Irkutsk - Monday 5 May

We arrived in Irkutsk this morning after train journey of 2 nights and 1 day from Ulaanbaatar.

The trip was uneventful except we were woken at 5.30 when train stopped for border crossing out of Mongolia, toilets were closed and we waited, we were allowed on the station at 7. am and back on train at 8 am - we filled informed, compartment was checked and we filled in more forms. At about 11.00 the train then travelled 20 km to Russian border crossing where toilets were again locked and we filled in more forms, compartment was searched, more forms and passports checked again. We were allowed out on station at about 1.00 when shunting started and this continued until about 3. pm when train finally continued on into Russia.

For all this time there was no dining car on the train but we are getting good at buying food, eating instant noodles and i also had a bottle of vodka. - 'when in Rome.....'

The landscape looked very harsh, the villages improverished with some bigger cities. We passed a large lake Lake Goose which was partialy frozen. I slept well, no dodubt due to the vodka, and woke when we were in forests with some signs of snow.

We had walking tour of Irkutsk - lots of churches being restored, terrific icons and colourful. The statue of Czar Alexander III has also been replaced as he was responsible for the building of the Trans Siberian Railway. The city is a university town with 120 000 students.
There is a saying here - God is near the Czar is far away - hence all the churches.


Tomorrow we go