We met the two girls who are sharing the expense with us at the hostel just before leaving for the train station. One is from Holland – a final year Med student who was born in Korea and lives in Holland. The other is a very young Lithuanian studying international business in Denmark – sounds like she and her family have spent their lives moving around Europe. So easy to get exposure to so many different cultures and languages growing up in Europe. The train station was business (chaos) as usual and we got to our train without hassles. It’s a newish train so is still clean and tidy. We are in ‘hard sleeper’ class again – open carriage bunks stacked 3 high. V and I had been booked two opposing bottom bunks – we prefer to be tucked away on higher ones but that is jut how it turned out. An old Tibetan looking lady arrived at our isle showing us her ticket. She had one of the top bunks (over 2m up) V was happy to trade with her. She was too sweet and ecstatic, even insisted on paying for the change (bottom bunks are more expensive). At 10 the lights went out plunging us unexpectedly into pitch darkness. With nothing else to do everyone turned in. We slept well.

Today was the first full day on the train. Nothing to do but sit back, relax and make a huge loop North and West (a very long way round). I attempted some audiobooks but the novelty of moving forward without being bounced and bruised encouraged me to nap just about all day. It was great. Overcast and rainy – perfect video weather but without working electrical sockets we had to ration WW eps. By late afternoon we had left the last of the big Chinese cities behind and darkness fell quickly over what looked like hilly tundra (something like the Karoo).

[Pictures: Landscaping]

– Posted from my iPhone via Wifi