For your information, the Palace of the King of Hell is not located in Washington D.C.! It's actually in Fengdu, 170 km from Chongqing and our first stop on our three day trip along the Yangzi river. We were travelling on the Snow Mountain cruise liner from Chongqing to Yichang in the Hubei province - the nearest major town to the awesome Three Gorges Dam. The dam is China's biggest engineering project since the construction of the Great Wall. Almost two million people have already been moved from their homes as the level of the Yangzi river is set to reach [View Full Entry]

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The last leg of our trans Siberian adventure ended on a cloudy afternoon in Beijing. After a hugely enjoyable train journey with the company of Oka and Craig, we were sad to say our goodbyes to the longest train journey in the world. It's mind boggling to think we had travelled over 9,000 km by train and become so accustomed to walking along swaying into things, scrambling around in the cabins trying to make the beds after one shot of vodka too many, and filling in countless customs and border forms! It was with much excitement though that we stepped [View Full Entry]

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Following a twelve hour comfortable overnight train journey from Beijing, we reached the ancient capital of China - Xi'an. This city of some 6.6 million people is steeped in history and riddled with historic sites. Way too many for us to take in in just two days. On the train we met "Michael Jordan" (well that was what he told us his name was) a local from Xi'an who spoke excellent English and was keen to practice his on us. He was very chilled out funny guy and we had a good laugh with him on the train as we tried [View Full Entry]

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Our arrival into Chengdu, a city in South Western China (pop 4.1 million!) was one of the easiest so far. After a relaxing one hour flight from Xi'an, we boarded a shuttle bus to the city centre. Chengdu is the capital of the Sichuan province, famed for its spicy cuisine and also..... the home of the Giant Panda Breeding Research Base, hoooorah! The first thing we noticed about Chengdu was its relaxed pace. After the frantic activity of Beijing and our whirlwind tour of Xi'an it looked as if Chengdu would be a really chilled place to spend a few nights. [View Full Entry]

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No need to spend much time in Listvyanka, is the Lonely Planets take on this tiny remote Siberian Village on the shores of Lake Baikal. Not a very comforting read when you have just booked three nights stay there and the weather is closing in. Unnerved, we set off from Irkutsk and bolted up in our small rented apartment. We were staying there with our latest acquaintance, Lars from Denmark - an extremely worldly wise young man from Jutland. We took in Hovercraft rides across the lake, short hikes to observation towers and plenty of smoked fish suppers in our short [View Full Entry]

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On Saturday April 29th Patrick and I arrived in Yekaterinburg station at 2am to board the next train on our Trans Siberian adventure. After a late night trip to the supermarket for some provisions we boarded the train at 3.30am. Our cabin was inhabited by two drunk Russians who scarpered when we arrived. They appeared to be having a bit of a party in our cabin so we were relieved that we were not going to be sharing the next 3 nights with them! Given the late departure time, we got down to the business of sorting out our beds and [View Full Entry]

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Hi Folks, Well a lot has happened since last we posted. We left you on our first day in Moscow and this city is in stark contrast to the Czarist splendour of St. Petersburg. While the streets are grand and imposing - the architecture is strictly soviet and almost entirely grey. This time we were staying a little out of town and had to make use of the impressive Moscow Metro to get around. More on this later.... Our first stop in Moscow was to the Bolshoi New Stage. This was an absolutely amazing spectacle to see. We watched The Nutcracker [View Full Entry]

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Hello from St. Pete, It's been a fantastic four days in the "Venice of the North". We have so much to report from our first destination as there is so much to do in this city. Firstly the stereotypical view of a grey soviet city certainly does not apply here. This is a bustling European style metropolis that seems to have easily slipped out of her recent Soviet past and embraced many of the capitalist trappings of most major European cities. I'm glad to say though that it has also preserved the beautiful buildings and architecture of its past and while [View Full Entry]

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Well it's been a hectic week since we left work as we have had loads of stuff to get organised for the big trip. It culminated in a trip to London today to get our visas for India. We were tipped off about the queues so we set off early on the 6.20 am from Brighton. The train trip was not what we expected. We were greeted by a stunning sunrise over a snow covered Sussex and Surrey. See the pictures below. We hadn't planned to see snow from a train until we at least cross the Urals but that's the [View Full Entry]

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