Now in Asia

Happy Anniversary Helen's mum and dad!!

The following day, the soldier returned at around 11am, still drunk, with a friend. They sat opposite us for a while until I think they got the message and left. We finally arrived in Irkutsk at 06:45 Wednesday morning (now GMT + 8 hours) and alighted the train feeling like the great unwashed. We clambered onto a tram where 2 females (I think); one the driver one the conductor, were literally barking orders at people. We somehow found our stop and eventually found the hostel down a side alley. It was a tad early (8am) so our room was still inhabited but we were given a towel (the size of a small hand towel) and gratefully had a much needed shower.

We met a couple of lads from Salford; Tom (a blue!) and Dean and a bloke from Huddersfield who is emigrating to Brisbane only he's travelling overland there so we may meet up with him when we're there. We ate out with Alex and Mareika (we met them in Moscow) and said 'goodbye' as we probably won't see them again.