I'm guessing most of you just read the above heading and thought "3 nights on a train!!!!", but trust me, it was no way near as bad as it sounds!!!!!
We hopped on the train in Irkutsk at 5pm, armed with instant noodles, bags of chips, fruit and vodka, as well as our normal giant bags...the whole group looked quite the sight as we attempted to board the train.
After settling into our cabins and a having a few pre sleeping vodkas, we all fell asleep quite early getting ready for the following day which was full of.......sitting on the train!!!
It actually quite hard to write about this part of the journey, because in order to pass the time we all really just sat around talked the whole time. Thinking back on it now, I understand that it was a really long time to stay in one place, however during the actual journey, none of us really noticed.
We filled in the time chatting to each other, telling jokes, eating, drinking, listening to music and staring out the window. I dedicated a good chunk of my time to reading Nat's Russian Phrase book, trying to memorise as much as possible, however considering at that point I was having enough trouble saying Hello and Thankyou, it wasn't going as well as I planned.
Staring out the window was more interesting than it sounds, as the ever changing landscape of Siberia was amazing to look at. All the small villages, the millions of birch trees and the sheer nothingness that you sometimes see.
I made friends with some Russians from Irkutsk, Marsha and Den, who were just married and on there way to Moscow for there honey moon. Even though they spoke little english, and none of us really spoke much russian, we still all got on quite well. Mark, who was on our tour, could speak quite a few words of russian and managed to translate most of the conversations for me. One rather funny moment, was when Mark was explaining to Marsha and Den what my travel plans were and how I was going to be away for two years. Up until that point, the pair of them hadn't seen me with any shoes on, which caused them to ask (quite seriously) "Jess is travelling for 2 years with no shoes on??"!!!
On our second day on the train, the 12th of June, I did what every 22 year old in the world wanted to do. I celebrated my 23rd birthday in true Siberian style, aboard the train. Of all the birthdays I have had, this one will definitely stay in my memory for a while! I was given presents and cards from all the tour group and a neat collapsible shot glass from Marsha and Den (which considering they known me less than 24 hours was pretty generous!). After being dragged away for a birthday beer with Nat, I came back to my cabin and discovered Sophie and Ben had completely decorated it with Baloons and streamers, and decked out some food aswell! In the cabin next door we had Marg, Angela and Penny serving drinks from our make shift bar. An just when I thought it couldn't be any better, Marg pulls out a cake with candles and everything! We spent the evening listening to music, eating food and drinking vodka (suprise suprise!) and I had an amazing time....!
The following day was much of the same again, just eating drinking and staring out the window of the train, until the next day we arrived in Vladimir, and headed strait to Suzdal.
No comments:
Post a Comment