About Hong Kong

We both really enjoyed the time we spent in Hong Kong. Every part of the city we saw was bustling with locals, working away, and loads of tourists. We stayed at the YMCA Salisbury Hotel, which was more like a 4-star hotel than youth hostel and spent time seeing the sights in Kowloon and on Hong Kong Island. We couldn’t get enough of the different modes of transport around the place, preferring the Star ferry to the underground to cross the harbour. The mid-level escalator was something else - running downhill in the morning and uphill at night must make travel for locals much easier. The tram ride up to the Peak was an experience – the steep angle of the slope made me feel sorry for the poor souls carrying the sedan chairs in the past. The view from the top was amazing. No wonder everyone raves about it!

On my birthday we had lunch at Maxim’s Palace, the place in HK for dim sum. When we found the place, it was packed with an hours wait - a good sign we thought. The food was really good and we enjoyed the experience, picking baskets of food from trolleys as they passed. In the afternoon we popped to a jade market on the Kowloon side and hopped back over to Hong Kong Island in the evening. I just had to have a drink in the Mandarin Oriental, where my parents had their wedding reception some 30 years ago. What a plush and expensive place. After, we headed off to meet Weike and friends at a tapas bar in Soho. It was great to see a familiar face from back home. The following day I was not feeling well and happily agreed to a late hotel check out! I’ll never drink again. Again.

Can't think of a title for this

We're in Bangkok, but not for much longer; we're leaving tomorrow to head south. Except we're not going to Phuket, we're going to a place called Hua Hin about 3 hours out of Bangkok. We'll be there for 4 days (in a luxury resort! Well, why not?) and then we're getting the train down to Butterworth in Malaysia.

What do I think of Bangkok? Well, I think it's growing on me. After getting here from Hong Kong it just seemed too dirty. Overcrowded, hot, smelly and noisy is fine; I mean Hong Kong is the same and I loved it there. But here is just dirty without much in the way of trying to keep it clean going on.

Like I said, though, I think I'm growing to like it, or at least not dis-like it. People here are friendly, the weather is warm, and it's cheap. And just in time for me to reach that state of mind, we leave. Ah well, onwards and southwards.

Pictures from the Big Lychee

Here are a couple of photos. There are more to look at when you click here.

The first flight

After a day of planning, we've decided... to go to Bangkok. By plane.

So we will. On Saturday. We'll be there for a day or three, and then we'll be off south again (by train), probably to Phuket, depending on what's available.

Just so you know.

The end?

So, we've made it to Hong Kong. By train. From Reading. Which is, by my calculations, about a squillion miles.

For now we're making the most of sunshine and a warm climate, especially after going through Russia on the way here. We've spent a lot of time wandering around Tsim Sha Tsui in Kowloon, and we're heading over to Hong Kong Island later to get the Tramway up to the peak in the evening.

But after all that... what?

We'll be spending a couple of days planning our next month or so of travel. Not sure where it's going to take us, but we're fairly sure that it'll involve Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, and probably a few other places too.

Photos from Shanghai

And another photo post. The rest of them are here.

More pictures

So, here are a couple of photos from Beijing. The rest are here.

Nihao...

We’ve been really lazy with blogging lately and have to play catch up with Beijing and Shanghai. So here goes a potted version of what we’ve been up to.

For reasons we are now regretting, we were only in Beijing for 2 days. This was not enough time and we barely scratched the surface of what the city is all about and definitely plan to go back at some point. The hostel we stayed at was great and we met loads of really lovely people when hanging around in the lounge. One day was spent wandering around the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square, where Pat was disappointed to find that the audio commentary was not given by Roger Moore, as he had read somewhere.

For the other full day we decided to go on a hike along the Great Wall of China which was a great experience, although knackering. We set off early in the morning and the weather was atrocious, drizzling all the way. The wall was surrounded by fog and there was nothing to be seen. There were near vertical climbs and descents throughout which we both really enjoyed, especially when the rain turned to snow. After a few slips and slides, we made it along and down in one piece, but my thigh muscles were hurting so much I could barely walk down steps for 3 days afterwards (I was absolutely fine. Isn’t role reversal a wonderful thing? – Pat). I was amazed by the locals, even if they came just to sell us stuff. They did the same walk every day and didn’t think anything of it. One guy was 72 and took great delight in telling us his age after skipping past us struggling up to the highest tower. The little lady helping me was as strong as an ox. I still don’t know how she didn’t slip wearing leather heeled boots.

Sad to be leaving, we had a farewell coffee with Laurens and Eline before heading to the station and boarding the express train to Shanghai. We arrived 10 hours later, with enough time to check in and have a drink in the expensive hostel bar, the only plus being it was a stone’s throw from our room.

The next morning we went out exploring along Nanjing Road (shoppers’ paradise) to People’s Square. This was when Pat’s hawker counter got into full swing – he was the most popular person with everyone wanting to sell him a watch, a bag, sunglasses… Independently, two groups of young people stopped us and started chatting, asking us where we were from, where we were going etc, which I thought was friendly. 5 minutes into the conversation they were hassling us to go to a tea festival. I would have caved, but Pat had read about this scam where we’d just get sold lots of expensive tourist crap, so we made our excuses. We then decided that, in future, we just wouldn't like tea.

That evening we had a nightcap in the hotel bar. Sitting out on the balcony, overlooking the Bund we tuned into the conversation of some Brits sat next to us. Funnily enough the three of them were from Reading, one of them working out in Shanghai. How small the world is. The next few hours were spent idly chatting – it was nice to be reminded about life back home.

The next few days were spent sightseeing along the Bund, the Pearl Tower, Nuangpu River and in and around Yu Gardens. This was a bit of a miserable experience as the weather wasn’t great. I wasn’t impressed, especially as reports I’d read promised a balmy 20 degrees. No such luck. It was grey, smoggy and cold. All in all, we were quite glad to be leaving Shanghai, and on to Hong Kong...

Too much text...

There's been too much typing on this blog recently, so here's some photos from Mongolia. The rest are here.

Marvellous Mongolia

I woke up at 02:00 when the train pulled up in a noisy Mongolian town on the way to UB, as the locals call it, then fell back to sleep. The next thing I knew Pat was waking me up after I ignored the alarm that went off at 06:30. We got washed and dressed ready for our arrival into UB. Zaya from the hostel we’d arranged met us on the platform. She was a lot more reliable than that Russian place! Laurens and Eline were looking for somewhere to stay and so came with us to check the hostel out. It turned out to be a 5 minute drive from the station, close to the city centre, on the 2^nd Floor of an apartment block. The Zaya Hostel was all 4 apartments on the level and we ended up sharing one of them with Laurens and Eline. It tuned out to be roomy and comfortable. Laurens said it was the most luxurious hostel he’d stayed in, so we thought that was a good sign! Zaya was really friendly and hospitable. She talked to us about all sorts of stuff. She lived in the hostel with her children and husband elsewhere, so I think was glad for the company.

We freshened up and ventured out to explore, stopping off at the State Department Store, the nearest place to get cash. It was just like being in John Lewis with make up and fragrance counters on the Ground Floor, women’s fashion on First Floor etc. Then we headed back outside ending up in Sukhbataar Square, just a few blocks down Peace Avenue. We passed people begging in the street, which sadly included lots of children. Pat stopped to give a cigarette to a guy in a wheelchair who had no fingers. Thankfully he remembered to light it for him before walking away. I was amused by street vendors selling lollipops, cigarettes, coffee beans and phone calls using house phones. One lady was charging for the use of weighing scales, just in case you wanted to know if you’d put on a few pounds. We also saw lots of older men and women wearing traditional tunics. This was unusual as everyone else under 50 was wearing jeans, jackets etc.

After finding a place for lunch overlooking the closed Choijin Monastery we paid a visit to the Mongolian Persecuted Victims Museum closeby. It seems that whilst Hitler was busy in the west, Stalin’s reign of terror was in full swing in the east stamping out Mongolian independence and killing hundreds of thousands of people. Even the practice of Bhuddism was illegal and monks throughout the country were executed.

That evening was spent chilling out back at the hostel, whilst we decided what to do and see over the next few days. After telling Zaya about our jobs, she asked for Pat’s help to fix her internet connection!

I typed up the Listvyanka and Irkutsk blogs the next morning and we headed back out for a day of being tourists. The afternoon was spent in the Natural History Museum looking at dinosaur bones, fossils and lots of stuffed animals. There were also exhibits about wild Tahki horses, which had been reintroduced with help from the UK and other European countries, to save extinction. It was really encouraging to see lots of info on environmental protection throughout the museum. I guess that traditionally the Mongolians have strong ties with their environment, developing from their nomadic roots.

That evening we decided to tag along to a theatre production that Laurens and Eline were going to. None of us had any idea what it was about, but it was the only thing showing, in lieu of traditional Mongolian music and dance troupes who had gone home for the quiet season. It turned out to be a very entertaining evening and was the Mongolian equivalent of X-Factor, only the contestants had to sing in Russian and interludes were filled by local famous artists singing their well known songs, or so we assumed! We could only tell that they were famous if they were brought a bouquet of flowers at the end or during the performance. There were about 12 contestants who performed modern, opera and classical songs sometimes with a backing orchestra. The locals in the audience were taking it all very seriously, supporting the favourites and singing along and were bemused with us, the only 4 Westeners in the building. Afterwards, we went to a Bavarian restaurant for dinner, recommended by Zaya. This place was really popular with the locals and packed to the rafters. Later we realised why. All the locals were waiting for The Lemons, a Mongolian rock band, to come on stage. When they did the place erupted with singing, clapping and swaying. They loved it!

The next morning we were up early to catch the morning ceremony at the Gand Khiid Monastery. The complex was huge with 15 buildings all devoted to Buddhist teachings and prayer. We spent some time watching what was going on in the temples, all of which were filled with monks chanting, occasionally playing instruments and locals praying, sometimes taking a pilgrimage around the perimeter of the temples and turning prayer wheels, if present. The Janraising Datsan was the largest temple and housed a huge 25m tall gold plated Buddha statue. There were many monks milling around the place and we saw many young boys in ceremonies or in school, who’d be looking at Pat with intrigue as soon as we’d enter. We were amused to see some monks making calls on their mobile phones and busily chewing gum mid chant! They were very friendly and outside a nearby smaller monastery a group of young boys said hello and waved as we walked past.

The morning was absolutely freezing even though the sun was out so we went off in search of a café and warm drinks to thaw out. Afterwards we had an hour long search for a working cash machine that liked our cards and managed to circumnavigate the city centre in the process. Finally, we had some cash to get into the State History Museum. Unlike the similar museums we’d been into in Prague and Moscow, I was delighted to find that the exhibits brought us up to current times. It described Chinggis Khaan’s great empire between Vienna and Beijing in the 1200s. How different the story was in the 20^th and 21^st centuries when the country was pillaged by China, Russia and Japan. After a short democratic history of some 15 years, it will be interesting to see how Mongolia develops.

The next day we escaped from UB! We were met by Ganna, our guide and driver outside the hostel at 09:00. After we fought our way out of the city centre traffic, first stop was a newly built gold Buddha monument to the south of the city, surrounded by newly built apartment blocks. We then headed to an adjacent war memorial located at the top of 50 flights of steps. There was a really good view of the city from the top, although it was a struggle to get up there. The sprawling city was beneath us, covered by a thick band of smog generated by a large power station. Lovely. We then got back in the car and travelled out north east of UB towards Terelj. We stopped to look at and climb on a rock formation used by monks, hiding from the Russians. Some 100 monks hid in a tiny hollow space in the middle of the formation, but sadly were all discovered and killed. Afterwards, we were taken to Turtle Rock, strangely enough rocks that looked like a turtle from one side. From the other side it looked like a rabbit. From here I took a 3km horse trek to a nearby monastery and Pat decided to walk, preferring two legs rather than four. The scenery was amazing, we were in a valley surrounded by hills and the sky was a brilliant blue. It was so quiet. When we stopped walking you could have heard a pin drop. The monastery was locked up, but the view back down the valley from the veranda was breath taking. When we got back to the camp at the bottom we had lunch in one of the gers, chatting to Ganna finding out about Mongolians. Earlier he had told us that he worked for the government as a journalist, but decided to be our guide for the day instead of going in to work, to get extra cash. After trying and failing to give sugar cubes to our horses, we headed back to UB. It was alien for the horses to have sugar and their owners said they wouldn’t like it!

That evening we decided to try a Mongolian curry house for dinner. Pat had been longing for his favourite food, including a chicken korma! After an hour of wandering around and trying to find one mentioned in the Lonely Planet guide, we tried for another and found it. The food was good, but you don’t get all the side dishes we’re so used to. However, they did do lassi and the Chinngis beer was good!

The following day was our last full day in UB, so after a lie in we spent it at the Bogd Khan Winter Palace and Choijin Monastery, having a good look around. By the end we were all statued out and went back to the hostel for a rest after a bite to eat.

We were up early on the Sunday ready for our train to Beijing. Laurens and Eline were getting the same train and we managed to flag down a taxi (also known as a private car with a driver looking to make some extra cash) on Peace Avenue and then crammed ourselves and all our luggage into the car. Pat had a huge bag on his lap at the front that the driver had difficulty looking around. We boarded the train and settled in for another overnighter…

Enemy of the State

Allo,

For some reason, this blog falls foul of China's government firewall which blocks questionable content to China's inhabitants, so we can't actually see it ourselves. There's probably some way round it, but I haven't worked it out yet. I'm not even sure whether this is going to post properly or not, but I'll give it a shot anyway.

Wonder what we've said that they don't like? Hope they don't catch us before we get to Hong Kong.

Anyway, hello from Beijing. Unfortunately, because I wasn't really paying attention when I had to tweak our itinerary to fit in with the train times, we're only here for 2 full days, so it's all a bit rushed. Today we had a look round the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square. Tomorrow, we're off on a walking tour of part of the Great Wall. Then we head off to Shanghai the next day.

What we have seen of Beijing so far, though, is very nice. Between us and whoever we're talking to, there's normally enough knowledge of English and/or sign language to get our message across. And if the people trying to sell tourist crap are a bit too persistent, stringing together random German words seems to confuse them enough for us to make our escape.

The hostel here is great. It's in an old courtyard-style building in one of the Hutong districts about 400 yards away from the Forbidden City. The room's tiny, but there's a common-room which is warm, comfortable and the staff are friendly. I'd recommend it.

Now, it's about time for dinner, so we're off to find a restaurant. Or the maybe the night market; Triny's fascinated by the idea of starfish-on-a-stick. Can't say I'm too keen on it myself. I might have to stick to the beef or something equally boring.

Lovely Listvyanka and Seedy Irkutsk

We woke up at 05:30 local time and arrived in Irkutsk at 06:45 with many other local Russians. It was pitch black outside and I was relieved that I didn’t freeze as soon as I stepped off the train – must have been around 0 degrees. We tried to figure out how to pay for tram tickets, to get us to the bus station on the other side of town, some 5km away. After being ignored by locals and misunderstanding Russian instructions from tram and rail station workers, we ran out of ideas and gave in to one of the taxi touts we’d previously declined. Got to the bus station at about 07.30 and bought two tickets to Listvyanka, the closest village on the shore of Lake Baikal some 70km away. I was delighted that the tickets were £1 each. I was not so delighted to be standing outside in the freezing weather for one and a half hours waiting for a bus that didn’t show. Again, we gave in and got a taxi for the journey, bargaining what seemed a good price of 20 roubles per km. We bumped into 2 other Brit guys in the process who were trying to persuade us to go to the Okhlon Island. It was good to hear familiar voices in grey, freezing cold Irkutsk. We told them we had already made a reservation in Listvyanka, got in the taxi and off we went. It was great to be out of the cold.

It was snowing for our journey between Irkutsk and Listvyanka and the drive was slow. We had trouble finding the village we were staying in let alone the hotel, but got there in the end. The taxi deal that seemed so good suddenly didn’t when Pat handed over the money and the driver then pointed at me wanting my share, that he’d forgotten to mention. We should have seen that one coming and ended up giving him more money to resolve things.

The hotel turned out to be a real find. When we arrived one of the odd job guys came out to give us a hand with our luggage, which was handy as I’d sprained something in my right shoulder/neck removing my rucksack and getting into the taxi. I could barely turn my head right on the taxi journey. This guy said nothing to us for the duration of our stay and was nicknamed Igor by me and Monkey Boy by Pat. He spent his time repairing the snow mobiles ready for the winter and doing random jobs about the place, all with no speaking and the same dreary facial expression.

We were taken up a slippery snow covered track and lead into the grounds of numerous little log cabins which overlooked the lake. Our cabin was lovely. There was a little porch, entrance lobby leading into our room and an ensuite WC. It was just the right size for all our stuff and had a wood burner and numerous electric heaters to keep us toasty. One of the windows overlooked Lake Baikal and snow capped mountains in the distance – lovely.

We dropped our bags off and went for a wander around Krestovka, the village. This was stretched along the coastline of the lake for a mile or so and comprised small wooden houses, many bars and a monstrosity of a hotel in the hub, opposite the bus station and small port. The sky was grey although the sun was trying to break out and the place looked miserable. It was quiet and we were the only tourists around, or so it seemed. We weren’t thinking too highly about this ramshackle looking place which rich Russians supposedly flock to during the summer.

Looking for a cash machine and a drink we decided the best place to try was the big, ugly hotel. On our way inside, a wedding car had pulled up and the bride was on her way inside. We had seen loads of wedding parties zooming around Moscow having pictures taken at all the tourist attractions, so it didn’t seen strange to see the same here. We were in luck; there were 2 cash machines in the lobby. We walked into the bar to find it was empty with 3 staff behind the counter. One of them was doing his best Little Britain impression and looked like Matt Lucas: bit of a belly, blue and white stripy t-shirt and appropriate hat. We had a drink and decided to leave when we realised they had no wifi and bad Russian house music started to play.

Taking it easy because of my shoulder, we walked back to the cabin to settle in and have a snooze. The early start and change to Irkutsk time were taking their toll. Later on Pat found the shower in use which, fortunately, was not an external kind we had previously thought. There were no locks on the doors, so not wanting to be caught in the buff we decided to go together and stand guard for each other. I was nice and let Pat go first, only to discover that it broke as soon as Pat had finished. We thought that he’d used up the water in their reserve, but found out the following day that it was just that the shower head had blocked. Anyhow, the crux of it was that after the 4 days of the train journey from Moscow I still hadn’t had a shower. My hair was so greasy, you could have fried an egg on it. I spent the rest of the evening asking Pat how it felt to be clean.

The next morning we both woke up at 10:00. I was still sleepy and feeling lazy so eventually got out of bed at 13.30. My shoulder was feeling better. We went for a walk in the other direction, to see what delights Listvyanka had to offer. The day was much better than its predecessor. The sun was shining and there was a clear blue sky over the lake. We walked along the shoreline heading east, past wooden huts and a few cafes and hotels. We saw a few more people out for a stroll, mostly Russians with their families. On our way back to Krestovka, to check out bus times back to Irkutsk the following day, we saw Andrei, the hotel owner, on his boat on the lake with 2 other guys. He was looking very pleased and we exchanged waves. It later turned out that it had taken him 30 days to build the wooden boat and this was the maiden voyage. No wonder he looked so pleased. There were also some 6 divers in the lake outside the Diving Club. Pat was intrigued watching them, but wasn’t envious as it was so cold. One of them was having problems flailing around trying to get his fins off.

That evening we had our banya experience. It was basically a sauna with the added benefit (?!) of being thrashed with birch branches. Hardcore banya enthusiasts sit in the sauna for a while and when they get too hot run to the lake and plunge themselves into the icy waters to cool off. You can understand that we were not up for that part, but it did get exceedingly hot. I was surprised how long Pat endured the sauna for. I thought he’d last just minutes! Thank goodness the shower head got replaced so I could finally be clean.

The next day we were up and packed and Andrei gave us a lift to the bus station at 10:00. My shoulder was much better by now. This time the bus did arrive and we took it back to Irkutsk with lots of locals who turned out to all be going to market. We found the hotel we were looking for and checked in. We then headed out to see what Irkutsk had to offer, not hoping for much, going from what we’d seen already and the limited information Lonely Planet had to offer. It was an industrial town with many old and dilapidated-looking buildings. The centre was on one street, running north to south and housed all the shops and restaurants. We had lunch in a plush looking café, surrounded by rich looking Russians and then went back to the hotel to get on the internet. It had been a week since we’d last checked emails and we were getting withdrawal symptoms.

We were up early the next morning at 04:00, ready to get the train at 06:30. The taxi we had booked was early and waiting for us outside and when we checked out they gave us breakfast-to-go in a plastic bag each, which I’d previously asked about. What service – we were impressed! I hadn’t slept very well and was thinking about Mand and Sam after chatting on Facebook. Then Mand sent us a text at 01:00 telling us she was in Gourmet Burger Kitchen. Both of us were woken up and started salivating – not good. To top it off the hotel walls were made of paper and I could hear the people upstairs having sex.

In the train station we bumped into Mark and Siobhain who were sitting in the main concourse. They had spent one day in Irkutsk and took a drive out to Listvyanka. They both looked ready to leave, just like us.

We got on the train and got settled in our compartment, which had space for 2 other passengers this time. I recognised some tourists who’d been in the same café as us in Krestovka who were in the next compartment and we had a chat and introduced ourselves. Laurens and Eline were from the Netherlands and were taking the Tran-Siberian to Beijing, planning to travel for 6 months. We slept for a few hours and then spent the rest of the journey to Ulaan Bataar chatting to our new neighbours and reading stuff about Mongolia. Pat was very pleased to be leaving Russia……..

Pics from Russia

Here are some pictures. The rest are here for Moscow, and here for Irkutsk.

We live!

Allo,

Don't worry, we are still alive. It's just that Russian trains haven't reached the technological level of having wireless yet, and Lake Baikal was connected but only at dial-up speeds. Because of all this internet deprivation, there is now a whole chunk of stuff below this post. Enjoy.

Anyway, tomorrow we get on the train (again), leave Russia (hooray!) and head off to Mongolia (at last). Hopefully we'll have some more photos up soon.

P & T

Who are you calling a snob?

Four nights is a long time to be stuck on one train, especially when you come from a country that thinks that London to Edinburgh in 8 hours is a long ride. It also doesn’t help that by the time we get to Irkutsk, we’ll be five hours ahead of where we set off from. Not having a map that shows most of the stations that you stop at along the way just adds another measure of weirdness.

Like anything, there are good and bad points. Smiley Chef Lady, as we’ve come to call her, made it obvious that our assumption that Russians rarely smile was wrong. The Provodnitsa (carriage attendant) also had a shot at proving us wrong, but her seeming insistence to stick to the other stereotypes of her job (drag queen haircut, built like an ox) don’t exactly make it easy for her to manage a smile with any real sincerity.

The beds are… comfortably functional, you might say. They’re quite narrow, but comfortable enough when you’re lieing down. Sitting on them, however, quickly gets uncomfortable as the padding is quite thin, and the train bounces you around like a rubber ball on some parts of the track. The bedding is nice and clean, though, with two sheets, a blanket, a towel, a tea-towel for some reason, and a couple of big pillows.

The cabin is quite small, and thankfully we weren’t in second class where we’d be sharing it with two other people. Fitting two beds into a small room takes up most of the space. Fitting four beds in must be very tight. We’ll find out when we get the train from Irkutsk to Ulaanbataar, luckily only for one night..

The restaurant car is quite pleasant. It’s the one place on the train where you can have a cigarette in the warmth; on the rest of the train you need to get to the end of the carriage by the door to the next coach, where there’s no heating. It’s snowing outside, which makes the temperature even less welcoming. The fact that you can smoke in the restaurant car means that you tend to end up with people sitting in there all day having a chat and a few beers. And a few more. And more still. By the evening, you walk into a carriage that has several very drunk Russians in it, who either glare at you or, worse still, try to have a conversation without the benefit of a mutual language.

The food is also surprisingly good, though the fried chicken had enough garlic in it that it’ll be repeating on me for another week, and the soup was a bit of a lucky dip what with having at least two types of meat, some peppers, olives and even a slice of lemon. It was all served by a man who seemed to know four words of English: soup, beef, chicken and fish. He was assisted by Smiley Chef Lady in the kitchen, and a woman who had a good shout at the other occupants of the carriage when they seemed to be trying to be too friendly with us. Alcohol obviously lends you courage; I wouldn’t have wanted to piss her off, but the lads didn’t back down as quickly as I’d have expected.

I’ll not mention the toilet facilities too much, other than to say that they started smelling bad after the first day, and they flush straight onto the tracks. Pity the railworkers in this country. As if the snow and ice wasn’t bad enough.

The scenery has been much the same since we left Warsaw. Maybe it’s the time of the year, but we haven’t seen sunlight in over a week. Foggy mornings, grey skies, forests and industrial monstrosities do not a pleasant landscape make. Though in the last day or so it’s started snowing, which at least looks a bit nicer. I realise that you’re not going to get the best buildings next to the railway line, but some of the factories that have been thrown up along the route are just concrete monsters with no effort made at hiding or camouflaging them. Most of them seem to be derelict, too.

All in all, I’m glad I’ve done it, though I wouldn’t rush to do it again.

The Trans-Siberian to Irkutsk

We left the hotel with our luggage at 20.30 and headed for the metro to get to Yarovsky train station for the 21.30 train to Irkutsk. On the metro a tipsy matronly ex-army middle aged lady decided that she would lead us to the correct platform. It obviously appeared to her that we were incapable of getting ourselves there……or maybe she was just being kind. Communication between us was a real problem and she was getting very frustrated that we couldn’t understand her. We got to where we needed to be and she stood with us on the platform talking at us in Russian. We offered some money and cigarettes for her help, but she declined and eventually we said our goodbyes thanking her over and over again, as that was the only Russian word we knew would have any affect.

We found our carriage and walked down the corridor to find our cabin to see that Mark and Siobhain were in the cabin next door to us. We said that we’d bump into them again, but we didn’t know it would be so soon! Small world. We got settled in and bedded down for the night.

The first full day on the train was spent reading and solving puzzles. I also slept for a bit. The weather outside was grey, misty and uninviting. In the evening we wandered down to the restaurant car to see what was on offer. Pat was offered soup and chicken and the very friendly barman and lady offered me salad and a fried potato dish when I explained I was a veggie. Siobhain joined us for dinner and the 3 of us attracted the attention of 3 drunk Russians, one of whom was busily helping himself to our beer and spilling it all over the table. They were harmless enough, asking where we were from and assuming we were American. One of them, however, was getting fighty making provoking gestures at Pat, so we decided to leave. The rest of the evening was spent playing cards with Mark and Siobhain. It was good to have a chat and get to know them. I had also discovered a liking for Russian beer and managed to drink the equivalent of 4 pints by the end of the night, unusual for me.

The next morning we were woken up by crappy Russian music playing on the train radio system. The dials in our cabin were broken and off was not an option, unluckily for us. I was feeling ropy. We arrived at Omsk where Mark and Siobhain were getting off to break up their journey. We said our goodbyes after a few pics were taken. The rest of the day was spent in our cabin reading, playing cards, yahtzee and backgammon. All of which Pat won. We watched the film Children of Men to make an even more gloomy atmosphere!

We woke up to see a blanket of snow everywhere and I instantly felt cold and started panicking that I didn’t have enough clothes and would freeze. We got up early to adjust from Moscow time to local Irkutsk time to ensure that we get off the train at the right time and not too jet (??) lagged. Strange how you can get it on a train. We spent the day lounging and reading, looking forward to getting off the train and stretching our legs.

From Russia with Love

We arrived at Moscow Belarussky station at 13.00 local time only to find that the guide who we’d arranged to meet us wasn’t there. Good start. Neither of us had any roubles so we went off in search of money, however, the banks we found were shut for lunch and the exchange counter staff we spoke to didn’t understand us and certainly weren’t willing to help. So we decided to walk to the hotel with the added problem that our map was in the roman characters and the street names were in cyrillics! However, we found our way by counting the number of streets we passed. On the way we tried to use bank ATMs only to find that our cards had been deactivated for security. They obviously hadn’t been listening to our earlier instructions. Better safe than sorry I suppose. Great start we both thought – in a country we didn’t understand with no money!

The hotel turned out to be a 2^nd floor apartment in a tenement block with 3 guest bedrooms, kitchen, shower room and WC. We were not impressed to find that we got to our room by going through another bedroom and that neither room had a lock. At least we had the whole apartment to ourselves, for the time being at least. On the plus side there was a free wireless connection and the location was good (albeit neighbourhood dubious). We were just off the main drag Tverskya, leading down to the Kremlin.

After settling in the best we could and updating the blog, checking emails etc we wandered down to Red Square and had quick look around to get our bearings. We were both shell-shocked to be in a place where we could read and understand very little. On the way back to the ‘hotel’ we stopped for dinner in a Japanese restaurant, mainly because we could see they had menus in English as well as Russian! Not a bad meal – I had sushi and Pat had noodles. We then ambled back up the street for a quiet night in.

After a restless nights sleep, wondering who would walk in and when, we woke up at 9.00 the next day. In preparation for some sight seeing we went to an Italian restaurant for breakfast, but due to language problems ended up having pasta. It was nearly lunchtime anyway!

We had a proper look around Red Square and GUM, the department store, and took photos there, as requested by my dad! We were amused to hear that a Muir was a founder of the store. Afterwards we popped over to St Basil’s cathedral to see what all the fuss was about. What a beautifully odd little place. I’ve never seen so many little rooms and chambers in a place of worship. Then we made our way over Red Square to the State History Museum. I found this a bit of a disappointment. Like the previous museums we’d been to they had relics of pre-historic man, stone age man upto medieval man and it stopped there. I wanted to know about more recent times. This was a history museum after all.

Tourist hell was in full swing outside. You could have your photo taken with 2 Cossacks with axes, the token Russian leader lookalike of the day, performing monkeys in pink tracksuits and even a tethered eagle with talons the length of my fingers. No thanks. Tourists were throwing coins over their shoulders for good luck outside Resurrection Gate whilst elderly Moscovites gathered around to compete for the discarded coins.

We decided to check opening times for the Kremlin when disaster struck. Looking like obvious tourists and easy prey we were sprung on by policemen wanting to see stamped visa documents. We didn’t have these and understood that the hotel was sorting them out for us, completely legit. ‘There is problem’ the English speaking one said and threatened that we’d be taken to the police station to pay the fine. Knowing no better we ended up paying him 5000 roubles on the spot just to get our passports back. What a scam. Such an easy way for them to make money.

Dinner that night, surprisingly, was in close proximity to where we were staying. We’d found a recommended American diner-style restaurant which turned out to be very popular with the locals and busy. We sat outside on a table warmed by outdoor heaters wearing the blankets provided and were served by staff dressed up for Halloween. There were witches, a skeleton, a babushka and oddly enough a sailor and miner (we weren’t sure about them either!). We got back to the ‘hotel’ and had the suspicion that someone else had moved in so were keeping quiet in case they were asleep.

We woke up the next day and Pat bumped into our new flat mates on the way out to have a cigarette. They turned out to be Brits, Mark and Siobhain, who seemed very friendly. They’d flown into Moscow the previous night and were, funnily enough, arranging tickets for the Trans-Siberian! Why else would you be in Moscow!? They went out and we finished getting ready and made our way to Gorky Park on the metro. Mayakovskya station, like many others, was really elaborately decorated with arched ceilings and marble walls. I couldn’t believe how fast the escalators were running – god help little old ladies. I was also disappointed that there were no babushkas manning the escalators, instead there was a person in a box. I guess this is the new Russia after all.


Gorky Park was a bit of a let down. Maybe we’d come in the wrong season, but it was a Saturday, the place was deserted and there were few plants and flowers for an ornamental garden. We wandered around the amusement park which was like a bad alternative to Butlins, if you can imagine it. Needless to say we didn’t go on any rides. We took a walk over and along the other side of the river and got the metro back to near the Kremlin where we had coffee in the Russian equivalent to Starbucks. Tired of walking we tried to contact a cinema showing American films in the Radisson, however, discovered that this had since been closed and that all other cinemas showing films in English were not today. Instead we watched Smokin’ Aces on Pat’s laptop.

When the film had finished Ruslin, a hotel helper, was showing a Russian guy around the flat. We were horrified to hear that he’d be in the room we had to go through to get to ours from the following day onwards. Over dinner in a local creperie we discussed our options and decided to book a room in the nearby Marriott. Even though it was expensive, we figured enough was enough and we wanted some privacy and security.

So the next day we gleefully packed our bags and made our way down Tverskaya to the Marriott and were able to check-in straight away. We had to wait for half an hour before Pat could get his passport back so spent the time doing laundry and hanging it all out to dry. We spent the afternoon wandering around Kitay Gorod, to the east of the Kremlin and trying to avoid policemen! The area has some of the oldest buildings in the city and it was pleasant enough. We were amused to see a real live camel with keeper standing outside what we assumed was a middle-eastern restaurant. Both were looking grumpy, but then that was normal for these parts, we thought. That evening we decided to make the most of our comfy hotel room and got room service for dinner. I was delighted to watch 2 episodes of Eastenders back to back on BBC Prime, whilst Pat read one of his books!

The next day we went for a walk in the early afternoon, before checking out as late as possible. Leaving the luggage at the hotel, we hopped between internet cafes trying to get a connection which either wasn’t there or was sketchy and cut out without any warning. To kill time we went for dinner at a Czech Pilsner restaurant. Great if you like meat and beer and lots of it – not so great for me.