South Uist is one of the islands known as the Western Isles or the Outer Hebrides. Our interest in visiting the island was due to the fact that it was where my grandmother came from. It is possible to fly to Benbecula, the island north of South Uist from Glasgow, but the flights are extortionately expensive so we opted for the ferry instead. We travelled from Edinburgh to Oban by train, breaking the journey with a change in Glasgow. We had plenty of time to spare in Oban before the evening ferry out to Lochboisdale, the main town on South Uist, [View Full Entry]

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Returning to a city that you've lived in as a tourist always feels a little strange, especially as you often find yourself visiting sites that you didn't actually visit when the place was your home. It is so easy to put off visiting places because there is plenty of time and they are just around the corner and often you find yourself moving away, having missed out on seeing so much. When you travel it is different, you know that time is limited so you are determined to see as much as you can in the time space available, knowing that [View Full Entry]

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Arriving in Sweden marked the end of our overland trip from Singapore to Stockholm. We now had just over two weeks in which to relax before moving back to the UK. Gustav's parents met us at the ferry terminal and drove us to their home in the south of Stockholm. I had never been to Sweden before, so the drive was extremely interesting, especially since Gustav had told me so much about the place. We didn't stay at the house in Stockholm for long as everyone was eager to go out to their summer house. A lot of people in Sweden [View Full Entry]

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There was no room at the inn in Helsinki, so we spent our one night there sleeping at a bus stop, or rather trying to. A friendly Finn who'd had a few too many sat down with us at about 2 o'clock in the morning and shared his views on life and Finnish culture with us for the next few hours. He was very amusing although perhaps that was due to the large amount of alcohol that he had obviously consumed. His most interesting comment was regarding Finnish travel habits. Apparently, 'if the Finn don't like, the Finn don't go'. He [View Full Entry]

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The cost of accommodation in Moscow meant that we couldn't afford to spend a night in the city. We hadn't been able to book anywhere in advance although we had tried both from Tomsk and from Suzdal. The only places available were way out of our budget. This was largely our fault. We should have booked somewhere to stay in Moscow much earlier but we had wanted the freedom to be able to change our plans as we went along and we just hadn't been sure when we'd arrive in the city. Despite this we decided to make the most of [View Full Entry]

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If you can imagine the perfect setting for a fairytale then you can imagine what Suzdal is like. It is a beautiful small town, with a winding river, impressive ramparts, white trading arches, meadows dotted with wild flowers and onion dome spires of every size and colour imaginable, gold, silver, emerald green and even a deep blue one dotted with golden stars. It was completely different to the other places we had visited in Russia and although our hotel room, in the grounds of a monastery, was expensive we decided to spend three days there. We were dazed by the town's [View Full Entry]

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Train tickets in Russia are highly confusing because the train times for all long distance journeys are given in Moscow time. This means that you are constantly having to work out what the departure/arrival times are in local time so that you arrive at the station at the right time and so on. We hadn't realised this when we left Mongolia so we arrived in Irkutsk rather later than we had anticipated. We had been planning on spending one night in the city before heading off to Olkhon Island, but on arrival there we changed our minds. We decided to head [View Full Entry]

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Unlike the steppes, Ulan Bator was far from inspiring. It was a city almost completely devoid of both beauty and atmosphere. To make matters worse Gustav's camera was stolen by some particularly crafty pickpockets just two hours after our arrival. We spent two days in Ulan Bator during which we prepared for our trip around central Mongolia. We found it difficult to be positive about the dusty streets and Soviet architecture. We did however manage to buy provisions for our trip and were able to deal with practicalities like laundry and catching up on e-mails. We also visited the Gandantegchinle [View Full Entry]

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With just three days in which to see Beijing's sites we had to do some serious prioritising. Our first major tourist attractions were Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. We had been planning on visiting Mao's Mausoleum too but the opening hours didn't fit in with our tight schedule so we had to give it a miss. Having strolled across Tiananmen Square we visited the souvenir shops, which were selling all kinds of Chairman Mao memorabilia. It was tempting to buy something, just for the novelty value, but we restrained ourselves knowing that we would regret any purchases later. As we [View Full Entry]

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As predicted the bus journey from Luang Prabang to Kunming was an absolute nightmare. I found myself on the top bunk in the middle of the bus, with gangways on either side of me. I couldn't actually sit up as my bed was so close to the ceiling of the bus and I couldn't move from side to side as this would have resulted in me toppling out. The road between Luang Prabang and the border town Boten, was particularly windy and I spent much of that leg of the journey clinging onto the metal bed frame to prevent myself from [View Full Entry]

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