http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/Frankiy/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from Frankiy en-us Thu, 24 Dec 2009 10:41:04 +0000 Thu, 24 Dec 2009 10:41:04 +0000 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 http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Hong-Kong/Lantau-Island/blog-291464.html 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 tw http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Beijing/Great-Wall-of-China/blog-286757.html 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 http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Beijing/Tian-anmen/blog-286408.html 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 crowd http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Beijing/Tian-anmen/blog-286399.html So I make train 20 the TransManchurian 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 http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Russia/Siberia/Chita/blog-286076.html 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 lad http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Russia/Siberia/Irkutsk/blog-286067.html 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 http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Russia/Siberia/Olkhon/blog-286058.html 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 http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Russia/Siberia/Olkhon/blog-285257.html 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 http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Russia/Siberia/Olkhon/blog-284584.html So after a very exciting time in Listviyanka we head back to the hostel and a couple of days of Russian Beauracracy to register our visas and then plan the final stages of our time in Russia. Florian and Lonneke have both cleverly overlapped there Mongolian visas with the Russian one so they get an easy route out of town on the TransMongolian and from Irkutsk this takes less than a day to cross t http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Russia/Siberia/Olkhon/blog-283629.html Florian and I manage to scramble out of bed early after a late night of rowdy behaviour. We walk over to the bus station which is about an a fourty five minute walk and arrive at a scene of chaos. Lonneke is in tears at the bus counter and quickly grabs me to come and talk to the Russian lady behind the counter. i am not sure what is going on or what my limited Russian can do but it seems that Lon http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Russia/Siberia/Lake-Baikal/blog-283178.html Day four on the train passes uneventfully. Many of the passengers have now left the train and overall the train is now fairly empty. I am starting to feel ill on the pot noodle and I realise that today would be my last day on the train regardless of destination. But fortunately Irkutsk is coming up early tomorrow and some real food is close. The soldier is conversational today as he knows it will http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Russia/Siberia/Irkutsk/blog-283165.html Day three Mainly I am keeping my routine of getting up early and washing and changing before taking photos and then learning Russian from the phrasebook. No sign of any other tourists on the Train and I have pushed for six carriages in either direction. The train is moving through one time zone in each day with roughly two hours time difference in each shift it does not sound like alot but whe http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Russia/Siberia/Irkutsk/blog-283155.html So I wake to my first full day on the TransSiberian Not much sleep but I did manage to pass out for a few hours. The lady in the carriage slipped out sometime in the night and so my soldier friend is more comfortable in an all male environment. We only manage one main stop today where there is food and so it is pot noodle for the second day in a row almost like being a student again but I am http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Russia/Siberia/Irkutsk/blog-283130.html 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 http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Russia/Siberia/Olkhon/blog-275384.html So with a sore face after so much laughing I try and get out of the Hostel but the lady working today seems to think I have not payed the bill so in a typical russian fashion there is a long protracted discussion at least in english where it starts with 'you are on list that say you no pay' when I ask her to check the reciepts for the day I arrived 'no need you are on the list that say you n http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Russia/Northwest/Moscow/blog-273022.html So the 26th April had one additional treat the first ride on the Moscow Metro Back at University one of my best friends Louise Bastable had a small book on the Moscow Metro that she had found in one of the second hand bookshops that filled Liverpool at the time So we used to sit in our studio space over our lunch and go through the book in awe of what we saw and dreaming of a day we might h http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Russia/Northwest/Moscow/blog-273012.html So day two in Moscow is preceeded by a brief encounter with a Russian couple staying at the same hostel but departing on my first night. Vadim Lukomskiy is my first real Russian conversation. He is from Murmansk and travels to Moscow for a conference where none of the other participants show up so he is there with his girlfriend and decides to take in the capital for the second time in his life. H http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Russia/Northwest/Moscow/blog-272649.html So I awake early after another night of fifteen minutes sleep to see one of the great sights so far the train is moving over a lake with no sign of land whatsoever and there is a blood red line of sunrise in the Horizon. The three russian bears were still asleep and snoring soundly bit I managed to sneak a picture although it does not do the scene justice Then later when the three bears have ar http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Russia/Northwest/Moscow/blog-270216.html So yet another glorious day in Russia I have to spend some time organising a ticket for the overnight train to Moscow and then I head out to see the Hermitage. The spaces are magnificent and I have not taken any real pictures of the collection so that you can all see them for yourselves some time. The museum does have a fairly strong ancient world and very strong impressionist collection but http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Russia/Northwest/Saint-Petersburg/blog-270192.html