CHINA - Beijing

We got up early, after the interesting border crossing the night before, in order to catch a glimpse of the spectacular scenery leading up to Beijing. Not all of it was as spectacular as we had expected although we did catch sight of the Great Wall of China along one stretch. The train meandered through the mountains before heading over flatter land towards Beijing. We arrived early afternoon.

We left Beijing main train station into a huge crowd of people. We noticed a girl wearing a hoody with the name of the hostel we had booked on it, we told her we had a booking and she said she would take us there. She was obviously drumming up more business as more and more people arrived. We piled into a mini bus and the 3 or 4 Chinese girls crammed into what space they could. They were very friendly and smiley, the best welcome to a city so far, a definite good start for Beijing. After travelling down the main roads we got to some very narrow streets, "The Hutongs." Our hostel is on one of these streets and it is a fantastic place, always bustling inside and out. Loads of cabels cross overhead of these narrow streets and traders encroach on them. It is definitely the best hostel we have been to so far.

After chucking our stuff in our room we ventured out into the mad surroundings. It is a fantastic area, just south of Tiaanmen Square, everywhere we go people shout hello and try to beckon you into their shops. Not got too annoying yet, they say hello we say hello back!

We spent the first few days here doing a few obvious things.

The Summer Palace took up most of our first day. It is a huge park with fantastic architectural wonders. While here i was asked to pose for a photo with a lady for some reason, as was Karl and Clem, bizarre.

We spent a large proportion of a day at the Olympic park. We went into the birds nest stadium and watercube, both of which are truly spectacular, however the stadium is a little disappointing, all that effort to make the outside spectacular and none of it is evident from the inside. It just looks like any other stadium internally.

We also visited the Lama Temple an extensive temple complex culminating in a 20m high Buddha statue which is entirely carved from one tree trunk.

Another day was at the Temple of Heaven. A series of architectural marvels including a sacrificial circular alter, the echo wall and main temple itself. Circular in form to echo the sky with blue tiles to represent the heavens.

We spent a couple of lazy days looking around the Hutongs which are awesome, i love the whole barterring thing.
Before starting our China tour we had a day trip to the "nearby" city of Datong, 7 hours away by train. While there we took in the sights of the Yungang Caves and Hanging Temple both of which were remarkable.

Upon returning to Beijing we stepped into Tiananmen Square for the first time. What a huge space, 800m long by 500m wide, the largest square in the world! The final day before the tour we hired bicycles. A must for anyone visiting. A great way to explore the city but also a real eye-opener, fun and hairaising, at one point we crossed what must be the widest road i have ever seen, 6 lanes each way + a 4 lane cycle path! So roughly 16 lanes in total! We cycled to Jingshan Park which is a man-made hill park directly North of the Forbidden City positioned according to Fung Shui and made of the waste earth from the Forbidden City Moat.

From the top you get one of the best views of Beijing, 360 degrees. We then ventured into Beihai Park right nextdoor. After crossing the 16 lane road, we cycled down Tiananmen Square and found the hotel we would stay in the following night when starting the tour.

I can't believe i almost forgot to mention going to see the CCTV Building, still in construction, (OMA).

Also we saw the National Centre for Performing Arts.

During our time around that area we samped some excellent food, most famously Beijing Duck where nothing is wasted. First of all the skin and meat is served with the pancakes psring onions and cucumber all topped with sauce, just when you are starting to get full they bring all the bones which have been sauteed in flour and psices to nibble on and then finally a stock soup made from the bones, excellent! Another night we ate in a grotty cafe restaurant in our Hutong. Rubbish everywhere some cockroaches on the wall, but the food was excellent and the fried rice is yet to be beaten, the best rice i have ever had!

We said a sorry fairwell to the excellent Leo Hostel after lunch on the 23rd November and headed towards Harmony Hotel. Once there we checked in and met the group of people we would spend the next 3 weeks with. Our tour leader Lucy (Chinese), Jakob and Katryn (Norweigen), Ivor (British), Aoifer and Eamon (Irish), Tara and Justine (Irish and American), Madonna and Katelin (Australian). First impressions were excellent, a nice bunch of people. We had a meal together and got chatting.

Next day we had a trip organised to a section of the Great Wall of China, Jinshang Lin to Simatei about 11km. It is an excellent stretch, far enough not to have less tourists and it is one of the sections which is more orignal than other parts. The walk was hard going, steps up and down following the contours of the landscape. One section of 103 steps was particularly difficult having more in common with a ladder than stairs. The views were however spectacular and well worth the effort!

That evening we went to an Acrobatics show, brilliant.

Next day, Karl and I woke up early to visit Mao in his Mausoleum. Then upon returning we went to the Urban Planning Museum (more interesting than it sounds) and went to a very interesting area called 798 Art District in the Far NorthEast of the City. The area is made up of old industrial buildings transformed into Artisit studios. The array of artwork was vast. We had a drink with the group that evening which was another excellent way to get to know them a bit more.

Final day in Beijing was busy. First we had a tour of the Forbidden City which was interesting followed by a visit to a charity organisation called Huiling in the Hutongs north of the forbidden city. Our tour operator Intrepid tries to offer support to them by bringing foreigners to visit. They teach people with learning difficulties practical ways to subsidise their living. They made us a gorgeous pancake roll and dumpling lunch. This followed by a request for someone to play the part of Father Christmas in a performance they were about to put on. Father Christmas was traditional represented as the Emporer and should have a dark beard. Everyone turned and looked at me! So i got whisked outside and dressed in the finest Emporers outfit and helped hugely in the performance. This was followed by much music and dancing by everyone! no one escaped. Karl the donkey and Clem the old lady. We then had a Chinese Calligraphy class taught by a very strict student! All in all a fantastic experience!

That evening we boarded the Hardsleeper train to Xi'an, most famous for it's Terracotta Warrors. More to come!

MONGOLIA - Ulaanbaatar

The train to Mongolia took us through some remarkable scenery, roaming hills accentuated by the occasional mountain.

For a while the route followed a river in which were thousands of floating "ice lily pads." Around corners ice was forming changing the shape of the river.

We had heard rumours about the Russian/Mongolia border control but nothing really prepared us for the rediculousness of the whole situation. We got to the border station and remained there for 4.5 hours, starting with 10 carriages which, in that time turned into 1, ours, with 4 people on! After toing and froing we eventually got away from the station in one carriage now full! We went through no mans land and got to the other side. We would remain there for 3 hours! All in all a large proportion of the 1.5 day journey was spent doing nothing at a station, red tape is rediculous!

We woke early in the morning to arrive in at Ulaanbaatar station, it was very cold, but when we got there there was no one waiting for us! After a couple of hours another train arrived and we found our guide along with 2 couples, Eric and Kathryn from Melbourne and Graham and Sue from England. We had breakfast with our guide in a brilliant local eatery and were then shown around the city including Buddhist temple, and "Eyes Wisdom" Buddha Statue. Naki, our guide, took us for lunch at a local restaurant cafe, the food was very nice and then proceeded to tell us how he wanted to sing for us! Ominous. We got taken into a side room where he proceeded to select "let it be," Beatles. I can tell you now, that i don't think any of us thought we would be sitting in a room with a Mongolian guy singing Let it be to us, but its a true story. After a couple of more traditional songs we left in the mini bus towards our Ger camp in the Mongolian Countryside.!

The little minibus took us for a bout 45 mins down some very bumping roads after exiting the craziness of the city, suddenly we veered off the road onto mud, was this intentional? Of course it was, we started travelling over icy hills, past Nomad Ger camps and while heading down hill we caught glimpse of our camp in the distance, beautiful.

We got out of the mini bus, it was bloody cold! We got shown our Ger inside it was beautiful, not what we had expected. All the wood had be decorated with traditional patterns and the stove in the middle made the whole space very very warm, almost too much so! Later we had a gorgeous diner as a group and had a quick walk in the below freezing landscape. The stars were out in force, only obscured by the brightness of the moon which kept the whole landscape light enough to walk around without a torch. We slept well that night.

Next morning after a typically gorgeous Mongolian breakfast we went Mongolian horseback riding! A friendly Nomad brought some very calm horses and took us into the landscape. After half an hour or so i lost all feeling in my feet despite the two pairs of warm winter socks! Later i tried my very cold hand at Mongolia Archery.

Final full day we went to see a local Nomad who kindly invited us into his Ger, gave us tea and anything else he had to eat, traditional cakes, sweets etc. They are such generous people. After dinner that evening we had a couple for beers. Then the beers ran out, only one thing for it, onto the Mongolian Vodka. I brought my Ipod into the Ger, which had a stereo, and put some Beatles on for Naki. After 4 bottles of vodka between the 6 of us, air guitar to Led Zepplin and more we were a little merry, some of us more than others! Not to mention any names but Clem and Katheryn were wasted! lol. Night in a Ger lasted until about 1.30 or 2.


The next day we got on the mini bus back to Ulaanbaatar, a little later than planned. Naki looked like he had enjoyed himself the night before! We made a few unscheduled stops on the way back for Clem, but eventually got to our hotel. Looking around Ulaanbaatar for the afternoon it became clear that one day there would be enough, not my favorite place on the trip. That night we met up to have dinner together once more. The food was gorgeous, Uzbek cuisine.

Next morning we all headed to the station and boarded the train that would take us to Beijing. As it turned out almost everyone in our carriage was English speaking, the Western carriage as it became known. We were in the next cabin to Katheryn and Eric who were sharing with an Irish couple, we were sharing with a guy from Hong Kong, elsewhere in the carriage were Americans, Australians, more Irish and more English. The two Mongolian families on board must have felt a little out of place!

The train journey through the rest of Mongolia was very interesting, highlights including Brown Camels in the wild and the sparce undulating landscape of the Gobi desert. After most of the day on the train we arrived at the next border. The usual immigration and customs procedures followed and then the less usual happenings on the Chinese side of the border. We were told that it would take 3 hours on that side which we all groaned at the prospect of, but the time past quickly as we experience the changing of the train wheels first hand. Carriages get pushed into a train shed where huge jacks lift up individual carriages and new wheels are put in position. This was interesting at first but took a long time, luckily we were entertained by a Chinese Policeman who decided the best way to keep warm was by practicing his martial arts and Michael Jackson moves. The whole western carriage witnessed the highlight, the moonwalk back to his position! Legend! Karl got some of it on video.

RUSSIA - Irkutsk (Lake Baikal)

The scenery was spectacular in places and neverending in others on the journey across Siberia. A Russian guy called Sergei was also in our cabin and was very quiet for the first day and a bit. On the last day on the train when we saw proper snow and braved the outside at short stops we met a Norweigen guy. He joined us in our cabin for some serious vodka drinking and later Sergei returned form the restaurant car and joined us also. We pollished off a lot and somehow all started to understand each other, or so we thought! We shared out our food, bread cheese ham he shared his Red Fish. It was excellent.

We got picked up in Irkutsk by driver and guide and got whisked away to Lake Baikal. What a beautiful place. We stayed in a village called Listvinyenke (sp) in a traditional log house with a nice lady called Olga. We experiance a tradition Russian Banya (sauna) which was their washing method as they had no running water. We had a quick tour of the village and later Karl and I went to the edge of the lake at night. It was very cold, so cold that having my hand out of my glove for 3 seconds made it hurt, about -20 we think, the clear dark sky with bright stars made it worth it. It was -14 some of the next day, perfect for snow mobiling apart from there was no snow. Quad biking was arranged instead. It was brilliant fun travelling down the valley over frozen streams, snow, mud, dirt, fields i got the bike clem and i were sharing stuck in the stream at one point when the 3 inch ice broke.The following day we walked up to the local ski lift and went to the look out point, spectacular, we then got chased down the hill by a group of small birds.They persued us for about 30 minutes.
We returned to Irkutsk the next day and looked around for a few hours before getting on the next train, the train to Ulaanbaatar the capital of Mongolia.

RUSSIA - Yekaterinburg

We got picked up from the station in (Y)ekaterinburg and got taken to the hotel. He was a very funny guy called Sergei. Next day we had a tour which was organised as part of the Trans-sib trip, around the city by a guy called Gleb. We saw an old KGB headquaters complete with old soviet tanks and the Chechnya memorial (Black Tulip). Then we headed to the Church of Our Saviour on the Spilt Blood which was built as a memorial to the Romanov family, the father was the last Tsar of Russia. The were murdered in there own home, on the site by the Bolsheviks. The start of the tour was quite intense but it later melowed when we took in the city centre. The following day we had a planned trip to a Traditional Siberian Village about 2 hours away. This was a real highlight. Taken by our guide Anna and a local lady, we looked around the traditional buildings learning how things used to be done and we then went into their village hall to be confront with 9 elderly ladies and an accordian player. They proceeded to sing and dance for us for about 20 minutes. It was fantastic and we had our photo with them after. We then had a horse and cart ride around the village and came back for a gorgeous traditional lunch including salad, soup and dumplings all washed down with the local tipple Samogon which is apparently made from anything in nature, i appreciated the cough mixture flavours but i dont think Karl or Clem were as keen. Sergei was trying to get me to have more and more! We got on the train the next day to journey through Siberia itself. It is the longest leg of jounrey we will make in 5 months, 2 and a half days on the train!

Russia - Moscow

We were staying about 10 mins walk from Red Square. As with the hostel in St Petersburg it was very difficult to find, advertising seems to be non existent and they are always on one floor of a delapidated apartment building. We used the first morning to do washing, check emails and update blogs. While looking for the hostel we met a guy from Singapore and one from Hong Kong, Joe and Wilson.

We had some breakfast with them in a coffee shop and when we parted they gave us their emails so that we can contact them if we would like to see a friendly face later on in our travels. After blogging we popped down to the legendary Red square.

It was smaller than i had imagined, The Kremlin and Lenins Mausoleum opposite and St Basil's to the left. I soon realised, while looking around the square that the building opposite The Kremlin is The Goom, which according to Karl, is much like Bluewater. One of my tutors (Ben Adams) told me to research the Goom for my thesis design project, which I obviously didnt do that well not realising it was on Red Square. Anyways, the Goom is a shopping centre which has grown since it was simple market traders stalls. It was moved away from the Kremlin at a later date when a fire amongst the stalls set light and burnt down a previous wooden Kremlin. Apparently the present Kremlin is Moscow's 4th. The Goom is gorgeous inside seperated into 3 huge 3 storey atriums with shops, bars and restaurants on every side. Fantastic. Later that evening Karl and I decided to venture out for a walk. We thought an evening walk around the Kremlin's walls would be a great way to spend the time.

Unfortunately it proved to be a quite expensive walk. At the far side of the Kremlin we got stopped by a local Copper who blatently wanted to earn a bit extra. They told us that our registration should have been done by that time (lie) and we would have to pay a fine. The arrangement could be done privately or at the station, no uesses needed for which we chose. What a waste of money! Clem thought it was a little amusing.

The next day we ventured into the Kremlin and had a nose around, very nice, although it does seem to be a reoccurant theme that the authorities do try and make things difficult for visitors not allowing us into certain parts which we were supposed to be able to get in etc, ie the Armoury. We decided to leave it for the next day.

We transfered to the hotel after two nights at the hostel which was the start of our Russian Experience Trans-sib tour. A nice lady, Lina showed us around some of the city. It was a fantastic way to learn about the city particularly areas untouched by the bloody tourists. We saw some of the older parts of the city and went to an area thought of as Mosocws equivalent to Covent Garden. Next to it is the evidence of Stalin's meglomanic visions for Moscow. He cut through all the historic streets with a huge road bordered with concrete highrise blocks which the locals seem to refer to as the Teeth. One of the day's highlights ad to be the Moscow Metro, pictures below!
We got picked up by a driver to go to the station the next day and boarded the train to Yekaterinburg. The train took about a day and a half to journey through the rolling scenery in which time we joined in some vodka drinking with some locals, tried to communicate with a Russian sharing with us and entertained ourselves with cards, reading and music. I thought that a train ride of this length would be difficult, but the time flew by.

I will upload photos when i can.