Moscow, Trans-Siberian & Lake Baikal

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Hello all, just a quick note to update on our first week of travelling. We arrived in Moscow on Saturday night where we met by a scary looking passport control officer. Managed to get to our hotel OK and then had a quick look around Red Square which is pretty impressive, especially St Basils Cathedral. My Russian G.C.S.E came in very handy for reading signs on the Metro, so a big shout out to Mrs Bowden. The Moscow Metro is incredible and has a range of communist statues and art-deco style decoration. The service was brilliant, puts London to shame and there were officials and police everywhere so was very safe.

On the next day it was pouring down with rain, felt like being back home. Went to a cafe and tried some Borsch, which is a kind of Beetroot Soup with Beef, it was accompanied with a dumpling filled with sour cream so it was like dropping a profiterole into your soup, but still was surprisingly good. We visited the Kremlin, Red Square and the GUM shopping centre which were all good, however it was made slightly hard work by the fact that we were like a couple of drowned rats. Unfortunately we weren't able to get into Lenin's mausoleum because they had closed it, in order to hold some kind of military tattoo.

We made our way to Yaroslavsky station for the trains-siberian train which was to leave at 2330. We thought we would be amongst Russians drinking vodka and smoking as we hadn't booked a tour but they put all the tourists together, so we next to a bloke from Clapham and ended up singing YMCA on the last night of the journey which was 70 hours and 5000km from Moscow, by which point we were in a need of a shower as we stunk (Andrew did anyway).

The train was a great experience where we made some new friends drunk a little Vodka and played copious amounts of poker using chess pieces as money. Although travelling such vast distances it was surprising how little the landscape changed over the course of the journey. The train would tend to stop every 3 - 4 hours at major cities where you could buy food and drinks, such as beer, rolls, noodles and dried fish from vendors on the platforms. Also, during the course of the journey you go through 5 different time zones, so one week later we are feeling slightly all over the place. Its quite odd because your watch is set to Moscow time and the days seem to get shorter as you continue through the journey. Also the waitress in the buffet car deserves a special mention, unsmiling from start to finish, for some reason she chose to wear a see-through top for the duration of the journey!

We got to Irkutsk on the morning of the 13th (4 days later), which was a fairly decent town but the whole point of going there was to see Lake Baikal, so we got straight on the bus to the lakeside village of Listvyanka. Once we arrived there we went to the tourist office and they pointed us in the direction of some accomodation which turned out to be very lovely....wooden cabins with a great view of the lake. We spent the next 2 days really chilling out walking along the lake, which is massive you forget its a lake as you really feel like your by the sea. The whole area felt very european which is surprising since your only 50 miles from the Mongolian border. Here we met some lovely Germans who were very into their russian rock music and 80's english punk/rock.

So that takes us up to now...we are in back in Irkutsk where we will get up at 4.00am for the 2nd leg of our transiberian journey which will take us to Ulanbaator in Mongolia in a mere 24 hours. Lookin forward to what the next few days will bring!!!???? Whilst we have enjoyed our trip so far we will not miss the russian peoples choice of music!!!They love anything from the 80's including Jason Donovan and Aqua and will put an electronic beat behind everything. We were confused the other nite when they played the house version of last christmas by Wham in a restauarant???

In short we are both having a great time although Andrew is slightly concerned by the fact his 2 week facial growth has many grey streaks. I think instead of calling him champ it would be more apt to call him the silver fox...(its not that bad really). we hope that you are all well we will try and put some photos on when we get somewhere where we have more time.

Take care

Kim & Andrew

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Comments

[Skippy]

NEWS FLASH
I hate to tell you guys, but in the time since you left the UK the Russian techno pop scene has stormed the charts and the house version of Last Christmas is No.1 and is expected to remain until named as the Christmas No.1. I have already downloaded it from iTunes - it's so catchy.

[Dee]

Hi Kimbo and Silver Fox
Great to hear your news - I can definitely see how Vodka would be an essential ingredient on a 70 hour train journey with an electro-80's-punk soundtrack! Kim - you are just not meant to go in mausoleums - remember our attempts to see Ho Chi Minh's one?! I never really knew Andrew as 'Champ' but can easily adapt to Silver Fox. Hope you've managed to lay your hands on a razor by now and are feeling a bit more orderly! Wish I was travelling - Dave will be totally jealous of the Trans-Siberian experience too. Not much to report from here - had our Oz wedding reception last weekend which was fun, my folks were here (and Mum still is although Dad's gone home to go sailing). Work's still manic with the Equine Flu - horses starting to look better but still contagious so no real end in sight yet. Looking forward to the next installment on your blog :o) Take good care, Love Dee xxx