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 there is no later to postpone the sightseeing to. Gustav had not been to London since he was a child so we decided to spend three days visiting the city and taking in the sites. ... read more

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 told us about the prevalence of guns in Finland, which came as something of a surprise to me as I hadn't known anything about this issue, the Finnish education system and the political system in ... read more

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 perfection. The train journeys across Siberia had been fun but it was great to be eating proper food again and to have the luxury of our own bathroom. Having these things in such a wonderful ... read more

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 Gandantegchinlen Khiid monastery, one of the most important monasteries in Mongolia. The beauty of this sacred place was marred slightly by the surrounding area, but the monastery made an interesting visit nevertheless. It reminded us very much ... read more

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 suffering a major injury. The only positive aspect of this journey was that we actually arrived in Kunming well ahead of schedule. Kunming is often described as the City of Eternal Spring, and for some ... read more