Our last stop was Novosibirsk, the largest city in Siberia, but really not a lot to do. We did manage to crash a rather intimate Wedding and went to the ballet. The cost of the ballet in Moscow Bolshoi theatre is 75 quid so we were laughing when we got to see a familiar story (Cinderella) for 4 quid here.

We then boarded the train and arrived in Irkutsk, they base point for seeing Lake Baikal (largest and deepest fresh water lake in the world...fact)

We are now getting accustomed to the long train journeys, having done 3 with 2 to go. The format is, when you get into your cabin you make your bed (sheet and a towel provided), read, chat, eat and sleep. There's a person in charge of each carriage and they can give you mugs for tea, wake you up when you're supposed to get off and look after everything.

One problem when packing was that we couldn't put in all our travel books for all the countries we are visiting....however, problem solved. We met a French guy who shared our cabin and he had 2.30GB's of lonely planet, so needless to say we took a copy.

So there's no stopping us now!