Here's the car I rented:





I think I headed for the correct side of the car maybe 8% of the time I had that thing. Driving on the left, no problem. Going through roundabouts, got it. Remembering what side the wheel is on? No dice. I deliberately picked a small car because I love small cars. Much easier to park, usually better visibility. This worked out especially well in England given some of the crazy tiny roads they have.

After goofing around in central Somerset for a few days, I decided to drive around the SW coastline, starting from the south side. First I headed south toward Weymouth, and stopped when I found a cider festival in Chedington, which is just south of Glastonbury (where the huge music festival is). Just saw a sign and followed it, had no idea. It was at a bar/restaurant, with a bunch of stands set up outdoors. I ended up parking in some random field. They had a bunch of different ciders to try, and I did. They also had an enormous St Bernard walking around, including in the bar. I only got a single blurry photo because the dog decided I was OK and didn't spend much time inspecting me.

From there, I headed southwest, and ended up spending the night on the coast at a hotel on the boardwalk at Sidmouth, which is a small vacation town near Exeter. Got a great deal using Booking dot com, which I ended up using for a lot of the last minute stays that I did during the entire trip. Since I usually had no clue where I was sleeping on any given night, I'd end up just loading up the app in the afternoon or early evening, and picking a place based on where I was or where I thought I'd be in a few hours.

The Sidmouth location was pretty sweet, right on the water. The room itself was not so great, good thing I'm not picky:





My back is pressed up against the entrance door in that photo. The bathroom is off to the left, but that's the only thing missing in this photo. The rate did include the usual FEB:





and as usual, the mushrooms were the best part. That hash brown looking thing wasn't too bad, either. The sausage was pretty mealy, which is exactly what you don't want a sausage to be. That was a recurring theme in the UK.

I took this shot after walking out 20 feet in front of the hotel:





You can see a person walking down the boardwalk on the right hand side. It was a pretty decent coastline, though I felt bad for the English because this is considered a vacation spot. I've been spoiled by living in the Caribbean, I guess. No wonder the English are always sad.

From Sidmouth, I headed back inland for a bit, including to the town of Chudleigh:





Established in 1309! Now that's an old place. Kind of tough to really comprehend how old some of these places are. Well, until you see some of the roads:





That is a two lane road. These were super common all over the areas I drove. If you met another vehicle going the other direction, one of you would need to back up until you got to a wider area, to allow the other person to pass. Every few hundred meters there would be a slightly wider area, almost like a pull out but really just a blobby section of road. Even those were still pretty close quarters. I'm glad I got a tiny car, would not wanted to have tried to negotiate these roads in anything mid-sized or larger.

Next up was Dartmoor National Park. I liked this area because after driving through endless hedges and fields, it was nice to get into some actual greenery:





and enjoy a change from the dry dreary to the moist semi-dreary. Something about the lushness of the green makes it less dreary. This is another one of those times that I wanted to have a real camera, there were lots of shades of green to capture. Even the different mosses were different shades.

Somewhere in the park is Widecombe in the Moor, which I decided to head toward based solely on the sweet name. There are a lot of old churches and abbeys up in the moors. I stopped by this one for lunch:





The moors themselves are pretty meh. The first time I ever heard of moors was watching the movie An American Werewolf In London. The lead character gets chased across a moor by a werewolf, gets bitten, etc. I saw that as a kid and it's been my conception of what moors are ever since. Also slightly shaped by reading The Hound Of The Baskersvilles. So I didn't have a very good opinion of moors.

Here's what moors are actually like:





Having now seen and almost run over countless sheep, I'm now much less concerned about getting eaten by a werewolf out there.

After surviving the moors, I continued to head west along the southern coast. Got down as far as Truro, then had my first Booking dot com failure. Ended up at a place that was the UK equivalent of the Bates Motel. Luckily the wifi didn't work, so I was able to skedaddle out of there ASAP with a decent excuse and headed a little further south to the Twycross area. Found a good B&B there with the fastest internet I'd seen in months. The directions to get there were a little odd, and when I was told it was near the "halfway house" I was a little skeptical. Later on I found out that the Brits mean something entirely different when they use that term - over there it is used literally, to denote a place that is halfway between two points. In this case it was a random restaurant.

My FEB experience continued there:





and again, the mushrooms were the best part.

Now I was getting much closer to the SW corner of the island, and this is when the best place names started popping up. I'd already seen towns named Portishead, Beer, and other great ones, but this one was my favorite:





My pronunciation was corrected a few times by some Brits who kept calling it "moz-zle" instead of "mouse hole". I ignored them and kept calling it "mouse hole" because "mouse hole"!

And what a mousehole it was. Absolutely tiny town, absolutely tiny roads. All on the edge of a coastline hill. I'm a decent stick driver, but I was still glad to get out of there after constantly having to reverse on hills at odd angles or stay in gear on an incline with the engine running with literally inches of clearance on either side. Was very glad to have a tiny car for those tiny roads in that tiny town.

Kept heading SW from Mousehole, all the way down to the most SW point of the UK, about a mile west of St. Levan. This is way down in the SW corner, kind of up in the cliffs. There are some trails there that take you to the coastline:





so I packed a little lunch and started walking. The water here looked much nicer than the water in Sidmouth:





and the landscape was significantly more rugged. No hotels or boardwalks here:





That seemed like a pretty sweet spot, so I decided to make my way over to those boulders overlooking the cliff for lunch:





I was having a good time munching on some munchies and enjoying my cider when I realized that I probably wanted to go easy on the cider, given that I was perched on a boulder on the side of an ocean cliff, a good 250 feet above the water:





so I slowed down a little and just sat there most of the afternoon, watching the waves crash into the rocks below, and looking out over the ocean. If you look at a map of the UK, this is pretty much at the SW-most point, looking out west over the Atlantic Ocean. Some birders showed up a few hours in and set up some funky telescopes on tripods over in the grassy area to watch the birds flying out over the ocean. When they saw where I was sitting they just kind of shook their heads.

Stopped at a little pastie shop on the way out of the area for my first real English meat pastie:



Can't say I was impressed. Luckily I had saved some of the Wild Dog to wash it down.

Ended up making my way over to Land's End, which is a tourist trap on the western side of the SW coastline. Did not go over to that area as it was full of dozens of busloads of tourists. Instead I made sure not to run over any deaf cats:




and continued on along the coastline.

After looping all the way along the SW peninsula coastline, I saw someone hitching a few miles west of St. Ives. Hitching is pretty common down in the Caribbean, so I have no problem picking up hitchers. I stopped for this one and took him into St. Ives, which is a super popular vacation spot on the north side of the SW peninsula. The coastline near St. Ives is a lot more sunny and welcoming than what I saw down near Sidmouth. That's probably why there were a zillion people there. I didn't stay long.

From St. Ives, I kept hugging the coastline for another 20 miles or so until it was time to find a place for the night. The Twycross B&B I had stayed at had given me a recommendation for a B&B near Truro that was also a working farm. I'd never stayed at a farm before, so that was an easy decision.

The farm had a bunch of different animals. There were chickens, turkeys, sheep, and my favorite - funny looking ducks called Indian Runners. These ducks are great because they don't waddle around - all they do is run. They also always look like they are leaning forward and off balance, and that they need to run forward to keep from falling forward. Absolutely hilarious to watch them running around everywhere.

Here are some running around with the sheep:





They really only had two speeds - stopped, and running.

The farm had a duck-focused decor as well. Even the tiles in the shower had ducks on some of them, doing various things. My favorite was the duck with a shower cap:





and of course the mandatory FEB:





Being out in the farmland area led to some other photo ops:





but eventually I made my way back to civilization. That was good, as I was able to experience the wonder that is an actual cider section of a grocery store aisle:





where I restocked supplies.

Then since I had just restocked on cider, it seemed like a good idea to get back on the hunt for more cider farms:





and load up a few more of the plastic jugs:

LOL, reminds me of Fifth Element.

Just wanted to say thanks to you and deCaptain. Thanks to you guys' stories I have completed the ASA 101 course and am looking forward to advancing enough to be taking out my own boat before too long!

pig4bill - Yeah, that was probably the smallest hotel room I had in England.

marknfw - Great news, congratulations. Very happy to hear you're moving forward. de captain is a lot of the reason I got on the sailing path to begin with, I'm thankful to him as well.




Here's an example of what one of these cider farms looks like out in the countryside:





Pretty much just a small wooden building. A small room with the tapped kegs for retail sales, and a larger room with the apple mash press and the equipment used to make and store the cider. Pretty much all of the ones I went to were small operations like this.

I kept heading east along the north coast of Cornwall, including a stop at a place called Port Quin, where I took a hike along the coastline:




complete with a lunch/cider break:





and just enjoyed the scenery for a few hours:





The Cornwall coastline is pretty impressive. It's something I wasn't aware of beforehand, and lucked into seeing due to my "drive around the coastline" plan.

There are tons of tiny little villages and towns along the coastline, making for some picturesque scenery and great views:




I stopped in a few of them here and there, but for the most part just enjoyed the drive. Not sure why, but I've always enjoyed driving along coastlines.

Every now and then, I'd just stop the car, get out, and hike along the coastline for a few hours. This would usually be in fairly remote spots like this one:




The cool thing is that there is a somewhat maintained coastal path along pretty much the entire SW edge of England:




which is great because it means that every so often, you see one of those signs and know you can hike out from the road to the coast. I ended up going through cow and sheep fields a few times, but usually there was a fixed path for access to the main coastal path.

The drive alternated between peaceful and somewhat stunning:




and I quickly learned why the Cornwall coast is praised as much as it is.

Of course, along the coastline there weren't as many cider farms, so I'd detour inland every so often to find one. Here's a view of the kegs at the Torre cider farm, just a couple miles south of the coast and just east of Exmoor National Park:




I went with the sheep stagger. Sampled everything, of course. The Tornado was the first cider I found that was too dry for my tastes. I hadn't thought such a thing existed.

Also managed to find cider cake, of all things:




at a larger more commercial farm (Sheppy's Cider) in Taunton. It was pretty tasty but had raisins in it which threw the texture off. I like raisins, but not in cake. Sheppy's is a larger farm that offers tours and is a common brand to see in UK supermarkets. They have a bunch of buildings and a large operation. Picked up a few bottles there including a cider made with honey that was super tasty. Why oh why do we not have cider farms like this in the US?

Having driven around pretty much the entire SW coastal area of England, I decided it was time to swing by Durdle Door before heading back to London. I had no idea what Durdle Door was before someone recommended it to me after I described my preference for sweet outdoors spots. She swore I'd love Durdle Door and to check it out.

Durdle Door is a natural rock formation on the southern coastline, southwest of Southhampton. It's an enormously popular weekend destination, which I didn't know at the time, but quickly found out:





On the plus side, it's a steep hike down to the coastline, so not many folks were at the Door itself:





A popular thing to do is to swim out around the door, then through it. I brought my trunks with me planning to give it a shot, then tested the water, which was two degrees above freezing, and decided to save the swim for next time. It was also pretty rough in and around the door with little protection. Only two or three people made the swim during the time I was there, and they all looked like they regretted it, so I'm good with my deferral.

Here's the coastline looking a little further west:




and there's also a little bay on the other side of Durdle Door called Man Of War:








The bay is much better protected, and the water is a lot calmer. More people were enjoying the water over there.

Lunch at Durdle Door was about what you'd expect - cider and a meat pastie:




and later that day, it was time to head back toward London. No more weird juxtaposition of ancient castles in the middle of modern towns:





That's what remains of Corfe Castle, in Wareham. There were a bunch of places like this that I drove through with partial ruins and little towns built near or around them. This was the one that was probably the most well preserved.

Headed back to Heathrow and dropped off the car, having maintained my shoeless-driving record for over a year at that point:





and took the Underground back into London. Was not looking forward to giving up the countryside, ocean, cliffs, and green things for the dirty nastiness of London. Luckily, there was a pretty sweet park near the visa place, so I got to enjoy at least a little bit of nature:




Picked up my train tickets, as the Russians prefer the paper to the electronic versions. The visas were going to take a few more days, so I set up in a hotel and chilled in SE London while waiting for those. When they were ready, I picked up my passport, which now had Russian, Belorussian, and Chinese visas in it, each taking up a full page. A couple of souvenir photos later:




and it was off to King's Cross station to catch the train out of London.

The first leg of the trip was London to Brussels. I had a great seatmate who immediately zonked out:




so we got along just fine.

Train station food was about what you'd expect:




and the trains themselves were very fast:





and comfortable. From Brussels, my next train was to Cologne, and from there to Berlin. All of these trains were on the same day. I left London at something like 0630, and arrived in Berlin around 2000 or thereabouts. Very long day of train riding. Of course, I was about to spend the next few weeks living on trains, so it was good practice to get thrown in the deep end immediately.

The main Berlin train station is enormous. It's like 6 stories tall with trains coming in and out on various levels, and tons of shops and food places. I got some pretty sweet cookies at a cookie place there, then settled in at my tracks to wait for the Moscow train to show up:

Unfortunately, this was the exact time that the German train union decided to go on strike. Something like that would not be a big deal in the US, because we barely use trains at all. In euroland, it's an enormously big deal, because trains are used about a bazillion times more often there. This strike was only scheduled to be 3 hours long, but it still delayed my train something like 4 hours from arriving on time.

Eventually the train arrived around 0100 or something like that, and I got on. This was the first Russian train that I had been on, and I could tell the difference immediately. The first thing I noticed was this sign next to the electrical outlet in the hallway:





Which was a bummer, because I was really hoping to charge my phone.

This was in a sleeper car, which is composed of about 12 little cabins, each one with 3 beds in it, all stacked on top of each other. Here is a view looking down the little hallway. Windows on the right, the cabins on the left:




It was super narrow, so you'd always have to squeeze past people when someone was in the hall looking out the window or you were passing the opposite direction as someone else.

As far as I could tell, I was the only person in the entire car who was not Russian. I spoke very little Russian, just the basics (please, thank you, hello, my name is, I don't understand, etc) that I had taught myself the previous week. There was one guy who spoke some English, but he was it. The two other people in my cabin spoke pretty much zero English.

I had the top bed, and they really pack you in on these things:




That's my small black backpack on the left, and I had my larger backpack with my clothes in it jammed up above my head in a small space. As you can see, it would not be wise to sit up too fast when in the top bunk.

Here's a view looking down from the top bunk:




Yes, that's a ladder. The top bunk was probably about 7-8 feet up, so each cabin had a little ladder in it to get up there. It got in the way a lot, so my cabinmates disconnected it once I got up into my bunk. It was fine because I'm in decent shape so I could scramble up and down OK, but I can't imagine what it would be like for an older person or someone not in decent shape.

As you can see, there's a small table there and also a small cushioned bench. That's it as far as furniture goes. Most people spent their time just laying on their bunks reading or sleeping.

The train ride was pretty uneventful. One of my cabinmates was a guy in his mid-40s who as far as I can tell invented some kind of Russian foosball game and was traveling around trying to sell it to people. The other was an old retired schoolteacher turned poet who did not have a very high opinion of Americans. The first words out of her mouth when she found out I was from the US were "Obama bad! Bad Obama! Putin good!", while pointing at me as if I were Obama. I tried to explain I was not Obama, but any mention of his name was immediately met with an "Obama bad! Putin good!"

By the end of the trip, she and I were best buds, though. She was cutting me slices of bread off the brown loaf she brought and feeding me slices of sausage. tyvm, babushka!

What changed her opinion was a little interaction we had after about a day of failed communication. She kept saying things to me in Russian, which I would reply to in Russian with either "I don't understand" or "I'm sorry, I don't speak Russian". I guess because I was saying these things in Russian, she decided that I must know at least some amount of Russian, because she kept speaking to me in Russian. I'd reply with one of the above, and she'd get frustrated, then try speaking to me in Russian again 5 minutes later. Foosball just slept the entire time after showing me some photos of his foosball table.


Eventually, this happened:

(translated from Russian)

Her: (something in Russian)
Me: I don't understand
Her: (something in Russian)
Me: I don't understand
Her: (something in Russian)
Me: I don't understand
Her: (something in Russian)
Me: I don't understand
Her: (very frustrated) I don't understand, I don't understand, I don't understand
Me: My name is... I don't understand

She looked at me for a second, then she just lost it and started laughing like crazy. I started laughing as well, and so did Foosball. I guess that was the tension breaker we needed, because from that point onward, her attempts to speak Russian to me decreased in number and were much friendlier. She started feeding me food and reading me poetry out of a poetry book she had written. By the time we arrived in Moscow, I had been upgraded to "You good. You GOOD American!" which I took as a victory for my efforts at improving US/Russian relations.

We stopped at various towns and cities on the way to Moscow, but all the stops were brief, only 5-20 minutes each time. The one exception was going through Belarus. We stopped there at the border and after the border control folks zipped through all the Russians, they got to me. I think some of the Russians became irritated that I was on the train because the Belarus border control people really slowed down when they got to me. I had all my papers in order (including the ridiculous 24 hour health insurance policy the Belarus government forces you to buy), but they went over everything very closely. They also went through both of my backpacks, which I didn't see them do with any of the Russians. I didn't have anything interesting, so it ended up being a non-event, but it did take a while.

Eventually we continued on our way. We got into Moscow at 0330, thanks to the initial delay in Berlin. Moscow has 9 major train stations. Here's what one of them looks like at 0330:





I was super glad that I had picked and already booked a place to stay that was close to the train station. I stayed at the Sleepbox hotel, which is a "module" hotel that uses little modular compartments instead of rooms. It's one step up from a capsule hotel. The modules look like this:





Inside is a bed, a TV, and a small ledge/desk type thing that you sit on the bed to use. The bathrooms are shared baths in the hall. I'm not picky, so this kind of setup is ideal for me as a traveler. Close to the train station, cheap, and clean. The internet was also super fast, faster than any internet I'd used on the entire trip to date.

Checked in around 0400, zonked out until 0930, then headed out to check out Moscow.

That Sleepbox thing looks pretty cool. Printed in English too.

I hope you keep posting recollections forever, well done

Excellent TR, thanks. You have such a great attitude for happy traveling.

Curious--how do you have global health insurance? I am aware of expat coverage purchased via large companies, but do you have some individual policy? (Talking in general, not Belarus.)

pig4bill - Yeah, one of the other selling points was that they had a website in English, and boasted front desk staff that are fluent in English. I have no issues with doing things via pantomime / broken English / my own poor attempts in another language, but it's nice to have English when you know it's going to be late and you're going to be tired and in a place you've never been. Also love experiencing alternate kind of stuff like module hotels.

wiper - Thanks, I'll keep it up as long as there is something I think you guys will enjoy. Heading to Vegas in a few days and will be there at least a few months, should be able to catch up to the present while there. If I head on the Panama & French Polynesia in March or April, I'll probably end up with some sweet updates from that as well. Other places on my to-do list are Australia, New Zealand, Cambodia, Laos, and Thailand. We'll see how many of those I get to this year. Might just stick around in Vegas through the WSOP.

RigCT - Thanks, amigo. Attitude is everything in life. We can't control the wind, but we can always choose how we adjust our sails. I have an individual health insurance plan that provides me the same coverage worldwide as it does in the US. Worldwide coverage was one of my criteria when I was deciding which health insurance to purchase, lots of companies offer it. Health care outside of the US is generally significantly less expensive than inside the US, so insurance companies usually have no problem with you receiving care outside of the US, because it costs them a lot less. The downside is that your insurance card is useless as most non-US places require cash up front or at the time of service, and you then submit a claim directly to your insurance company for reimbursement. This involves getting copies of all the forms and bills (in English), along with currency conversion information if you paid in the local currency, and whatever other supporting evidence you can get. I haven't had to make any kind of claim, but I've read up on it extensively just in case. You can also buy travel insurance (both short and long term) that covers you specifically outside of your country of residence.

Flew in last night, de captain picked me up at the airport and is putting me up for a few nights while I decide where to stay. Lived in a hotel last time, most likely doing a 3 month lease at the Meridian (7 minute walk to Bellagio!) or something similar this time.

Will be here at least Jan/Feb, probably most of March as well. Feel free to drop me a line if any of you will be in Vegas then.

Departure depends on if/when I find I boat headed from Panama to French Polynesia. de captain has already been providing some useful advice on that.

If the Panama -> French Polynesia thing works out, next is a month in Australia or New Zealand, followed by Sept/Oct/Nov chilling in SE Asia - probably Laos / Cambodia / Thailand / Vietnam.

In the meantime..

let us go go go!!!

Being Moscow, there are a ton of international restaurant chains. KFC and Starbucks in particular were everywhere. This made it easier to practice my Cyrillic because when I saw a logo I recognized, I would know what the Cyrillic was supposed to say. With so many cognates between English/Russian, it became good practice. I had already picked up most of the Cyrillic alphabet on the train, but things like this:





definitely made it a lot easier to practice. The donuts in there were super expensive, like $2.50/each in USD. They had a ton of banana frosted donuts, which I'm not sure I've ever had before. They were super popular.

After settling in at the hostel I was staying at, I headed over to Red Square to check out the Kremlin, St Basil's cathedral, etc. All the touristy stuff. All of the entrances to Red Square are gated:





and there are security checkpoints you have to go through, which include metal detectors and bag searches:





all I had in my small bag was some pancakes and water for lunch, zipped right through.

The main street along the square was lined with vendors:





selling a bunch of tourist junk. There were a few vendors with better things. I bought some gingerbread men to snack on. The gingerbread men in Moscow were like the ones in the UK - thick and chewy, almost like firm cake texture.

Probably the most iconic thing in the area is St Basil's cathedral:





Which is impressive indeed. It's also super crowded, but I lucked out and arrived right before they closed the entry gate. They let people leave but didn't let anyone in, so it was a lot more enjoyable once the crowd had mostly dispersed. You can walk all the way around the building and go inside if you want. This was probably my favorite thing to see in Moscow. That photo is a little dreary but if you GIS for the cathedral, you'll find some stunning photos. It's colorful.

The Square was busy, as you can see. Lots and lots of tourists, as well as school groups:





how sweet are those hats the boys get? I never had to wear a uniform in school, but if I could have worn one of those hats it would have been a slam dunk.


There was some kind of exhibit going on to celebrate some regions of Russia, with various stuff from the regions. The most impressive exhibit was this guy:





there were about a dozen horses running around, no saddles or reins. He jumped up on two of them and stood on their backs with one foot on each horse and rode them around the ring. No clue how he didn't fall off, those horses were moving fast. As you can see by the crowds, this was a big hit.

Less of a hit was a "historic toilet" I found in a nearby building:





I probably should have checked it out, but was distracted by a nearby fountain full of watermelons:





whose purpose I have yet to ascertain.

Moscow has a huge subway system called the Metro which spreads over most of the city. That's what I used to get around while I was there, and I had no issues. However, Russia clearly has no ADA:





so if you're in a wheelchair, be ready for 45 degree slat/ramp thing. I've never had to use a wheelchair, but that ramp does not inspire confidence.

One thing that was different in Moscow from other cities I've been is that they have super wide roads in the cities, sometimes 6 lanes on either side. There are also lots and lots of pedestrian underpasses, it's pretty rare to see someone walking across an actual street of any material size. Here's one of the underpasses:





Those women in the yellow outfits were handing out Lipton tea packets.


The entrance to the hostel I stayed at is under the black awning here:





next to the guy selling those little dolls that go inside each other. I thought about picking a set up as a souvenir, but my backpack was already heavy enough with my sailing gear.

Next door to the hostel was a Russian fast food place called My My which is pronounced moo moo. There are a bunch of them all over Moscow, and they specialize in traditional Russian "fast food". It's kind of like a cafeteria line inside where you get a tray, point to the things you want, then pay at the end of the line. Here's My My:





so now you know why it's called moo moo. Here are the goods:





yes, that's borscht. Yes, it was awesome. Random meat pattie, not so much. Borscht tends to get a bad rap for whatever reason, but this stuff was great.

I decided to get a room in the hostel rather than use the dorm area, because the price was almost the same. One night I hear a weird knocking sound outside my window, and look outside to see:





Yep, that's a woman just riding her horse down the alley in downtown Moscow. The knocking was the clip clop of the horse's hooves.

After bumming around Moscow a few days and checking out the stuff downtown, it was time to head to the train station to catch the train to Irkutsk. Moscow has 9 different train stations (yes, really), this is the one (Yaroslavsky) I headed out from:





This station handles most of the eastbound long distance traffic - people headed to Irkutsk, Vladivostok, etc.

Stopped to fuel up with some Crapdozi's:





strictly because of the name, and then chilled in the train station waiting for the train to show up.

I had checked out of the hostel in the morning and went pretty much straight to the train station to wait. The train I was on (Rossiya #2) was heading to Vladivostok, I'd be getting off in Irkutsk:





that says "vladivostok" on the display. See how easy it is to kinda figure out Cyrillic?

Here's a look at the train car from outside:





and here's the first sign I saw after boarding:





These signs are pretty common in Russia (and Mongolia, and China), I would find. Much of the plumbing infrastructure simply can't handle toilet paper, it will jam the system. Because of this, toilet paper is disposed of in a small trash can next to the toilet. I think the reasoning on the train is more geared toward the fact that the toilets usually empty right onto the tracks, and they don't want toilet paper flying around everywhere. For buildings it's definitely an infrastructure issue.

They give you a little snack box when you first board the train:





but the contents are nothing to get excited about:





That's a water, some crackers, two little things of what I assume was applesauce, and some tea/coffee packets.

Later that day, they also served dinner:





Yeah, it tasted about how you'd expect. This was the only meal served during the trip, and I was fine with that. Before leaving Moscow, I had stocked up on a bunch of the Russian equivalent of Cup O' Noodles. This is a good strategy because they are lightweight, and every single train car has a huge cistern of boiling water called a samovar at the end of each car. Most people use the water to make coffee/tea, but the true technology is to bring things like dehydrated soups and use the hot water to reconstitute them. This superbland chicken & rice was not able to deter me once I broke out all the various asian soup cups.

The cabin for this leg had 4 berths. I had one of the top ones, and had a ton more room than on the previous train:





Up top is my big 70L backpack, with my black daypack sitting on the bed. Getting on at the first stop allowed me to claim part of that overhead storage for the 70L bag, and that's where it stayed the entire trip.

The Rossiya #2 is more of a commuter train than a tourist train, so there were a lot of Russians getting on and off at each stop. In the first 24 hours, about 14 different people cycled through my cabin. By the time it got up to 8 or so, I stopped saying hello or looking down to see who entered.

One guy who did stick around for a while had the bunk under mine. Here's Old Russian:





He was in his 70s or 80s, retired Navy officer. Spoke pretty much no English, but we got along well. He was definitely looking out for me a few times and tried to explain stuff to me about the train. I broke out the sailing gear and he was pretty interested in how the PFD/harness worked, and the PLB. He spent most of the trip doing crosswords and sudokos. Once or twice a younger Russian with some English would be in our cabin and we had some conversation that way.

When I think Irkutsk, I think Risk: The Game of Global Domination. I'm sure kiosh-k feels me.

Great stuff -- thanks for the reports. Looking forward to updates.

serious lack of vodka!

27o - Probably at least 15% of the reason I decided to go to Irkutsk was my love of Risk.

Daneus - Thanks, glad you are enjoying it.

shaft88 - The vodka will show up in Siberia. It was kind of crazy though how true the stereotype is. I'd go into markets in Moscow and the distribution of goods would be about what you'd expect in a grocery store, then I'd walk around an aisle and there would be an entire aisle of just vodka. Any and every one you've ever heard of, and a whole lot you haven't.