Ekaterinburg - Irkutsk

The train from Ekaterinburg to Irkutsk was the best yet. With two nights on board, we were hoping to have a cabin to the three of us (new friend Simon, Tim and I), so were a bit annoyed when our game of Shithead was interupted by a fourth occupant.

It turned out to be Yuri (well thats what we call him anyway, we never quite grasped his name. Jenge or something like that...), a young Russian policeman. First instincts were to get out our passports for a document check....

We were soon joined by Pasha, a soldier, from the next cabin, who was madly excited to be able to practise his broked English on the way to his next military base. And so began 24 hours of hilarity. They were very keen on beer, which is always a good start to breaking the language barrier, and they refused to let us buy a round until well into the night. Then out came the tupperware - several boxes of meat they'd prepared for the journey. At one stop, Pasha ran onto the platform and came back with two whole smoked fish and a bag of piping hot boiled potatoes.

We exhausted all small talk, discussing our families, jobs etc, and amazed them at the price of vodka in London. And when we'd run out of things to talk about, we introduced them to Soduku and tried to teach them Shithead.

We were quite sad to see them go the next afternoon - it was our first real experience of damn friendly Russians.