Ulan Ude, The Penultimate Russian Stop

09Oct: Arrived at the hostel about 4. Ah the luxury of a porceline toilet and a sweet scented one at that. My cup runneth over. We again tested our train ticket buying skills at Irkutsk Train station. This time I was so bold, as to request a seat range, although I struggled to find the russian spelling of the seat class (Platskart) so winged it. Of course later I found the spelling, at the back of one of the old train tickets. Typical. We got the exact train requested, albeit our first time the whole trip, and even the seat range. This is too easy. We got to come a cropper sometime. Back at the hostel, I washed a few days of grime and sweat off. I missed the banya but it was good to have a powerful shower and a good scrub, in private. Dinner was at the Lancelot, a russian attempt at an English Medieval Banqueting hall. It was nicely done though and the food was delicious. Although the drinks menu was mostly in Russian and while G thought he was ordering from the beer selection, it turned out he had chosen from the mineral waters. It made me laugh. I just asked for red wine in English and lo and behold it arrived with some nice granny tea I had ordered. 10Oct: After another bad nights sleep, we made the 08.33 (03.33 Moscow time). The Platscart carriage was better than I had hoped and we had a section to ourselves, that would normally hold 6- 8 people. We were able to bob between windows to get the best view from either side of the train. However, after all our good luck with the train, our luck with the weather failed. The cloud and fog didn't show Lake Baikal in it's saphire glory, but displayed it in a dull washed out grey. After 7 hours arrived in Ulan Ude, to lay our heads down in the Hotel Buryatiya. Lonely Planet legend warns of the cleaners trick of "tidying away" items of luggage in the back corners of wardrobes and drawers. O padlocked my bag. Decided that tonight is going to be spent updating my blog and resting and tomorrow SHOPPING... Hang the tourism bit for a few hours.