Darren weblog

I’ll write later about Train 1: Saint Petersburg to Moswoc, sorry for being out of sorts – will get into the process soon enough!

Arrived at the Moscow train station to board our 27 hour train to Ekaterinburg. At the hotel we met Carol & Chris who were celebrating Carol’s retirement by taking the Trans-Sib to a) satisfy Chris’s love of trains and b) Carol’s wish to visit China! At the station we stocked up: Water for Karen, Beer for me (no sight of vodka anywhere – gutted) and some super noodles, crisps, bread etc!

We boarded the train to find we didn’t have a 1st class cabin as booked, but thought we would therefore have the 4-berth to ourselves. We were wrong. So a swift phone call to Marlis Travel first) confirmed they had mis-booked our travel, but then secondly) they called back to say the train had been full. With my blood at boiling point we found a solution – Carol & Chris were next door sharing with two Russian blokes so we swapped our Russian travel partners for Carol & Chris and at least we could all speak English!

The train was much more modern than I had anticipated and the provodnitsa not as scary looking than I had feared! It wasn’t long until I hurt myself some more. With a few cans of larger down I wanted to get a GPS fix to thought I would step off the train at the station (where locals were trying to sell us glass chandeliers of all things!) – with only flip flops on, I missed the first step and slipped down on my arse knocking the skin off my elbow – ouch! Back on the train with the provodnitsa suggesting I either stayed off or got back on immediately I hid away and licked my wounds! Worst still – I didn’t find any platform food

The evening train journey was very pleasant, I bought for a small fortune a half litre of vodka off the restaurant car and I was set! Later I had an excellent beef & chicken stew from the restaurant car and a few more beers and was thoroughly looking forward to a long & relaxed sleep knowing Karen felt secure and comfortable, i.e. I could wear my iPod! The sleep was relaxed but not as plentiful as I had hoped, but hey ho – all I had to do all day was sit on a train!

So now to now – sat on the train, drafting a few emails to people, drafting this blog and generally just chilling which is a part of the TransSib I was very much looking forward to! I had a rant with Monkey Business this morning about their Russian partners, Marlis Travel, messing up and then lying to me with excuses which were just not true. They are dealing with that, so hopefully come the 54 hour train we have a 1st class cabin. I should go now and convince everyone that monolopy is an awesome game and that they do want to play!!! $$$$

Bye for now, Dan x

So on our last day in Moscow we had three tourist things to do, and one essential earand to run. Here comes some honesty: I didn’t pack a quite important book and am terribly sorry to John who went to some considerable effort to get it for us. A book I was very much looking forward to reading, and when thinking about boarding the train the next day realised it is by the bed in Cramlington, the book in question is the Long Walk. So, not at first to be beaten – we looked up English bookshops in Moscow and went on the hunt – we found the address, but no bookshop and accepted defeat – sorry John, we truly are and I am gutted.

Outside of the Kremlin we had found a DJ Tank which was covered between all wheels with speakers (photo to come)  -would be an awesome toy for Bear/Benny! I will write a detailed food blog to come over the next day or two, then try an keep you up to date – but I am trying to eat as local as possible wherever possible!

From the bookshop defeat we went to visit Lenin who is still laid in state for people to pay their respect. Karen asked 20 yards from the door after we had queued, past security, etc etc was the body on display real – when I said it was Karen went as pale as Lenin himself! So for the 30 yard walk around the glass cask Karen looked at the wall – the army guards must have been confused. So there he was (not Stalin as I kept calling him!), he was smaller than I imagined.

From exiting the tomb we were at last in Red Square. It had been closed for the previous two days which I think was because of a boxing match staged there the Saturday night. But Red square truly is amazing. Moscow has been fab – definitely a place to come visit again in the winter months. As SP, Moscow had its fair share of brides on display and I was gobsmacked to discover a glass of Lagaluvulin was fourty (yes 40) quid each which makes a bottle worth 600 quid – should have brought one!

With time running out fast, we legged it back to the hotel to catch our transit to the station – trans sib here we come!

Dan x