From Russia with Love

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Greeting from Russia.

Firstly we had written our Mongolia blog ages ago, but for some reason we had to re-publish it.

Anyway, we finally made it into Moscow after four days and no showers on the train. We did however manage to wash my hair once and it actually wasn't too bad considering the bathroom was so small.

We spent most of our time, eating, drinking cheap vodka and we even learnt a new drinking game "Circle of Death". We survived on noodles, hot choc and vegemite sandwiches.

We crossed Sibera and there was just snow everywhere, and we also saw a bushfire on the way too. As a whole the train was usually heated, nice and toastie, but you were consistently going from hot to cold to hot again, which has given me a cold for the past week.

The train certainly was full of great experiences, but once you've done the journey, you don't need to do it again.

Each night on the train we had to double lock our cabins, as whenever we made late night stops, say around 2am, Russians would come on the train with a key and try to break into the cabins and steal stuff. Our first night I stayed awake like most people and you heard them stepping heavily along the train, bash went the cabin door, the second lock would stop them, bash to the next cabin. You could hear them walking along the corridor, my heart was beating hard each time a door went bash, just waiting for our door to be next. You could hear the cabin attendents and Mongolian police shouting and the Russians shouting back. It was very scary. The others in our cabin slept through the whole thing.

As we had two nights in UB, we boarded the "Market Train". All the train passengers and cabin attendents smuggled goods across the Russian border and sold it to the hundreds that gathered on the platforms; it's like the Queen Vic Market on each platform. They sell anything from handbags, jeans, tops and blankets. The cabin attendents sold the towels that we were given, the water bottles that were also in our cabin and basically anything that wasn't screwed down to the train. It was quiet a sight. Sean, one of guys in the Vodkatrain group, tried to sell the towels for the cabin attendent but he didn't do too well.

We'll write again about our adventures in Moscow town soon.

Love to all, hope you not missing us too much.
Michelle and Stephen.

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Photos

Our Cabin
In this smaller space than before, we shared with another couple. We slept, eat and played cards all in the same space. Talk about cabin fever.

A morning in Siberia
Most of Siberia was covered in such heavy snow.

View from the train
This view was what we endured for days. It was nice to start but like anything after a while it was boring!

Handbags anyone
There was a number of girls selling all sorts of fakes, the thing was designer or not they were UGLY!!!