Warsaw to Minsk train

Our first sleeper experience was luxury and we were quite prepared for northing else to live up to it. On the Warsaw to Minsk train we were proved right- no sinks in the rooms, four bunks instead of three, no breakfast in the morning. Worst of all- no temperature control in the cabin. We were served tea but it cost 500 Belarussian Roubles, which we hadn't been able to get hold of in the UK. However a kind lady on the bottom bunk who spoke the odd word of English footed the bill. She then went to bed under a blanket with the door closed so we retreated to the corridor where a window was wide open. We spent the whole journey in the dark and there were very few lights to be seen, just the odd level crossing. In the corridor our accents attracted attention- we met a nice man who told us a bit about Belarussian history (a subject that we knew shamefully little about, but it was extremely affected by the war, and the Jewih population is now almost non extistent) and showed us photos of his children and their horses. His collegues tried to get us to drink vodka, but they had had more than enough already so we declined. I did, however, accept their offer of sausages- higs tubs of meat seemed to be their train staple. It was deicious.
We were just retiring to our cabin at midnight when the door was opened and the light turned on- it was the border crossing. It took nearly 2 hours and as far as we could tell we first had the Polish officials then the train moved a bit and we had the Belarussians. It's a bit intimidating to have tall men in uniform at your door when you're in your pyjamas. However the border experience wasn't complete after passpost control- they also needed to change wheels- the tracks are different widths in the two countries. So the early hours of the morning were full of violent jolting and loud bangs. Thankfully I was so tired I was oblivious to most of it and by the time I woke up we were in Belarus and all was smoothe again.