Tran-Siberian - Asia - Day 3 cont..

This has been the best day for scenery, we've climbed through the hills of the Taiga passing lots of small settlements. The houses are built of wood and many look in a poor state, they all have gardens and grow a lot of vegetables, potatoes, cabbage and lots more besides, but it is difficult to see from the train. Some have flowers too, including sunflowers and marigolds. They all have large wood piles outside and the houses in the villages and towns have wooden fences around their land. In Mongolia these compounds are known as hashas. We've also seen a lot more open land, mines, more large freight yards, rivers and a few small lakes/ponds (perfect breeding grounds for mosquitoes!)

We've had two major stops of around 20 mins each, Krasnoyarsk and Ilanskaya. Just after Krasnoyarsk we crossed the river Yenisey, we were on the new bridge built in 1999 to our left was the old bridge which apparently took 94,000 workers 3 years to build and was considered such a feat of engineering that it won a gold medal at the World Fair in Paris in 1900, along with the Eiffel Tower! This river is the border between west and east Siberia. Certainly the views have improved the further east we travel.

At Ilanskaya there were a lot of 'babushkas' on the platform selling home made food, plus fruit, pine nuts, ice cream ( not refrigerated !!) etc. and a man with gladioli for sale too! There was a large steam engine on display so I took a photo of it for our steam train fan friends.

We have now settled in for the evening and our next daytime stop will be Irkutsk at 7.30 tomorrow morning, where we leave this train for three days exploring Lake Baikal and Irkutsk.

Michael has gradually improved during the day and I might let him try some soup later ( yes, got some of that in my food bag too ;)! )

I hope to send these blogs when we get to the hotel at Lystvyanka . Not sure in what order they will appear. It may be that the last is first.......