Trans Siberian - Moscow to Yekaterinburg
13.10.2011 - 14.10.2011
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13.10.11 - Woke late, the scenery is just flashing past constant streams of trees, land, roads and the odd river/lake. The day flies by and, after enjoying a pot noodle lunch, we soon find it’s time to get off the train in Yekaterinburg. 6pm quickly becomes 8pm with the time difference, and we’re shortly on our way to our hotel in a taxi. Despite our initial reservations that the location is rubbish due to the long drive from town, it was possible that our taxi driver simply took the long way around…as in daylight the next morning, it wasn’t too bad after all (Parus Hotel, Yekaterinburg).
We had breakfast, took the trolley bus into town, and began exploring the little town by following the Red Line. Leading us to all the attractions, monuments, and just plain interesting parts of the town, we followed the line for several hours, coming across all types of random things – a giant computer keyboard 20m long that you stand on, a tribute section to the Beatles, complete with ‘Wall of Love’ and giant multi-coloured murals. Plenty more golden churches and historic buildings to keep us occupied.
Eventually, we ended up in an Irish Pub, in an attempt to try and kill some time before our late night train. Unfortunately, something we only really worked out once we got here, the 23:30 train we had booked for that evening didn’t actually leave until 01:30 with the time difference, as all trains are ticketed in Moscow time, no matter what time zone they actually leave from. So, after drinks, dinner, cards, more drinks, more cards etc we eventually decided it was time to head to the train station and wait out the last few hours there.
Cue 01:30, we board the train, to find our cabin inhabited with Dutch lady doing a worldwide tour, but more interestingly an older Russian man who’s trying to smuggle birds from the Ukraine back to Irkutsk. He’s been to the bird markets in Odessa and bought up big! So bad luck for us as there’s no luggage space – as the lockers are all filled with birds. Plenty of ‘Shhh’ gestures, and smiles, as if we say anything he will get kicked off the train. They seem quiet enough, so we don’t say anything – what the heck, makes for a good story right? Eventually we find somewhere for our bags, and after a quick toast with the cabin mates, drift off to the rattle of train trains long into the night.
Posted by Long way home 17.10.2011 06:06 Archived in Russia
