30.07.08

I have been somewhat pathetically remiss in keeping my diary, given that it's to be the aide memoire for my blog and, also, given the amount of crazed hilarity ongoing over the past ten days. To put 'remiss' in context, well, the previous page in this notebook is my shopping list for my holiday.

It's now 9.05am local time (or 4.05am Moscow train time - all Russian trains run on Moscow time at all times in Russia, leading to a unified time zone for the railway and endless confusion and frantic computation for everyone else).

I am travelling on train number 362 from Irkutsk to Ulaanbaatar. I had though the train continued to Harbin in China, but it turns out my cyrillic is pants. My entire carriage seem to be asleep - each of the nine compartments, each with four bunks, merrily slumbering. The view from here is fantastic - you can see for miles in both directions over glorious green and purple-hued steppes, to distand peaks shrouded in mists and fog.

I must admit that seeing the view was more accident by design - on the train, unless there's an important event at a peculiar time (alighting, worthwhile stop, border), you tend to let your own alarm clock take over, and sleep until you feel like getting up (usually called afternoon).

The provodnista - our carriage attendant - has started to clean down the carriage. I'm seated on a gold brocade seat half-way up the corridor, and she's started with the gent's toilet (this train, unlike others, has segregated toilets, rigorously enforced by the provodnistas), so I think I should be ok sat here for a while. Today is the 11th day of my adventure, and today will be the day I leave Russia. I have made myself a cup of coffee from the samovar - something of a curiosity on our study East German carriage and electric train, it's coal-powered or, in this case, wood-powered - a little stove providing an endless supply of boiling hot water. I swear our is held together by hair in a few crucial places. Also, the samovar is generally the only place to find hot water on board - it's noticeably absent (as is a shower!) from the train toilets.

I swear you can hear people breathing, snoring, turning in their sleep, although it may be my imagination amongst the constant clank and whirr of the train. Last night, we discovered the rather modern and spectacular carriage next door. I had hopped off to have a look at the wares of the platform hawkers (mainly smoked omul, the delicacy of local Lake Baikal, and something I was more than happy - after a few days of an omul diet - to forego). It was just as well, really - the Vladivostok train pulled in on the adjacent platform and, suddenly, every trader was shouting and scrabbling at its doors, omul flying everywhere. I guess the 362 just doesn't love its fish enough. Or had had a meal all too recently to recall that 5 day into a train journey desire for solid food.

The last 11 days have been wonderful: quixotic; intoxicating; intoxicated; and generally aa rather wonderful romp across Europe and Asia.

To put it in context, I'm currently around 6,000km and 5 time zones east of Moscow. I've made a note to think of some impressive comparisons (swimming pools a favourite!) of distances when I upload this. In fact I've travelled so far east that, when I reach Mongolia later today, I shall go back a time zone (that's not the actual reason for this time shift - it's just that Mongolia and China do not (or, in US terms, refuse to) acknowledge daylight savings time.

Speaking of daylight savings time, let's document the hilarity of the past eleven or so days. "Hilarity" reminds me of a contestant on this year's Big Brother, in turn reminding me that I haven't so much as seen a television or read a paper since July 19th, other than a quick and cursory scan of ft.com yesterday for the essentials (Ryanair shares down 23%, Mosley wins breach of privacy case).

We have just passed through the town of Zagustai, and I have been for my morning wash. The train bathrooms here are old-school (think BR Mark II or, better, Cravens): a flushing toilet that drops onto the tracks below; a sink (cold water only and bring your own plug if you want to avoid holding the tap in the on setting at all times); assorted hooks, handles and rails; and a hole in the floor. Through which I can see a moving train wheel. The bedding pack I bought from the carriage attendant included a small towel, the use of which happily allows me to forge ahead without resorting to my trek towel (very effective, but works by peeling the water from you in a rather unpleasant way).

Let's face it - onboard hygiene is a must, particularly as this train is not air-conditioned. It's also quite entertaining to have a wash - my general approach to date has been to make like a seal in an aquarium and improvise a shower by throwing water everywhere, a policy that worked well on our first train, the Rossiya, up until the point we pulled up next to a commuter train, and a startled bunch of besuited men got rather an eyeful through the half-open bathroom window of my nude shower improvisation. I felt that my refusal to break stride, and nonchalant continuance of luxuriant bathing, saved the day and, at least, hope I brightened up some office conversations that morning - "It was grotesque, Philomena. I could barely hold my breakfast down", etc.

It seems like an age since I set off on my journey - trekking off with my backpack on July 19th. I had reserved an airport hotel - the Jury's Inn Heathrow - to avoid an early-morning taxi ride and, bar the fact that I'm unable to find the hotel for a while (their directions should, ulaimtely, have been as simple as "We're opposite the large Concorde!"), all goes well. I check-in, have a glass of wine, and head for bed. An American college sports team are drunkenly noisy, pounding up and down the corridows, and playing their own absolutely hilarious version of hotel-door knock and run. When you've got around 4 hours of sleep ahead of you, what could possibly be more of a hoot?