It’s back - better and longer than before. I've also attached some of my favourite photos from the trip, including many which haven't been published online before. See if you can make it to the bottom - I dare you! Looking back Indie and I finished our trip one week ago in Krakow, Poland. Since then we’ve both been spending time with family and friends, enjoying home life once again. Bizarrely, the day we came back to the UK was exactly 13 weeks since I left this country, and 13 months since Indie departed. Now that I’ve had time to [View Full Entry]

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(written two days ago) As I write this, we are on a train to Krakow, Poland. We are leaving Romania after six chilled-out days here. We have had some welcome time to relax and enjoy the autumn colours after travelling so frequently, and far, across the former Soviet lands. I’ve caught up with old friends, Indie has made some new ones, and together we’ve revelled in the cool atmosphere of Bucharest, one of my favourite cities. But that’s the short version. Here’s what really happened… The path back to Europe - 45 hours with the F [View Full Entry]

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I promised I would write about our adventures in picturesque St. Petersburg. This is followed by one of Indie’s funniest entries yet… Let’s go! Indie, the resourceful desi Russia has been quite an expensive country to travel across, certainly compared to other countries we’ve visited in Asia. Train tickets have eaten up most of our budget, but fortunately we have had a secret weapon - Indie’s devious zeal for saving money. His own brother has defined him as a ‘hippy freeloader’. This unscrupulous trait manifests itself in a constan [View Full Entry]

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In a nutshell Having been in Russia for ten days, my impression of this country has improved rapidly. For a start, in Moscow we were very lucky to be hosted by a Russian friend and her family. After four action-packed days in the capital, we set off to see two traditional Russian towns - Vladimir and Suzdal. There, we saw stunning churches and attractive streets, before catching an overnight train to St Petersburg, where we have been for the last day. Meet the Parents - Moscow style On our arrival in Moscow we faced an unexpected obstacle - the city's [View Full Entry]

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For the last four days we have been enjoying Moscow in the September sun. What we’ve seen and done since arriving here is worthy of a blog entry in itself, so I’ll save it for later… For the moment, here’s how we spent almost four days travelling here by train; during which time we witnessed Central Asia unfold into Siberia; we saw miles and miles of Siberian nothingness; and we finally felt that we are back in Europe after two and a half months in Asia. We also experienced the humour and warmth of Russian hospitality, and the notoriously unfriendly [View Full Entry]

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We are in Kazakhstan - the land of Borat. We’ve been here for two days, chilling out, seeing the sights of Central Asia’s wealthiest city - Almaty. We’ve also been preparing for our travels through Russia. Later today we catch a train to Novosibirsk. Getting to Siberia is something that greatly inspires us. In the meantime, here’s what we’ve been up to recently… Our final days in Kyrgyzstan After leaving the capital, Bishkek, we spent three excellent days in and around Karakol, near the shores of the famous Lake Issyk-Kul. It was a ve [View Full Entry]

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Where the hell is Kyrgyzstan? “Where the hell is Kyrgyzstan?” That’s what a mate asked me in the travel literature section of Borders last year. The guy who asked me this is a well-informed, well-read Joint Honours graduate (for the Strathclyde-grads contingent, the guy was Michael Collins). He was by no means the only person who gave me a blank look when I said I’d be travelling through Kyrgyzstan. Kyrgyzstan is the MAN Kyrgyzstan is a relatively small, landlocked former Soviet republic in Central Asia. It has the population of [View Full Entry]

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We are in Kyrgyzstan. At last. Since I last wrote, we have spent a night in a Kyrgyz yurt on the banks of the most beautiful lake I have ever seen. We also went on a scenic, mountainous bus trip to the Pakistani border. We saw awe-inspiring mountains (some over 7,000 metres) and drunk tea in the middle of a field near Tajikistan with Chinese, Tajik and Pakistani guys. Words cannot do it justice, but here goes… Lake Karakol is out of this world. We spent barely 24 hours there, but I will never forget the serene beauty of the place. [View Full Entry]

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Kashgar - when did Central Asian become ‘Chinese’? For the last five days we have been in Kashgar, an exotic city - the westernmost in China. The region we are in - Xin Jiang - is predominantly Muslim, and in very sense it is more Central Asian than Chinese. As Indie highlighted in his last political opinion piece (some of you may call it a rant), Kashgar represents a land that has been gradually usurped by the Chinese. Nevertheless, even in spite of increasing numbers of Han Chinese migrants here, the place feels like a far-flung Arabian Nights setting. The [View Full Entry]

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Ni hao! We are thoroughly enjoying China. As I write this, we are in the far West of China - in Kashgar, a Silk Road trade route city near the borders with Kyrgyzstan (where we are going soon), Pakistan and India. This is the most westerly city in China, and it is genuinely a world away from Beijing, where we spent four action-packed days this week. After Beijing we spent a day in Urumqi, the capital of Xin Jiang province. It is the furthest city in the world from the ocean, and it was hot and dry. We'd hoped to spend [View Full Entry]

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