Day 137

Caz kicks me and i look at my watch..

"pack it in its only 0830"

yes its nice to hear your voice...... yes.... er wheres out tickets!!?"

"nope its 0830 in England its 1130 here"

"oh"

The alram clock we bought at the airport hadnt gone off and is about as much use a chocolate teapot and doesnt keep any sort of discernable time.. unless in moscow theres 90 minutes in an hour.

Caz got up and showered whilst i fell back to sleep, 20 minutes later another gentle"nudge" and im up and getting showered.

no one else is visible in the hostel and we start to worry until the guy who checked us in appears.

I pay him the Rmaing $2500 rubles (about $51 rubles to the pound) and ask him to call us a taxi.

An hour and a quick sleep later he comes in and tells us the taxi has arrived.

we jump in and he gets in too , our Desitnation? Hotel Cosmos, In tourist travel agency and out train tickets.

We got to the hotel after 17 near crashed - thr roads here are a joke and found the office.

Cool got our tickets, nice.. but only so far as Ulan Battor in Mongolia

"er wheres the other ticket"

"Niet"

Nice...  resigend to the fact we were gonna have to call Tatianna at the Svezhy Veter Travel agency (whom we have booked the train, and obatined the Letters of invite for the Visas from) we walked out and set about finding a shop to get some train supplies..

Surprsingly it was about teh 5th shop we came across.

Water,

Fags

Water

Fags

Watr

Fags,

Fags

Chocolate

Super noodles

Biscuits

and a whole host of other stuff. we walked back to the hotel to grab a taxi \, until i realised i didnt have the print out with the hostel address on..

A quick trip to the Business centre in Hotel Cosmos and we had it, jumped in a taxi to get back. Walked up to the door and realised.... we dont have the access code to get in, niether is there a buzzer, or do we have a phone...... F U C K. (belive me it warrented that)

we sit outside for 20 mins to no avail, walk around for 40 mins trying to find a phone of internet to no avail and eventually slump back outside the Hostel.

left with no other option than to rely on the kindness of non english speaking stragers and our highly honed use of hand signals, we stopped the next guy walking past us to try and explain the situation.

Luckily .. for us.. he spoke a little english and fished around in his bag and lent us his mobile.. i could have kissed him, i called the number and got through to the hostel

"hi its luke, we are stopping at the thostel whats the code on the door"

about ten different variations of numbers later- it still didnt open consious of wasting this poor guys phone bill i started to get abit agetated and asked him to let us in

"no sorry im no there"

Just before the point that it started to become funny, a tenant in the building squeezed passed us and opend the door.. thank god.

In we grabbed Cazs mobile and rang Tatianna

"Hi this is luke Kesterton here, we booked out transmongilian Journey with you.... yes im fine thank you....... yes its nice to hear your voice...... yes.... er  wheres out tickets!!?"

She explained that we need to pick up the tickets fo rthe second half of the trip in Mongolia and emailed me the details of where.

Satisfied with that we swettle in for a bit of a wait as its only 1600 and the Train doesnt leave until 2145 local time.

Dozing happily away, i woke and looked at my watch 1830- still time, but we have to get to the station and we have no idea how far away it is, also more discerningly there is no one at the Hostel to order us a taxi, moreover, there are no real Taxis wondering around Moscow, you haver to call an hour in advance and then its still not guarenteed.. nice.

We set ourselves a deadline of 1900- if no one appeared at the hostel by then, we would do the unthinkable and wonder onto the streets with out stuff to see if we can A) Flag a Taxi, B) flag a taxi driver that speak english and C) find a taxi driver that speaks english, knows where we want to go and wont charge enough Roubles to finance another revolution.

Fortunately the Guy who runs the hostel re appears at about 1905- we coller him straight away for a taxi.

Sure you must leave now though. Ok Cool, we wonder on to teh street with the owner leading the way to flag down a taxi, not easy as it seems to still be "Rush hour" with the roads full of stationary traffic.

Twenty Minutes later we get a taxi and Agreed the Price of $250 Rubles.

Arriving at teh train station 15 minutes later, we still had a shit load of time, walking into the Grandeoso station we admired, teh intricate architecture, proffesional, impersonal manner of the staff and the serious abbundance of either a help desk, anything written in well anything other the Cryllic and the lack of anyone giving a shit we were seriously lost (lets be honest there are 9 train stations in moscow alaone, and we didnt know if the driver had dropped us at the right one.

230 minutes of wondering and we sat down, i had noticed on the big sign board that a train at teh same time ours was supposed to depart was on teh board and i recognised the crylic for UlaanBaatar form the LP guide book.

i guessed that was it and slumpedinto a seat for a long wait, not even knowing if it was the right train we were waiting for.

I have to admit, on this occasion as on some others Caz has shown how stubborn and determined she can be, and by far put me to shame, walking up to the two women in uniforms at the top of the stairs and standing there pointing to her ticket until she got answers, they were more interested in all the squadies (russian Soldiers) sitting across from them and the fact it was about 9 Million degrees meant they wanted to just sit still and fan themselves rather than do thier job.

Caz came back and pretty much confirmed that we were in the right place.

We watched the board with the departures on intently until a number came up on the right hand side, which we had caome to the assumption meant which track.

Again Caz soldiered on and asked the women, they gave us rough directions and within a few minutes we saw our train, Found our Cabin and boarded.

We phoned home just to let them knwo we were on board  and ok.

The train itself consisted of about 12 carraiges driven by a Diesel engine and was incredibly soviet looking, i mean i reackon they off loaded the nukes, painted over the hammer and Sickle and stuck it on the front of the carraiges.

our room was about 7 foot by around 4 foot (guestimates) and consisted of two benches that would double as our beds, a small table, two small reading lights, a mintlight in teh ceiling and a door. Oh there was aircon as well - not that it was on as the train was stationary and temps got disturbingly high, we had to drink a 1.5ltr bottle of water just waiting to depart the station.

Now on arriving in Moscow or anywhere in Russia on the way in you get given an immigration card, this you keep with you on your travels and hand over to Immigartaion on the way out.

It is with this card you activate or "Validate" your Visa to do this you get tour hotel to do it for you, if they cannot you have to head to the ******** where they will do it for you, or you can get your Travel agency in Russia to do it for you for a fee. This HAS to be done within 3 days of entering Russia or face teh consquences. It is a way for the Russian Government to keep a track on where you have been.

on arriving last night- or early this morning actually we had asked the guy in the hostel if they could do it - he said no, asked us our plans and when we told him we would be barding the train the same day he told us it was not necessary. So we put it to the back of our minds.

This however did not stop a sudden prang of worry in both of us as we settled in for the night, though at the time, niether of us said anything.

at about 0130 we finally turned of the lights ans tried to sleep.