The Trans-Siberian Railway (really this time!)

Life on the train was a strange existence. The whole of the russian rail network (which spans 9 timezones) all works on Moscow time (MT). This means that all the times quoted on all tickets and all the clocks at ANY station in Russia show MT.

Our trip from Moscow to Irkutsk was to take about 4 days to cover the 5300kms. According to our tickets, we would arrive in at 10pm at night, but when we allowed for the local time zone, this would mean arriving at 3am! Rather than have to get up in the middle of the night, we decided (along with the only other 2 english speakers on the train - Mark and Ritch) that we would stay on MT until Irkutsk :-)

We were staying in 2nd class, which means 4 beds in a small compartment. Unfortunately for us, we had 5 people in our compartment (a mother and child took up "one" space). The compartments are connected by a small walkway which runs the length of the carriage. Endless hot water is available on the train, so tea and pot noodles becomes breakfast, lunch and dinner :-)

The train stops 2 or 3 times each day at various stations along the route - where we could get off the train and stretch our legs. We could also buy food etc (ie. noodles!) from the local 'hawkers'.

Mark and Ritch were very nice people and since the 4 of us english speakers were practically shunned by all the remaining passengers, a 'them and us' situation seemed to arise. Lonely Planet had told us that the train would be full of english speaking tourists and that any russians we might meet would be friendly and make an effort to get to know us - Ha! At one stop, Mark (or was it Ritch) managed to get hold of some vodka and OJ so we had ourselves a small party (between the carriages, since each attendent told us to move to the next carriage). We stood around doing impressions of the unsmiling grumpy russians :-) We battled on living in MT, while many of the remaining passengers tried to adjust their body clocks to the inevitable +5 timezone.

There were good points to the trip too. Each day we awoke we could see noticable changes in the landscape. I could sit for hours looking out the window, at houses where people live in their whole lives and which fly past us in an instant.

All in all, this was not the experience I was hoping for, but an experience I'll never forget none-the-less. When the bright lights of Irkutsk finally arrived in the middle of the night, we were alive and giddy with excitement!