Beijing the famous city of smog, this description was certainly true on our first day. After we eventually found our hostel, we headed out to the Summer Palace for a relaxing afternoon at what was once the retreat for the Emperors away from the city. The Palace really was beautiful set in acres of ground and plenty of space to get away from the hoards of tourists. An enjoyable afternoon, shame that we couldn't see too far... A big storm cleared the air for the following day of bright blue skies and fantastic sunshine. We headed for the Forbidden City early [View Full Entry]

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67 days after beers in the Black Lion we arrived in Shanghai on a warm afternoon and were met by the friendly faces of Helen and Orlando at the chaos of Shanghai railway station. Before we knew it we had dropped off our bags and were enjoying cold Tsing Tao and fresh sandwiches(without the usual chinese sweet bread) looking out over sunset from about the 15th floor! Afterwards we regailed travelling stories around Shanghai's buzzing bar scene, which included some rather bizarre serbian music and dancing in a French Concession bar. The next day feeling rather hungover, we relaxed around Jin [View Full Entry]

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We arrived early in the morning after a relaxing 24hr journey from Dunchuang in soft sleeper. Xi'an greeted us with a big dirty cough, the air being filled with smog and pollution. After checking into our hostel and being treated to a chinese 'english breakfast' we spent the rest of the day looking around the city although the views were less than spectacular for aformentioned reasons... We found ourselves in the muslim quarter, our noses led to the smells of kebabs and chinese curry and here Lucy was on her best bartering form, with every imaginable piece of tourist tat on [View Full Entry]

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We were woken early on the train by the noise of our fellow passengers chatting, singing and generally making a racket at daft o'clock. We recovered from this rude awakening and made our way out to our country hostel 6km outside of Dunchuang overlooking the dunes of the Gobi desert. From here we arranged an overnight Camel Trek with the guys at the hostel and later that afternoon were introduced to Mr Li, our guide and Colin and Bob, our transport. We set off past the cotton fields and into the desert, it all being very quiet apart from Mr Li's [View Full Entry]

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We left Bishkek for Almaty early in the morning by minibus and found the border crossing back into Kazakhstan refreshingly easy. We then had a day in Almaty doing some last minute Central Asian shopping before getting to Almaty station in good time for our midnight train to Urumqi. We attempted to board the train but were made to wait, the reason unclear although the gaurd was busy selling his cases of smuggled chinese beer to the Kazakhs! Kind of sums up Central Asia........ We arrived at the border the next afternoon, after we'd settled into a relaxing game of chess [View Full Entry]

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Our stay in Kyrgyzstan began with a days rest, room service and video rental in Bishkek as both of our tummys were showing severe signs of shashlyk fatigue! We recovered reasonable well and then the next day managed to get ourselves out to Cholpon-Ata, a tourist town on the shores of Lake Issyk-Kol. Here we enjoyed the dramatic scenery, local fish and chips and I even managed a lovely swim in this lake some 1500m above sea level. Lake Issyk Kols literal translation is "the lake that never freezes" and despite the surrounding snow capped mountains, wasn't drastically cold, in fact [View Full Entry]

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After an afternoon of waiting patiently for our passports at the Kazakh embassy we dashed across Tashkent and booked ourselves on the next train west, the night train to Bukhara. The bar was full of drunk russians, with the police keeping a tight watch on all passengers(particularly the man who fell asleep on the table!) Bukhara is the an old spiritual city, once very important on the Old Silk Road until the 16th Century. We spent our time wandering through the charming old town, with its winding roads and old bazaars and mosques. The Kalon Minaret and mosque was spectacular, although [View Full Entry]

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We arrived into Tashkent after a pretty hectic day crossing the Kazakh/Uzbek border by foot. The border gaurds were seemingly pleasant on the outside, laughing and joking with us but were less amused when they looked through my bag for "guns and "narcotics"( or more likely some petty cash which they could pilfer for their own added tax) and all they found were postcards of Nantwich and Newark. I proceeded to tell them these were pictures our home towns and they could keep them as a gift if they liked, a momento of our impromtu meeting, unsurprisingly they didn't keep them [View Full Entry]

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We had a lovely albeit brief stay in Kazakhstan, a week of travel and errands, complemented by a bit of sightseeing and hospitable locals. Our stay here began with the multiple border checkpoints between Russia and Kazakhstan. The train crosses the border at about 9pm, with the rigmarole of the Russian and Kazakh border guards prodding and poking every nook and cranny of our compartment, what they were looking, drugs?, guns?, their hat they'd forgotten last time?, who knows, but they didn't find it and after a while stamped our passports and let the train on its way. Next thing I [View Full Entry]

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We arrived in Moscow to be greated by an Mancunian like autumnal drizzle, "Fancy a brew lucy" I said thinking it would be a great idea as it was 6:45, nice brew it was too Tea with milk is such a treat but unfortunately We ended up having to negotiate the moscow metro at rush hour with our big rucksacks. Perhaps not such a great idea after all! Anyway after we checked into our hostel, full of aussie backpackers, we visited Red square in the rain and managed to see Lenin in what lucy thought was moscows equivalent to madame tussards [View Full Entry]

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