Approaching 24 hours on the train and watching the sun go down, I prepared myself mentally for alighting in Aralsk, Kazakhstan. I was due to arrive at 01:10 and so stayed up into the night, when most of my fellow passengers had gone to sleep. 01:10 came and went and the train didn't stop. Maybe the train is late, I reasoned, we'd been travelling over 24 hours now, so that seemed likely enough. At some point I tried to confirm the delay with the train guard in our carriage, but his English and my Russian combined to prevent any useful information passing between us. Around 03:30 we slowed to pull into a station and I scrambled to extract my bag from under my bed, doing my best not to disturb the sleep of my compartment companions. The train guard intercepted me before I could make it to the door and made it clear that I wasn't to get off here! The ensuing rudimentary, place name based, conversation led to the conclusion and mutual understanding that we had in fact arrived at Uralsk, not Aralsk! Looking closely at my itinerary from Sundowners Overland, my ticket (in Russian) and the onboard timetable (also in Russian) and talking to the guard made me realise that I had been trying to step off the train a whole day early! Stumped at this unexpected turn of events, I returned my bag to under my bed and, too mentally awake to immediately go to bed, I stood in the corridor staring out into the night, mulling over the idea of another 24 hours on the train... it wouldn't be so bad if I'd known it was coming, but as it was I had no food and no water for the day to come and though the carriage had a boiler of free hot water, and I could buy supplies at the first station stop of the day, for the first time since leaving home I wasn't looking forward to tomorrow.
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