We arrived at the Russian border in the early evening and after hearing numerous horror stories about Russian border guards, were suprised when they let us pass without even looking in our bags. The only grief we encountered was that as foreigners, ours were the only passports taken away for inspection and when the train began to shunt around we did get worried that we would never see them again. This was not to be however and we left the border after 2 hours, passports in hands. We pulled into Novosibirsk, the 'capital' of Siberia at 9:00 and had the whole [View Full Entry]

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The train ride to Semey provided us with yet another incidence of suberb Kazakh hospitality. We ended up in a compartment with 3 very dizzy and probably slightly drunk Kazakh ladies who were making the same journey as we were. Tired from staying up late the previous night and getting up early to finish tidying up in the flat, we tried our best not to get involved in conversation with them but alas, it was inevitable. They spoke no english although one of them could count to 4 in german and kept insisting on us drinking tea. They told Adam not [View Full Entry]

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Saturday 10th June and we arrive into Almaty at 5am; tired and filthy after not being able to shower for 6 days! One of the ladies on our bus who spoke english was coming to Almaty for work and kindly offered us a lift to a hotel we had earmarked in the guidebook. Apparently rooms were 10 pounds a night. On arrival though, we found that once again Lonely Planet was out of date and that Hotel Almaty had gone through a refurbishment and rooms now cost 100 pounds a night - way off our budget. In the end, the porter [View Full Entry]

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We pulled into Aralsk under the cloak of darkness, disembarked the train, took a taxi to the only hotel in town and fell asleep immediately. We woke up about 14:00 and were slightly confused as to our whereabouts. I could remember falling asleep on the train but our disembarkation and getting to the hotel all seemed like a distant memory. I got up and went down to the reception to ask where the showers were. Having spent 2 days sweating on a train we were both ready for a good wash. "Douscha Niet" came the reply from the receptionist. Hmmm. Oh [View Full Entry]

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Chenkui! We finally arrived into Aktau on the Caspian shore of Kazakhstan at 15:00 and after a 3 hour wait to get through passport control, we headed into Aktau. We hoped to get away immediately but soon found that we had missed the one train a day. we ended up in the Atai Hotel, a series of refurbished apartments which overlook a huge scale model of a MIG warplane in the central square. We spent the evening in our air-conditioned rooms, trying to escape the heat and preparing ourselves for the forthcoming journey to Aralsk. In the morning we took a [View Full Entry]

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Tuesday 23rd May 2006: Joel ''Ah, Baku! How long shall we spend here'' Adam ''Well, we'll get our visas sorted and then see when the ferry goes. Hopefully just a couple of days'' Joel ''Aye, hopefully just a couple of days. I don't think theres that much to see here anyway'' We arrived into Baku in the baking heat. Clear blue skies and a slight mugginess in the air. We had decided to walk to the hotel we had chosen but had gotten our bearings completely wrong and had ended up walking in the wrong direction for a good 20 minutes. [View Full Entry]

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After crossing the border, we were hounded by taxis looking for our custom to drive us the 12 km to the nearest town of Batumi. Tired and with an aching back, we checked into Hotel Boni, where, for 20 Pounds we were treated to a spacious room with balcony, TV and BATH! We watched the end of a Spanish football game, drank some of the contents of the mini-bar and fell asleep. We woke up to the alarm at 8am and took a taxi to the train station via an ATM. We had thought that Georgia was 2 hours ahead of [View Full Entry]

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The sun began to rise and I woke from my light bus-sleep. I stared out of the window, in a fairly comatose state after only a few hours of very uncomfortable sleep to see that the scenery had changed dramatically. We had arrived in Capadocia, right in the heart of Turkey and were surrounded by strange rock formations and tall, fallus-shaped stone towers protruding from the ground like giant mushrooms sprouting from the earth. We pulled into Goreme bus station at 8am and got a lift to the Shoestring Pension, where we had booked in to stay. After a glass of [View Full Entry]

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We begrudgingly left our boat behind at the small port of Demre and were shuttled off by minibus to Olympos. The road for a long stretch runs parallel to the coastline and is a stunning drive as you weave in and out of the mountains and around small bays with pebble beaches. Nearing Olympos, we came off the main road and drove down what amounted to no more than a country lane for half an hour, snaking our way down the mountain to the backpacker haven of Olympos. I honestly can't imagine what Olympos was like before the backpacker trade moved [View Full Entry]

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We arrived into Fettiyeh after dark and it took us a while to work out where our hotel was. We had pre-booked in Istanbul, so we knew what it was called - just none of the locals did. We finally found it after a good hour of searching and checked in before heading out for a quick meal before bed. Fettiyeh is a typical beach resort town and as such attracts tourists from all over the place, including fat, sunburnt, lager-swilling Brits. Happy time! Our one day in Fettiyeh was spent sitting by the small pool in our hotel, getting sunburnt [View Full Entry]

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