Katching up in Krasnoyarsk

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After a quick cab ride we arrived at the station in Omsk and next thing we knew we were on another train heading in the direction of Krasnoyarsk. This time we had a 40-something guy as our roomie. Suspiciously (or not?), he had already taken up all the overhead luggage storage with lots and lots of boxes. This meant we had to fit our rucksacks into the smaller space under the bunks. When we got on the train he appeared to be asleep (even though it was 11:30) so we tried tiptoeing around to get our luggage packed away. That done we realised we needed to get to work sorting out our blog and settled down to write a few entries.

Soon enough, we had another stupid o’clock stop to get off the train at Krasnoyarsk at 07:30am. The train was uncomfortably hot as we stood there waiting to get off at the station but as soon as we got through the doors we realised we had definitely arrived in Siberia. I think that was the largest temperature change I had ever experienced going from 30°C to -20°C in the blink of an eye. To make matters worse there was a bitterly cold wind chilling us to the bone. Hurrying to the station we made our way to the left luggage office only to find that it didn’t open until 8am. Luckily for us that section of the station was warm so we waited there and thawed out. While we waited we perused our travel guide and decided to head in search of a cafe with internet to publish some more of our blog. We stumbled out into the city in the direction of Travellers Coffee we seemed to take an age to get there.

We arrived at the cafe and found the waitress spoke a minimal amount of English but the universal language of coffee got us through. We found ourselves a booth and wonder of wonders it had a very convenient power point situated right next to it where we proceeded to charge as many of our electronic devices as we could. As we’d completed three more blogs on the train we started uploading them all. Dave was starving and decided to try one of the omelettes. Relishing the warmth, we planned a very quick excursion round the city for when it was light or when we warmed up. Whichever came first.

Reorienting ourselves we realised the train station we had come into was on one end of a peninsula so we continued down to the other end to check out a paddle steamer called S.S. Nicolai. The view from there along the river was fantastic. Turning back towards the city we tried to find a pelmeni restaurant mentioned in the guide book but were unable to locate it. Needing sustenance we ended up in an Italian restaurant for lunch which turned out to be pretty good.

Looking at our watches we realised we were running out of time and hotfooted it back to the train station to pick up our bags for the 14:30 train to Irkutsk.

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Photos

Steam train on plinth
Found at most of the major stations along the Trans-Siberian/Manchurian/Mongolian.

Coffee at Travellers Coffee
Check out the amazing designs.

Travellers Coffee
Yes! Free wifi and power points!

Statue of Viktor Astafyev
Writer... or somesuch

Yenisey River at Krasnoyarsk
Yurt/Ger in foreground is a restaurant

Comments

[Helen]

Great to have you back blogging!!
Hope its getting warmer as you move south.