We made it to Ulan Ude promtly at 06.15am and were met on the platform by a man called Andre who we assumed was our driver. Turns out he is actually also our host at our next homestay along with his wife Svelta who was also to be our guide. We ate an early breakfast and had a nap and a shower and had to be ready for 1030 for our visits. Ulan Ude was closed to foreigners up until 1991. Its so close to the Mongolian border that a lot of radar and military posts are based in the surrounding [View Full Entry]

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We arrived into Irkutsk at 06.03am exactly as stated on our tickets. We were met by a lady called Tatiana who was very softly spoken and rather sleepy looking. We pulled up outside our homestay and Tatiana got on her phone looking pretty confused. Turned out that our homestay had been given the wrong dates and were actually out of town in their country Dacha. After a few hasty phonecalls we were taken to another place that turned out to be a shared apartment with two german ladies and two australian girls. Tatiana sat us on the sofa and introduced us [View Full Entry]

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Novosibirsk and onwards! We left the tourist camp in the Altai and said our goodbye's to Nadia and set off by car to Barnaul. The journey took about four hours and we then had to jump on a public bus to take us the rest of the way to Novosibirsk. We arrived in Novosibirsk at 10pm and due to crossed wires we werent picked up until 11pm which worried us slightly especially after being left to wait in the back of a bus depot with diminishing light! It was here that we would be staying at our first “homestay” where we [View Full Entry]

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The Altai Mountains We arrived into Barnaul station at 6am with pretty special hangovers (due to crossing a further time zone and not the chilli and honey vodka with 8% beer ;) and were met on the platform by girl called Nadia who was to be our guide and stay with us for the next four days. We made our way to the bus station as we had to catch a local bus to take us to the village of Chemal which is right up in the Altai mountains and would be where we would be spending the next few days. [View Full Entry]

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Ekaterinburg After surviving yet another train journey that lasted 28 hours we arrived into Ekaterinburg safe and sound and were transferred directly to our Hotel. It was getting pretty late so we dived into a little themed restaurant cross from the hotel for some grub. As we approached we were greeted by a Russian boy with a broomstick who showed us to the door. We were shown to a table and it turned out that the restaurant had a live singer on too and was pretty lively! We ordered a traditional dish called Shchee which is a cabbage soup which was [View Full Entry]

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We arrived into Moscow station very early in the morning, tired, but in one piece. After getting off the train we were met by our russian driver with our names on a card. He spoke no English and motioned for us to follow him to his car. He looked like a stern version of Borat, hastily smoking cigarette as we walked behind him out of the station. We were quickly bundled into his car and taken to the hotel on the outskirts of Moscow which took about 30 minutes. As it was early in the morning we were zoomed through the [View Full Entry]

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St Petersburg We stayed at the Hotel Vesta which was situated just off a side street of the main Nevesky Prospekt. Nevsky Prospekt is the main road that radiates from the centre of the city. It was a nice hotel, the staff were friendly and we were checked in and had our visa's registered within 10 minutes. The walls were very thin though! We spent 3 whole days in St Petersburg and managed to see the majority of the main tourist sites including: The Hermitage - Wow what an amazing place!! For one its huge and secondly its absolutely stunning! The [View Full Entry]

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Our flight to St Petersburg via Stockholm was departing at 0655 on the 28th May and due to th funny timing we got dropped off to Heathrow at 11pm on the 27th! This meant we had a bit of time to kill until check in so we made ourselves as comfy we could on the airport benches which seem to be specifically designed to prevent anyone sleeping on and tried to get some shut eye and failed miserably! Finally got checked in and boarded the scarily small plane which seemed to attract turbulance despite a clear blue sky. Even though it [View Full Entry]

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Kim and Dave's trip around the world! We are starting in St Petersburg and Moscow before following the Trans-Manchurian Railway across Siberia and Mongolia. We will be sailing and hiking around Lake Baikal, camping with Mongolian Nomads and horseriding through the Gobi Desert before passing the Great Wall and ending that leg in Beijing. We fly to Korea to spend some time then sail to Japan before visiting Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaysia. [View Full Entry]

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