One last trip across Russia, three days on a train, you'd think I'd be sick of it now…. For some reason, food was delivered to the cabins on this trip, one hot meal per day. I had wondered why all the Russian people were snickering at us with all our groceries and packs of noodles. I've never had that happen before, I took the exact same train in the other direction and wasn't given anything. Dane, Maria, John and Nat wake up one morning with their curtai...

Managed to get a bit of a sleep in today before heading down to breakfast at 8:30am. Buckwheat and sausages cooked by Nicholai, which I actually like. After breakfast all the clients went out on activities and I stayed in my room, watching TV and doing paperwork. At about 1pm however, I had to venture out to get food, I went down to Sury Mury's café and had my usual Siberian meat and dumplings in broth. I then stopped for a last look at Lake Baikal, again ...

We arrived in Irkutsk this morning and I met the driver, whom at first seemed to have gone a bit wayward. He was in fact a bit lost because they had changed our carriage number from number one to number eight at the border. After I located the driver, we all trouped out of the station and I put the clients onto the waiting transfer bus and then left them there while the driver and I went to see about changing the etickets for paper tickets. Yes, I know, the ...

Day from hell, doesn't even begin to cover it..maybe double day from hell as I was up for nearly 24 hours due to office stupidity. I started the day with my normal breakfast at Nicholai's place, followed by a quick look around at the markets and then doing my shopping for the train the Ulaanbaatar. I had my room until 10pm and basically spent the entire time fighting with the office about getting a transfer in Beijing. I checked out of my room and went and s...

Had a bit of a day off today, had breakfast at 9am and then sat around until about 12pm trying to readjust to the right time zone… I had once again ignored my own advice to get off Moscow time as soon as possible. I stayed in the chalet for most of the day and at about 4pm went back down to the café for sunset. The sunset over the lake was unreal. It was like seeing hell above heaven, fire in the sky above and icy world below. The Lake is not just one...