irkutsk, siberia, russia

to paraphrase neil diamond, "we're going to mongolia...today!"

finally. it's been an adventure ever since tomsk the other day. it looked like we'd have our trip from one end of russia to the other broken up by the little side trip to tomsk, with one ticket from moscow to novosibirisk and another from moscow to mongolia (the government subsidizes long-azz trips like that, so it's cheaper to buy them like that than for individual legs), but from tomsk, we couldn't get any trains headed to ulan bataar for like a week, so we had to take a long, leisurely trip to a town called taiga on a local train.

while amanda and annette dozed, i passed the time speaking english with a pair of guys in their early twenties and then with a very nice siberian blonde with sparkling eyes who ended up only being 18 years old. it was a nice way to pass four hours.

taiga's on the trans-siberian mainline, but once we got there, there were no trains to mongolia for many days, either, so we had to wait six hours and then take an overnight 14-hour trip to krasnoyarask. it turned out that something had gotten lost in translation along the way, however, and as the three of us sat near-slumbering in the early evening heat inside taiga station, the lady who had sold us the tickets came running up to us and blabbered a bunch of stuff in russian. the only part we could catch was "train! train" followed by "go! go!" and lots of arm movements. we deduced that we were about to miss our train and the three of us sprang to life and ran -- literally -- out onto the platform and towards coach number 8, which is where our tickets told us to go. unfortunately, the train we had run to -- and let me tell you, the people on the train must have gotten a kick out of watching me chug along in the humidity and mosquitos, in my sandals, lugging all my luggage, etc. -- was the wrong train. we waited for a long passenger train to saunter past us on the second track and then crossed over to the third track, the nice ticket lady helping us comprehend the differences between tracks one, two, and three all along. the passenger train rolled by and we found our train, idling, but still a good ten minutes from setting off. we thanked the lady, found our compartment, and sat down, exhausted.

it's about a million degrees inside the second-class compartments because the cars aren't air-conditioned. i was in a room with three russian guys; annette and amanda were in another compartment with two other russian guys. i had been assigned a top bunk, but owing to my knowledge of isaac newton's principal of gravity, i prepared to bribe my way into one of the bottom bunks, both of which were already being occupied by the people already in my compartment. my money was unnecessary, however, as one of the russian guys vaulted - really, gymnast-style - up onto the top bunk. we set out at about 11 p.m. as the sun set and rolled on until morning. with the windows down, our compartment cooled down to a quite comfortable degree, although i suspect the russian guys opened it more than anything just to let the clickity-clack of the rails drown out my snoring.

the carriage attendant woke me up at six to say, i'd imagine, that we'd be arriving in krasnoyarsk soon, but we didn't end up rolling into the town until nearly half past eight. in krasnoyarask, another depressing old russian industrial town, although one with an artsy side (there was a huge old tile mural of lenin leading the people forward on the side of a building adjacent to the train station), we found out there were no trains to mongolia until saturday. but the ticket lady indicated to us somehow that we should take ANOTHER overnight train, this one to irkutsk, and that then we'd be able to - after waiting again - catch a train to mongolia.

so we did that. we hung out from 8:30 a.m. until half past 4 in the krasnoyarask station yesterday. annette's having abdominal dissention, so it was real fun for her. we found some comfy couches in what was probably a VIP area (we always claim "foreigner immunity/ignorance/stupidity" when it comes to doing stuff like that) and were able to pass half the time in glorious cushioned comfort until we got kicked out. then it was back to the sweaty waiting lobby until it was time for the train, after annette made one final trip to the toilet.

amanda and annette napped the first few hours of the train trip and i sat in the dining car and finished reading The DaVinci Code, which i started when we were rolling out of moscow a few days ago. it was a real page-turner, but i thought the ending was kind of formulaic and sappy. sometimes i'd just stare out the window and watch siberia roll by. i can't believe how long we've been on the train and the scenery's looked basically the same: rolling hills, birch forests, small wooden villages, depressing industrial towns with communist smoke stacks belching out god knows what, etc...although i guess we're about ready to change into some mountainous area and then mongolia will have the great Gobi Desert for our viewing delight.

we arrived in irkutsk this morning at 10:30 and got our tickets for mongolia - finally! we'll roll out of here at about 9 p.m. and then (sometime during the 34-hour duration of this leg of the trip) be out of russia and onto the next stage of the adventure: mongolia.

see ya there!