55 hours to Irkutsk

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When asked what the cabin on the train is like well picture a small wooden box the size of a prison cell if you will, now add 4 people in that space and imagine that box shaking for 55 hours and you pay for the pleasure......!!!!! A slight exaggeration but you get the point, its really fun and you will be amazed how the time flies - yet another example of time warp Russia.

Today we set off on this 55 hour journey, on the train the carriages have a toilet each end, the centre is all cabins and then there is the Provanista - she is queen of the carriage and she rules the roost like an old matron, she also has control of the samovar this is a hot coal fired hot water heater that is vital for cups of chi, coffee and the numerous soft noodle dishes that are reminiscent of pot noodle but not as snazzy that we lived on for the duration. The French chaps had a run in with the provanista and she stole their books and started handing them out to other passengers until a friendly Russia chap come to their rescue. The quote of the day by one of the French dudes when I went to find their location deep in 3rd class, on discovering them I was met with the comment ' what is an Englishman doing in 3rd class'!

On the first day we met a nice Russian man who works as an engineer, he invited us to dinner in his cabin which was yummy, it was flat bread, tomatoes and spicy sausage. He also showed us a power point presentation of his work and we had many conversations via our phrase book.

We had an empty carriage for the first night and the next day to young soldiers returning from Chechnya joined us for the day and we spent the first 2 hours having a pidgin English/Russian conversation via our phrasebook before heading to the bar.

The scenery is amazing on this journey and we can't believe how quickly the time goes. We had the cabin to ourselves again on the second night and before we knew it we had arrived in Irkutsk in Siberia at 9pm.

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