The bus to Ulaanbaatar was an interesting journey. It took us over 3 hours to cross the boarder, which was ok considering the train can take up to 11 hours. The Mongolians gave on of our passengers a warm welcome by trying to make her pay for a new visa due to her original one hadn't been signed correctly by the embassy. Luckily she stood up for herself and the 'error' magically disappeared. The trip was made a little more enjoyable because the Austrian guy I sat next to and his friends spoke English, so I remembered how to speak again. As soon as we had crossed the Mongolian border our bus driver, in his infinite wisdom and despite us already being late, decided to stop for a 40 minute lunch break. The boarder town was ... read more

The nightmare began on 5th July when I caught the 11.30am train for Ulan-Ude. There were some things about this trip that were better than expected and some that were definately not. First of all, the toilet myth was not correct. Though they were tiny, at least you could go there without having to work yourself up to it. In fact, I think they must have been cleaned and bins emptied quite regularly. I only saw two westerners on the train; they did speak English but I don't think it was their first language and they didn't seem too interested in chatting. Even the Russians seemed very stand-offish amonst themselves. In my compartment were a young couple and a young lady with a little boy. They didn't even seem to speak amongst themselves. So I found ... read more

Well the first hurdle was that my BRAND NEW big toothpaste was dismissively thrown in the bin at Tullamarine airport. Oh crap, why didn't I remember that old liquid/gel restriction thing. The flight in cattle class to Soeul, Korea was comfy - not. In-flight entertainment took a dive back to the cave age with no personal consoles, just one big ol' screen up front. Only one decent movie was shown, the second one I had grit-eye too bad to watch and the third one was a Korean movie with english subtitles too small to read plus I had a melon-head in front of me so couldn't see past. The stop-over was first class though. I was put up in the Hyatt Hotel near the airport and got a free dinner in their restaurat. Also enjoyed the ... read more