So the first full day on the train and we've not killed each other and even relaxed.
We made it to the station and found the train on the board but had to wait what seemed like forever to get a platform. When we did though, we turned up there before the train and quickly found our compartment and were moving ourselves in when our compartment-mates arrived: Helen and Kathryn, two British sisters, one of them a Bath Graduate. It's safe to say there's no language barrier to be overcome.
We made it to the station and found the train on the board but had to wait what seemed like forever to get a platform. When we did though, we turned up there before the train and quickly found our compartment and were moving ourselves in when our compartment-mates arrived: Helen and Kathryn, two British sisters, one of them a Bath Graduate. It's safe to say there's no language barrier to be overcome.
The journey has begun well with all our pre-trip planning and organisation paying off, with food sorted and everything we needed to hand. The scenery has been fairly consistent: birch and pine Forrest, with some farmed land and the occasional small village of corrugated steel roofed houses between the larger towns that warrant a stop on the main trans-Siberian line. Some of the villages look as though the way of life hasn't changed for 20 years and might well not change much for the next 20.
We'd read a lot about the provodnitsa,a terrifying russian lady who runs the carriage. As this is a Chinese train going to Beijing what we actually have is a happy Chinese man with a taste for messing around and solitaire. Holding Helen's flip flop out of the window and finishing my game of solitaire faster than I could turn the cards over. It's safe to say that our trip looks set to be a good one, in good humour and good company.
Start of a long journey...
Our mostly friendly conductor Wan, at least when he's not playing tricks on us...
Proof of the tricks and laughter caused.....
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