We were up early to pack as we were off to Irkutsk. It was a good day to leave as it was raining. Our first stop was the hotel to get some money as I had miscalculated on the number of beers last night and was 3 roubles (75p) short on the fare. At the hotel, panic set in - the ATM machine not working. The contingency was another machine we had been told about in the village 2km away. After a 45 min walk, I found out I had been miss-informed - it was a telephone t...

We have stayed in a small village at the edge of Lake Baikal and have had a really good time. It started by being dumped at Irkutsk station at 6:00 am - not the best as we were both starved of sleep as we were adjusting to the new time zone - now 5hrs ahead of Moscow (8hrs on UK). After eventually getting a bus to Lake Baikal, we went through lovely country side - thick forest turning golden with views over the river Angara. We arrived at Listvyanka - a tiny vill...

On the train to Irkutsk. As we only had a 90 minute journey to the main line where we changed trains, we had cheap Plascart tickets (3rd class sleepers). This is certainly a step down in luxury - very thinly covered seats - 6 to the space used by 4 in second class, no privacy - all in all not the place to spend the night.We got to Taiga station where we had a 3 hour wait for the next train which left at 2:00 am. We decided to get a bite to eat so wandered down t...

Our first job in Tomsk was to get a ticket out - guess that sums up the place. I used my best Russian on the ticket lady who pointed me at the information lady who spoke good English. That made the process quite painless. The weather is grim - wet and cold. After a taxi to our hotel, we manage to check in early and get breakfast - a dubious looking omelette. We then decided on a shower and a quick snooze before moving off to do email and have a look at Tomsk. The...

The first night on the train wasn't too bad - we both got a reasonable amount of sleep as we were quite tired. We shared it with a Russian going overnight only (we are on the train for 3 nights/2 days). We tucked into our breakfast from the food we had bought - after finishing it we were a given a complementary meal - the Russian was surprised as well so don't know why we got it. The main part was not too good - cold chicken with cold mashed potato and sweet corn...