Few people were up early on 17th August – perhaps something to do with the party in carriage 9, that lasted late into the night. Gradually people appeared – a few nursing sore heads. I wasn’t too much the worse for wear, and nor was Charlotte, who later challenged me to games of Mastermind, draughts, even Snakes and Ladders which I hadn’t played for at least 2 decades.

We never stopped looking out of the windows to see the landscape gradually change. The big cities had longer stops, where a few Trans Siberian passengers were actually ending their journeys, but one thing that I hadn’t expected was that the train also stopped at some smaller, more attractive towns.

Even with only 5 minutes, there was always time for everyone to hop off, and get some fresh air, under the watchful eye of the carriage steward.

We felt a certain amount of safety in numbers: if enough of us were on the platform, we somehow felt that the train couldn’t actually leave without all of us.

We left the small towns of Bogotol and Tayga behind, and headed across the Siberian wilderness towards Novosibirsk.

A few of us went for a late lunch in the restaurant car. The food seemed to improve as we headed west, and we noticed that “Ivan the Terrible” looked a little less surly, as he dished it out to everyone. Maybe it was because he is getting closer to home.

Leslie and Jenny, the Canadians in the next compartment, tended to want to read the whole time. However, the carriage 9 crowd were keen to play silly games again, so we did, and this time 2 of the Chinese passengers who had witnessed the “ghost forfeit” asked to join in. The Germans had obtained some Russian champagne for about $1 a bottle and this helped to make the silly games even sillier as the evening went on.

The 18th of August started with a large breakfast in the restaurant car. The waiter, “Ivan the Terrible”, was almost jovial as he scurried backwards and forwards with everyone’s plates. Someone asked him his name, and to everyone’s disappointment it wasn’t Ivan, but Vladimir.

A game of multilingual Scrabble (at which the Germans excelled and I came last) filled in the time until we reached Sverdlovsk – formerly Yekaterinburg. This was clearly a place that the Chinese merchants on the train had been waiting for, to sell many of the goodies they had brought. For whatever reason, the Chinese didn’t get off the train but insisted on doing business through the top of the window, forcing the poor Russians to create a human ladder.

There were several people on the platform selling the famous Russian champagne for $1.50 a bottle, so I bought one. Over the next few hours we crossed the Urals, and I re-entered the continent from which I departed nearly 10 months ago. The Europe / Asia boundary was marked by a little obelisk.

Richard, the American, said that he was now convinced that the bottle of Champagne he had bought at Sverdlovsk was just water. The Belgians in his compartment were convinced he was wrong, and bet him $1.50 that it really was champagne.

The bottle was opened, and it was…. water!! But since Richard won his bet with the Belgians, he recovered the money that he’d wasted, and thus had the last laugh. Of course enough people had bought “real” champagne for there to be more than enough to go round.

Some Russians who had boarded the train were selling items of Red Army uniform for very little money. I had a look and couldn’t resist the temptation to buy a leather belt with hammer and sickle, especially when the deal was sweetened by the inclusion of a free Pilotka (cap)

Jenny bought a rather fancy officer’s cap, the deal sweeten by 2 “free” bottles of champagne. Leslie just bought a Pilotka, which she insisted on wearing for the rest of the evening.

Everyone was feeling lazy and I soon lay down for a siesta. I was woken up in the early evening by the train stopping at Perm. I knew we had a 30 minute stop, and staggered out on to the platform, still half asleep. It was already getting dark. I found it a bit strange that none of the other passengers were in sight – the steward was the only one there and was watching me wander around, with his back to the train.

Suddenly, behind him, the train started to move. I ran over and climbed on, just as the steward realised what was happening. I couldn’t believe the train was actually leaving – but it was! Apparently I had woken up 28 minutes after we arrived, not at the time we arrived. I shuddered to think what would have happened if I’d been left behind in Perm without any belongings.

We congregated in carriage 9 for the final party, and to compare the loot that we had obtained for relatively few Rubles.

Eventually the party wound down, and I wandered back to my compartment for my last night on the Trans-Siberian Express. I had mixed feelings about reaching Moscow, being the last new place on my entire round the world trip. Though curious to see Moscow, it is (politics aside) just another European capital, and I started feeling a certain sense of anticlimax.

Pressing the antenna of my radio against the window, I managed to catch the BBC News, while watching the huge dark nothingness of western Siberia trundle past. Squinting sideways on a curve, I could see that the Trans-Siberian Express had been extended to 15 carriages. I was merely a dot on a long train, which itself was a moving dot in this vast peaceful expanse…

The BBC newsreader wrapped up his summary of important events from around the world. I yawned and turned my little radio off. As usual on this trip, whatever was going on, it wasn’t anywhere near me. Though connected by technology, I felt about as physically isolated from major world events as it is possible to be.

But that was all about to change, with a suddenness and intensity that I could not possibly have imagined…