Irkutsk - Beijing

KUNMING: Getting back from Listvinyanka to Irkutsk was where it all went pear. Basically the courier service didn't deliver our tickets so we were standing around at the train station watching our train chug off on its scenic route around the lake. What made it worse was that we were almost able to purchase replacement tickets but dodgy beauracracy and ATMs conspired to thwart our efforts.

So we caught a tramway back to the hostel - with the hostel owner who was trying to help us - and promptly lost our shit. Luckily the hostel owner whipped us into shape, took us back out to the train station and got us on a train to the Chinese border. At this stage all the stress was starting to tell on all of us and we all started to get sick.

From the Chinese border we had to catch a bus to Russia which basically involved sitting around in a minibus for about eight hours. Then we held up the entire bus group while the Russian border officials searched for an English speaker. The bus driver abandoned us to a cab that took us to the train station where we were able to negotiate, with great difficulty, a train ticket to Beijing. Unfortunately we had to brave the -30 temperatures to search the surrounding streets for an ATM.

Luckily we found one, purchased tickets and, in our one stroke of good fortune, there were some extremely crumby but cheap and convenient rooms available to rent across the road from the train station. We bought dinner at a restaurant by pointing at the dishes of fellow diners before retiring to our shitty room and our colds.

The train journey to Beijing was bearable for me and Kate though Jaq could only get a ticket in hard seating and she had to spend the night in an overcrowded train carriage that resembled a scene from the Long March. To even get back and see her we had to fight our way through three carriages jammed to the rafters with spitting, noodle swilling passengers and an entire market full of luggage. I swapped with Jaq for a couple of hours so she could sleep and I have to say those few hours were some of the longest of my life.

Then to add insult to injury when we finally arrived in Beijing we had to search for hours to our hostel, couldn't find it, and ended up checking into a cheap hotel.

Not exactly what we signed up for.