Blogs from Siberia, Russia, Europe - page 44

So I make train 20 - the Trans-Manchurian and I start with a full carriage to myself. There is some confusion when the train arrives as there is no carriage twenty for me to board - but I quickly realise that they will add further carriages at each stop and when I board it is empty apart from the usual dour russian provodnik and me! I am also at the back of the train so I can easily get some shots of the view from the back which will be nice. Later I am joined by Walter a Beijinger who is super friendly and inquisitive compared to my last compatriot but He does not speak english and so our conversations use the manadarin phrasebook and take hours to determine do i have children? - no - ... read more

My final full day on Olkhon! I will miss it as for me it has been the best of russia - beautiful places and I know I want to come back in the winter and summer to spend time here. But we wander around the island one last time and spend some time trying to figure out how to get the world service to check the football as it is the last day of the premiership. We look at a radio in a shop but the lady tells us (I think in my broken russian) that there is no reception on the island - bad times - but they have restocked the beer for us - good times. So we wander around the boatyard and head home and eat another great meal and then hit the ... read more

Today we took our first excursion to the north of Olkhon Island whixh was a great journey. We ploghed through the dirt tracks in the russian version of a vw camper for most of the day to see the coastline around the north and east sides of the island where the ice is now completely gone. We stopped at the site of the gulag on the island and were told that there was one lady who still lived on the island aho had spent time in the gulag but she did not want visitors. Even on a beautiful island it was not a pleasent place although most of it had been broken up. At lunchtime our driver suddenly produced a cooking set snd made us a good fish lunch although the food is nearly all fish ... read more

So after a very exciting time in Listviyanka we head back to the hostel and a couple of days of Russian Beauracracy to register our visas and then plan the final stages of our time in Russia. Florian and Lonneke have both cleverly overlapped there Mongolian visas with the Russian one so they get an easy route out of town on the Trans-Mongolian and from Irkutsk this takes less than a day to cross the border allowing them to use most of there visa time before disappearing as the train leaves every day! I have however delayed my visa till July so that I can get to see the Nadaam festival and so I cannot go through Mongolia - then I discover that the Trans-manchurian - my only direct link out to China is a once ... read more

Day four on the train passes uneventfully. Many of the passengers have now left the train and overall the train is now fairly empty. I am starting to feel ill on the pot noodle and I realise that today would be my last day on the train regardless of destination. But fortunately Irkutsk is coming up early tomorrow and some real food is close. The soldier is conversational today as he knows it will be my final day on the train. He tells me he is going to Chita which means he will be on the train one further day to get there. Chita is the biggest Military base in Russia and I will pass through it later on my journey. The day drifts on and my thoughts turn to Lake Baikal which I have deliberately ... read more