The Lonely Planet guide book (we've made the transition from Rough Guide to Lonely Planet, which is good - Lonely Planet has better maps and pictures!) said take the "kupe" carriages (2nd class, compartments), not the "platzkart" (3rd class, open carriage), and the lower the train number, the newer and better the train. But at £78 per ticket for 85 hours of travel, covering 5185km and 5 time-zones, how could we refuse the platzkart of the 340 train, with wooden window frames and a layer of dirt that concealed the real colour of the carriage paintwork? Well, we couldn't. But it was great! We took the advice of Jim and Claire, Trans-Siberian advisors following their October 2009 experience, and stocked up on vodka, noodles and all other supermarket products that just require the addition of hot water (free at all times on the train) and everything fell into place! As follows...

Day 1 - Got on the train just after lunch, settled in, and a fairly quiet affair for the rest of the day. Sat opposite us were Igen, our alcoholic travelling companion (although it seems in Russia that "alcoholic" is just a common character trait, rather than a medical problem) and Leoni, the teenage university student (who looked about 14, but maybe that perception is more about my age showing through than her appearance), who wasn't unpleasant, but everyone else was clearly way too uncool to engage with, including us tourists. So she mainly buried her head in a Russian equivalent of Hello, and Igen mainly chatted with another guy just across the narrow corridor.

Day 2 - Arose from our beds at about 9am, just enough time to get a coffee down before Igen arose at half past, pulled out a bottle of vodka and offered us some. We accepted. Igen became our friend. We produced our bottle of vodka, an acceptable brand gauging the reaction, and by 11am we were all hammered. I think it must have been at that point that Igen had another sleep, so we had a bit of a break, and, not that we actually sobered up at any time during the day mind you, recovered our senses a little. At some point during this time, Leoni was replaced by Svetlana, a very nice lady, in her fifties at a guess (so a peer of Igen), who wasn't a vodka drinker, but seemed happy to look on and occasionally throw out the odd English word or sentence, having browsed our English to Russian language handbook. Afternoon onwards was cards, with ourselves, Igen (helped by Sveta, although I don't think he ever fully got the hang of it), and Edward the Armenian, probably a similar age to me, who's seat was a couple of yards away, but who was clearly interested in the goings-on nearby, and didn't need to be invited twice to join in. Edward brought Cognac to the party, in his massive Armenian hands. Probably my favourite of our travelling companions, he was incredibly geniunely friendly, and embraced us both warmly when he left the train that night. Later on, Vovo, who by this time must have been to speak to everyone in the carriage at some point, also came to the table. He'd spent most of the previous day dealing with the large cut on his head, which required reporting to the police, so it may have been given to him rather than accidental! Paula thinks that we beat Igen at vodka drinking later on, as he started to refuse offers of a shot, but given the fact he swigged a good half dozen glugs in one go the second time he got up (giving him tears in his eyes), equating to about a third of a bottle, I think this result may have been debatable. So a fantastic day, who needs to share a common language when you can share vodka, peanuts and smoked fish!

Day 3 - Edward had got off the train at about midnight, and Paula happened to be awake to wave off Igen at about half 4, so thankfully day 3 allowed us the chance to recover from day 2. Sveta was replaced by Elena at some point around the middle of the day, who was elderly and friendly, but quiet and happy to just get on with some embroidery, leaving us to read, relax and properly enjoy the scenery for the first time. Which was timely, as day 3 was a bright, sunny day, and the autumn colours outside were amazing. Mile upon mile upon mile of golden forests, with snatches of evergreens mingling in here and there; I can definitely recommend autumn to travel on the Trans-Siberian.

Day 4 - The final day, and time had flown, to be honest. It hadn't seemed as though we'd spent three whole days and nights on the train, and were almost sorry it was about to end. Elena was replaced by a middle aged mother and two young kids, both boys, perhaps about 8 and 3 years old at a guess. The younger one was a nightmare (although definitely a character, and caused trouble with a glint in his eye) and so we didn't really have the chance to get to know our final travelling companions, with the mother too busy trying to either feed the younger one or explain to him that he couldn't have any more to eat because he'd just had something. He liked eating! So we just played cards, finished off the vodka, and left them too it.

Day 5 - although only a couple of hours, as we got off the train in the morning. But a couple of hours that gave Paula the chance to draw pictures and do monster impressions with the aforementioned kid, and incredibly, after about 84 and a half hours on the train and half to go, we met the first (broken) English speaking person throughout the journey! Alex, who was a small businessmen (I mean the business was small, not him, he was about averge build), and had learnt English for a few years, with the intention at the time to move to Canada. Really interesting conversation, and I wish we'd met sooner, but we chatted for long enough for him to explain that real Russians hate Putin and the government, because they don't really have democracy at all, and are still as poor, and constrained by the authorities, as they ever were. And that was it, journey over!