Now this is more like it. Fact file : Lake Baikal is the deepest fresh water lake in the world (1 mile deep). It has the same surface area as Belgium ! Got the bus up there with a bunch of Aussie back packers. Leah's mum was Russian so she'd been tasked with buying a mink hat for her mum, so we started the first day with a trip to the local mink farm. Not the most PC of venues but after they had bought a few things the staff were happy to show us around. Cute little things all lined [View Full Entry]

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Next on to Irkutsk. Joined by 4 fun Russian girls one of which spoke good English, and kept us entertained with Vodka and their card game which made no sense as the rules seem to change every hand. They stopped off half way to allow Olga and Andre on to join us. Olga was a grumpy witch straight from the Russian shot put team, she spent the whole journey in the corridor ignoring us. Andre was a good lad though and joined in the card games and had a few beers with us a shared his fantastic meat balls his daughters [View Full Entry]

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Another long train journey. This time we were joined by two Russian girls. As mentioned before these trains seem to be the preferred trading route for Russians and the like. The girls came into the carriage with a couple of bags, not much to mention. Then as soon as the train started moving they left the carriage and came back with two enormous bags full, we thought Jeez how much stuff do they have they then proceeded to to repeat this three or four more times and completely filled our compartment. Then they started emptying them out of clothes and hanging [View Full Entry]

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After a brief stop back in Tashkent in Uzbekistan to finish our Silk Road detour we headed off through Kazakhstan on the way back to Russia. The journey started well with the guy drving us to the border getting stopped by the police twice for speeding before getting lost and having to ask the cops who had just booked him where the border was. Various dodgy looking people on the Uzbek side helped us fill in the forms then we were happily adopted by a couple of ancients who walked us through the border very slowly (not so nice with hefty [View Full Entry]

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And then on to Bukhara. MOst chilled out and cheap place so far ... Bukhara, again a key location on the Silk Road and in the Great Game. The town centres around the Labbi Hauz, the Hauz's where artificial ponds set up around the town to supply water to the residents. After everyone started dying of plague and various other diseases, they decided to drain them and a few have been now been renevated as place of interest for tourists. Labbi Hauz is surrounded by restaurants and tables where we sat and watched the world go by with a pot of [View Full Entry]

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So on to the Silk Road. Mr Wilson's guide book in hand. Wasn't one of our best decisions to take the first edition of the book as everything has changed, the prices most significantly. 400 Som to get into the Registon has changed to 10,000. Again unfortunately Samarkand has been hit by the tourist trap. But this doesn't really detract from what is a stunning town, as Paul mentions if you aren't impressed by the sight of the 3 Madrassas that form the Registon, you might as well go home. Also a great relief to find the people genuinely friendly and [View Full Entry]

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The guide on the boat trip in St. Petersberg said that the train journey from Moscow to Tashkent should certainly be an eventfull one as all the Uzbek workers were leaving their Summer jobs in Moscow to head back home. Eventfull it was. We were in second class which consists of a number of four berth compartments in one of 16 carriages. 3 days and 3 nights of noone speaking English and a horrific toilet. Weren't sure about the train guards to start with, clearly the first chap decided westerners were easy pickings and that we would be the right couple [View Full Entry]

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Took the over night train or Red Arrow from St. Petersberg to Moscow. Managed to end up in perhaps the most miserable hotel in the world in the middle of nowhere. Locals aren't the most accomodating of people, so a good way to throw ourselves into backpacking and trying to work the network of stunning Metro stations to get into the centre and Red Square to join the throngs of tourists clicking away at the Basilica and the Kremlin. Supermarkets are a new experience, all the goods are on display behind glass cabinets, you then have to queue at the separate [View Full Entry]

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After a very late night madly packing up the house and quick run across Heathrow Terminal 5 as they called our names for the last call, we started our Round the World in St. Petersburg. It was a pretty cold start and took us a while to work out what was going on with the language but we managed to survive the 3 days here by finding the two restaurants that had an English menu (that weren't McDonalds). Some very impressive buildings intermingled with some beautiful 60s tower blocks. Beer of the week : Baltika 3 - cheapest beer they had [View Full Entry]

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Welcome to Richard and Kellie's travel blog. It's been a mad rush trying to get everything sorted including emptying the flat and trying to pass my drving test so Kellie doesn't have to do all the driving (scheduled for tomorrow!), but we're just about there. We fly out to our first destination St Petersberg early Friday morning (25th September). Hopefully we'll get some time in the various places to tell you what we're up to and hopefully share a few photos. Enjoy. Rich [View Full Entry]

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