I was leaving Irkutsk in the evening with a train to Ulan Ude, where I first didn't wanted to stay but catch the early-morning bus to Ulaan Baator (which is in fact up to 4 times cheaper than the train…). Unlike for all my other traintravels I decided to travel on плацкарт (plackart – 3rd class) this time, and made me regret not having taken these carriages more often: in comparison with 36 beds in a compartment-carriage there are 54 beds in plazkart: the 4-person-compartments are open and there are 2 more persons sleeping where in a normal sleeping-carriage would only be the corridor. The good thing is, that everything is open and you are not only in contact with the 3 others in your compartment, but can see who else is in the same carriage. However, I do admit: this train was rather empty - I can imagine, that it is not super-comfortable when there are really all 54 beds taken...

I started talking with the man opposite of me – Evgeniij, a 60-year old buryat man from Ulan Ude; and he ended up phoning loads of his friends for me in order to find out about when and where the bus to Ulaan Baatar would leave. After all I decided to stay in Ulan Ude for one more day and take a bus the following day – which was the best decision I ever took!

Upon arrival the man offered me to stay at his flat what I accepted with pleasure – knowing already what Russian hospitality means :) Arriving there he would of course cook a typical buryat dish for me: буузы (buusi). He was really happy seeing me eating soo much (and those who know me know that I can really eat a lot ;) ) After lunch he organised that his nephews would drive us downtown where they dropped me so I could walk around the city by myself and organise my bus ticket.

I was lucky to arrive at the main square with the worlds biggest
Lenin head perfectly in time to see how a big group of children was repeating a dance performance for the promenade that was supposed to take place one week later for the 345th birthday of the city (happy birthday Ulan Ude!)

However, buying a busticket turned out to be nearly impossible as all the tour agencies were closed on Sundays… With loads of luck I found one open agency – and even there the woman was just about to leave. With my ticket in my pocket I happily walked back to big-Lenin...

...and bumped into two french girls (well – you’d always recognise tourist, won’t you??), who also wanted to get a bus to Ulaan Baatar the next morning.
So: us three back at the travel agency – phoning the woman who had left in the meantime and making her come back (great!!!) – buying bus-tickets for the girls – going for a drink – organising our trip to Mongolia that we decided to do all together – yessss ;)

Back „home“ my friendly host had already prepared dinner – and was again really happy seeing me eating so much – I am a good guest not rejecting any food! After that we went together to the two nicely (kitsch) lightened fountains of the city where Evgeniij – even though he by himself is from Ulan Ude – had never been before by night!! So he thanked me as well for that!


So now I was leaving Russia this morning with a smile on my face, loads of great impressions on my mind and the big wish to come back and do the whole transsib again!

so now I am sitting in Ulaan Baatar - which is btw all but not a nice city - and with the two french girls we gonna leave tomorrow to Kharkhorin (somewhere in the countryside)... but more about Mongolia in a future story ;)