I’m anchored by apathy. My brain not bovvered. My body in stasis and not obeying commands to move. The sky is grey. My mood is black. Why did I ever think this was a good idea? This is turning out to be a very strange journey indeed. I bet my long suffering wife is steaming too and that the garage floor is being dug up to either bury my bones, The Bitch, or both.
The primeval pang of hunger and Google’s recommendations of The French Baker 30 mins walk up the road levitate my body set it in forward motion. The fragrant and delicious coffee and cakes provide some sort of antidote to the apathy and I sit and make a simple plan for the day. I still feel like an animal in a cage, it just a fucking huge cage that’s all.
I think the main cause of my malaise is that on Plan A I would be at almost madness right now, bathing in self glorification, slapping myself on the back and worshiping The Bitch that took me there. It’s not as if I’ve never failed in my life but I’ve never missed a target by this wide a margin and it’s put a big puncture in my self confidence. One that at my age I may never properly fix.
When I drained the system on The Bitch the other day, the colour of the water from the radiator was a different colour from that in the jacket, and that leads me to believe the water pump needs an overhaul too. Not a big or expensive job and one that, obviously, I wish I had taken the time to do before leaving. When I do that, replace the radiator and both thermostats she’ll be ready for anything. But will she and I ever get the chance.
Wander about the city and realise that Russia is becoming normalised for me. I’m getting a bit desensitised to it now. Just Russian people doing Russian things in the Russian rain.
Wander about the city and realise that Russia is becoming normalised for me. I’m getting a bit desensitised to it now. Just Russian people doing Russian things in the Russian rain.
This city is where the Romanov royal family were slaughtered. There is a monastery a few miles out where there bodies were originally buried. This place seems to imply some sort of connection too. I’m no historian and in reality the whole world is a graveyard but it’s still interesting to pass by places where such significant events have happened.
I need another shave. I’ll ask google as usual. I asked someone in a shop yesterday and he recommended the same place. Only i didn’t know Google had a Danger-safety scale you could set on searches. Mine was set to ‘prepared to go unarmed into a danger zone’. That’s probably why I ended up at a hotel situated in an open prison. And the barber is the same. Turn off any arterial road and head into the darkness. Graffiti everywhere and the state of general deterioration increasing with every step. Not a place to stand about with an expensive phone taking pictures. I’ve left my wallet in the hotel again though. It’s probably fine. All my radars have increased their refresh rate but there are no red lights. There is a bloke standing outside the barbers smoking. It looks shut, but he is the barber and he lets me in and sits me down. He’s way too hairy for a Russian. “Türkiye”. Of course he is. He’s a professional though. No fucking about. He glides the razor round my face and I can nearly feel it touching. He’s done pretty quick and obviously wants to stretch it out a bit. He says something I interpret as “you look like you have two big vases of dead flowers in your nose. Would you like me to remove them?” Ok. “And your ears look like a 70s porn bush”. Oh really? Better sort them out then. It’s the usual hot wax earbuds for nose but for the ears he goes full Viking. You know those fucking great burning touches they carry at Viking funerals that they throw onto a burning boat? Well he whips one of those out suddenly all I can hear and see is a flame as big as my head and my (filled) nostrils are registering a smell like when your cat accidentally jumps onto burning gas ring (Just me? Ok then
). He dusts away all the siringed hair, pulls the two furry toilet brushes out my nose and scrubs my face with puddle water mixed with gravel. Works a treat. Worth every penny. And now it doesn’t feel like there is a field of corn blowing in the wind every time I breathe through my noseNow, I’m not generally a paranoid bloke but I think I’ve been targeted by the RLSS. That’s the Russian Leabian Secret Service. I first saw these two outside the bakery this morning, then I saw them again later in a shopping mall a couple of kilometres away, and then they walked past me again this evening outside the hotel. Maybe they’re part of the KGBTQ+ task force. I’ll have to watch my step.
I noticed a building in less than perfect repair just up from my hotel that appears to maybe have a helipad on the roof and possibly the remains of a transmitter. I can only speculate as to what happened there. They probably just had a really really big party that got out of hand. These things happen.
Fuck I’ll be glad to get out of Yekaterinburg. This miserable, grey, wet and cold place. Go back to the bakers and buy a big sugar rush but it’s not enough. Fuck let’s please just get out of here.
I’ve got 5 hours to kill at the station. It’s like a turd covered in human flies. Loads of obvious non Russians begging and staring at your bags. Lurking and watching. It’s a fucking god awful place to be. It’s such shame. These beautiful old buildings deserve better than to be floating with human pond life.
Fuck I’ll be glad to get out of Yekaterinburg. This miserable, grey, wet and cold place. Go back to the bakers and buy a big sugar rush but it’s not enough. Fuck let’s please just get out of here.
I’ve got 5 hours to kill at the station. It’s like a turd covered in human flies. Loads of obvious non Russians begging and staring at your bags. Lurking and watching. It’s a fucking god awful place to be. It’s such shame. These beautiful old buildings deserve better than to be floating with human pond life.
My Russian mate has been counting eggs now. But he likes to deliberately throw a few on the floor first. He’s looked at the link to see The Bitch’s progress and thrown a mind grenade into my fragile truce. The bike is moving but it’s behind me and he reckons anything before the 3rd would be optimistic
. I have absolutely completely and utterly had more than e-fucking-nuff of this now. Back on the train we go. Another 24 hours and 1800km to Moscow. These trains are packed every single time.
I’ve sent the voices to separate rooms. I can’t deal with them right now. I just concentrate of hitting a mental tennis ball against the wall. Over and over and over again. I put up temporary diversion and road closed signs to try and stop me crashing.
Get to Moscow. End of the line for the Trans Siberian.
I’m inside the “where the fuck am I” zone for Google maps so have to navigate the old way, by just following the best pair of legs. It’s a bloody good job the tottieometer gave up the other day. If it had made it hear it would have taken my whole bloody arm off when it exploded. I’ve never seen anything like it. Jeeeesus Christ almighty.
I go out looking for food but it’s all to bloody much. This is the absolute complete opposite to what I came away for. When I have space I can let my mind stretch and let all the souls spread their wings. They can run about and play and keep out my hair (
) but here with all THESE FUCKING PEOPLE EVERYWHERE AND ALL THIS FUCKING NOISE ANS TRAFFIC AND FUCKING DRUNKS LAYING ON THE FUCKING PAVEMENT AND ALL THESE FUCKING BLOODY ROADWORKS AND PAVEMENTS RIPPED UP AND FUNNELING THROUGH SMALL GAPS AND RUDE cnuts BARGING THROUGH AND AHHHHHHHHHH I FUCKING HATE THIS PLACE. My head feels like a room full of screaming kids locked in on a rainy day. I need get out. I need to stand in a field and scream. I need to see nobody. Nobody at all.
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