Orient Express

We arrived safely in Beijing on the 17th and it was so great to have Susanna's brother, Andrew, meet us at the train station and take us to his apartment where we were to stay for the next week - and oh, what an apartment. Maybe it was the combination of having to travel for 6 weeks staying in random hostels together with eating unusual food, or maybe it was just we were hot and tired but, whatever - it felt like an oasis, the closest thing to home yet. Clean bathroom, large living room, food to eat in the kitchen.... sigh!
When we found our feet, we did venture out of the apartment though! That first night, we had dinner at the Drum and Gong restaurant in the Nuanluogu hutong and, over the last week we have eaten at some other really great restaurants too.
There is a lot to see in Beijing and we had to resign ourselves to the fact that we simply couldn't see it all. What we did see (through all the smog - mm, nice) was very cool - TianTan (The Temple of Heaven), the Forbidden City and Tian anmen Square, the Confucious Temple, and the Drum and Bell Towers were all rather splendid. We also got to do our fair share of shopping at the 798 Art District and some of the cool markets here - Yashow and the Zoo market were pretty impressive.
Probably the highlight of our trip though was not seeing something in Beijing itself but getting out of the city to Mutianyu to walk along the Great Wall of China! It was incredible. It was pretty hot but it wasn't as crowded as we had thought and even with the people around, there was a sense of peaceful magnificence. We walked all the way off the restored section of the wall to a point of "wild" wall and it was just so cool to be there. Afterwards, we had lunch at this really great social enterprise, the Schoolhouse Restaurant, and got to see some of the glass blowing they did there too.
For now, though, it's time to say good bye to Beijing and hello to New Zealand! So, for the moment our travels are over but we will still keep you updated about our next big adventure in NZ... watch this space.

Mongolia - Part 2!

The last 2 full days in Mongolia, we took a trip organised by the sustainable tour group, Ger to Ger, out to Terelj National Park where we met 3 very different nomadic families. Although Ger to Ger had given us a useful orientation, some of the other information they gave was a bit lacking. After getting off at the wrong bus stop in the main town, we just made it (with the assistance of some friendly locals) back in time to get the minibus out to the Park. Then, we got off at the wrong stop (again!) so had to walk further on but we soon met our first host who took us by ox cart to his home where we had a really nice lunch with the rest of the family.

The park is a mixture of forested hillsides and green river valleys with some crazy rock formations thrown in. After lunch, we got to enjoy more of the scenery when we travelled by horse to the next family, where we were to spend the night in their second ger. In many respects, this family seemed the most authentic and we definitely had the best time here. We had a really nice evening meal and played a game with knucklebones until it was too dark to see. The next morning, we got up really early and had a chance to milk a cow, try our hand at archery, have a yum breakfast, and climb the nearby hill to get an amazing view across the valley. Then, it was back on an ox cart for a long trip to our 3rd and final family's ger for lunch before heading back to UB. The weather was stunning until about 20 minutes before we got to the last ger and then it rained. Hard. We spent a lot of the afternoon, sitting in the ger (being somewhat ignored as our hosts had their neighbours visiting as well) trying to keep dry. Fortunately the weather cleared enough for us to get back to the village in time for the bus.

We were pretty tired when we made it back to our hostel but we managed to have just enough energy to pack our bags for our early morning train departure the next day to Beijing....

Running to (?!) the Mongol Hoardes

Okay, so we didn't run, we took the train.... but we did wonder at times if going by foot might be just as quick... We hopped on to the train and were greeted with a much more modern carriage almost entirely full with foreigners (and only a handful of Russians), which was a bit of a contrast from our earlier journey. Our compartment was also a lot cleaner and more modern - it even had a TV (not that it worked but we were still impressed). Probably the most traumatic aspect of the trip was the border crossing - 5 hours on the Russian side and 3 hours on the Mongolian side - this is no joke! Fortunately, we were allowed off the train for some of this time which was great to get some fresh air (30 degrees with a full compartment and no fan or airconditioning is not our idea of the perfect sauna!) and to use the toilets at the train stations as the ones on the train were locked for this entire time. The actual paperwork, though, went very smoothly. This trip was a lot more scenic than the stint to Irkutsk in that there was a lot more variety - as well as forests and grasslands, there were rivers, villages, nomadic settlements with ger encampments, and a lot more sense of the unknown.
We arrived in Ulaan Baator early on the morning of the 11th and were met by our hostelier - this was a huge bonus as the hostel would be a bit of a walk with all our gear. The hostel room turned out, much to our pleasant surprise, to be an apartment with it's own kitchen. The bathroom also actually contained a bath (!!) and we both had the best shower here that we have had since leaving London before heading out to town. The first day was pretty chilled out. We bought our onward train tickets to Beijing and visited the central Suhbataar Square.

Today has been a bit more full on but still thoroughly enjoyable. We visited the really fascinating National History Museum before heading out to the Bogd Khaan Winter Palace before climbing up to Zaisan memorial on the South side of town.

Before we head onwards to Beijing, we are going to head out of town to visit a National Park and spend time with nomad families, sleeping in their gers, and learning more about their way of life.

Lake Baikal - the Pearl of Siberia

Well, we survived. The 4 day train journey actually passed a lot more quickly than we thought. It was amazing to just chill out and watch the world go by. For the first part of our trip, we shared our 4 berth compartment with a nice Russian couple, Sergei and Ina, who were very hospitable and nice - we don't speak much Russian though and they spoke even less English so there was a lot of exchanging of our phrase book! We also got to know a few others on the train too. The second part of our trip, we shared the compartment with 2 men, Marid and Vadim, who were more the staunch silent type so we kept a lot to ourselves. There were almost no other foreigners on the train so that also meant we were a bit of a novelty....

The train itself was interesting - ingenious toilets and also the provision of a samovar (kind of like a permanent hot water urn) made the trip really comfortable.

And then... we arrived in Irkutsk. We met a lot more foreigners there before we headed straight to the bus station (somewhat annoyingly positioned on the other side of town from the train station) and out to Listvyanka, a very small village (pop about 2000) on the Southern shores of Lake Baikal. This is an amazing place - there are lots of random facts about the Lake that we learned when we visited the Baikal museum and also took a boat trip out on the lake. It is a fresh water lake and so you can drink straight from it. It is about a mile deep at it's deepest point, and it is filled with thousands of plant and animal species that can only be found here.

The weather while we were here was gorgeous - not too hot and always a slight coolness coming off the lake. Really sunny and stunning. Apart from just relaxing and recovering from the train trip, we walked along the lake shore to Nikola and took the chair lift to Shetse Rock which has amazing views over the lake and then walking back down through the woods and seeing a stream that was still partially frozen!

On our last day, we left mid morning and headed back to Irkutsk to spend the day there before jumping on the train to Ulaan Baatar, Mongolia. Irkutsk was good in that it was easy to navigate and it has a really interesting Regional Museum but it's one of those places that is big enough to be OK but not quite big enough that there is a lot of stuff to do! That said, we still managed to fill our time before getting on the train at 10.15pm.

Goodbye, Russia.....

From Russia with love

After a slight (!!) delay at the border, we arrived in Russia!! We drove into St Petersburg only to discover that it was the anniversary of the city that weekend and there were full on celebrations in the middle of the city which meant that the metro was not running. Eventually we made it to our hostel and got to bed about 2am! So, after a rocky start, we braved the train station the next day to buy tickets for 3 days time to take us to Moscow. Slightly hairy but we managed!

Probably the highlight of St Petersburg was the Hermitage museum - such an amazing collection of art and history and the building itself is incredible - somewhat fading in splendour, though! Aside from this we also got to go to the fortress of St Peter and Paul, St Isaac's Cathedral (with great views), and a few other monuments. One thing that stood out was how much you have to pay for public toilets here - even portaloos!!

We ended up getting a fast train to Moscow - Virgin trains eat your heart out - these were very nice and it almost felt like getting on an aeroplane as we went through security, a hostess checked our ticket, and various announcement....rd - a s were made over the PA in Russian and English! In Moscow - big, noisy, scary and expensive - we made what should have been a half hour trip to our hotel in a record breaking 2 hours!! Never mind. Despite the heat (about 33 degrees!) we managed to take in the sights of the Kremlin and Red Square as well as the City's cathedral. The Kremlin was definitely worth it and the interior of the cathedrals there were quite beautiful although slightly full on.

Then, it was farewell to the capital and a 4 day onward journey to Irkutsk.

A Ball in the Baltics keeps on rolling - Riga and then Tallinn

We arrived safely in Riga and splurged on a taxi from the Central Bus Station to our hotel near the Riga Arena Sports Centre. Slightly random spot but airmiles = free accommodation with breakfast (which, often, of course, means lunch as well!) provided.

We only had one full day, the next day, in Riga so we made sure to make the most of it. We are glad though, that we took some good advice from our rellies and allocated the least amount of time here because while it has its charms, Riga did not have the same impact on us as Vilnius. The day started with the "Art Nouveau" walk down Elizabeth and Albert Street and the architecture certainly was impressive. We then paid a visit to the Freedom Monument before heading to the Central Market for some lunch. This was a definite highlight with this market having been in operation for at least the last 70 years and with stalls of food galore - not quite Borough Market as this one is more for every day shopping than for gastronoms but still very cool. We then went to the Old Town and visited the Occupation Museum, which, while a very good exhibition was a little bit overwhelming. Just enough time left for a visit to a couple of churches and a stroll along the river before heading back to the hotel for the evening.

The next day we caught a bus on to Tallinn where we stayed at the 16Euro hostel - a bit of a misnomer for most people but good for us. Really good hostel location and we had a HUGE room and our own bathroom which was a small luxury. We had only 2 and a half days here and the highlights were probably Kadriorg Park, Toompea hill, and seeing the sea! Daniel had his birthday here so we celebrated in style (haha) by actually going to a restaurant for lunch!! The Peppersack is just off the Town Hall Square and was a great place to do some people watching from.

While in Tallinn, probably the biggest rip off was paying 3 Euro each to go on to the Town Wall where you only get a short walk along the wall and a small art exhibition (which was a bit beyond us) in one of the towers. That said, there were some decent views from the top of the tower.

Fortunately we have had some really great weather while travelling and Tallinn certainly disappoint. All to soon, however, our time here ended and we moved on to.. Russia!