Trans Siberian Express

Day 10: Moscow (RUS) – Balyezino (RUS). The snow was falling thick and fast. I cleared the condensation from the carriage window using the sleeve of my jumper and peered out into the gloomy Moscow night. After a couple of minutes a big grin covered my face as I caught a glimpse of what I was looking for: Kilometre marker '1'. It was 38 minutes past midnight and the powerful diesel locomotive that hauled service 44, the Trans-Siberian Express, had just pulled out of Yaroslavsky station.

We had boarded the longest train journey on earth; our destination, Beijing was located at kilometre marker 7,865 – some 5,000 miles down the line and this was to be our goal for the next three weeks.

After the formalities of boarding the train we soon found the cabin that would be our home for the next 36 hours and we were making ourselves at home. This time we had opted for 'kupe' class which was similar to the 'couchette' cars that we used in Europe, only the Russian trains had just 4 berths per compartment rather than 6 giving us a little more personal space.

As the only English speaking people on the train, we were soon causing a lot of interest with the locals – our carriage attendant seemed to burst into fits of giggles every time she saw us (I'm still not sure why!) and so it was not long before we were paid a visit by 'Director of Train' no less; handsomely dressed in a shiny blue shell suit. (Nice!). But after checking through our paper-work he seemed happy enough and went about his business.

The train sped on in a North Easterly direction towards Perm, the most northerly latitude of our entire adventure, rolling through dense forests of pine, birch and oak and crossing two more time zones in the process. According to the locals we spoke to in Moscow, the weather had been exceptionally mild for the time of year – but not so here. Winds blowing directly off the Arctic Tundra, had brought an abundance of snow to these forests and we gazed on in delight at the constantly evolving 'Christmas Card' scene before us; trees and telegraph poles bowing under the weight of a Russian winters snowfall. Stunningly beautiful.

As the light faded and the train continued on its incessant journey into the heart of this enormous country, we engaged in a friendly conversation with Galia; our room-mate for this leg of the journey. Galia could speak no English and we could speak no Russian, but between us we managed to engage in a long and amusing dialogue that was closer to charades than conversation. She told us how she was returning home after visiting her three daughters. Or did she have just the one daughter, but she had been there three times? Or did her one daughter have three cats? I guess we'll never know – good fun none-the-less.

Eventually Galia, produced a book of Sudoku puzzles. Something we could all participate in as equals - the universal language of mathematics. Although, I don't think Karen was too impressed by the symbols used by the Russian authors of the book to depict the difficulty of each puzzle. Easy puzzles were denoted by a picture of a child, intermediate puzzles by a picture of a woman and difficult puzzles by a picture of a man. I said nothing!