Omsk

День третий на Транссиб (Day three on the Trans-Siberian)

Noodles, Babushkas and the Russian Army

04/09/2017: Trans-Siberian Day Three - 2,104-4,065km

Today started off pretty quiet, we never got another cabin mate after Sasha left so we have spent most of today spreading out, watching movies, reading books, watching the landscape go by and napping.

Last night we felt a lot of moving around during the long stop in the middle of the night that turned out to be the train changing. We went to bed with a red train and we wake up this morning with a blue one. During one of our long stops where we were having a walk around we have also found some of the other tourist groups, they are a few cabins down but it is nice to hang out with other English speakers on the train breaks (our cabin is mostly Russian families and the train ladies don’t like us much).

However, the afternoon everything changed when the Russian army showed up. We have four in the cabin next to us who are heading down to complete some training in Irkurst. They looked very smart in their uniforms but changed out and into civvies pretty fast once on board. As soon as they found out that there were three western girls in the cabin next door they came visiting and didn’t leave for the rest of the night. They did not speak much English (but enough to tell us that we couldn’t put anything on Facebook), but we got by trading songs from our countries and it wasn’t long before the alcohol was produced. At one of the stops their buddies further down the train came to say hi and then we ended up with about eight Russian army dudes drinking in our cabin until quite late. We had to do it on the down low though as you are not supposed to drink on the train so if the train ladies catch you, you are in trouble.

I am never drinking Cognac and Fruit Juice ever again! Do not drink with the Russian army on a moving train, Thank God for motion sickness tablets.

We have a couple of long stops today -

List of entertainment consumed on the train thus far: