ONE WAY TICKET TO SIBERIA (MOSCOW TO IRKUTSK)

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well here i am in irkutsk, in the southern part of eastern Siberia. have now travelled further east than bangkok (just!)

this is the nearest city to lake Baikal, the deepest and most ancient lake in the world (nearly 6000 feet deep). the lake is about 60kms from here. i plan to go there tommorrow. (it is a freshwater lake, with the only freshwater seals in the world....)
this morning i arrived on the train, 76 hours, 3days / 4 nights, 5178kms and five time zones from moscow!

moscow was somewhere i had always wanted to go. i had only really seen red square on the boney m video for their classic hit rasputin... the day i arrived on the overnight train from st petersburg was really hot. (shared a cabin with 3 middle aged russian women, one slept in an all in one leopardskin print catsuit....not good!) had all morning before i could have my room in the moscow hostel, so was able to visit red square at 8am in the morning before the tourists arrived, in the bright sunshine. the 2nd day i went all the pine trees outside the kremlin had been felled overnight, so i was lucky to see them! (apparently they were getting too big....)
the metro in moscow is another thing i wanted to see, amazingly over the top, with marble, stained glass, and huge crystal chandeliers!

shopping in moscow: loads of really ostentatious designer shops, just walking back from red square to the dubious environs of the hostel , i would walk past 3 louis viutton shops and two Cartier jewellery shops. however the choice for people of lesser means is still a bit limited i would say. but was glad that pret a manger has opened there! (love their greek salad!)

have been glad of the 3 days of letting the train take the strain, not having to worry about getting from a to b myself. met some interesting people on the train, including some english, the ubiquitous australians, dutch, germans, belgians and even some english speaking russians (a rarity!)
these russians seemed to have an unending supply of vodka, just as one bottle had been shared round another full bottle would appear magically from someones luggage. last night, me and two australian girls bought a bottle of vodka to give back to the russians at one of the 20 minute station stops, but that was soon gone too (the number of brands of vodka in shops is amazing).

scenery en route was interesting if not only for is sameness throughout. mile after mile after mile of flat steppe and silver birch trees. the urals (europe/asia border) we passed at night so didnt see them!) first 2 days were bright sunshine, 3rd day was overcast, cold and raining. today its not too bad for eastern siberia (about +6 degrees C and sunny) train kept amazing timekeeping, arriving dead on time at each city. seemed to go a bit fast for the condition of the track in some places though, so scary at times (especially when trying to sleep!

all the trains in russia operate on moscow time, so even though the train was entering a different time zone every day, everything was still on moscow time. so as it was getting dark outside yesterday at 8pm local time, the train clock was 3pm! here in irkutsk they are in zone gmt+9 and moscow is gmt +4. so when the train arrived here at 4:19am moscow time at the station, outside the station in the city all the clocks are set at the local time of 9:19am... i have just bought my ticket out of the country, to ulaan bataar. the time on reservation says 15:45, which is in fact 20:45 irtutsk time!! while i am here in irkutsk for these 2 days i am keeping my watch on moscow time and my travel clock on local time, as i find it all too confusing!!

will be glad to head south to mongolia, where everything operates on the same time zone! (gmt+8). in fact its now south all the way down to saigon, before heading west back to bangkok (gmt plus 7).

the locals here still look very western/european, even though it is so far east, and just over the border in mongolia i imagine they will all have mongol/chinese features (im hoping!)

travel in russia has certainly been an eye opener, don't think i will be making a habit of it though, distance is vast, bureacracy and inefficiency is rife, driving/road sense is appalling, and though ive met a few nice people, most people serving in shops and stations have just been plain rude (i never knew such degrees of rudeness existed before) has made me think a lot about manners !!
(oh and also russian "cuisine".. thats another story!, and also the lack of signs (even in russian), especially at stations and hotels, you seem to be expected to know that that ramshackle building is a hostel, that the next metro is the one you want and that those steps lead to an internet cafe. (signs seem to be a disposable expense!)
though im glad ive had the chance in my life to experience russia and all its feobles.


anyway, speak again from mongolia next week

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Photos

"BAIKAL" EXPRESS FROM MOSCOW TO IRKUTSK
AT ONE OF THE 20 MINUTE STOPS TO TAKE SOME FRESH AIR AND STOCK UP ON FOOD AND VODKA