Irkutsk Downtown Hostel

... not a European style, once a week, morning market but a daily hive of commerce where you can buy everything you can possibly want. The shops around the market area are filled with fur, real fur, boots, hats, jackets, coats of every colour and<br>style. There is a true mix of Western and Asian faces amongst the traders and the shoppers. We get lots of &#8220;Hellos&#8221; from the smiley children. There are also many old wooden houses to ...

... brightly but as we hopped off at various random Russian outposts we realized it was not as hot as it looked. Day 3 was awoke to that grey light that as a child, would make you run to window hoping for snow.<br><br>On the third night we cracked open our vodka with Yasay and Lena and discovered it improved communication greatly. We pooled our food and Lena prepared a traditional vodka feast.<br><br>The price of food in the ...

We arrived in Irkutsk on 23rd Sept at around 5.00am - local time - ALL trains in Russia run on Moscow time and with 11 time zones, it seems very strange, but makes sense somehow!! The scenery along the 4 day route was much more varied and interesting than we had imagined - vast areas of silver birch forests - all glistening in the sun along with pine trees The weather in Siberia was much milder than expected - often very warm when we were allowed off the train ...

... with relief.<br><br><br> Travelling 'platskartny' (3rd class) is not recommended in the sources I consulted while researching this trip: the Trans-Siberian Handbook, for example, describes it as 'cheap but rough'. Hmmm - cheap was all I could manage so I figured I would just have to tolerate the rough! In the event it turned out to be both comfortable enough and highly entertaining. The carriage is arranged in sections of six ...

... Now, being able to relieve ones bladder most would think is a basic human right, obviously not the Russians, who had locked all toilets and refused to open them to pleading man, woman or child. By this point both of us were in actual pain through holding on so long, at which point we were told to fill in a Mongolian customs form..which was written entirely in Mongolian - I'm surprised there wasn't a full blown riot. There was some definite crying and tantrum throwing though ...

... rush back to Russia. I know thisis a common feeling amount our group but it is also hard to really judge the country as it is so big and I have on seen a small section of it. Passing through the Siberian countryside you see alot of broken down houses and run down factorys and dirty tower blocks. The Mongolians continue to provide entertainment mind you with there ...

... there tomorrow. 7 hours of bus each way so I&#8217;ve got some good reading time ahead of me. Today kind of sucked in general cause it was raining pretty hard. First time I&#8217;d seen a good rain since starting vacation really. I was hungry though, so still had to trek out for food. Wandered Irkutsk&#8217;s central court and got yelled at again. There were these 2 mall cop types ...

... a hostel as they had no reservation. It was a bit crazy until a few hours later, when I realized I was one of the few left. Today was a &#8220;get my plan together&#8221; day and after some research I decided I wanted to go to Olkhon Island for a couple days before leaving again on the train on 8/17. They have a minibus that leaves from here every morning to there already set up so I don&#8217;t really have to do any more figuring out other then get up ...

... and that he'd turn up at the hostel accompanied by the police, and we'd be evicted anyway, without our money... that's how they do business is Siberia...<br>We were positively aghast! There was no way we were going to stay in a hostel that would treat its patrons in such a way, we would certainly take our custom elsewhere thankyouverymuch! So we packed our bags, demanded a refund and marched on out of there, and took a taxi to the outskirts of ...

... workers. Rather than go inside in the still considerable heat we did as the locals do and bought some cheap beer from a kiosk along with some paper 'bottle sheaths' (i.e. brightly coloured paper bags - we think this makes it legal to drink in public...?) and sat out by the river watching the sun set. <br><br><br>The giggling Danish girls that we had met on Train no. 2 turned up in our homestay that night and it turned out they had a minibus coming to ...