Khabarovsk to Ulan Ude

The next leg of the Trans Siberian- Khabarovsk to Ulan Ude (pronounced oolan ooday). Unfortunately our carriage attendants were not nearly as sympathetic to our luggage needs and we ended up putting the 2 bikes on one upper bunk and we managed, somehow, to share the other bunk for 2 nights and 2 days. Yes, close quarters! lots of euchre, naps, feeds, shifting positions, all the while trying not to dangle our feet in the face of our lower bunk cabin mate. However, during the day, cabin etiquette is such that 'upper' bunk people can sit on the lower bunks once their blankets are rolled out. Especially during eating time, the 'lowers' kindly vacate and allow you your space to eat. Lower bunks are where it's at...next time we'll get one upper for the bikes and one lower for us. We could get 3 bunks too...which may become a possibility when we resume the TSR after Mongolia. The scenery from the train was very green. It reminded me of eastern Canada in a way. In the rural areas there was the odd speckling of houses, all wood and each sporting a massive garden which consisted of mainly potatoes. Onions were a distant second with an average of about 5% of the garden space. These gardens surely mean more to their owners than ours to us. The small towns in which we stopped were nearly the same as the rural dwellings but more of them. The density, however, did not increase due to the necessary garden space. The density did increase towards Ulan Ude which is a much bigger city, a bit dryer, and the need to subsistence farm is much less. Many groovy electric locomotives occupy the iron road, my favourite is the green one with the red star on the front. Some stations also had locomotive graveyards with all sorts of steam, diesel, and electric versions of all vintages.