It was 11:15pm Saturday night, the station information board flickered and added a new destination "BNADNBOTOK". It was our train to Vladivostok (they don't spell very well) and as we climbed aboard approaching midnight, it was a strange feeling reminiscent of a 1960's spy story. For the next 4 days this train would be our home.

We entered he dining car, attracting barely a glance from the gaunt Russian waiter. The clientele were as we expected - two elderly English gentlemen talking about cricket, a loud American lady (perhaps a writer) an elegant Polish countess and a mysterious eastern European type wearing a trench coat girl and sitting in the corner pretending to read a newspaper but closely watching a young American girl we had not previously noticed. …. Perhaps the train journey would be eventful after all.

Our compartment was small (just the two of us) but private and very clean, the fellow travellers in our carriage all spoke English albeit consisting of 2 Australians, 2 French, 1 South African, 1 Irish, 3 Swiss, 1 Shaolin monk, 4 Dutch and ourselves. The Dutch turned out to be the most sociable and two fun nights in the bar bore testament and resulted in some "travel sickness". Surprisingly, the 4 days passed by swiftly and enjoyably, we had travelled across 5 time zones on the train and were now 8 hours ahead of the UK and we felt a tinge of sadness as we parted from our travelling companions at Irkutsk, to go our separate ways.