World's most remarkable railways: Book extract from Around the World in 80 Trains by Monisha Rajesh

Journalist Monisha Rajesh and her fiance Jeremy circumnavigated the globe in 80 train journeys, covering more than 72,000 kilometres along the world's most remarkable railways. She chronicled their feat in Around the World in 80 Trains: A 45,000-Mile Adventure. In this extract, Rajesh takes to the Trans-Mongolian to discover extreme heat, eccentric characters and eclectic souvenirs. Edit by Julietta Jameson

"You are the first English people I have ever met on board this train," said Aleksandr. "And you are the first English people that he has ever met on board this train," he continued, pointing to his roommate, who was also called Aleksandr. That afternoon we had boarded the Trans-Siberian, the godfather of trains. Strictly speaking the Trans-Siberian is not a train, but a route, spanning more than 9170 kilometres from Moscow to Vladivostok. Featuring high on bucket lists, the train is the benchmark by which rail enthusiasts measure one another. If you say you haven't taken it ­– but that you will one day – their eyes glaze over as you cease to exist. In fact, we were travelling on the Trans-Mongolian, a more interesting route that drops down through Mongolia and ends in Beijing. Riding all the way to Vladivostok held no appeal other than that we could then tell people we'd ridden all the way to Vladivostok. There was nothing we wished to see at the end of the line, and the last thing we wanted to do once we'd arrived was turn around and come back. On the other hand, the Trans-Mongolian opened up far more opportunities for onward travel than simply wandering around the edge of the world map looking at Orthodox churches. We'd already stood in awe overlooking the Disneyland domes of St Basil's Cathedral on Red Square, and from then on, all other architecture was underwhelming. In spite of being one of the most familiar images in existence, the presence of the colourful domes – like big beautiful swirls of gelato – striped, latticed and topped with gold crosses, was glorious to behold. Via the Trans-Mongolian route, Jem and I could break up the journey in Irkutsk for two nights, then carry on to Ulaanbaatar in Mongolia, before eventually arriving in Beijing – 11 days after leaving Moscow. After our first Russian-train experience, we had boarded the Trans-Mongolian with trepidation, anticipating a mix of Russians, backpackers, students, weirdos, train geeks, and retired couples ticking off their bucket list. Met with familiar stares, we quickly realised we were the only foreigners on board. Having looked through travel-agency photos of the Rossiya service, we'd expected air-conditioned cars with soft berths, power sockets and flat-screen TVs, only to find ourselves staring down a grubby hard sleeper with a broken window and a condom wrapper under the seat.

Taking temperatures to both extremes, Siberia's heat was crippling. The air-conditioning didn't work, and the windows served only to channel hot air into the compartments. Tangled in damp sheets, I spent a lot of the journey lying limply, watching leafless trees roll past like rows of unsharpened pencils. Every few hours a farmhouse or two would appear with a Lada parked outside. Scarecrows tilted in potato patches, and dirt tracks wound into woods. Having picked up our location on Google maps in Moscow, I followed the blue sphere as it bobbed across blank territory. It was as though we were crossing a hinge in the Earth. By air, the notion of being in-between was constant, but by rail there were always villages, towns, and seas emerging like stepping stones between destinations. Neither West, nor East, we were hurtling through the borderlands. At dusk, halos of mist swirled above ground, orbiting forests like a magical force. Five days on board a continuous train had presented the rare opportunity to read great tomes, and, in keeping with our surroundings, I'd downloaded War and Peace, Crime and Punishment and Young Stalin, hoping to emerge in China a more refined and cultured person. But the heat and the swaying did nothing but lull me to sleep each time I began War and Peace: I never made it past the list of Kuragins before dropping off.

Between Moscow and Irkutsk, the train stopped at around 80 stations, for no more than two minutes at a time, with the odd one-hour break when the toilets were bolted and anyone inside was collared and hauled out to continue their ablutions on the platform. These hour-long stops presented an opportunity to break free from the tedium, to stretch our legs, and to remember that a world existed beyond the four corners of our compartment, which had begun to smell like an old laundry basket. Russian stations are handsome affairs painted peppermint with white piping, and adorned with old clock towers. Wandering from one buxom babushka to the next, I'd buy a hunk of cheese or cake, or pass the time watching large women in small shorts selling rows of omul fish bunched like keys and hooked through the eyes. At one such stop I rifled through the trolley of a lady too busy chatting to a friend to bother with me, and offered her 90 roubles ($2) for a pack of playing cards. She laughed in my face, nudging her friend, who also laughed in my face. Even her son, who was sitting in the bottom of the trolley, covered his eyes with disbelief that anyone would offer more than a cursory glance for what turned out to be a pack of 36 cards.

By Wednesday evening I'd stopped bothering to change my clothes or brush my hair, and lounged in my pyjamas in the drinking car where the air-conditioning worked, and it was marginally cooler than the sun. Oksana kept bringing me plates of fried mushrooms covered in dill, patting my head and flapping her cloth at anyone who came near me, watching closely as an elderly man offered me cottage-cheese blinis, repulsed by my instant mash. She chatted in Russian, wholly unbothered that I replied in English, neither of us understanding the other, but happy in each other's company. Provodnik Aleksandr went to and fro bringing me commemorative coins from the Sochi Olympics, and books left behind by passengers, until I'd gathered a small jumble sale of wares I could hawk. I was beginning to run out of things to offer in return, plying him with toothbrushes that Jem had collected from various hotels. The initial iciness with which the Russians greeted us had thawed, and as the miles accumulated, our shared experience of pleasures and pains spurred the natural symbiosis unique to train travel. By Thursday afternoon I had lost all awareness of place and time, convinced it was Wednesday, comfortable in my ignorance. Two soldiers were playing cards at the next table, nursing the first bottle of vodka I'd seen since we boarded. Challenging us to a few shots, they chased each one with mouthfuls of Tropicana fruit juice, which defied the hardy Russian image I'd once feared. Swapping souvenirs, I gave them a couple of second-class Christmas stamps, and was amply rewarded with a smoke grenade. It went nicely with the gas mask Jem had stolen from our hotel in Moscow. On Friday, we arrived in Irkutsk at dawn. Since Moscow we had passed through four time zones, yet every station's clock was set to Moscow Standard Time, and we were now jetlagged and roaming around in a state of total disorientation.

"Mongolia doesn't look all that different from Russia," said Jem.

"We're not in Mongolia."

"I thought we were stopping in Ulaanbaatar?"