If I were young, I'd flee this town

After the 24 hours I'd just spent in Moscow I was bouncing in my box by the time the train began to move. On the platform there was a party mood amongst the 'tourists', the locals looked on with understandable scorn - why the fuck would anyone voluntarily spend 5 days on a train. Its the equivalent of traveling between Dublin and Carlow 24 times for 5 days in a row. Although that said, its not like we were traveling with CIE.

I promptly found my cabin and so too my roomie for the next 5 days. A sun kissed Londoner who like me was soon approaching 30 and maybe avoiding some sort of life crisis. Tom was a decent bloke, we chatted and laughed throughout the course of the trip. neither of us reaching the point of cabin fever I predicted at the beginning of our trip.

The journey on the train was looooong but thankfully punctuated with intermittent stops. Stops which we relished as it gave an opportunity to stretch out and also meet the locals. Stops were brief so our encounters with the locals usually involved us bargaining for beers and the Russian equivalent of pot noodles. Uuuurgh, pot-fucking-noodles, if I never see another it'll be too soon.

Day to day life on the train was fun. Basically living the life of a cat eating,sleeping,prowling(ignoring the fact that cats don't usually read, take photos and drink beer). You cross several time zones as you move from Moscow to Ulan Bator. In doing this you build up a serious sleep credit. As we adapted our watches to the local time zone and went to sleep at the appropriate local time. By the time we hit Lake Baikal it was night, but we were on a beer binge and wired from plenty of rest. Lake Baikal is the worlds largest reserve of fresh water - its something like a billion miles wide and a light year deep...ok its not, but if you are interested in facts just look it up! It does however contain enough fresh water to sustain the planet with fresh water for 40 years should every other source of suddenly evaporate.

We arrived at Irkutsk around midnight ( saying good bye to some of our troupe there - a danish guy who was wankered from a bottled of vodka he'd drank solo earlier and a Mexican who was a well travelled and seemingly decent sort). The train proceeded towards lake Baikal and as the sun rose we were given glimpse of this vast expanse of water. Maybe it was the beer, maybe it was the euphoria that randomly set in as part of our train trip - but that morning 4 of us ( 2 Mancs, 1 Londoner and a paddy) silently stared out the windows of the train each admiring the beauty of this glorious place.

I felt a pang of regret at not having planned a stopover in Lake Baikal, but recognised that this sort of regret will occur frequently on my travels as I see alternatives to the choices I make. I chose to simply enjoy what I had and snap as many photos as I could to inspire a return trip in future.

Not a lot happens in 5 days, but yet your days feel packed and boredom was never a problem. Tom and I had an ongoing bet - $50 for the first photo of a bear in the wild. He won on a technicality ( a shopping bag with Winnie the Pooh on it at one of the stations). We agreed that beer was reward enough and toasted our intrepid hunting skills.

Tom was on some sort of crazy mission to circumnavigate the globe in 3 months. An agenda so aggressive I felt dizzy even thinking about it. Whilst I could never undertake such a pressured trip I respect his mettle and ambition. I hope he's doing well.

The train itself was manned by a staff of pirates - not the kind that say "yarrrrr", so much as ones that say "Da" and then try to extort some silly price off you for a Mars bar or a pot noodle. I would strongly recommend bringing your own food on this train, I ate in the restaurant twice and each time was charged an extortionate fee for the paltry dish that was sered up. Although the chef( a large man who looked like he subsidised his own eating disorder by charging us 10x times the local price) did seem to like trance. A soundtrack that was particularly weird when we decided to go for beer breakfast after the Lake Baikal sunrise.

I loved the trip on the train, I think each of us in our group did (aside from Manc. Katie, who spent most of her time puking). I'd recommend it to anyone. I'd also like to take a trip in winter. But that might require a little more preparation...

All in all a fantastic life experience, a goal number 1 of 4 done! Suhweet!


Sub story: Morten the Dane
Morten the Dane was a happy young fellow traveling Russia on his todd. He was the first person I met at the station and by handing me a beer off the bat was quickly dear to my heart. He was put in a cabin with a local Russian. A lanky fellow with a pretty fucked up look in his eye. We were drinking that evening and Morten joins us in our cabin. He seems relieved to have escaped his colleague although he mentions that he's a decent sort. Apparently the guy works as some sort of mercenary with the Russian military and took great delight in showing Morten nice photos of his girlfriend and then also some nice photos of Iraqis with their innards spread across a road. Charmed!

I'm not sure how this event came about but later on in the night we ended up boozing in the restaurant. Beer + guys meant it was only a matter of time before the arm wrestling started. Who knows... Anyway, psycho Ivan was doing the rounds challenging anyone and any thing to an arm wrestling match( I wish he'd taken on Techno Chef). Tom gave him a decent run for his money but in the end conceded. It seems as if this victory boosted Crazy Ivans testosterone levels as events were about to take a turn for the worst, like only they can when you have a 185cm maniac hepped up on Russian vodka.( Blame Morten for the vodka, that was his tipple of choice. Ahh the folly of youth)

So we were back in our cabin when one of the Manchester crew came rushing in. Apparently "shit was hitting the fan" with the others and we rushed to see what was going on. At the scene the Russian was losing his mind shouting at everyone and everything, topless and filled with rage of course. The carriage attendant looked as if he'd just come back from a week long feed at a lipoplasty waste bank and was obviously ill equipped to handle the situation.

It seems as if Crazy Ivans passport had 'gone missing' and he was out for blood. Thankfully Morten was on good terms with the Russian so he wasn't the focus of the rage. Sadly, the quiet mexican next door wasn't so lucky and was getting a mega-interrogation from our dear friend. It was wild, and in the madness some details escaped me. I recall the police coming on board, wading in and then walking off the train again. Still not sure how we managed to randomly find cops in Siberia, I have my suspicions they smelled foreign dollahs...In summary they did nothing.

In the end the passport turned up, in Crazy Ivans money belt....thankfully his English wasn't so good, so my persistent references to the "russian twat" went unnoticed. It also seems that all the excitement took its toll on Morten, who had disappeared at some point during the fracas - Only to be discovered in his boxers passed out in the toilet....his shoes and clothes were to be found strewn along the various carriages between his and ours....His camera , now "lost" (undoubtedly in the possession of one fat bastard Russian train attendant) could be put down a lesson learned in vodka administration.

Choooooo choooooooooooo....