Surviving Siberia
We’re into day three of our three day four night train epic from irkutsk in eastern russia to moskow. Said to be a once in a life time experience… Both nathan and I agree that we’d do it again given the chance. I’ve done the maths and including visas and invitations (the russian visa system is a nightmare), and transport to/from western europe this part of our trip will cost around $600 in second class - $450 if we’d gone 3rd class (or if we had gone with a bare bones tour agency it would have been $1900) I think that’s a pretty affordable way to get across the world. And fun!
Well acctually it’s often been ungodly boring. Like yesterday I hadn’t yet learned how to read the schedual of stops but had depended on our cabin mate Ellena to let me know when there’d be a 20 or 30 minute stop for us to streach our legs and stock up on supplies. I missed the morning stop because I was sleeping and then ellena slept the whole morning so I couldn’t tell when I could get off. I started to get cabin fever big time. Getting up on my bunk and then down again. To the toilet, eat some chocolate, play sudoku, read, up, down. Eat some more. The next stop (I finally figured out the timetable) was in 2 hours. Sigh. And then finally it came around. Though the stops is only usually 20 minutes. It really brightens the day for at least an hour. Half an hour before the stop you begin to get excited. Start the ritual of puttingon the layers. But be sure not to be too eager! The cabin is heated to 27degC so tomany layers too soon can be problematic. Shoes, jumpers, scalf, hat jacket… Then wait. We’re sslowing down we can see all the snow decked houses. Some people working on the tracks others going about their day. Then the station! We head out into the cold. It’s refreshing! We scan the platfrom for babuschkas selling their wares, kartoshka (roast potatoes) are a favorite but we’ll settle for water, maybe some cheese, bread, and juice from one of the many Kiosks lining the platform. Laden with our new purchases we head back to the carrrage. Some times we settle back down inside but other times we savor every breath of fresh air. Then we wait again. Today there won’t be another stop until 9:30 pm. When the sun goes down at 5:30 that’s a late stop and I don’t know if I’ll still be awake. We arrive tomorrow at 4AM so I think an early night is inorder. The nightcaps (vodak, coniac…) fed to us by our cabin mate ensure that our long nights sleep are peaceful. Each day is 25 hours as we head to the west and while the train runs on moskow time we have tried to keep up with the time zones and change our about watches once a day for us time is pretty subjective. The train, crampt and boring as it can gets, certainly beats jetlag and has come as a welcome rest for us. I’ve already finish one book 1421 the year china discovered the world - I recommend it! And I’ve started on “salt; A world history” by mark kurlansky a great writter and what’s shaping up to be a great story for those that love odd facts about the world.
Anyway I think I’ll sign off with that today. Our next post will probably come from moskow. We’re certainly looking forward to it!
Much love
ELlie
Posted on February 10th, 2007 :: Filed under Travel
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