The three night trip between Ulan-Ude and Vladivostok on one train was the longest continuous trip we did on the Trans Siberian route. We boarded Train 8 at Ulan-Ude and then off we went on a 2,200+ mile final push to Vladivostok.

The long distance services in Russia do suffer from having their toilets locked around 45 minutes before arrival at each station and also for around 45 minutes after leaving each station and given the station stops themselves were anything from 15 minutes to 30 minutes it did mean they were out of action for some time. This is allegedly for 'environmental reasons' as the train toilets discharge straight to the track and they don't want a deposit being made in a built up area. This is not a problem during the day as you can plan your visits around the times that are shown on the train timetable posted close to the toilet, but invariably in the middle of the night you would awake needing the loo within this lock down period and that really could be difficult!

After two nights of travel we arrived at Khabarovsk, this really did feel like we were getting somewhere as tomorrow we would reach our final destination. The station stop was a very lengthy affair which gave enough time to have a good look around the station area and in hindsight we probably should have broken our journey here as on the face of it the place looked fairly decent.

Fortunately today you can watch the scenery go by however historically as this section of the journey skirted the Chinese border things were rather different. Between Ulan-Ude and Vladivostok covers used to be placed over the windows to stop prying eyes seeing this sensitive area. That really would have made the journey rather hard going!

So we are now less than a thousand miles from Vladivostok and tomorrow morning, with a following wind, we will have done it!