Admiral Hostel Irkutsk

... basis.<br><br>We stay with Elena in Irkutsk. Adopting Western names seems to be favoured as she calls herself &#8220;Helen&#8217;s Homestay&#8221;.<br>A young professional, single Mum renting out a room in her Soviet era appartment to visitors. There are clear benefits for both parties aside from the monetary. <br>Both girls get the chance to practice their, already very good, English language skills. There is the opportunity to learn more ...

... as our Russian but we seemed to get by.<br><br>The best description of life on the train would be an inside beach holiday. The temperature on the train was certainly tropical, the average temperature in the carriage varied anywhere from 22-30 C. After a sleep in on our top bunks in the morning, we'd have a leisurely breakfast of biscuits and chay. We'd then chill and read our books for a bit before a lunch of big bon (pot ...

... am off very early again tomorrow - the 5.25 train to Beijing, which gives me 2 nights on the train to think about how on earth I'm going to deal with the language. It's been bad enough in Russia, and I do know some of the Cyrillic letters. It really is only a matter of time now till I end up ordering eyeball soup, I just know it.......<br><br>Speak to you again soon<br>Love Karen x <br><br>Sorry, the photos are going to have to wait untill next time

... a border crossing from Russia, the first of our trip - we'd heard horror stories of waits for hours upon end whilst the Russians decided if they wanted to return your passports. The Russian passport control personnel had already made us part with our passports and various other customs sheets, when we arrived at the last station before border crossing. We were quite proud as we'd just managed to make pasta with simply two cups and a hot water machine...who said pot noodles were a ...

... hunted down by Peter the Great. Sadly, his armies were not in persuit.<br><br>I will be really sorry to leave Russia and these heroic and charming people who have shown me nothing but kindness but I will be back, and so, will keep a date with Boris.<br><br>Now I'm off to the land of the Mongols - where I intend to stay nearly 4 weeks - so your next blog will be about a month in Mongolia. <br><br><br><br><br>

... when ya sleep with them next to ya. I got to the hostel Baikaler. Also I figured that the service would hopefully be better since they cater to tourists rather than Russians. It was rated the best in the Lonely Planet book (aka the Bible for any travel), although from the outside it wasn&#8217;t exactly attractive. Most russian buildings are a bit worn down though so ya just gotta ignore it.<br><br>The hostel was actually fairly nice inside, although ...

... her birthday wishes to eat something non-Russian.<br><br>By means of a special gift for Finola, Admiral Hostel decided to evict us. They had made a double booking, and despite us already having paid for the night, priority went to those that had booked on the internet in advance. We were offered a refund and told we had to leave. We took a strong and stubborn stance and insisted we would not. The manager then phoned especially to speak ...

<br><br>So back in Irkutsk we had a bit of a lie-in and then planned a lazy day strolling around before having an early night ahead of our 5.15am train on sunday morning. Unfortunately this wasn't to be the case as we met Geoffrey ('Le Freestyler') and Julia from the Caledonia in town and planned to have reunion drinks that evening. We attempted to do our walking tour still but in the scorching Siberian heat (36 deg!!!!) it was hard going. Luckily we found shade ...

... actually speaks a little english. A girl from Malta was on the same private bus as me on the way to Listvyanka (Lake Baikal) so it was good to have a conversation again as they are few and far between at the moment.<br> <br><br><br>Anyway I think that is it for ...