Blogs from Siberia, Russia, Europe - page 35

so we got on the train and we were greeted by a tiny cabin with 2 bunkbeds and a local named anton - it / he looked like something out of an old war movie but within minutes we settled in and made it our home for the next 3 and half days...the facilities were basic to say the least we had a tiny bathroom with toilet and sink no shower and the catering consisted of a tank with hot water - if you want to lose weight and do no excercise we recommend the cup a soup diet... so how did we keep ourselves amused on the train for 76 hours - lots of sleeping trying to communicate with the locals using sign language picture dictionary,thinking of ways to make our meals more interesting / ... read more

08.02.09 Endlich wir kommen in die Gegend von Irkutsk :-) Damit ich es bestimmt nicht verpasse, hat mich die Schaffnerin auch schon zwei Stunden! vorher geweckt. Geschaft! An Irkutsks Bahnhof wartet auch schon Sergej mit einem grossen „Haag“-Schild :-D Sergej spricht fliessend deutsch und rennt mit mir auch gleich los durch den Bahnhof um meine Tickets für die Weiterreise abstempeln zu lassen. Mit ca. 25kg auf dem Rücken habe ich etwas Mühe mit ihm mitzuhalten, bzw. mein Morgensport ist danach definitiv erledigt. Mit dem Auto gehts zu meiner Gastfamilie wo ich die kommenden zwei Nächte verbringen werde. Ein kleines nettes Holzhaus mitten in Irkutsk und endlich wiedermal DUSCHEN!!! Irkutsk ist eine schöne Stadt mit vielen alten Holzhäuschen und Kirchen, dazwischen hin und wieder ein grosses steinernes Haus wie die Bibliotheke oder Sowjetzeitverbrechen. Zum Glück gibt es ... read more

So we had finally begun our journey on the Trans-Siberian railway. I was sharing a cabin with John, Adam R and Sarah. After a relatively uneventful afternoon and evening, we had our first of many pot noodles, made our beds, chatted a bit and went to bed. The sleep on the train was surprisingly comfortable and uninterrupted except that there was an inbuilt speaker system in our cabin which had been left on full volume and, unbeknown to us, it began playing music at 8am, meaning we woke up to the most awful sound of Russian pop butchering our much-needed sleep. Fortunately John was pretty quick to turn it off but nevertheless the damage had been done. Also by this time, the heat generated by 4 bodies in a 3x2m space was reaching dangerously high levels ... read more

Hi again, it's convenient that it gets dark and cold so early here- gives me plenty of time to write blog entries. Thanks for all your comments and messages. We've just got back to Irkutsk after having a few days at Lake Baikal. Baikal is the biggest (volume) lake in the world and holds something like 20% of the planet's freshwater. Apparently it's on a fault line which is continually growing so the lake will eventually become an ocean. We took a bus there from Irkutsk that takes about 90mins on one snowy road that goes up and down hills all the way. We were headed for Listvyanka a little village on the lake-shore. The approach to the village was amazing- we could just see the massive expanse of the lake with huge snowy mountains on ... read more

The scenery has become more rugged, it is starting to get more mountainous and a lot colder. Ive been talking to the Chinese girls in our Carriage and have found that they had gone to Moscow to work and were now heading home to China, they had been there 5 months and the one I spoke with had about £350 to take home after the cost of living in Moscow.... read more