Inside our coupe, there was an ever-present smell of something rotting. We searched for the source of this inescapable odor but never did find the culprit. I suspect it was a piece of food that our "roommate" -- a woman traveling from Chita to Moscow -- had stowed away for her long voyage. The smell didn't seem to bother her or our other roomie, a man who slept most of the day. The sound of his snoring from the bunk on my right was occasionally accompanied by the raspy drunken singing of an old man in the neighboring compartment on my left.

In the evening, the one blanket allotted each passenger provided little warmth when the train's heating system failed and our normally toasty compartment turned frigid.

At 4:00am the conductor rapped on our door to announce our immenant arrival at Novosibirsk. Even at that early hour the station was crowded. For the first time since leaving Moscow, we saw many homeless and marginal-looking characters wandering around trying to keep warm. On our way out we were practically walking over people huddled and sleeping in the hallway.

We arrived at the apartment building to find that our hosts live on the eighth floor. Predictably, the elevator was dead. No problem. All we wanted was a hot shower and a few hours sleep. But even that was not meant to be: the hot water had been turned off two days earlier. The romance of travel is wearing a little thin.

Later, our hosts, Raisa and Vitaly, offered to put us up in the little hotel where Raisa works. More like a dormatory than a hotel, it is clean and most importantly the hot water flows.