These were the last brotherly words of advice given to us by Damon before we departed for colder climates. Well Damon, we can safely say we have heeded your advice whilst in Mongolia and kept our ratio of blood:vodka up at all times. Not too sure whether it worked as we are now both carrying the worst flu bug we have ever had....we gave it our best 'shot' though! Arrived in Ulanbaatar at about 6:30am after a further 35 hr train trip. 9 of these hours were taken up with waiting at the border. Not too sure why we had to [View Full Entry]

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After a very long day in Ekaterinburg waiting patiently for our late night train we were finally off at 2am on what is to be our longest train leg of our journey (50hrs). We were both happy and a little sad to find we had only one travel companion in our berth, who happened to turn out to be the quietest man in Russia (so much for vodka induced wild train trips) , slept most of the way and seemed to eat nothing. Oh, he also had some pretty nasty BO going on to boot which matured as our journey progressed! [View Full Entry]

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Arrived in Ekaterinburg at about 8pm after 26 hours on the train. We had booked 3rd class (Plastkartny) for this leg as it was a lot cheaper. Turned out to be lacking a little in space but made up for it in people-watching potential and the opportunity to mix with the locals. We found that 'Pass the Pigs' was the game of choice for breaking through language barriers and met several locals on their way home to visit relatives who helped us with our Russian counting skills. Ekaterinburg was in general one of the most difficult places we found to try [View Full Entry]

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We arrived in the capital around 6am after a restless nights sleep on our first Russian sleeper train ride, a mere 8hrs. It was incredibly hot and stuffy making sleep difficult. We ventured out into the morning air to find it was snowing heavily. With only a short distance to our hostel we decided to enjoy the snow and walked, we arrived at the hostel by 7am. As is Russian custom (we have now realised), the hotel was not sign posted, was behind a blank door and the front desk staff were suitably grumpy, particularly given the time!!! It was a [View Full Entry]

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The train from Helskini to St Petersburg took about six hours (not too long at all considering the trips we have ahead of us). We arrived in St Petersburg in the afternoon...our first taste of Russia. We were both exicted and petrified at the same time. Nervous that we would be arrested and tried for murders we hadn't committed (we had heard this could happen) or would just end up having to sleep on the streets in the cold as we couldn't speak Russian or read Cyrillic. Our first impressions: very busy (compared to Helsinki anyway!), lots of black (coats, cars, [View Full Entry]

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So this is the start of our big winter trip, thru Siberia in particular. Given the expense of flying one way to Russia we decided to visit Helsinki and use Finland as a 'back door' to Russia. On the 19th of January in the wee hours of the morning we caught a taxi and then a bus to Heathrow London. After our plane was delayed an hour or so we finally began our month long travels with our flight to Helsinki, Finland. We arrived in the afternoon and managed to catch a bus into the city and walk the few km's [View Full Entry]

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After a few days reorganising our lives again in Wales we headed off to Bristol in the wee hours for our early morning departure to Toulouse. From here we took a four hour bus drive up into the Pyrenees to the tiny country of Andorra...known pretty much soley for its snow resorts and tax free shopping. The country only covers and area of around 480 square kilometres with a population of 82,000 and interestingly the highest life expectancy in the world (83.52 years...thanks Wikipedia)!! Very very interesting given the fact that just about the entire population seems to enjoy a cigarette [View Full Entry]

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Arrived in Edinburgh just after sunset (about 4pm!) and managed to negotiate the van through city streets to find our flat. The flat was really nice and in a great spot only about five minutes walk from the main part of the city. It had off-street parking for Clancy as well which was a godsend as we could look out our window in the morning to check that she was ok! On our first night we ventured up to Calton Hill to see the torchlight parade....took us a while to actually find a way in but at least we were nice [View Full Entry]

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Hooray! We finished our jobs on Friday the 21st December, what a feeling to be unemployed and free again. We decided to avoid the projected 9million people on the roads on the infamous 'Black Friday' before xmas and leave late that night for our Scottish adventure. After last minute seat belt instalments the night before in the cold, Clancy was ready and raring to go... whilst somewhat slow, Clancy tackled the night journey well and provided ample space for all our gear and room to stretch out and try to sleep. The fifteen hour drive that followed proved to test our [View Full Entry]

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We did it! On our trip to London we bought ourselves our very first home in the UK....a 1984 VW Transporter Campervan. We had been looking around on Gumtree for some time for a suitable van....cheap and nasty being pretty much the sole requirements. Found this one...went down to London, had a look and going completely against Jason's usual decision making process (look at loads, take your time and make an educated decision using logic and practicality) we decided to go with our heart and just buy her! We're glad we did as she will now be able to take us [View Full Entry]

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