24th - 26th May, Trans-Siberian Railway to Irkutsk

We woke at around 7.30am after a reasonable nights sleep. We had porridge with banana and honey for breakfast. The day was sunny and we passed rolling hills of pine and birch trees. There were also many cute little villages. Boris gave us all a Russian lesson for buying food on the station which was very interesting. The 12 of us jammed into our room for the lesson. We had 3 stops through the day at 10.30am and 3pm for 15 minutes each and at around 11pm at Yekaterinburg.  We sat around in Ken, Kim, Scott and James' cabin drinking and chatting until the final stop, then headed off to bed.

The rest of the trip was much of the same, eating, drinking, reading and sleeping. We jumped off at stations where we stopped for 10 minutes or more. Some of the buildings on the stations were very elaborate, one even had chandeliers. It was a very relaxing journey.

The train arrived at Irkutsk at 1.25am Moscow time and we disembarked ready for our trip to Lake Baikal.