ABSTRACT
We packed a suitcase each and an overnight bag—my black Samsonite, as you know, is very capacious. Because we’d read two books on the Trans-Siberian Express, one by Eric Newby when he’d gone on it in 1977, which actually, as it turned out, wasn’t all that out of date, and one by someone who’d gone on it in 1991, which brought us up to date and they had advised about (a) presents for people who looked after us on the train, and on the hotel floors, etc., and (b) food for ourselves, because it’s so sparse and unspeakable on the train (and it was), a 224lot of our luggage consisted of that and got lighter and lighter as we went along.
