This morning started off nicely with a “western” breakfast in the hostel of fruit with muesli and yughurt washed down with green tea. I decided to get down to south west China as soon as possible and spend a few days back in Beijing before I fly out to Thailand. It would have been nice…
We eventually pulled back into Erlian station at about 12:30am and dashed out to grab some bits from the station shop. Paying at the checkout was like a scrum and we ended up running back to the carriage only for the train to sit it in station for another 10 minutes! I got a packet…
24/02/2008 23:29 local time The walk from the hostel to the station took me 30 minutes and I arrived just as the train pulled in. It didn’t take me too long to find my carriage. Once inside I found my compartment, but there was a lady who said she also had bed 7 booked. She…
22/02/2008 After a fairly late start – I’m not feeling too great with a sore throat – I set off towards the Zaisan Memorial on the top of a hill south of the city. The start of the walk was along busy main roads, but it wasn’t too long before I got to the outskirts…
I woke up this morning again not feeling brilliant so had a slow start. Once up and dresed I did a trial walk to the station to check when I need to be up tomorrow morning. Half an hour will be enough time to get there and I’ve figured out where to cross the roads…
As promised I’ve found somewhere with better upload speeds and I’ve now got everything up to date in the album. Enjoy the photos.
21/02/2008 8:30pm Local Time After dumping my stuff in the hostel room I went for a shower. However after a few minutes of running the tap no hot water appeared so I resorted to washing my hair over the bath and using a flannel for the rest of me! Well washed I set off for…
I’ve now uploaded all my photos from Moscow, however the internet cafe I’m using is only uploading at 10kB/s so it’s slow progress. I hope to find somewhere with faster access and I’ll try and get the other ones of the train and Irkutsk uploaded. (Click the Photos tab above to see what’s there so…
21/02/2008 6am Local Time We made it through the Russian border control and customs, traveled the 15 miles to Sukhbaatar and went through Mongolian border control and customs. All that only took us till 8pm local time! Most of the time was spent waiting for the Russian authorities. On the Russian side we were also…
The train has been boiling hot so far – I think the provodnitsa has been a bit over-zealous with the coal shovelling! I resorted to covering up the heating grille in the compartment with one of the blankets and spent a fair bit of time today in the end of the cariage which isn’t heated…