Second full day on the train. Slept really well, woke up at 8.30am (10.30 local time) having gone through two time zones during the night. The weather started grey and raining, but by afternoon we had sunshine- hooray!! It is strange travelling through so many time zones and yet the train is still on Moscow time. What time is our body clock now? At least we won’t suffer from jet-lag. Have couple of long 20-minute stops during the day giving us time to get some fresh air and see what is for sale on the platform. At the last stop it would have been easy to purchase a complete meal – chicken, veggie pasties, noodles, potatoes boiled eggs, tinned meat and fish and salad. We bought Russian ice creams for 30 roubles (75p); we are going to eat in the restaurant car tonight.
The scenery is now much more picturesque with hills, farm land and trees. Apparently after the war 25 million hectare of Siberia were turned over to wheat cultivation (twice the area of the UK!).
Late afternoon and the sky is blue and the sun is casting a warm glow over the landscape. It is looking much more promising for our three-day stay at Lake Baikal.
Spent today chatting, writing posts doing a bit of reading, eating and not much else. Daan and Andy passed the time playing the dice game Yatsee