10 hours early for a 56 hour train trip
Trip Start
Jul 11, 2005
1
43
62
Trip End
Apr 04, 2006
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Irkutsk, Siberia, Russian Federation
Monday, February 20, 2006
The only way of catching a train I ever discovered is to miss the train before.
- G.K. Chesterton
ˇ Irkutsk, Siberia, Russia
ˇ Prague time +7hrs
ˇ Days to get to Prague - 17
Eating a chunk of them time zones
After getting back from Lake Baikal we were quite content to spend our last night in the hostel in Irkutsk getting ready for the long train trip in the morning. We were heading west to a place called Tuymen which, in one trip, would see us crossing three time zones and bring us a lot closer to European Russia. Which was good because by now I have only 17 days to get to Prague for my flight home on March 8th. We've crossed one time zone since leaving Korea on February 4th (15 days ago) and we'll be crossing 3 in the space of a 2 and a half day train trip. I guess we'll be making up for lost time.
Stone Babushkas
We had, or so we thought, a 08:37 departure and we rose early enough (I was learning bit by bit that 'early enough' is never 'early enough' when travelling with the Henkster) to ensure we had enough time to visit the store across from the hostel to stock up on supplies for the trip. The usual fare we had become accustomed to since we left China; bread, cheese spread, instant coffee, packet noodles, luncheon sausages etc. Having been ignored for what seemed an eternity by the Babushkas behind the counter we eventually left the store with most of what we went in to buy. No bread though. Purchasing that proved too much of a chore, even with stacks of the stuff on the shelf behind the emotionless Babushka. So with the clock ticking and for fear of missing the train we had to run out of the store bread-less to hop onto the tram for the quick trip to the station. No bread. Man was I pissed.
Moscow time - 5 hours BEHIND
Remember what I said in Ulaan Baatar about cutting it fine for our train trips and how one of these days it would come back and haunt us? Yeah, well that wasn't likely to happen today, that's for sure. Rather than miss the train we ended up being a whole 10 hours early. Let me explain how two seemingly intelligent guys could, and did, make such a gaff. It's all to do with 'Moscow time'. Travellers to Russia might already know where I'm going with this? You see, all times related to train travel in Russia (times stamped on tickets, on timetables and displayed on the ever-present clocks in all the stations across the country) are in Moscow time. And we knew this. We knew it well. So with the departure time on our ticket stating 13:37 (Moscow time) we duly calculated that meant a departure time in Irkutsk 08:37. Needless to say it should have been 18:37. We based our calculations on Moscow time being 5 hours ahead when of course it's 5 hours behind Irkutsk time. In hindsight it was a stupid mistake and one that either of us should have picked up on, and one we won't be making again. But at least it wasn't the other way around meaning we would have missed the train by 10 hours. Now that would have been a whole lot worse. Plus it also meant we'd be spending some 10 hours less on the train than first planned and that's gotta be good when travelling Russian 3rd class, right?
What to do
So as it was we were duly forced to hang around Irkutsk for the day which was awkward. We had already checked out of the hostel and had the bags of provisions we had just purchased were hanging from either side of us. But not to worry. We waddled back to the hostel and although no efforts were made to hide the fact that we were not particularly welcome we still split the remainder of the time we had left in the city between there and a downtown internet café (in fairness to the hostel they were decorating at the time). Then it was time to finally bid goodbye to Irkutsk and head back to the train station. And this time we got it right.
