So after an overnight train from Beijing with a carriage full of american college kids and the familar no sleep routine I finally stroll into Hong Kong - I have made it fully intact and with no problems so Vladim will be happy to read that his lucky token did the trick. Hong Kong is rainy and warm and I am met by my great friend kam at the station in Kowloon and I am really looking forward to some great food - particularly some dim sum which I have not had since last year - and a good bed to [View Full Entry]

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Today I get up with some real excitement as I get to see the Great Wall of China again! This time I am going to Mutianyu which is a couple of hours to the north of Beijing. I grab some breakfast and jump on the minibus where I meet two germans and two americans and we are away. Beijing has an efficient motorway system and the guide tells us that the city now holds 18 million people putting them two million away from a metacity - and very different to the publishes stats that say it is around the same as [View Full Entry]

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So after a good nights sleep and a shower I get out around the city again. I spend alot of time at the observatory which as with many things in China has a troubled history that starts with discovery on a global scale and then descends into rape and pillage when the foreigners turn up. The observatory has been put back together after being ransacked by various superpowers and tells an interesting story of chinese sciences and the influence that european science took from the Chinese. It is another hot day and the desert areas to the north of Beijing provide [View Full Entry]

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So having made the journey and found a good hotel near tian'man i get out to see some of Beijing. Firstly I wander around the Tian'man square area and go into the forbidden city. This is a fascinating place and one that has a great history. Beijing looks ready for the olympics and it should be a great event! I pass through the gates and today it is incredibly busy. In Tian'man there are huge crowds and as always a strong military presence. Mao's body is still available for viewing but as with Lenin in Moscow it is not something that [View Full Entry]

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So I make train 20 - the Trans-Manchurian and I start with a full carriage to myself. There is some confusion when the train arrives as there is no carriage twenty for me to board - but I quickly realise that they will add further carriages at each stop and when I board it is empty apart from the usual dour russian provodnik and me! I am also at the back of the train so I can easily get some shots of the view from the back which will be nice. Later I am joined by Walter a Beijinger who is [View Full Entry]

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Ok this has to be short as I am heading off on the trans Manchurian soon and also into bandit territory without internet access. SO I can promise some great photos of the trouble that me and and a few others caused later but for now my favourite which got me into a lot of trouble with the locals as they were not happy that we went out on the ice sheet which is rapidly melting - but we had alot of fun! [View Full Entry]

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My final full day on Olkhon! I will miss it as for me it has been the best of russia - beautiful places and I know I want to come back in the winter and summer to spend time here. But we wander around the island one last time and spend some time trying to figure out how to get the world service to check the football as it is the last day of the premiership. We look at a radio in a shop but the lady tells us (I think in my broken russian) that there is no reception on [View Full Entry]

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After a great trip around the north and east of the island we take one further excursion to the only inland lake on the island. We are joined by two Russians and the Koreans and Magdalene a Polish lady teaching poilsh at Irkutsk University. It is a bank holiday in Russia to celebrate Victory Day over the germans - and so the Irutsk people come over to spend some time here. Another dirt track drive and we end up in a valley area and trek down for an hour to the coastline where we find a protected bay to the main [View Full Entry]

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Today we took our first excursion to the north of Olkhon Island whixh was a great journey. We ploghed through the dirt tracks in the russian version of a vw camper for most of the day to see the coastline around the north and east sides of the island where the ice is now completely gone. We stopped at the site of the gulag on the island and were told that there was one lady who still lived on the island aho had spent time in the gulag but she did not want visitors. Even on a beautiful island it was [View Full Entry]

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Over the next few days Florian and I just exolred the island on foot before taking the organised tours to the north of the island later in the week. We got up into the hills and explored the coast - I will let the pictures do the talking! [View Full Entry]

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