Irkustk

Early morning wake up, early morning breakfast and then early morning to the train station. We jumped on the train, took our positions and got comfy. A 7 hour journey - beautiful scenery and beds to lay down on. It was an awesome way to travel - vibrations like train/plane/bus/car/drill rig put me to sleep so I slept a fair way. I read a couple of books, ate some cheese sandwiches.......

It did put my mind at ease re: Trans-Siberian though. That's a no. There's no way I'd do it. Four people in one tiny space with no open window is NOT up my alley. Someone/s would die along the route. No way hozay. 7 hours was perfect. We're doing it on the way back to Ulan Ude as well.

We grabbed a taxi today to pick up our train tickets from a tourist office. The taxi driver - the piece of shit - took 1000rubles which is about 5 times more than the price should have been. There was nothing we could do - we needed our bags. So we paid. But minus two points for Russia. That shit shouldn't happen, anywhere.

Irkutsk has a stupid name but it's cool. It's a lot bigger than Ulan Ude. There are lots more bigger buildings and they're so beautiful. They're old but they're cared for. Lots of green bits around - trees, grass, flowers. We don't actually get to spend much time at all here because the tickets to the CircumBaikal were only available tomorrow. But nevermind. My heart belongs to Ulan Ude. I wish it belonged to a Russian in Ulan Ude- oh man, they're so beautiful!

Right, so it's 11:30pm and the sun's finally gone down so I might get some sleep. Early morning again tomorrow to get this train. I was lazy today and only got a couple inside the cabin.