Off the train

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Another day of tea, noodles and reading, I didn’t say much to my compartment companions but they was nice enough to offer me food and invite me to join a game of cards. There was a couple of stops during the day so I decided to stretch my legs and buy a bottle of coke (fed up with tea now).

I managed to finish ‘After they killed my father’ and had run out of reading material so I started reading my Lonely Planet Trans-Siberian book from cover to cover, it starting to look a little dog-eared now.

I ate in the restaurant car and headed back to my compartment, I only had about another 5hrs on the train before I had to get off, luckily there was another stop and my compartment mates decided to get up so I took the opportunity to pack my bag and change, when they saw this they obviously figured out I was getting off soon and I told them Irkutsk. Very nicely they talked to the provodnik (male train guard) to make sure that he informed me 30 mins before I was due to get off, he duly did and I managed to get a cab to the hostel for a not totally rip-off 300 roubles (I found out later it should have been about 200 roubles). By now it was 6.30am local time but to be honest I had been working on Moscow time (all the timetables are Moscow time) so I wasn’t to tired. Russians always seem to thing that I am American as well, they are not the only native English speakers in the world you know......

The hostel was more of a home stay rather than a hostel but was clean, had a good shower and I was the only one in it (there are about 10 beds). The owner gave me the ground rules and showed me to my bed, to be honest I wasn’t happy because the mattress was wafer thin and the sheets were crap (but clean). The entrance was very non descript as well, it was the back entrance of the building and the only sign was a tiny 5 cm lettering and a button.

The owner asked me about going to Lake Baikal and said he was going there in 3 hours and if I wanted a lift he would only charge me 100 roubles (only one way though), it sounded perfect so I accepted. I then though that I would grab a few hours kip and the get up and shower.

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Photos

My hostel
I was the only person staying