Europe Irkutsk

... a little English &#8211; well all of two words, but it was enough to get us to where we were going. <br><br>Finally at the bus station, there was only one ticket left for the bus apparently &#8211; but not to worry, just ask the driver and he will let two of you on. Baffling I know, but questioning the way things are done here is something that is quite a big task to take on. So to the bus we went, and on the bus we got. Shuffling ...

... Nice. They were replaced by a Russian woman and her son who we also became good friends with. We taught them some card games so used up a lot of the time playing them.<br><br>All in all we really enjoyed the journey even though we didn't think we would. We never got bored, slept well and made lots of friends. We also ate lots of pot noodles. The only reason we really wanted to get off the train was to have a shower!!<br><br>Enjoy the pics....

... jumped into the queen size bed happy since I knew I was going to spread out since it was 3 times wider than any train bunk. However during the night I woke up and realised I was sleeping as straight as a possible right on the edge of the bed... I was still sleeping like I was in the damn train bunk...<br><br><br><br><br><br>TRAIN IRKUTSK TO BEIJING <br><br>I didn't know what the train was going to be like for this stretch. I'd ...

So we left you last with tales of the infamous Swiss window dresser - we saw her motorbike on the way to catch our train to Irkutsk, it looked just about big enough to carry a small pygmy so I dread to think how she managed to carry around 4 trunks and her father (medium to large sized)... the mind boggles. We had a mid morning train out of Ekaterinburg so we were able to get the metro back to the station - we had rather a lot to carry (what with our new ingenious food bag and ...

... and has a fluhing toilet!<br><br>Thank you all so much for the emails and messages, its great to hear from you.<br><br>We will try and reply but we have such limited time in these internet cafes.<br><br><br>****IRKUTSK update*******<br><br>Our one night in Irkutsk was in another home stay. This time it was in one of those drab apartment blocks. The entrance to the block was via a crude metal door and then up two flights of stairs - (no lift)! So far we have seen no facilities ...

... internet and laundry service that includes washing your clothes in the sink. I head out and find a great place to do sushi on Nevsky prospect while seeing some of the city center and doing some great people watching. I walk around for a while and hit up a few bars and wind up getting out of the last bar after the sun rose so I never really saw darkness. By the time ...

... the airport, we knew we were in for a challenge when all we saw was Cyrillic writing and bus stops with no signs. We had to watch for a while as people milled about and came and went in buses. Once we figured things out a little we hopped on a bus that took us to the metro station. We had our first experience of being ripped off - the lady who collects fares charged us for three tickets. When we realized we tried to talk to her again but she just ignored us ...

... defeat of Napoleon and the beginning of the end for Napoleon Bonaparte. Also, in the middle of the square is the Alexander Column (for Alexander I--the tsar who defeated Napoleon) also commemorating this victory. The victory over Napoleon ranks as Russia's greatest military victory along with their World War II victory (which Russian's still call the ...

... I waited for a while, then said screw it and decided to take a shower. I finished that and still no return call so I handwashed some clothes. Finally she called back and had located our tickets, thank God! M tried to get better directions out of her, but didn't really succeed. So, M and I headed to try and find the damn place. At least M got which way to walk on Nevsky Prospekt out of her. The 1st road we turned down was the wrong road. The 2nd road turned ...

... leapt on it. So that was one thing. Today, we went to a tourist information centre to ask about our tickets for the Trans-Siberian Railway. The girl there did speak English, but didn't know anything about it. She was able to direct us to the central ticket office though. We got there, and queued at the information desk for an hour where the girl obviously didn't speak English, but after some gesticulating she pointed us down to a travel agency in the ...