Shelter Of Alpinist Irkutsk

... and no problem for foreigners who don&#8217;t know where they are going, never mind the correct fare.<br><br>The weather also plays its part in highlighting how far we have come. We have blue skies in Irkutsk but by the time we leave Listvyanka we have snow. We spend<br>three nights in this small village on the shores of Lake Baikal. The owners of our accommodation here have gone much further along the private enterprise road. They ...

... 20 rubles less for a beer, we were making progress!<br><br>The 4 days and nights slipped by, I only managed about 50 pages of my book, I don't know where the time went. When we left the train early this morning Yasay and Lena got off with us and hugged us goodbye, we have there email and have promised to swap some photos and keep in touch, it odd to think that they still have another 4 nights on the train until they get home!<br>

... threatening just to cross the road. It was one of the group's birthdays (Luke), so we all went to a superb Mongolian meal - Timur even managed a birthday cake - bless him!! and the restaurant even presented Luke with a present - an umbrella!!<br><br>25th Sept - a free day to explore Urkutsk - we walked around the food markets, but very polluted in general - not our favourite place, but good to see. In the evening we left the hotel for the overnight train to Baikal.

... making of coffee, porridge, packet soup and instant noodles, my diet for the duration. The temperature seems to vary according to the whim of the provodnista (attendant) in control, so as far as Ekaterinburg I found my summer clothes and hair damp with sweat from stifling heating, while from there to Irkutsk there appeared to be no heating at all and I wrapped myself in thermals and blankets against the draught from the loose ...

4 nights on train Moscow to Irkutsk<br><br>"Result" The two birth cabin we booked was good. About 6' x 7' <br>AS usual the beds were hard but this is not a problem for us.<br>But result on top of result. The attendant in charge of our carriage was in her 20's not over built and on the second day smiled at us.<br><br>Loo's and washing facilities are about the same size as on an aircarft.<br><br>The highlights of the day were when the train stops and it's possible to get off for 20 ...

... on the platforms and being ordered back on the train by the Russian guards only to jump back on the platofrm to sell more clothes once they have disapered. i have not eaaten anything in the food car yet because it is overprices and apperently not very nice, good job I brought all my food with me. It is easy to buy food at the stops I managed tp buy some panckaes, salad and ...

... were wearing tight black shirts and clearly worked out. So, I was trying to take a couple pics of them without getting caught. Some manager type got all up in a tissy fit though and wouldn&#8217;t let me leave until he saw every picture I had and that I deleted them. I don&#8217;t know what it is with Russians and pictures but they all seem up in arms about it. It&#8217;s not like it was ...

... 8:30am the morning of the 14th.<br><br>So after a bit, I decided to wander around Irkutsk and enjoy the city. It was very hot today and hopefully I finally put a little color on my skin. I noticed also that this city has a large number of tourists, specifically backpackers. They were everywhere and it was kind of nice since nearly all of them spoke English.<br><br>After playing a little bit of tourist, just came back and chatted with the few hostels folks ...

... to the Baikal Hostel. <br><br>We settled in there without any problems, and we decided to cook ourselves a nice big bowl of pasta. We visited a local shop to buy the food; it was a strange setup, whereby all the foodstuffs were behind the counter, and you had to ask the woman working there for each item individually (a bit like ordering drinks from behind a bar), then she would bag it up and once you had paid, she could then pass it to the ...

... them up at 4:45am which we were able to shotgun seats on. During the drive to the station the only traffic on the streets of Irkutsk was a fleet of taxis carrying western backpackers out to the train station to meet the trans Mongolian Train no. 6.<br><br><br>The early start did mean that we got to watch the sunrise as our train wound along the southern shores of the lake. By this point we were back in second class but Corina the Swiss girl was (randomly) our ...