After leaving Riga our next stop was Poland - first stop Warsaw. We stayed in a Youth Hostel which of course was up on 4th floor (these hostels always seem to be upstairs). We dumped our gear, had a shower and headed out to check out Warsaw - did the usual initial wander around taking photos but we were quite tired after the overnight bus ride - not much sleep!! Next day we headed off looking for various monuments and then went to a palace with a huge park. There were peacocks everywhere and eveyone was trying to get their photos [View Full Entry]

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We did a walking tour of Riga which was pretty much like Tallinn - not as pretty I don't think but there you go. The Hostel we stayed at was run by an Aussie guy from Sydney who had fallen for a Latvian lovely and decided to stay in Riga - it was a very relaxed place and had good beds, toilets and showers - very important!! We decided not to go to Vilnius after chatting with a couple of people and ended up catching a bus to Klaipeda - still in Lithuania but on the coast. Our trip there [View Full Entry]

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St Petersburg onwards OK guys - here's the latest update. I believe I left you having got the Red Arrow to St Petersburg. Before I head into the next section, let me just give you a quick overview of the journey so far. China - high - Great Wall - we did Mutianu but the better one to do is where you walk one of the old sections for about 4kms. The section we did was one of the more touristy parts and had been restored. Still a fantastic thing to see though. Lows - the smog and the heat. Quirky [View Full Entry]

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So says the blurb anyway. Our train to Moscow was rather plush once we managed to get on it. I had to sign in again with the doctors at the station in Nizhny Novgorod to say that I was OK. They gave us an escort to the train - to make sure they got rid of us perhaps? Anyway, it was a really nice train, air conditioned with comfy seats and we got a lunch box too. Journey was pretty uneventful and in no time we were approaching Moscow. Once out of the train station we had to find out way [View Full Entry]

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After all the hassles of buying the tickets it was incredibly easy to catch the train. We left the hostel at 6.30am and were at the station by 7am. Found the platform easily and the train and our bunks - we had hoped to have the four bunks to ourselves but there was already a norwegian installed. We got ourselves set up and the train pulled away from the station. There's not a lot to do on the train - we looked out the window for a while, had a bit of a sleep and checked out the dining car. The [View Full Entry]

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Hi all This will be our method of communication from now on - email is taking up too much time. This way, we give you the url and you can choose to look at it whenever you like. It will take us a while to get it organised. Today we leave Ulan Batoor for Russia - a little place called Listvyanka near Laike Baikal. Lyn has gone off in search of postcards as we catch the train shortly. We'll also try and organise to upload some photos at some stage - here's hoping. [View Full Entry]

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