10. November
Approaching Ulan-Ude soon which means just another 7 hours to Irkutsk. More snow and more beautiful scenery to enjoy. Hardly an uninterrupted sleep though last night – quite the opposite in fact. Was woken around 2.30am by the arrival into our wagon of a huge dark brute of a Russian arriving from some god-awful Siberian outpost. Stupendously drunk, of course – had the obligatory 2lt plastic bottle of something. He was carrying two large hold-alls, each the size of a young child, and also a chain saw. Mercifully it remained in its box. After a few attempts at trying to engage with me he finally made it, with some effort, into the bed above my own where he lay making strange noises, breathing rapidly and occasionally shouting. Thankfully it wasn’t long before he was woken by the attendant to disembark at Chita. An experience to say the least. We picked up two new traveling companions at Ulan-Ude. Alexander (who looks just like Alexander III) and his wife who are both friendly Orthodox Christians heading to Krasnoyarsk. Alexander speaks very good English and I am very grateful to be able to have a more comfortable conversation for the first time in 48 hours. We have lots to talk about ranging from whether or not I like John Lennon (I said yes thinking it was the right answer – it wasn’t) to his studies of the Koran. We are coming close to Baikal and my stop now.
I was met off the train by my new host Valerii. He decides we should go straight to Listvyanka – so still a bit more traveling to go. Not sure what the plan is from now but I think Valerii will be acting as a tour guide for the next couple of days. I have never seen so many stars in the sky before in my life – not only the water which is clear round here.
No comments:
Post a Comment