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…

I got up late this morning after last nights vodka session :-S Grabbed a bit of breakfast, showered (yes that’s news worthy now!!) and popped out to the shop to get some lunch. Risked a pasty, which turned out to be filled with fish, onion and rice and tasted pretty good. Having got instructions from…

I started off the day by getting up earlier than the others, making my breakfast of fried eggs on toast and then heading off for the dog sledging. When I arrived at the dog sledging venue I bumped into Louise from the hostel in Moscow and we agreed to do the 10km trek where we…

Decided to head out for dinner last night in Irkutsk with Kim. After wandering around for a while we ended up in a big fast food place. Despite help from a Russian guy in the queue who could speak good English we managed to really amuse the girl serving by pointing and attempting to say…

Having grabbed some breakfast from the supermarket across the road I headed out to explore Irkutsk. Didn’t pick the best route and started out with the less attractive parts of town, but did take in the road with the most old wooden houses. Heading back to the hostel I went via the market, which was…

We arived in Irkutsk right on time. The Provodnitsa was round at 4:20am local time to make sure we were all awake and ready to get off the train. Kim and I got a taxi round to the hostel – cost 500 roubles for the 5 minute ride, but worth it because the hostel is…

About half an hour ago we pulled out of Ilanskaya so we’re into to last stage of the journey from Moscow to Irkutsk. Last night I joined Kim from my compartment, Tom, Becky, Chris and Josh from a couple of compartments down, plus a French guy from further down the carriage and two Americans from…