Train from Minsk

I'll start backwards, with our return journey from Minsk, on the 4-hour train journey to Vilnius. Old Soviet-style train and trainstation, no doubt. I was immensely proud to figure out from the board (in Russian or Belarussian, I'm not sure which even) what platform our train was on... ;-) It left on time too. And the Belarus border guards had portable computers they carried around with readers for the machine-reading field at the bottom of the identity page in modern passports!

This is of course a distinct break with the previous Dubai highrises (but don't worry, they will come back again later).