1st Class

Day 19: Irkutsk (RUS) – Dozorny (RUS). “I've just met our new neighbour!”, I exclaimed to Karen, with a concerned look on my face. It was 5am local time (midnight Moscow time) and we had just boarded train number 4 that, over the next couple of days, would take us south through the Sayan mountains, across the Russian border, into Mongolia and onto its capital: Ulaanbaator.

Wanting to experience as many different feelings and emotions as possible, we had decided to travel this leg of the train journey in the first class compartment. Previously, we had travelled, very comfortably, in 'kupe' or 2^nd class accommodation, deterred by the effect that the high cost the premium accommodation would have on our budget. But for this trip, for the sheer entertainment value alone, it was well worth it!

First class compartments are a similar size to those found in kupe (about 7ft x 7ft) but rather than having four bunks they have just the two, one above the other on the left hand side of the cabin. Fixtures and fittings are more elaborate with wood panelling and embroidered soft furnishings replacing the plastic and nylon of the kupe cabin. The extra space provided by the removal of bunks 3 and 4 enabled the addition of an arm chair, a small table, a wardrobe and a shower! Now a shower may not sound much, but when you've travelled for days at a time on these trains without the opportunity to have a proper wash, it's the one thing that you (and presumably your fellow passengers, if they have a good sense of smell) really miss.

But what they didn't tell me was that the shower cubicle is ingeniously shared between two first class compartments. So at five am when I decided to 'check out' the shower, I managed to walk straight through in to next doors cabin, only to find a rather disgruntled Chinaman standing there in just his underpants! To rub salt in to the wounds, I then managed to lock the door that allowed him access from his compartment to the shower cubicle, so that at 10am he was braying on the door to be let into 'his' shower.

“I'm glad to see you're making such a good impression with the locals!”, Karen said with a smile. I said nothing and kept my head down.