The train had no dining cart like predicted. We were also told that we would reach the border at 3,30am and the toilet would then be locked until we finished crossing the border which was predicted to take anywhere between 5 to 10 hours. We set our alarms and got up at 3am to go to the toilet.
In woke in the morning to find that we were still sitting in the same place and everyone was out side yelling that the train was gone. It was all very weird. Chris wrote this in my diary to explain the situation:
10,16am 25-06-2007
7 hours and counting, our friends on the 9 other carriages have disappeared and only us and one other carriage of westerners have survived. Savage dogs are circling outside preying on the caged strangers as we go quietly stir crazy inside.
We ponder our fate every minute for those who have watches. Others lay idly reading books they would never normally read and listen to music they would never normally listen to.
Hopefully we will move soon. Some passengers have reported seeing a camouflaged mad man carrying a knife and the paranoia is festering internally. Nobody knows if everyone is still accounted for as supposed official guards have stated burning documentation and strong rumours exist of them being relayed to organ trafficking circles.
We will leave soon, only hope and the glimmer of life we love so much may get us through this.
Only time will tell
ANON.
It was not quiet that bad but the dogs and man with a knife are all true and we did have no idea when we would move again. We also had to pay to go to the toilet and get past the dogs to do so.
Finally at 9am the Customs offices started work and collected our passports. It was another 2 hours until we started moving across the Nomans land towards the Russian border. We had to fill out the Russian custom forms in duplicate and there was 3 forms. The female Russian guards were really scary and they made us move our bags out of our room while the searched the room. The man Russian guards were much friendlier. After the customs had finished we were off again. The border crossing took 10 hours in total!! It was crazy!!
I was sharing a cabin with Tracy, Yeresa and Jenny again and we found ourselves the party cabin which was really crap when we wanted to go to sleep and just be left alone for a bit. At one point we had 8 people in our cabin. It was all a bit too much for me and I found myself locking the door so we could get some peace.
Before we went to bed there was a lot of confusion about time zones and what time we would arrive in Irkutsk. The train was travelling on Moscow time but operating on local time. Whatever that means! The problem was occurring because no one knew who was on day light savings and who was on normal time. There was another group of traveller who had a guide with them from Australia but he was the most useless person ever and the general rule was whatever he said was wrong!
Finally we reached Irkutsk at 7 am local time or 2 am Moscow time!
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