The train pulled out at about 4.30, or 11.30 Moscow time. Russia covers 11 time zones but all the trains and train stations run on Moscow time, on this trip we put our clocks back five hours along the way. To add to the confusion the dining car ran on local time and we were not really sure exactly when we crossed the time zones, luckily it was open fairly long hours so we never saw it closed. There was also a lady that came past 2 or 3 times a day with a trolley or a basket of peroshki which [View Full Entry]

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Hei igjen! Jeg proever igjen, innlegget mitt ble nettopp slettet. Greit aa vaere en taalmodig sjel i blant. Vi er naa i Tomsk, en hyggelig liten universitetsby i Sibir, 270 km unna Novosibirsk, hvor vi sov i natt. Dagene etter forrige innlegg har stort sett vaert preget av vodka og tog. Utelivet i Irkutsk ble grundig sjekket, og etter noen flasker vodka havnet vi et sted som like godt kunne vaert i et lite norsk tettsted. Klientellet var noe eldre enn oss, og de danset ivrig og komplett rytmeloest til fengende slagere som Life is Life og Who the fuck is [View Full Entry]

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Free time this morning, check-out was at 12 and we had to meet in the lobby at 2pm to get the bus to the train station. We wandered around town, went to the internet café to check the emails and got a few supplies for the train trip. One unusual thing about Irkutsk is that there are many old wooden houses in the city that apparently have no running water, there are wells with pump handles at various places on the sidewalk and the occupants collect their water from there. There can’t be too many though as we never saw anyone [View Full Entry]

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Another beautiful day in Listvyanka, unfortunately we were leaving. After breakfast we were back on the bus heading back to Irkutsk and we were stopping off at the Open Air Wood Museum which was a re-creation of the typical houses and villages from the early Evenks (similar to the North American Indians) through to the Buryats from Mongolia and the Russians during the 1800’s - 1900’s. They made their houses from solid logs as you would expect and in later years some of the woodwork was quite ornate and intricate. They were also into glassworks both for windows and to make [View Full Entry]

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Since we were last in contact we have had a very eventful few days - prior to leaving moscow we were lucky enough to get to go to the circus (or half of the circus as we had to rush off midway to catch the train) - apart from cirque de soleil - not sure if that classes as a circus - it has been a really long time since i have been at the circus and the circus in moscow was absolutely amazing - my personal favourite was was the poodles who acted like they were on speed! They were [View Full Entry]

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Once again there was thunder and lightning and rain overnight but by the morning the rain had stopped. Unfortunately it was still overcast and threatening rain but that was ok, after breakfast we jumped on the bus and took a short trip up the road to the local Ecological Museum. Sergay talked at length about the lake, it’s history, the fish life, the seals, the lake, the fish life, the history,….. he is very passionate about lake Baikal. During the war before the connection between Irkutsk and Ulan-Ude was completed on the Trans-Siberian railway they even pushed railway carriages [View Full Entry]

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4 napi vonatozas es ivas utan megerkeztunk Irkutskba. A vonaton eszrevettuk, h Jaroszlavltol kezdve: Sok a fa. A taj kb. olyan mint God felsotol Szodligetig. Csak 4 napon, ill 5000 kilometeren keresztul. Vettunk a babuskaknal pirazskit meg uborkat nyugat es kelet sziberia vonatmegalloiban. Kb. az 100kmnel levo allomason (nevere nem emlekszunk) arra lettunk figyelmesek, h muanyagszatyros neniket meg embereket terdeltetnek geppisztolyos meg kutyas katonak a sinek mellett. Aszittuk elsore, h a halas neniket szankcionaljak ilyen kemnyen, de kiderult, h hozzank csatoltak egy ujabb kocsit [View Full Entry]

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Hi all, well, I'm now in St Petersburg. I can't remember what my last blog was about, I think it was in Finland though, right??? This will be a bit of a rushed blog as I only have 20 minutes. Helsinki was really nice, bought lots of things there, didn't really do much though. We headed to Estonia the next day, which was quite nice, the Old Town was awesome. That night we said hello to our new tour group they all seem to be really nice. We then had a night out on the town dancing all night. It was [View Full Entry]

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Cereal in a cup for breakfast again before arriving at Irkutsk, the capital of Siberia, at around 8 am. We were met on the platform by our new guide Sergay who carefully ushered us out to our bus and our new driver Sergay (yes, they were both Sergay). We were driven to our hotel just so we could exchange some cash before heading out to the lakeside town of Listvyanka 70 km away where we would be staying for the next 2 nights. We headed out on the Eisenhauer Road (which was originally built for a visit by the then US [View Full Entry]

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Lenge siden sist naa, foerst og fremst vil jeg takke for alle hyggelige meldinger jeg fikk paa bursdagen min paa torsdag. Dagen ble feiret i Terelj, en vakker nasjonalpark om lag 60 km oest for Ulaanbaatar. Dit dro vi sammen med en vill franskmann ved navn Hicham, og en sjaafoer som hadde kjennskap til russisk. Han kunne noen ord, men hadde uforstaaelig uttale og fryktelig grammatikk. Men det var hyggelig aa ha noen aa snakke med, eller det vil si aa ha noen som snakket til en, og jeg ga respons ved aa nikke, smile og le hoeyt. I Terelj fikk [View Full Entry]

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