Three and 1/2 days and three nights from Irkusk to Moscow. We are four to a cabin so very cramped. Paul snores like a bloody baboon and I consider my ear-plugs more valuable than gold. He also spends most of the day prattling on about Australia (apparantly it's so much more interesting than anywhere else), and trying to one-up anyone who will listen with his ridiculous stories of psuedo-macho crap - verrrry tedious. Tom the Belgian nurse is nice but quiet. Maybe he is trying to block us all out. He does come up with some cool brain-teasers for us to solve on the second day though, which makes the morning pass quickly. The rest of the time is spent eating (no surprise there), solving the problems of the world (don't worry - Paul has all the answers), playing cards (more Asshole), and Patience (I've lost patience with Patience - I can't get it out at all). Also, we meet several other travellers, including a 24 year old girl from Japan doing a similar thing to me. She's very unusual as she has beautiful tatoos all over her upper body.
We also meet a guy from Turgiskstan who tries to get us all drunk. He starts making these creepy eyes at me and paying me more attention than anyone else. Out of sheer desperatism and to get rid of him, I tell him Paul and I are married (my idea of hell). But it worked. He couldn't leave our cabin fast enough. Paul spends the rest of the trip calling me 'love' and 'dear' and telling people I''m his wife with a slimy grin. Oh. My. God.
The scenery begins to change as we move through Siberia. Rickety-run down houses change to slighly more solid lookng structures as we get closer to Moscow. Huge sprawling forests of pine, birch and cedar. Fields of green grass. Thousands of lakes. Purple and white flowers. Lots of swamps. It's greener than I expected and remarkably flat. We circumvent the Urals and don't see them at all.
We munch on the 2 kilos of halva we've dragged with us from Listvyanka. The block doesn't seem to get any smaller and now it's making me sick just to look at it....
Strangest thing is the time. Moscow is 5 hours ahead of Irkusk (which is the same time as Ulan Bator and Tokyo so I've not had to change my watch until this point). It seems to stay light until midnight, but we are making up out own time to suit us. (Is it lunchtime yet ? Well - it's 9am but 2pm in Moscow so yes!. Good lets eat :-). We decide the best tactic is to gradually turn our watches back so we get minimum jet-lag (train-lag?). So even though we go to sleep at 1am we wake up at 6am having had 12 hours sleep! The gentle rocking of the train at night makes for a better night's sleep than I expected, despite the baboon beneath me.
Four of us girls decide to share a 68 ruble half hour shower the second day - it's heaven!!!
By the third day, there are no more problems to solve and we are sick of ourselves and each other. I've caught a cold from Paul (of all people - the one I've tried to avoid the most). We can't wait to get off this damn train and into a long hot shower. We also stink really bad.
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