Articles from this Category
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 […]
12 May 2005
Continuing to Ulaanbaatar To my surprise, we slept really well and woke up around 0900. We wandered to the breakfast car and found it to be different from yesterday’s. We now have a rickety but ornately decorated (with carved light wood) dining car. A breakfast of tea, omelette, slaw, bread and pancaked was CNY60 (NZD10). […]
11 May 2005
All aboard! We woke at 0545 for check-out at 0630, in order to check-in for our rail adventure at Beijing West station across the road. We had some muesli in the room for breakfast before setting off. At the impressive-looking station, our luggage were x-rayed before we entered and turned left into the international waiting […]
10 May 2005
It was drizzly and cool today. We had woken up early to get into the swing of an early start for tomorrow morning. And besides we wanted to squeeze in some minor sights after doing only a half-day yesterday. First up was the Lama Temple. This began as an imperial palace in the late 1600s. […]