The train has been a great experience so far but more ruski vocab would have helped. It would also have been interesting to stop at more places enroute but I suspect not worth the stress without a guide or the ability to communicate.

Since Moscow we have have travelled more than 4500km on 2 continents and crossing 5 time zones over as many nights, 4 of them on trains. On arrival in Irkutsk we were whisked away to the lakeside resort village of Listvyanka on the shore of lake Baikal. Another dodgy looking road and entrance (too knackered to care) led us to a well appointed pine log lodge and nirvana – our first shower in 5 days. We tried in vane to drain the lake dry through the shower head but since it holds 1/5 of the worlds fresh water that was optimistic.

We slept like Russian bears in winter for the entire afternoon, woke up, consumed an ep or two of Boston Legal on V’s iPhone and went back to sleep. Got to love the little things – hot showers, good sleep and Denny Crane 🙂

– Posted from my iPhone