This is such a civilised way to travel My longings for Mongolia gradually becoming assimilated into a love of the country and pleasure of having been there with time to relax and acknowledge it as part of my life – instead of being parachuted back into my “real” life with no chance to let go in my own time.

That last day in Ulan Bator gave me a chance to experience the art and culture of Mongolia through visiting a couple of museums – I am no fan of museums normally but I loved these, the Mongolilan artistic heritage is rich and gorgeous with fabulous fabrics and costumes, wonderful paintings and statues – lots of Buddhist art where I enjoyed seeing many of the effigies and figures I am used to seeing in Tibetan monasteries with a Mongolian twist – squarer, Mongolian faces – reminds me of our English religious art where we depict Jesus as fair when we all know he was an Arab – and horses! Of course! And, delightfully, many of the wrathful deities and fierce protectors in Mongolia are not barefoot like their Tibetan brothers – they wear glorious boots!

There was a new moon for this new leg of my journey and I got out of the train for the last stops in Mongolia to linger one more time on Mongolian soil.

And now I look forward with growing excitement to arriving in Vladivostok early tomorrow morning.

Olga has donned a navy blue overall and is cleaning the carriage including mopping our floor. I’m now sharing with a family – mum and 2 teenage girls with me, dad along the corridor. We are beyond Siberia now. This is so far across the world! Siberia always sounds llike the far reaches of where you’d ever go and I’m beyond that now!

Still lush, still trees, still carpets of wild flowers. Small wooden towns and villages, a metalled road in view most of the time – this corridor with the railway line is more inhabited, to the north its empty land til you get to the artic. Easy to imagine bears prowling round the forests.