Well, here we are in Mongolia and have nearly had Tony's bag pinched and mine too, the LP wasn't wrong with this place warning you to watch out for pick pocketers, they've got very nimble fingers here!!!! UB the locals call it is pretty cool though, its got a massive US presence due to its geo-political positioning in that its in the middle of of Russia and China. As one of only a handful of truely democratic country in Asia, it receives a lot of donations from the USA and various other NGO's, and all embassy staff are in UB, the [View Full Entry]

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Well it had arrived the final few hours of being in Russia, or so we thought. It was the day of our journey to Mongolia. It was an early start after a late night and a very hot night. So at 8am we (us and the french dudes) headed off into the dust to catch the number 4 bus into town. With back packs on our laps and the driver insisiting we can fit one more person in at each stop we finally made it to the bus station of Ulan Ude. The french guys wonderfully sorted out a bus to [View Full Entry]

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So at 6am we arrived in Ulan Ude. This is the capital of Siberia and Ulan means Red in Buryat. We were staying at Baikal Ethnic Hostel for 1080r for 2 in a private room. It was well out of town but in a really peaceful area. We were staying with the french dudes (Charles, Xavier and Evrard). After a quick power nap we headed into town to sort out our bus for the next day to Mongolia. This turned out to be a nightmare. After 2 hours of trying we came to the conclusion that the direct bus wasn't happening [View Full Entry]

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It was time to say goodbye to Olkhon Island and head back to wonderful (not) Irkutsk. The 6 hour bus ride was rather uneventful, the highlight was discovering the worlds worst long drop, seriously it was disgusting, poo everywhere, all up the walls and even on the walk up to it!!!!! Upon arrival in irkutsk we dumped our bags at our hostel (Downtown Hostel 1080r for 2 in a dorm) and headed out for a slap up italian where G's pizza base was made out of filo pastry (interesting!!!) but was nicely washed down with some yummy vino before heading to [View Full Entry]

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Facts about Lake Baikal: Lake Baikal is in southern Siberia and is also known as the "Blue Eye of Siberia". It contains more water than all of the North American Great Lakes combined. At 1,642 meters (5,390 ft), Lake Baikal is the deepest lake in the world and the largest freshwater lake in the world by volume. Lake Baikal was formed as an ancient rift valley, having the typical long crescent shape with a surface area of (31,722 km2/12,248 sq mi), less than that of Lake Superior or Lake Victoria. Today we were heading to Olkhon Island, 500km from Irkutsk in [View Full Entry]

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Today we headed to the shores of Lake Baikal to a small village called Listvyanka. Its been slightly spoilt by some new garish big hotels being built next to the very cute wooden houses but our home for the night was amazing, it was 1km up a valley and in a big wooden chalet, our room was on the top with a private balcony overlooking the valley and the lake beyond. This was Baikal Chalet for 40 euros a night but well worth it. We had a nice relaxing day here, we bumped into the irish girls from our hostel so [View Full Entry]

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We arrived in Irkutsk in the evening and after we found our hostel we headed out to find food but to no avail, so we ended up purchasing some bread, ham and cheese and of course beers and headed back for an early night. After 3 days on a train doing nothing you'd think we were itching to get out there and see the sights but to be honest we couldn't be bothered so we parked up in a bar with some outside space so we could sit in the sun and drink our way through the day. Tony had read [View Full Entry]

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When asked what the cabin on the train is like well picture a small wooden box the size of a prison cell if you will, now add 4 people in that space and imagine that box shaking for 55 hours and you pay for the pleasure......!!!!! A slight exaggeration but you get the point, its really fun and you will be amazed how the time flies - yet another example of time warp Russia. Today we set off on this 55 hour journey, on the train the carridges have a toliet each end, the centre is all cabins and then there [View Full Entry]

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We awake to the usual low dim of traffic and on T's persistance we get up early for breakfast - with the slight optimism that a full english with proper coffee was waiting for him downstairs, we venture down. Yet again we are disapointed breakfast at the Yekaterinburg train station hotel - who's proper name i have forgotten, consisted of a square lump of unscrambled egg, cold sausage, potatoes and weird red additive/radioactive enhance'fruit ' juice. We check out and advance down to our pre-booked hostel Hostel Yekaterinburg (this is the correct name) 30 mins later and still yomping and we [View Full Entry]

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We wake to find our cabin buddies gone and a new team member in their place, well we use the term arrive very vaguely as she was there in body but spent the next 15 hours asleep, she had an arse like a member of thr Klumps and she was sporting a leopard skin pair of PJ's that made me think of that scene in road trip ' what are those - did you skin a cheetah'. Fed up with the site we move towards the restaurant car in search of cold beer and company! Success we found cold beer and [View Full Entry]

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