Author archive
22 May 2005
Departing Ekaterinburg We were woken by our alarm at 0645. Today we take the final leg of our train journey from Ekaterinburg to Kazan. It’s a relatively short ride today, in fact, just a day-trip. But it is a significant day as we cross from Asia to Europe today. We fuelled up on a breakfast of […]
21 May 2005
Around the city We woke on the sofa bed around 0730 and arranged breakfast for 0900. Our hostess prepared a very nice breakfast of jam-filled blinis, cheese pastry, bread and yoghurt washed down with tea. The blinis were the best I’ve had; crispy on the edges, soft and warm, and filled with jam before being […]
20 May 2005
Above: Our lovely homestay was located in this humble Soviet-style apartment block. Onboard We woke around 1030 Irkutsk time or 0730 Ekaterinburg time after more than 10h sleep! We must be adjusting to the local time. The countryside appeared quite green. Even the birch trees are green. We had breakfast with the Japanese boys. It […]
19 May 2005
Scenery en route We woke around 0830 to a little country mountain town. There was more evergreen conifers her in between the white bald trees. We didn’t quite repeat last night’s dinner and supper for breakfast, but it was closed. We substituted ham for lime-flavoured canned tuna. As we approached Krasnoyarsk, we had a green […]
18 May 2005
Sightseeing We have an afternoon departure from Irkutsk to Ekaterinburg, so it was a leisurely morning beginning with a hotel breakfast, Russian style. It was a filling spread of eggs, cheese, salad, porridge and lentils. We rested and checked out around 1100 having failed to secure a late check-out beyond the normal time of 1200. […]
17 May 2005
Above: Beautiful wooden lattice-work adorn some Siberian homes. Tatiana prepared a nice breakfast for us, comprising sausage, egg, bread and a sweet. We prepared for Eugene’s pickup which had been indicated as 0930 to 1000. But he turned up at 1045 in an old van for some reason and we had to wait for another […]
16 May 2005
Arriving at Irkutsk The guard or conductor woke us up about an hour before our 0809 arrival at Irkutsk. We packed and checked that we had everything. The train pulled into the station on the opposite side of the river from town. It was a gloomy and drizzly day. We were met by Eugene who […]
15 May 2005
Sukhbaatar to Naushki The train appeared stationary while I was in the dozing hours before I woke properly. I got out of bed around 0830 while we were in Sukhbaatar. We had made a seemingly long stop and the toilets were locked. I had to hop out of the train to use the station toilet. […]
14 May 2005
We have a night-time departure from Ulaanbaatar to Irkutsk on the train tonight. That gave us a whole day to kill, starting with a leisurely breakfast. We then walked to town to check out the museum. It had interesting displays of Mongolian culture and history, eg. costumes, the expanse of Chinggis Khan’s empire, the Communist […]
13 May 2005
Interrupted night I woke three times through the night, each time wary that someone had crept into the ger. It was the girl from the family, coming in to stoke the fire. Not the best job in the world, having to do that several times in the cold dark night. For all the occupied gers […]