By the time I got to writing this, I'd already left Russia for 2 days. Even this early in my journey, I get to discover the pace of travel makes it hard to keep this place updated! Regardless, I had a fun time in Russia, and I'll try to put down a condensed version of my antics here.
The Transsiberian Express.
Once I left Moscow, I would be on a train for a little over 3 days. For the first bit of the first night, it seemed like I had a coupé (or 'Kupe') all to myself, but eventually I was joined by Sergei. Unfortunately, Sergei's English was almost as bad as my Russian, so there was little communication, but Sergei turned out to be a very kind coupé-buddy. Eventually I gathered that he was moving to a new home in Irkutsk.
The train ride itself went by rather uneventful. Unfortunately I didn't meet that many backpackers on the train, so I mostly passed the time by reading some books and watching the Russian landscape change.
Irkutsk
After a little over 3 days of riding a train - and 5 timezones ahead of Moscow - I arrived in Irkutsk at 7.30 in the morning. After shaking off the Russians insisting me to take their taxis, I took a walk through town towards my hostel. It was located in one of the oldest parts of the town, with a lot of wooden houses. Some of them looked pretty ran down, including the one my hostel was in - luckily it was beautifully renovated on the inside!
Luckily, the receptionist at the hostel was kind enough to let met check in despite it being so early in the morning. Right as I settled down, two Dutch guys who just came from Mongolia checked in. We spend the day together hanging out in Irkutsk, and by sheer coincidence met two people that they knew from the train ride through China. It turns out it really is a small world.
In total I spend four days in Irkutsk, mostly hanging out around town and talking with all the interesting people. Some of them had been travelling for over a year already! 'Karl from Wisconsin' invited me to see a basketball game that he had a spare ticket for. I'd never seen a basketball game before, and would have never imagined seeing my first one in Siberia of all places! It turned out the crowd was really fanatic, albeit a bit one-sided (the opposing team was Novosibirsk, which is a 30-hour train ride away).
However, in the end the very highlight of my stay in Irkutsk was the day trip to Lake Baikal, the worlds deepest lake. We picked a very nice day to go there (I even got a Siberian sunburn), and the sights were amazing. To top it all of, we took a 30 minute hovercraft tour over the lake.
Ulan-Ude
Continuing on eastward, I took a day train from Irkutsk to Ulan-Ude, which passes right by Lake Baikal for large parts of the journey. This time I took a seat in the third class, which is best described as a huge dorm room. On the bench opposite to mine was Nina, a Russian Babushka. Again the language gap turned out to be a problem, but I think I learned how to say "Why didn't you learn Russian" in Russian now ;). The landscape changed from Pine covered mountains to large rolling hills, a clear sign I was approaching Mongolia.
I only had an evening and a full day in Ulan Ude, which I spend with Elli and Ivan from Sweden. They taught me 'Durak', a Russian card game, and we spent a day visiting the tourist attractions surrounding Ulan Ude. The next day, I would be leaving on a 12 hour bus ride across the border, to the capital of Mongolia!