StevieG1984

As alluded to in the previous blog entry, there were a few slight hiccups on the trip from Hong Kong to Hanoi. So, some bellend was late for the plane, leading to us losing our take off spot, ergo a 2 hour delay, followed by us running into a thunder storm over Hanoi, which in turn led us to be diverted to Nanning. Fortunately for us, the airline put everyone up in a hotel for the night, albeit a solid hour away from the airport, which wasn't too much fun at 3am. Picked us up next morning at 10am and away we go. Finally arriving in Hanoi at around 3pm. Felt sorry for the hotel operators, who turned out to be really great, helpful folks, who had previously spent the whole night waiting for us as ... read more

So we arrived in Wuhan, christ when was it, Tuesday 24th April. Aye. After looking around for a bus with no joy, we headed to the taxi rank. Looking like a flock of lost lambs, an English speaking Chinese woman came over to offer some assistance. She phoned the hostel for us and set us up in a taxi which was awfy kind of her. The thing we failed to notice when booking our tickets was that this railway station was a solid hour away from the hostel, thank god for good ol' cheap Chinese taxis. Checked into the hostel, not the best start, toilet didnt flush, air-con wouldn't turn on, mozzies galore and a hornet the size of my fist fizzing about the place, had to expend half of my insect repellent just to fell ... read more

I am writing to you now in an absolute fury seen as I just wrote 2500 words and for some rage-inducing reason, it decided not to save what i had wrote, so if the tone of the blog is rather angry, don't take it as a reflection on Mongolia. It will probably be a lot shorter as well cos I cant be arsed now. Left Irkutsk Monday night, got the train to Ulan-Ude at about 10.30pm, arriving at 0630 the next day. Took a hike from the train station to the bus station, about half an hour, saw a ridiculously sized statue of Lenin's napper in the middle of the town. Was awaited at the bus stop by a young Mongolian woman who had our tickets ready for us, who said travelling is difficult? The bus ... read more

Hello folks, Another day, another city, but first i'll recap what we got up to on our last day in St. Petersburg. Managed to rouse ourselves fairly early, no beer haze this morning, and took ourselves off to the State Hermitage Museum, just around the corner from our hostel. Russian's like to rinse your money if you aren't one of them, so admittance was 400 rubles, around £10, 4 times the amount a Russki would pay. The building is very impressive. Founded by Catherine the Great in 1764, it has the largest art collection in the world (not that we were bothered), and holds over 3 million items, some of which are Egyptian relics, armour and weapons, Siberian antiques, to name but a few. We mosied our way round, taking about 3 hours to do so, ... read more

So finally set off yesterday, arrived at the airport at around 5pm, Rosie's brother Duncan kindly bumped us up into the BA Lounge which was a right treat, free bevvy and food, although we got some snidey looks off the suits after rocking in with our boots and scabby clothes :) Got into London, absolutely rocked the tube to terminal 5, then got a taxi to our travel lodge where we decided to call it a night early as we were up the next morning at 6.30. Got to the airport early doors, lo and behold, first disaster, left my iphone charger at the hotel didnt I? We do have a spare but it means alot of sharing but bothered, it wont get me down. Flight to St. Petersburg was glorious, clear skys all the way, ... read more