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Our second Siberian city

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 […]

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Entertaining guests

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 […]

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Back on board

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.  […]

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Our first Siberian city

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 […]

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On Lake Baikal

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 […]

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Crossing from Mongolia to Russia

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. […]

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Back on the train

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 […]

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Back to the capital

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 […]

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Mongol capital and countryside

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).  […]

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Rail adventure begins

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 […]

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