Manbags and camoflage

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We are leaving Krasnoyarsk today and heading to Irkutsk to check out Lake Baikal. The past few days in Krasnoyarsk (or K Town as we find that slightly easier to pronounce!) has been great.

We had a fairly lazy afternoon the first day off the train - thoroughly enjoyed our shower. With a few of us dealing with tummy bugs - it was an interesting start to our time on land.

We headed down to the river for a few beers overlooking the river and the bridge - a pretty nice place to be.

We then headed to find this buffet - but ended up at a place called the Russian Cafe. Which appeared to have dishes from each of the former states. The menu was all in Russian - but luckily had some photos. We selected a few dumplings to start with to share and a main each. Mine came, looked like the picture but I couldn't quite work out what the "meat" was - turned out to be liver! I tried to eat as much as I could - but really struggled - the sauce was lovely though. The other guys picked pretty good meals.

Most of us were shattered - its difficult to work out what time zone we are in! I think I am still suffering slightly from jetlag from being in the states, but all of the train times are quoted in Moscow time - despite the fact that we have past through 2 time zones. I think we are now safely on local time but have to keep in mind Moscow time! You can see our confusion right?

Yesterday we decided to head to Stolby National Park. The Lonely Planet said it was easy - a 10km bus trip and a 7km walk to the top. Sounds easy - well not so much! We waited for the bus, but unfortunately it never seemed to come. So we asked around - one lovely lady took us under her wing and asked around and found a bus for us to catch. We were sceptical that this would get us to where we needed to go - but a nice man on the bus decided that he would help us get there. The guy was great - looked like a cross between Papa Smurf (helped by the fact that he was dressed in blue!) and Rolf Harris. He didn't speak a word of english and us being able to say Hi, beer and thank you really only gets us so far. But we did end up at the national park and he found a young russian couple and made sure that they took us to the top. We parted after a few photos and headed on the walk.

The young couple were great. Again, no English but that didn't seem to be too much of a problem. We couldn't work out if the girl was unhappy because we were tagging along on their stroll or because she didn't want to be on the stroll at all! It was interesting to watch their body language and work out what was going on. They had a bit of a lovers tiff and she took off - him after her - we think they sorted it out because it wasn't long until they joined us again. They loved hearing that we were from such a far away place - I think it still baffles them that we travel so far and want to come and see their country.

The 7km walk to the top was great - fairly easy - though loads of bugs - every now and again our young russian friend would point out snakes (though we never spotted one) and cute little chipmunks. We had a picnic at the top and headed back down the hill.

We managed to find the buses again - but weren't really sure if we were on the right one or not. But another helpful guy told us where we needed to go and what bus to catch.

We headed down to the river again for some more beers and to meet up with Greg. We had a great BBQ dinner down there - kind of like shishlick. Was lovely sitting out in the sun drinking and spending time with friends. A great end to a great day!

I did forget to mention one other thing that happened - whilst in Subway in the morning a man started speaking to us in English. Turned out that he was from the Church of Latter Day Saints and spent some time trying to convince us that finding god and becoming a Mormon was the way forward for us - it was interesting to speak to him and find out that they were having a conference in the town and their were mormons from around the world in town. Not so interesting that we wanted to join them!

Russia is fabulous - I have been so surprised at how helpful people are - at first they seem cold and abrupt - but not one person hasn't wanted to help us and we really couldn't have done half the things without some assistance. We have been really amazed at how generous the people are despite the fact that they really don't make that much money - but at the end of the day all of that stuff doesn't really matter, the kindness of people is just remarkable. Its a bit strange to be a bit of a novelty too - people are loving meeting us and want to know where we are from, take photos of us on their phones and shake our hands. It is such a lovely experience.

I am looking forward to getting back on the train - apparently this one is not as flash as the last - but I'm just keen to see who we meet and what adventures the next town has in store for us!

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