the 32 to ulan ude

we're on a train again, a local service that we're taking to our next city on the other side of the lake. most of the route runs alongside baikal.

we share our cabin with two russian "man's men" dressed in chelsea football club tracksuits. they warm to us when they find our we're londoners. they've just gutted and eaten raw omul they bought from a lady on a platform. this train stops more often than the last one, a slow service. we also bought omul thinking they would be cooked and gutted like the ones we had by the lake. not so. ours still lay on the table, wrapped tightly in plastic, looking at me.

the prosvenitzas are playing the oddest selection of music on this train. when we boarded they were blasting out noisy euro-pop happy house tracks. but we've spent the last couple of hours listening to what sounded like the 'annie' musical with none of the original songs crossed with the story of alice in wonderland. in russian. like plus-tech squeezebox meets a soviet disney.

one of our chelsea supporting companions sings along. his voice is like the wind whispering through a thousand cigarette butts.

we're traveling through the most beautiful scenery i will ever see. i can tell this already. the tracks pass metres from a sun-drenched lake baikal to our left, flat as a mirror, a light mist in the far distance. we take photos through the smudged window knowing they won't get near to doing justice to the incredible sight to one side.

occasionally the smooth water is disturbed by birds resting on the surface. they dive now and again, and even though they're 40-50 metres away the water is so clear i can watch them swim down to the bottom to grab a fish. further out as the water deepens it soaks up all the blue from the sky. it looks like expensive silk.

the view is equally stunning to our right. acres of untouched luscious pine forest in every shade of green, broken every so often by a silvery river in the foreground. your focus moves up, following the expanse of tall thin pines as they ascend into snow-peaked mountains, for as far as the eye can see.

everything else is rich blue sky; i think i've seen 5 clouds today. words and cameras will not get close to how beautiful this small piece of the world is. not even the fresh recurrence of europop is spoiling the view.

when god made this bit, he made it for the sun, and he was showing off. i would love to return in the bitter siberian winter though, when the lake freezes over and the train runs over it. i'm beginning to think that the train is the only way of properly crossing this land and enjoying it, meandering slowly through the middle, laying on a bunk with your nose pressed against the window. 200 kilometres this will go on for. 200 kilometres of unblemished, daydream landscape. you couldn't think up anything better.