Up at our usual time and breakfast after 10:00 comical as ever as the food does not arrive in order, but they try their best and it also happens in restaurants too. Packed our bag and headed down to reception, the funny Xmas head decorations we wore for Xmas Penny gave them to the receptionist and she was so thrilled to get them she put on the Xmas tree earrings and head piece and her colleague wore my head piece. Their boss took photos of them in front of their Xmas tree. The bus back to Irkutsk arrived outside the hotel and we got on with the big bag and 90 minutes later we were in Irkutsk.
It was bloody cold there -38 C icicles formed in my nostrils and the beard froze as normal now. A 20 minute walk we arrived back at the Rolling Stones Hostel welcomed by familiar friendly people who own run the place. I got Alexandria to print off all of our flight, train and hotel confirmation 20 pages later and did not charge. I got talking to the 3 owners and said they should start designing and selling T shirts first of the hostel, but the main one is the trans Siberian, trans Mongolian/ China rail trip no one is producing them and everyone staying at the hostel is doing this trip and sell online to people who have done this amazing trip.
Penny got talking to a mature English lady Anna and they hit it off really well talking about everything. A lot of the Russian ladies here are wearing these boots made of some hide like an Ugg boot sheep skin lined but with a decorative top part of the boot. So we went looking for them 20 minute walk, icicles coming from the nostrils the beard frozen again. Penny checked out 3 shops that specialise in these boots wanting £200-300 for them as much as she loved them, she could not justify the price as the money would be better spent doing so activities on the way. Got some provisions for the train trip to Mongolia tomorrow, from experience you have to do this as you don’t know if they have food or not. Got back to the hostel and we invited Anna to join us for dinner at a local restaurant we have eaten at before. She loved the interesting food and again my main arrived 10 minutes after their mains.
Back at the hostel the owners were having a xmas party and offered pizza but we declined and I got the ladies some wine. Penny and Anna were chatting away so I went to bed early as we had to be up at 06:15. Penny crawled into bed at 00:30 happily playing some tunes. Penny told me afterwards that Anna knew people she knew through her professional life. Her husband is in Antarctica for a year so she decided to travel through Russia China down to Singapore and then on to Perth for a wedding and expects to get back to her home in Oct/Nov next year. Her and her husband are planning to do the Pan American highway from Alaska down to the bottom of South America over a period of a year. What a brilliant trip planned in a couple of year’s time.
Maurice's Travel 