It is now day 4 of 5 of the long crawl across Russia from Moscow to Irkutsk. The train is faster than I expected, and the same carriages and class as we had to Moscow. However as we are travelling with the Vodkatrain group, time is travelling very quickly.
We have got to know a few people in our carriage; at first the guard lady liked us and was quite accommodating, however on the second day of our trip we ventured out to the restaurant carriage for the second time to meet a nice guy called Italia. He says very generous and bought us a bottle of vodka. So as etiquette is in this country, we had to buy one in return. Instead of refusing the drink, I thought it was etiquette also to accept the drink too. Oh dear! Apparently that's not the case! I ended up quite ill as did another girl in our group who was a bit loud and the guard lady then did not approve of us at all! We tried in vain win her back but yesterday she had another reason to be annoyed at us. One of the group brought a gas meter key because Vodkatrain suggested we get one for locking out rooms. Well! Someone unlocked the toilet during a stationary stop and she was convinced it was us but I'm certain none of us would do that but she didn't believe us. She didn't like us having a key. Oh dear!
On the positives we have stopped at a few stations for 50 mins each and had a wander outside the station. The are some remote stations; ... Byshev was 100km from Kazakhstan and consisted of an amazing church, a park and a supermarket! And Novosibirs was a lot bigger than I expected.
The landscape had changed finally after Novosibirs to some hills and more dense forest which I hope in turn will become mountains as we approach Lake Baikal. One more night to go! The rumble of the tracks is becoming a comfort.
