My trip to Vladivostok was enjoyable, but brief. It began in Khabarovsk, where I boarded the train and was joined by a very Dutch-looking Russian. If anyone’s seen the Austin Powers film, Goldmember, he was a bit like that. Unfortunately, as had been the case the further East I went in Russia, he spoke the least English out of everybody I had shared a carriage with. He made up for it however with wine, nuts and a lot of gestures and sign-language. He was 60 and lived in Khabarovsk, going to Vladivostok for work. I didn’t find out what the work was, but he had forgotten his glasses, so hopefully it wasn’t anything involving minute detail, as he hadn’t been able to read the Russian/English dictionary I had with me and we both ended up getting the carriage attendant (Provodnitza) to read it for us. After a slightly uncomfortable night in the most up-to-date and shiney Russian train I had travelled on, we arrived in Vladivostok and my fellow passenger and I went our separate ways. I sat in the waiting room for about an hour as, from previous experience, it was easier finding things in the light and my hostel wasn’t expecting me. After a bit of looking around, I eventually found it and checked-in.

As far as I could tell, I was the only one who didn’t speak Russian in my hostel. Even so, I got some handy hints from an older bloke in the kitchen on how to prepare my noodles and where things were in the kitchen. The morning (and most of the day) was spent catching up on emails, ordering Mandarin and Korean phrasebooks and getting my ferry ticket printed. As far as I can remember, I had a walk around and found somewhere to eat and then went to bed. The next day was spent looking around the S-56 submarine museum (which was great) and travelling on the funicular railway, which was also very good. Half the journey, however, was spent speaking to the carriage attendant and trying to get her to explain how much the fare was. As the journey is only about 40 seconds long, this meant that I was looking at her for about 20 seconds of it, which meant that only 20 seconds was spent looking out of the window. I encountered my first clearly English people on that journey and spent the rest of the trip trying to avoid them.

After the difficulty of trying to find somewhere to eat on the first night, I opted to follow the guide book for recommendations, so I didn’t have to walk around for about an hour and a half before finding anywhere good. I regretted this, as even though I only ate in a cafe on the first night, the experience was far more enjoyable and the service in the second place wasn’t nearly as good. As it was my last night in Russia, in order to try and restore some of the feeling of satisfaction, I found a cafe which looked somewhat alternative. They had a film playing, some good music that I hadn’t heard before and a load of books against the walls, with people playing cards at one end. I used my best Russian on the woman behind the bar, but she instantly started speaking English and sold me a very expensive beer.

Things I have noticed about Russia over the last few weeks:

• There is a tendency to sell out-of-date goods in supermarkets
• Steps are generally of different heights, with no step where you’d expect one and other steps where you would not expect other steps to be
• There is a tendency to swap hot and cold taps, so that red is cold and blue is hot.

I’ll add to this list if I think of any more!

This was a big trip and one I spent with Sergei and Alexi, some kind of mountain range army troops. As is usual with Russian train hospitality, I was offered Omul, a dried version of the fish which is only present in Lake Baikal, along with some ‘special vodka’ which came out of a brown, un-marked bottle. From what I could gather, it was brewed (or distilled) by one of their dads, but after much discussion, we established the secret ingredient was nuts. From that point onwards, the drink was referred to as ‘nuts’. Sergei and Alexi didn’t speak with very good English, but with the help of the Russian phrase book, we managed to talk about music, cars and a potential business opportunity, where Alexi was to send me 100 Kg of honey, which I was then to sell to the British consumer for double the price. It was all very tongue-in-cheek, but I declined the offer this time.

After getting to Khabarovsk, I exited the train station to find that the city looks like a Soviet playground, exactly what you’d imagine if I told you to think about a Russian city from the communist period. It’s amazing. The sun was rising over Khabarovsk the next day and I managed to get a few photos from the hotel restaurant, which was on the 9th floor. One problem with Khabarovsk is the lack of hostels. There are none. After a masterpiece of navigation, making my way to Ploshad Lenina, I got turned away from the cheapest hotel and managed to find a place at a £50-a-night hotel, slightly closer to the station. This was actually relatively cheap, but is in fact the most expensive place that I have stayed in since the trip began.

I didn’t do much in Khabarovsk other than wander around and take photos. There was no tourist information service and no map of the city, so I used the guide book the best I could and made my own itinerary up. This included going to the fish aquarium and wandering around the water-front, getting back with enough time to sit in the train station and attempt a blog update. I was relatively sleep-deprived at that point, so didn’t publish what I had written and got on the train anyway.

I left Tomsk after exploring the city for a few hours. Getting from the hostel to the train station was significantly less painful than in the other direction and I boarded the train with plenty of time to spare. Already waiting was Yuri, a trainee cardiologist, who was on his way back from Moscow, having flown in the other direction. He spoke pretty good English and ended up being my main source of conversation and translation services.

The train left and as is usual with Russian trains, something fairly interesting happened pretty soon afterwards (as far as I remember). I was participating in a mealtime, which is basically a way of consuming vodka, with food. The idea is that you take a shot of vodka (in disposable shot glasses, naturally) and then bite down on whatever food you have in your other hand. I think it’s to take the taste away, but it’s a very sociable way of consuming vodka and eating at the same time. I’ve seen adverts for cheese or salami or something since, all arranged around a bottle in small bits and have known what they’ve been hinting at. One of the other people in the carriage also spoke a few words of English, so over the several mealtimes during the journey, we managed to have a few conversations. One of them was to do with spear fishing, which the slightly-less articulate bloke took part in along with someone else in the same compartment and it basically involves getting into a wetsuit and swimming around with a harpoon, spearing fish. He had photos of the fish he had caught, along with one he had given his wife, for her birthday.

The sun rose the next day to an absolutely spectacular view of Siberia in the snow. The train track was winding around the bottom of the valley, with small groups of trees visible against the whiteness. There were still ice crystals in the air and as the train went around the corners, you could see both the start and the end of the train, depending on which way the track was turning. This was one of the most amazing things I had seen up until this point, so naturally I spent quite a lot of time looking out of the window.

The rest of the train journey passed without anything significant happening and we arrived in Irkutsk fairly early a few days later. After the problems of finding the hostel in Tomsk, I had specifically chosen a hostel which was easy to find, which it was. After getting organised and walking around the city (which was -8C at this point), I decided to make my own dinner, which was the first time that this had happened on this trip.

I got up early the next morning for a 6 hour bus ride to Olkhon Island, the main island on Lake Baikal. Once I had arrived, I discovered that I was going to be the only one staying in my hostel, which was huge. This wasn’t a problem and after the woman had explained everything that I needed to know, I walked up on to the closest hill and watched the sun setting. The wind was freezing at this point, so it was the wind rather than my own intuition deciding when I went back inside again. The next day I attempted a walk that the hostel woman had recommended. She didn’t speak very good English (none, actually) and so I decided to walk along to the next hostel and get their advice before setting off. It was a long way and a big trip to do in one day and so I decided to go on a shorter route. After walking for about an hour and a half, I emerged on what I thought was the next village. It was, in fact, the same village that I had set off from and so I walked back to my hostel, had my lunch and set off for another route the second hostel had suggested. I almost reached the next village this time and managed to get back before it got dark.

I got back to Irkutsk the next day and went for another walk, as it was significantly warmer this time. The train to Khabarovsk left early the next day, so I just made my dinner and got ready for that.