Beijing

I've been in Beijing for a while now, possibly too long, but am moving on first thing. Initially planning to use a few of these days here as base, I intended to take another long train trip north towards the Russian border to place called Harbin, where a spectactular ice festival is held every year. In the end I decided to pass on account of wanting to be in Beijing for new year, train tickets being hard to come by during Spring Festival and just wanting a rest from moving around so much. All that said, even though I have taken it easy for a couple of days, I've been a bit slack on my blog and haven't been preparing my posts pre-internet cafe. I'll say sorry as my lack of preparation will probably show.

I've enjoyed my time here and upon arrival it initially struck me as being the most familier place I've been to throughout the whole trip so far, but equally it's here that I've been most unaware of what's happening. In another set of contradictions, we're all starting to fit in more as the clothes we're wearing are similar to the majority of the others here, but in actual fact we stand out more for being western and get pointed at a lot. I think the boys from the group suffered most for all being so tall (especially Rolf at a lot over 6") and found themselves pulled aside for photos whether they liked it or not. Being in a big group also had a similar effect, and all 13 of us meeting for a New Years Meal meant the whole restaurant literrally stopped and stared at us whilst making comments amoungst each other.

Speaking of restaurants though, not traditionally a big fan of Chinese, more often than not i'm finding the food to be really good (with the odd exception) and cheap. The biggest problem is not being a beer drinker. It feels that if I don't want a beer then I don't want a drink. Attempts at a glass of wine have all failed so far. At one meal I was able to speak enough Mandarin to gain the attention of the waitress and order an orange juice, however my smugness wasn't long lived as a whole litre carton arrived!

I can't think what to say about it here without saying I'd visited all the usual places. Saw another dead world leader this morning. I think I was more interested to see the Chinese's reaction to such a man but was dissappointed to find that most of the Chinese here are tourists themselves and genually didn't have as much respect as I'd expected.

I've mostly been enjoying walking around and seeing things at my on pace and getting a feel for local culture. The Hutons are always interesting and often a surpirse, and the amount bikes that are used, and the variation in uses for them here is cool too. I'm not so keen on everyones desire to hawk up loudly and spit just about everywhere though.

Earlier today I went to Temple of Heaven Park which may be my favourite place in Beijing. It was like an older persons social club. Pensioners all sat on the walls playing cards, whilst in a far corner a couple of old guys were enjoying flying a kite with a few others practising they're tradional flutes and lutes near by. A bunch of ladies were practising some dancing together whilst another group were hitting themselves in the head and doing yoga. Everywhere I turned Grandparents were messing about doing something or other, but the kids were few and far between!

Oh yeah, and for once I've been feeling nearly warm. I think on a couple of occasions I didn't wear any gloves at all for at least an hour or two (despite what the facebook pictures suggest!)!

That's probably enough for this post. I've met a new group to travel for the next three weeks but I'll write something about them when I know more. All I know is that I've now got a Californian roommate who I've barely spoken to yet but have been annoying by keeping her awake by getting in late and getting up early.

(this internet is painfully slow tonight so I'll add a couple of other pictures in a few days)

Happy New Year (again)

January 25th saw my third New Year in a month. But being in Beijing for the Chinese New Year meant that it was a far bigger affair than the sparklers we were given one the train for the Russian one. There's been non-stop explosions right across the city since I arrived and they're not even letting up now, in fact this evening they've picked up. But no other day has come close to New Years itself.

From the moment I got up, the whole city sounded like it was under seige. Normally illegal in the city center, just for the Spring Festival any form of high explosives seem to be allowed. Everywhere you turned fire crackers and fireworks were being set off in roads and on pavements with no real clearence zone inforced, and at times they were litterally flying at you from all angles, even out of windows. Heading to our favourite street for drinks, a narrow ally type road, the ground was on fire and every few meters a group of people were detonating everything they had. Cars continued to appear out of the glow and smoke of the otherwise dark street. Upon reaching an exploding box of fireworks, the cars would take as wide a birth as they could, sometimes as much a half a meter.

Seeing a couple of cars, including police drive straight over what they hadn't realised to be a lit box of fireworks, we expected to see one blown into the air anytime soon, and was always amazed to see even cyclists appear unharmed from both directions through the bonfire like haze. The whole evening you are rained upon by the remnants from the explosions in the sky, and wading through the red paper left by the ones on the ground.

Every now and then we would be startled (or have the life scared out of us) by a new creation we hadn't yet encountered. One in particular would be like a nuclear bomb going off (or I can only imagine), literally shaking the ground and bleaching everything in white light for a moment. I did my best to capture one of these on camera in a way that isn't just a bright white image (see above).

Always making new friends

The internet cafe I've found here to use is very different to the previous cafes i've used over the past three weeks. Instead of being a small back street room that doesn't really work and is only used to check emails, this is a huge place where locals spend a lot of time. To my left some girls have logged on to play a typical chinese dance type game whilst on my right a guy is killing himself laughing at some TV show.

When I was in here last there was a girl next to me who I'd noticed was spending a lot of time translating Chinese to English and glancing my on occasions. Assuming she was talking to a pen friend I didn't think too much of it, but when I came to leave she pulled my attention to her screen. She only really knew how to say 'Pleased to meet you' but was very keen to get my mobile number so we could meet up during my stay (again, how would we ever communicate?!). I made my excuses, not that she understood them, and left, but I took a picture of the screen before I did. (The pic isn't great but I think it's clear enough to read her words if you click on it, comment if not and I'll transcibe it)

Saw this and thought of BMB

Chevrolet, the first advertisements I saw upon arrival in Beijing. I'm dedicating this picture to everyone back at work. Hope you're all well and thanks for the post on your blog (blog.bmb.uk.com) but not sure what i've done to deserve the age related digs, I thought I was the youngest out of all of you.

End of the line

162 train hours and couple of days into Beijing officially saw the end of my Trans Siberian journey. After settling all our debts with each other (there were loans all over the place thanks to cloned cards (not mine for a change), scams and general innability to access funds in remote places) we went our seperate ways. The only debt I had to honour was a promise to the Ozzie to drink a whole beer, and on Autralia Day I did, in an Australian bar. It wasn't enjoyable and an event i'll not be repeating. Anyway, it's sad to say goodbye as we've gotten used to the idea of travelling together (and bailing each other out). Agreeing we'd all meet again sometime in the future, we did that very night, and again the following two nights.

More than anything however, I'll miss the the journey itself. I loved every minute of it, even the times when I was looking for the quickest exit from a situation. I'm already seriously considering my next route (Vladivostok to Moscow anyone?). It's facinating to watch how much places and cultures change throughout the journey. St Petersburg feels to be a million miles away from the world of Beijing.

A good example of this is the food. In Russia the food is generally something in a pancake or pie and usually they'll sneak cabbage onto the menu of options in an unexpected place. If it's not that then it's potato stacked and baked upon something, sometimes chicken or lamb but regulary just onto another potato. In Mongolia the dish is nearly always burger meat and they can create about 100 different meals with this. Steamed in dumplings, fried in dumplings, battered, flattened, rolled, in a pie, out of a pie, crispy etc. etc. And now we're in China I'm finding that if they can put it on a stick it becomes food. Snake, starfish, strawberry, seahorse, octopus leg, pineapple, scorpion and bugs were all offered to me yesterday in quick sucession. They'd learnt just enough English to shout 'HELLO...CENTIPEDE' in my direction as a walked past. Anything that won't go on a stick, such as ice cream, cream and egg, and gets deep fried.

Two other things I'll miss about the train is trying to fill out strict customs forms in different languages and never really knowing the time. Getting on the train at Irkutsk for example, meant going back 5 hours to Moscow time the second we stepped on board and then jumping forward several hours the moment we entered Mongolia as the timetable switched timezones. We had to be at the ready to jump off at all times just in case!

For nostalgia reasons I've addd a few more pictures from the trip, but for now, after being with the group nearly 24-7 for the past three weeks, I'm enjoying some time to myself. Tomorrow I'll meet a new group and I'll start to continue my journey down through China in a few days.

Outer Mongolia

I've only included this post so I can title it as I did (sorry). But it's true, I am outer there, and after another 30 hours on a train i've arrived in Beijing.

The border crossing into China was smoother than our arrival into Mongolia a few days ago, but was certainly more tense. Having two cabin attendants that were intent on stressing us out, they made sure we were perminantely on edge for the 5-6 hours we were between countries.

Constantly being very precious about a corridor carpet they repetedly layed out, changed, took back in or straightened for unknown reasons, they regimented us to all sit at the bottom of our cabins uncomfortably for 5 hours and wait for nothing to happen. With all this build up, we were certain of another, if not far worse set of cabin searches than before. All that happened was a dominatrix style woman, heavily made-up, appeared in our doorway larger than life with a uniform that didn't look real, mini skirt and knee high boots. She looked at us intensly, took our passports and disappeared.

Eventually the train went into the shed, with us on, and got it's wheels changed ready for the wider tracks of China. Miss Dominatrix returned, gave us our passports and we continued across the last of the Gobi Desert towatds Beijing. I arrived safely but not before clashing with the cabin attendants over a pillow case. The story is as stupid as it sounds so I won't bother telling it, but I suspect no invites to summer boat trips for these two!

6 more aboard the VodkaTrain

Our last night at the Ger camp saw the arrival of another group traveling with VodkaTrain, like us. Setting off a week later than us, they've embarked on a faster version of trip missing out St Petersburg and Lake Baikal, and caught up with us in the middle of nowhere. They're all really nice, which is good news as we got on the same train to Beijing yesterday. Meeting at the bonfire, we amused them with our train stories and they had a tale or two themselves about rapping Mongolian smugglers with maniquins!

Now this really is the coldest I've ever been!

I think now I can assure you that this is the last time I ever say that! Whilst out in the coldest climes that i'm due to encounter on this trip (i'm only heading south from now on), we were all advised to put on all the clothes we had with us at camp. I clocked up two pairs of warm socks and boots, leg thermals, trousers and sallopets, longsleeved thermal top, vest top, long sleeved t-shirt, t-shirt, shirt, another shirt, fleece, hoodie and coat, skimask, buff and scarf, silk gloves, fleece gloves and ski gloves and two hats. All I had left was one more pair of socks which I rejected in favour of putting my boots on easily...I wish I'd tried harder! In fact it was soooo cold here, whilst enjoying a few drinks around a bonfire in blizzard like weather, all our drinks froze in our hands within about half hour!

Inner Mongolia

After a very early arrival into Ulaan Baatar, it didn't take long for me to conclude that 'UB' is essentially just a health and safety nightmare! Pavements are either icey or dirk tracks, always with unexpected craters or obsticles and several manhole covers missing without warning. And as for the roads, they are fast and ruless, making crossing very difficult (they do have zebra stripes painted on them in places, but they don't make much difference, I think they're only there to localise the points of pedestrian accidents). Sticking close to the Honcho to make the most of her road-wise experience, we found her leading us out into the middle calmly and then shouting 'RUN!' as cars approached rapidly form multiple directions. One positive to the roads here is that every car is potentially a cab. Just standing by the road and raising your arm will cause up to three cars to pull over on they're way to wherever, even if there's only two of you!

Life hazards aside, UB is an interesting city that grew on me in time. I think I was probably frustrated on arrival by the confusing shop signs that led me into many a laundrette, market or pharmacy when I was in search of internet or cash machines. Although I wouldn't rush back here I feel the rest of Mongolia needs a lot more exploring. Heading 90mins East of UB, I spent a couple days doing just that when we were taking into the Mongolian Steppes to spend some time in a traditional Ger camp. Again, not wanting to bore you with the details, this place is stunning and could surpass Lake Baikal already (I feel so fickle).

Expecting to all be huddled together in one of these circular tents in sleeping bags, we were surprised and pleased to find we were split across two Gers, clomplete with beds and coal fire. Even though the temperature out in the country is getting down to beyond -30, The Ger is toasty inside and every three hours, even through the night, a lady literally sneaks in to keep the fire going. The fire is in the center of this relatively small space so see her everytime! Regulating the fire is difficult, freshly lit the room temperature soars to an unbarable level luring us into a false sense of security, and then, particulary during the night, within a couple of hours things drop to near freezing leaving us laying in the dark hoping the fire lady will be on her sneaky rounds soon!


Apart from walking and hiking to the top of the rocky back drop of our camp, we spent some time horse riding, and although ours weren't the most obedient or speedy of creatures, a nice morning out was had all the same. Skaramoosh (the honary 2-hour name for my horse) seemed to like to lead the group and kick any that tried to overtake. An afternoon was also spent visiting a local family in their Ger where, at the end of the visit, it's custom to sing a traditional song from our culture. Being put on the spot and haveing a couple of other nationalities with us, the best we could think of that we all knew and was somewhat British was Yellow Submarine. That's very shameful but the wife seemed to like it regardless. She then sang us a song and the dog howled. The husband prefered to watch the Sumo wrestling on TV which was odd to see considering we were in a tent in the middle nowhere.

Close, but still no Special K

Ever get the feeling you've been abandoned in Mongolia?

When we left Irkutsk we were in the middle of a very long train. After a lengthy border control and several cabin searches (8 or more hours stood still in all) I got a chance to step off the train to find every other carriage had gone along with the train that pulled us!

(And yes that is the back end of a Mongolian ghost dog in the bottom left hand corner. He came to harass me whilst I took the picture. I couldn't do another because he wouldn't go away).

PYEY DA DNA

'Drink to the bottom' as the Russians say! All this for just 8 pounds. Brilliant!

Travelling companions

Left to right - Rolf, Adam, Hew, John, Sarah, Me, and Adam. This was taken at Moscow station before we boarded the train. We'll be together until Beijing.

Back to the Lake

Listvyanka, a small town by Lake Baikal was the perfect reward for our mamouth journey. An hours bus ride away from Irkutsk we're taken to the picturesque and seemingly abandoned town. Like the train, being here feels like i've gone a long way back into the past. The wooden houses have been torn apart by harsh weathers and their delapidation looks beyond repair. A fantastic place to visit, but probably not live.

The sky here during the day is very blue, and bright with stars at night, but when the wind kicks up it's pretty bitter (maybe the coldest I've ever been!). A hike to the top of a huge hill demonstrates the scale of the lake (the worlds largest and deepest), with mountains becoming visible across the sea like expanse if you look hard enough.

Then a trail back down took us all to the water front. I don't want to bore you with the details, but this could be my favourite place on earth. It's hard not to be struck by the beauty of this natural occurrence. Huge layers of thick ice had been pushed to the edge and rippled over and under one another to create a sort of ice sculpture. The near edges were certainly thick enough to walk on, but I didn't push my luck and venture further out.

The Russian sauna was an experience too. Essentially a toga party in a room nearly as hot as our old train cabin, that on regular intervals required us step out into the -15 temperatures and even lay in the snow. Our Honcho also insisted that it was custom to hit us with pine tree twigs. We were dubious of it, but after the past 4 days of torture on the rails it didn't seem so bad so we went along with it.

Finally, I took the opportunity to drive my own dog sled. It was a lot of fun but I wasn't quite heavy enough to steer effectively so had to ride quite close to the trees mostly (fortunately i'm quite short so didn't have too far to duck).

Lake Baikal

This is Lake Baikal. I have to go and catch another train now. I'll say more about this place when I get to Mongolia hopefully (but I promise not as much as the last two posts!). Sorry for not replying to any emails or comments, I'll catch up with it all soon. Also I'm very sorry for the length of the last post, I'll get some pictures on here at my next stop to brake it up a bit! Hope everyone is well with you all. x

Plans for world domination

ONLY READ IF YOU'RE SERIOUSLY BORED. I DON'T KNOW HOW TO CONDENSE THIS DOWN WITHOUT CONFUSING THINGS. YOU PROBABLY HAD TO BE THERE ANYWAY!

This is the story of my last night on the Trans Siberian Railway, Moscow to Irkutsk section. I'll write it as clear as I can but it gets really confusing and quite weird. It's probably best I start by introducing the main characters...

Bad Russian - He was our cabin neighbour and I first met him the previous night when keen to practise my Russian (which, by the way, is going pretty well) I joined a member of our group struggling to communicate with him in the corridor. Quickly Bad Russian's attention turned souly to me and I was offended by an innapropriate proposition and him touching my face. I retreated to back to cabin fast and stayed there. After this Bad Russian found himself receiving angry words from the cabin attendants for generally just being very drunk and pissing all the other carriage dwellers off. In the end we were forced to shelter in our cabin whilst we made a very long unschedualed stop. After lots of violent crashing around next door, he was locked in and we all waited hopingly for the police, army or old KGB to come storming onto the train. No such luck. Things went quiet and we set off again, but now with added security guard.

Next is Alex-A, or Russian Spy as i'll call him. He tracked us down on the last night after hearing romours we were on board. Apparently he is a military man on a peace mission to far Eastern Siberia to translate for some Burmese. They will communicate by talking in English. This is concerning as his english is pretty bad, the worst English speaking Russian we'd met. If you hear of a major misunderstanding between those two countries, he'll be why! We never did work out what the Burmese doing there anyway. He wanted to talk to us for a while so we could grade him (A,B or C) on his English. He also spent quite a lot of his time insisting he wasn't a Spy, which was odd as none of us has ever said or thought it.

Finally the cabin attendants and Yulia. The cabin attendants were nice but we didn't have too much to do with them. They spoke no English but seemed to appreciate the groups politeness and my attempts at their language. Generally though I assumed we were really just an annoyence to them. Yulia was lovely. A fourteen year old who spoke fantastic English and liked talking to us, and us to her. She was in the cabin at the end travelling with her family on the seven day journey to see her grandparents.

So the story begins with a couple of us looking out the window (obviously) when Russian Spy tracks us down. In Russian I introduce myself and the others in the cabin but then have to switch back to English to answer his questions. Amusingly to us all, when I speak he claims not hear a word I say for being distracted by the amazing meldody voice and Queens English accent! However he is less impressed by accents of the clearly spoken South Londoners whose sounded entirely different apparently.

In no time at all he is settled into our cabin with beers, which the boys dutifully drank when forced. After a short while he asks me to practice my Russian some more, and thinking that demonstrating my ability to order tea or vodka wouldn't be the best choice of phrase, I say 'Your plans for world domination are sadly mistaken'. This was where I went wrong, but it's not my fault, it was in the James Bond - From Russia With Love section of my phrase book. I thought he'd like it! He didn't and was upset to hear the English believe that Russia are planning to take over the world. He suggested it was more appropriate to refer it to the US and we agreed enthusiastically. His mood was difficult to read so we continued to sit holding our breath and laughed on que only when he did. The beers were finished and we succeeded in getting rid of him. We had a very early morning arrival to Irkutsk so felt some sleep was in order.

Taking the opportunity to spend just 10 more minutes looking out of the window before winding down, Bad Russian is about. He's learnt the word sorry, and as I appreciated he was very drunk the night before I persavered with his attempts to join our group in the corridor. It didn't go brilliently but actually it was working a bit. I can say stuff to him, but not understand his response. Yulia appears and joins us and does some translating. At one point, demonstrating my language skills to Bad Russian I play it safe with my choice of phrase and show him how I can order tea (15 minutes later I have some tea!) Not long later I am feeling uncomfortable around him and keep my attention focused on Yulia and the others. He spends the rest of the evening offering me more tea.

Russian Spy has come back. It seems my James Bondism has really got to him and now he's settled into our cabin again quizzing me on it. He eventually got over it but the conversation awkwardly moved on to our opinions of the Russia-Georgia conflict. I stayed out of this one. We were all tired, nervous and bored of him. Everytime he asked for an opinion from me he just went on about the melody of my voice which just frustrated me. I think before long we'd managed to shed him again and continue about our evening, except I'm still not happy to see Bad Russian is still lurking and offering me tea.

Suddenly Russian Spy has come back yet again and introducing himself as Bond. I don't know how it happened but whilst talking to Yulia, Bad Russian hanging around us so I turned to my cabin only to find Russian Spy settled in there once more. Both Russians are getting quite drunk and have now clashed. We don't know what is said between them but my name is mentioned lots. I'm left with no where to go so we attempt to get rid of Russian Spy from our room who is now talking extensively about Russian milertary history and we're too tired to work out what the right answers are. Yulia has gone to bed and Bad Russian continues to lurk outside. Russian Spy doesn't like this and now believes Bad Russian is actually the English speaking spy.

Now out of nowhere, the cabin attendants are at the doorway. We've had nothing to do with them all night but now they want my address. That is clearly what they are saying but Russian Spy is struggling to understand them (it seems our Russian translater isn't great at his home language either). Anyway, I give them my email but they come back wanting my home address and they give me theirs. Then they give me a phone number, which is rediculous because how could we ever communicate by phone? There are 4 of us in the cabin, but they tell Russian Spy that their details are only for me. They then invite me to Russia in the summer where I, and only I, can join them on a boat to China. I don't know why. The attendants then disappear.

We make some final attempts to clear our cabin of Russian Spy, who previously told us not to be polite, we should just ask him to leave when we're ready. But now he says we'll have to kill him or put up with him, he's not leaving (but all the while apologising for disturbing us). After he says some more odd things about me, he leaves and we lock up.



Finally there is a knock at the door, and some female voices. Perceiving it to be safe we open it to find the attendentas outside our cabin giving only us lit sparklers wishing us a Happy Old New Year before running away. We accept the fire hazard into our cabin and do our best not set fire to it before Russian Spy is back complaining we kicked him out so we could sleep and 10 minutes later we are still awake. We give up on the politeness and shut and lock the door again and go to bed now just a few hours from our Irkutsk stop.

88 Hours

Last saturday lunchtime I boarded the train for Irkutsk, and just 88 hours later, on wednesday morning, I was there! Actually it wasn't as bad as it sounds and within no time at all I found I was genuinely really happy, relaxed and enjoying some quality train time. Our carriage was everything I'd hoped for and more, far worse than the St Petersburg to Moscow train, completly out dated and ready to fall apart.

Having seven of us in the group meant we were split between two cabins of four, giving three of us a Russian roommate. He was ok, but keen to not socialise with us, which suited us fine as he actually smelt pretty bad. Fortuantly he was only with us for the first 24 hours and after he left, we didn't aquire anyone new for the duration.

It's difficult to remember how it was possible to pass so much time in boredom and still love every second of it, but I, and the others, did it mostly by looking out of the cabin window, looking out of the corridor window, walking to the end of the train and looking out the window there, listening to some ipod, playing cards, chatting, reading and preparing meals.

Meal times were a big part of the day, although we never really knew what part of the day it was. Keeping our watches set to Moscow time, as that is also train time, we lost at least an hour a day local time due to passing through several time zomes. It wasn't long until day became night and night became day. So meals times happened when I was bored enough, but I enjoyed the balenced diet of Smash mixed with chicken cupa soup or bovril (the chicken was actually pretty good and well worth a try). This was followed by green tea with the mash potato remains left in my cup. Others jumped off the trains and bought bland pot-noodle style meals which they mixed with Marmite. A chance to eat in the restaurant car was impossible as either our timing was always bad or the lady there just didn't like us, I couldn't read the menu anyway.

As expected the temperature on the train was nearly always far too hot, around 25°C -30°C, which I usually was ok with, but when our cabin was full, the temperature was known to rise even higher still. Our cabin was unusual and had a broken window that allowed snow to form in the inside corner of it by my bed, which ended up appearing as a snowball on my pillow a bit later. Thanks to the unbarable heat I was able to borrow an extra blanket from the others to keep warm!



Stops were fun, each time we pulled into a station (one every few hours), I would jump off to get some air and look around the platform. When the door was opened we were nearly always met by locals selling either things we should never attempt to eat or trading from a makeshift convienience store on a sledge. I would be free to wander across the tracks but with the thick ice between them I could only see it ending badly so never ventured too far. We had to master the cyrillic timetable to understand how long each stop was, anything from 6 to 45 minutes. Enough time for the cabin attendants to beat the ice from the bottom of the train with a stick. The attendants were good, and after we nearly left one member of our group behind, they always came and made sure we were all accounted for, but not until after we'd set off.

Siberia itself was beautiful but didn't change greatly the whole way. Sometimes it was flat, sometimes there were hills, many little hut villages and the odd bridge over a frozen river. There were always lots of trees. As consistant as it was, it never stopped being interesting and captivating, which was lucky.

The only downside we had, apart from the lack of showers, was that I didn't get much chance to mix with the locals and become fluent in Russian thanks to the antisocial restaurant car. This all changed on the last night but that's a whole other story!

Vodka'd up

No trip to Russia would be complete without learning a tiny bit more about Vodka. Above is where I was taught...The Vodka Museum, Moscow.

That's all from Moscow

Hello, hope you're all well. I'm leaving Moscow in a couple of hours, and since the Hostel has free internet, I thought now would be a good time to update this (now at least that I have figured out how to convert this keyboard to type with English letters. When I first used this machine I had to copy and paste the individual letters I needed from the google home page to access my email).

It was a very early arrival into Moscow so we dropped our stuff off and took showers after a pretty hot train journey. We headed straight to the Red Square to see the obvious stuff first, getting there in time to enter the huge tomb of the embalmed Lenin (pictured). It is an odd experience and difficult to describe, but a bit like a more sombre BodyWorlds exhibition with less dissection.

The Kremlin was weird too. When I'd got there they'd arranged a sort of baggage reclaim but with kids istead in the main square. There was what looked to be around a thousand children walking in a huge circle around a big Christmas Tree. Then around them were twice the amount of parents desperately waving to try and find and then drag their kid off the 'conveyor belt' system. We don't really know what was happening there but think the Kremlin had acquired the kids earlier on in the day as part of a Christmas celebration, and now it was going home time. With the huge number of people in the square, the amount of pushing, waving and shouting combined with wind and snow, the whole seen was chaotic, and to me, a bit like it belonged in a Second World War II film based over Germany way.



I much prefer Moscow to St Petersburg, although I've been far colder here than I've ever been (two layers of gloves aren't preventing my fingers from completely freezing on occasions and I've had to progress to my extra warm socks already). Moscow is also a very slippery city and most floor surfaces are made of granite which doesn't help, my shoulder is nervous here but so far I've managed to stay on my feet. Moscow snows a lot too.

It is train time again after breakfast, this time for 3-4 days, apart from fast dashes on to the platform at stops for supplies and returning before the train leaves. I'm really looking forward to it and I'll let you know how it goes, if I don't, it's because I didn't make it back on board in time at one of the stops!

Train Time

We were delivered to the station last night at 23.00 hours - in time to catch our first train in the 7865km rail journey. We suffered for the first half hour as four of us, dressed for -15° conditions, each with backpacks as big as ourselves attempted to fit into a cabin of 6'5" x 4" with 2 sets of bunkbeds (and other obstacles) whilst it was set to a temperature of +25°. It took some effort, but once we'd unjammed ourselves and lost a few of our warmer layers (although that did make a few of us look like Shakespearian actors with our black thermals for tights), it was really comfortable in there. The cabin attendants brought us tea and insisted we bought vodka and beer from them. The journey was great and although we still have 5 or 6 more full days on a train to come, we still thought it would be a good idea to stay up til 4am looking out the window (in the dark at the same constant scenery). Getting up at 6am for our arrival in Moscow wasn't the best!

So far, so good

So far I'm really liking Russia...when I first arrived the music in my transfer car was Queen followed by the Rolling Stones...brilliant! Anyway, once you get used to a few things it's really cool here, definitely another visit needed (but in warmer weather). The only down side, apart from not knowing what's going on most of the time, is that the Russians are tending to push me around a lot. I don't think it's anything personal though, just what they do.



St Petersburg is lovely and looks really good under snow. It seems that maybe 8 out of 10 cars are old Ladas (pictured is one with a flat tyre in the middle of a busy main road) and most will try and hit you given the chance. When safely on the pavement we found some nice bars with interesting people and music, not to everyones taste but I liked it. Apart from that we spent our days exploring and visiting the usual places, and in between made stops to warm up. We even found time to visit a film festival (in English with Russian subtitles) before getting to the station for our first stint on the train.

The Honcho

I've realised that I've probably not explained how my journey on the Trans-Siberian Railway works. Basically there is a small group of us, seven in all, and we are met at each stop by our Honcho, a new one at each location. It is their job to to help and point us in the right direction.

In St Petersburg I kind of expected the Honcho to wear a poncho, she wasn't (but apparently they do in Mongolia).Anyway without her (Marsha) we would have been completely lost in every way. In the bars when we are being shouted at by the barmaids we just tend to offer more money until Marsha will rescue the situation and translate that less money is required but in change. And when she orders our food it is fine, but twice I tried going it alone and found myself with a cabbage pancake and tomato juice, both things are far from what I'd planned and seem very wrong to me!

I will stay close to my Honcho from now on, but tomorrow I'm going to attempt to speak only in Russian (to Russians). Tomorrow I will be hungry.

Christmas day in Russian

Yesterday was Christmas day here, although I don't think we would have realised it if we hadn't been told, it is nothing like Christmas at home.

Just arrived in St Petersburg

Hello! I made it to St Petersburg ok although was a little late, but nothing new there! So far I am just really pleased to have got through the first 24 hours without beeing scammed by the police, but apart from that I don't have any amazing stories to tell as of yet. Although I did see a bear in the park, but I don't think it counts as it was someones pet. We went to see the ice-hockey this evening too, St Petersburg v Minsk, which was interesting with the language barriers!

I've met all my group now and they are all really nice (four other Brits, an Australian and an Amsterdamian). All of us are really feeling the cold, and I'm certain this is the coldest i've ever been, colder than winter in Chicago and the Sweedish Arctic, and even colder than the BMB studio when the windows are open!

I'm getting the train to Moscow tomorrow evening and I'll write again when I'm there, hopefully with more to tell, but for now just wanted to check in so you know I made it ok. I have to go now, Russian warning boxes keep popping up on screen and I don't understand! bye

The Offski

Just off out the door now so I think I'm as ready as I'll ever be! I have managed to fit everything into my bag and am even just about able to lift it on my own if all the conditions are right! I'm concerned to see how cold St Petersburg is already, I thought I would get broken into the cold gradually as my journey into Siberia progressed, still have three pairs of gloves packed so I should be ok!