'What do you think we'll see on the east China sea' I asked Alan, glancing at the shining sky-scrapers and towers of the Bund from our 19th floor mezzanine studio apartment while repacking my bulging back-pack. 'Pirates probably' he answered. 'Mmm, Johnny Depp' I thought. 'It's not the Caribbean', he said, his sixth sense twitching. We were set to sail from Shanghai on the Su Zhou Hao the next morning, hoping to arrive in Osaka two days later. While it was part of the original overland plan to go to Japan, after trains, boats and more trains, we had briefly investigated [View Full Entry]

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'So what do you want for your thirtieth birthday?' Alan asked me on a rainy summer's day in Dublin. I sat at my desk and looked around at the impressive array of gray files, paper-clips, staplers and three rulers to my name and thought hard. A gust of air blew in signalling the arrival of the train and we boarded, making our way to Xizhímén station where we were to pick up a bus to the Summer Palace, where the Emperor used to go to chill, as good a place as any to spend your 30th birthday. We made it fine [View Full Entry]

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...Was the title of a board game Alan loved when he was a kid so he was really looking forward to getting there. But I hadn't a clue if I was going to like Beijing or not - well, the thing is that on the way here we met a lot of people travelling in the opposite direction - heading towards Moscow - and I always asked them what they thought of China, and for their impressions of Beijing. While some of them were positive, most people were quite negative about the city and said they were glad to leave. This [View Full Entry]

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Final stretch on the train - to Beijing from Ulaan Baatar. We awoke early and made our way to the station, sad to be leaving Mongolia. At one point we thought about staying longer, but the tickets were booked and being backpackers, we wanted to make good use of them. Still promises to return were made. The nature of this journey, where we're travelling a vast yet specific journey in a limited amount of time, has meant that the people we've met, often more than once along the way, have become a key, if unexpected, part of the experience. Take a [View Full Entry]

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On the tracks again, for another two nights, but that isn't so long, not when you've been for four nights, so we were well versed in the tradition of the vodka shot before bedtime and bathroom etiquette (i.e. bring your own toilet roll and never ever breathe in). The difference was that our group of seven was becoming five, so we bid the Scotsmen adieu in Irkutsk. It's a strange thing when you meet strangers and spend weeks cooped up together, saying goodbye. So we did what most Irish people do in these poignant circumstances: 'Hah ha, if we run into [View Full Entry]

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Exhausted, tired, knackered we disembarked. The friendships forged were replaced by utter miserable tiredness and we didn't want to even look at one another, Russia, a pot noodle or anything except a pillow. 'Velcom to Irkutsk' beamed Anatoli, our pudding-bowl haircutted cheerful honcho. 'Blah' 'grrr' 'whatever' and 'helllo' greeted him (the latter from the ever cheerful Aussie). He bundled us into a dodgy looking miny bus, the driver smoking all the way, and we trundled and bumped through Irkutsk, which looked like a cross between Ballymun in the early eighties and my previous notions of soviet russia prior to my arrival [View Full Entry]

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Four nights on a train. Are we mad or what? Possibly. To cross Europe overland until Asia. A lifetime goal come to reality. To feel the space of the map as a physical reality. Gather your noodles, instant coffee, tea-bags, chocolate, crisps, maybe bread or fruit. Anything that can be cooked using the boiling water from the Samovar at the end of each carriage governed by the Provodnista, the lady who manages your carriage. The obligatory (if you drink alcohol) bottle of vodka which sets you back a few euro. You take your backpack and spare toilet roll, you charge up [View Full Entry]

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We took our first train journey inside Russia from St. Petersburg to Moscow. By this time we had met with our travelling companions - we are heading across Russia with Vodkatrain, who help out with the visas, getting the tickets and making connections and stops. I wasn't sure about going on a tour, having never taken this route before but Trailfinders and Sundowners assured us that this was for independent travellers, the price was right and besides we were so busy with everything - wedding, renting out house, leaving work - that it suited us. The group is a mixed bag: [View Full Entry]

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Growing up in the eighties, Russia was terribly exotic. I believed there was an actual iron curtain, and that if someone could just work out how to open it, then everything would be fine. I had lots of perceptions based mainly on news reporting (biased), childish interpretations of news reporting (biased) and the occasional bad movie (or baddie in a bad movie... enough said). Ok, so I'm more sophisticated (allegedly) now, but the following could be described as 'perceptions' I had of Russia: 1. Cold. 2. Fond of war, and missiles 3. People very hungry, not much food. Fond of queueing, [View Full Entry]

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Go away’ Alan said as I poked him in the ribs. Just one magical word later and he was at the door, rain-jacket on, tapping his watch impatiently and telling me to get my groove on. ‘Helsinki!’ We dashed through rainy Tallinn and boarded a catamaran to Helsinki, which would take us across the Baltic sea in an hour and forty minutes. Since we were in Robben Island a few years ago with friends, I have dreaded the next catamaran we would take, such was the might with which the previous one had bounced through the choppy waters. It was fine. [View Full Entry]

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