The Good Train

KUNMING: After two trips between the hostel and the train station, much frustration and some Kafka-esque confusion I finally have a bus ticket for Laos. I leave for Luang Prabang on Monday evening.

But as I endeavour to whip this blog into shape I thought I might add a couple of words on the first train trip which will bring us up until the 21st of December. The first trip was fine despite a rather stressful wait for the tickets we got underway. Met a Finish bloke on the platform and then went to bed quite early. We had a guest in our car for about the first fourteen hours and got to see all his holiday snaps. Truth be told it was as boring as batshit and I just wanted to read my book but he was friendly enough.

The following day we settled into our routine of lying around, reading, a little cards when Kate was in the mood, and basically watching the taiga roll past out the window. At one point I saw some guy on a dog sled in the distance. At around three o'clock we'd go down to the restaurant car to get a bottle of Massandra wine opened - we must have tried eight different varieties - and settle in for cocktail hour. A couple of nights were spent drinking in the restaurant car with an assortment of Scandanavians and French. I think, at least that's what they told me, I insulted or offended just about everybody on the first night but I managed to recover some of my dignity later in the trip.

And so that pretty much took us up to Irkutsk where it was freezing, dark but lots of fun.