Day 1 - May 3 Early morning taxi to Finland Station. The taxi was an ordinary new car (no taxi markings) but the driver was friendly and had some English, we even managed a joke over the exchange of fare and receipt. The train journey was 6 hours, including the hour for the Russian and Finland immigration checks (the Finnish officials wanted to know why I was travelling alone, a rather odd question I thought from the broad minded Finnish people). On the train we were given an unusual breakfast of yoghurt, chocolate coated sponge cake with jam and cream, and juice. Unfortunately, no coffee so by the time I reached Helsinki I had a coffee headache. I spent a while looking for the hotel, as I only had a photograph of the streets taken from ... read more

Day 17 -19 (April 21-22) Catching the bus in Vladimir is interesting in that the buses run so regularly that you don’t need to book, they run as soon as the bus is full or every half hour whichever comes first. It is a four hour journey, but finally we have arrived in the modern and current Russian capital. We transfer to the amazing Moscow metro and four stops later we have arrived (metro trains run every 2 minutes, and the stations are works of art). To get to our hotel is a short walk but made longer as it feels like we are walking through a wind tunnel. We are soon registered and warmed, and head out for an evening orientation walk in the city centre and some dinner. Food is very expensive in Moscow ... read more

Day 12 -14 (April 16-18) Trans-Siberian We boarded our train late afternoon and were soon travelling through birch forest and snow. Every now and then little villages would appear and then they are gone. We stop at larger stations, the closer we get to Moscow the larger the towns, including some impressive bridges over the passing rivers. Irkutsk to Vladimir is 4,943 kilometres and taking almost 74 hours. The journey was surprisingly quick with reading, games of cards and yahtzee, stops at stations where we could get off for 20 minutes. We were careful to make sure we purchased some things from our carriage attendant though (always good to keep this relationship on the positive side) and instant mash potatoes were the flavour of the day having grown tired of the instant noodles on previous trains. ... read more

Day 8-9 (April 12-13) We are ready to begin our next part of the train journey boarding our train around 8 pm. We’d been advised that it would be the most local train of the trip, only to find we have a new carriage (complete with TV not yet working though). Again there was a measure of smuggling going on. We were asked if we’d like to hide some tea towels and dish brushes (our leader translates) but we declined. A woman was putting on layers and layers of underwear. These travellers were only going as far as the first town in Russia. The following morning we awoke to find that we were no longer attached to our engine. It was just our carriage sitting calmly at the platform. During the evening the other carriages were ... read more

Day 4-5 (April 8-9) An early morning start to catch the first train in the Trans-Mongolian/Trans-Siberian journey. The Chinese train left at 7:30 for a 30 hour journey to Ulaan Baatar. The train was quite modern and comfortable and came with simple meals included. It was amusing to listen to a discussion from a person who travelled the train often and complained that there was no meat included for lunch (Mongolia being a mainly meat eating country). He managed to get meat balls for himself and another table of travellers (we were happy with our tomato and egg dish) and felt a bit sorry for the dining car crew. The implication from the complainant was that they were keeping the meet meant for us so they could sell it (quite feasible). We settle in and begin ... read more