This bear – who has a permanent place on my dressing table – gives me regular flashbacks to my interesting 18 day group trip on the Transmongolian Railway (where he – now named Fredeck – was sold to me). I had a look back through my notes recently, and this is an excerpt of day 5….

I lay in my bunk bed in the cabin of the train, until 7am, when one of my cabin mates got up; I got up a little later, had a bit of a traumatic time using the revolting toilet, nearly fell off it, and could barely get the tap to dribble. I ate a couple of gingerbread men and an apple in the dark cabin, then went and sat out in the corridor with my camera and a plastic bag – due to feeling a bit nauseous, and at 8.30am, the train stopped next to a large stationary freight train for 7 minutes until what appeared to be a level crossing was sorted out. I spotted 1 of the group and asked her which way the restaurant was, she told me – and told me I had to buy something (I couldn’t just sit there), I staggered down and managed not to fall into a wall, the sign seemed to say that it didn’t open until 9am (I couldn’t really decipher the oddly written sign– but there was a 9 on it), so I staggered back again and sat on a seat, by which point we were going through a forest. Karalu’skya (I think that’s how it was spelt) was where we briefly stopped at 8.50am, I tried to pull the curtains of the window I was sat by back and the rail fell off, and a staff member came along, stuck them back on and walked off again. After a bit more time I had just sitting there, the train stopped at 9.30am at Ishim Station, where there were quite a few dogs being walked, a man in a fluorescent orange jacket said something a bit odd to me which I couldn’t understand, I saw a sign advertising Cornetto ice-cream, and quite a lot of people were smoking on the platform. We got back on, and I saw a woman out on the platform holding the hand of a toddler in blue trousers, a green waterproof jacket, and red sock hat – while holding an enormous plastic bag of apples in the other hand. The train started moving again at 9.57am, I sat down in the corridor for 15 minutes, then went and got my bear, and sat back down on the fold down chair; at 10.25am the group leader came down the corridor holding a plastic box of oats and water (and the oats looked a very strange colour), I read through my notes again, and they really did make me feel hysterical. Then I decided to go and investigate the cafe place again, and made it – despite the carriages barely being attached to each other (and the bits in between not having a floor) causing me to fall into a wall several times; was given a menu by an obese staff member, and as very few items on it were spelt correctly (which I found quite disconcerting) I gave the menu back, and as I walked back to my compartment, the train stopped at Maslyanskaya Station at 10.45am.

I got off and took photos, smokers lit cigarettes, a house close to the end of the platform had a couple of chickens and a couple of goats in its grass area, and I dashed up on to a bridge and took some photos of all the freight trains positioned around. Then I was told to change my watch – an hour forward (so it was 12pm); quite a lot of trees outside were changing colour and losing leaves, and after about 30 minutes more sat in the hallway, I went and crawled up on to my bed, another of my cabin mates was flat on her stomach– looking extremely bored and staring at her phone, and I laid down on mine and cuddled my bear, others were watching a film that involved people saying ‘f**k’ a lot – on a tablet, and about 10 minutes later someone on this film yelled ‘you’re a t****’ at somebody else. I next woke up at 3pm – when the train stopped in Omsk (which apparently used to be the capital of Siberia) and it was completely light and sunny. It started moving within 5 minutes, and our group leader began using a whiteboard pen and giving people sat on the bottom bunks a Russian lesson via writing on the window (I peered down from the top bunk and photographed things).