Day 6 Ulan Bator.Capital of Mongolia.Reached at 7.35 . Roy leaves for his work. Many new Passengers mostly dutch enter the train. Ulan Bator has changed a lot compared with 13 years ago. Modern Buildings.More People. Sometimes 6000 per week come to UB leaving the countryside. During the trip in Mongolia sand storms, lonely houses,horses,More sand. Some grass. In the Mongolian dinner car a selection of 55 illustrations for delicious food.3 are available.. During the whole trip there is in every carriage hot water available.The chinese crew heats it up with coal fire.They use the coals [View Full Entry]

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I had to take train nr 4 at 21.35. The hotel called an illigal taxi who brouhgt me to the square where are two stations. Finally the right one.Now to find the train.No info.No english. Lots of Russians. Saw a tourist group,were Swedish and they had a guide.He knew.So followed them and found the train. Waggon 9 seat8 in the first class. I shared the cabin With Roy. Roy is from New Zealand and working in Mongolia as director " Lamp of the Path" Organisation who is helping the Mongolians with education,schooling, free medical service. Roy speaks very good New Zealand [View Full Entry]

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One of the questions on the healthdeclaration regarding Swineflu for entering China I had to fill out right after leaving Moscow was. Have you had close contact with pig? The right answer is no. The wrong answer is yes and makes you candidate for quarantaine. During the bordercontrol on the Mongolian/Chinese border all passengers in the Transsib got a smallthermometre to put under the arm. Chinese in white coats and masks were running around. No problem in the first class carriage. However in the second class somebody had fever. What will happen?Cabin in quarantaine, ?Carriage?.whole t [View Full Entry]

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On my previous trip with the Transsib, about 13 years ago, I met a German movie director who was going to make a movie in Mongolia about their dogs. Dogs are kind of holy animals but there were to many of them. Most dangerous job was the dog killer payed by the government. Dogs were important in Mongolia to keep together the herds. Later on moving to the city in the communist time there were less herds but the dogs stayed and became more. Somewhere in the 20th of the last century there were 500.000 inhabitants an 300.000 dogs. The law [View Full Entry]

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Visited the Kremlin.A huge walled grounds with the government buildings and gardens and cathedrals. Visited the cathedral of Archangel Michael with beautiful frescoes still original from 1565. There were 5 singing young priests, good sound and when they were not singing they sold CD s or were busy with their mobiles. Russian cathedrals have hardly any place to sit so how are they doing that? Went also the the Cathedral of Assumption with nice Icons and to the intersession Cathedral, the building well known for the " onion" towers. Streets in Moscow are kept remarkable clean by way [View Full Entry]

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Went yesterday to the red square another Unesco site, Made some pictures. It was very crowded perhaps because saturday was Victory day with a big parade on the Red square. 9000 soldiers, tanks , rockets and so on and over 60 airplanes. The army is rehearsing this kind of parades on a replica on the same scale as the real Red Square some 50 km from Moscow. You can make pictures now with Lenin and the Czar or with Napoleon Boneparte. It all looks better and happier than 13 years ago when I visited Moscow for the first time. People look [View Full Entry]

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Took saturday the local train Warsaw- Lukov and at 11.46 h the Prague- Moscow train from Lukow. Many sleeping cars. Comfortable but a bit small for 3 persons with luggage. Border control at border Poland- Belrussia. Train full of Russians, Was the only foreigner in the car. One of the russians from my cabin had to leave the train because he forgot his transit visa. After border control they lift up the train car by car push away the wheels and bring under the uplifted train new wheels for the wider russian tracks and let the train down again, Operation takes [View Full Entry]

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Warsaw is my third Ibis hotel on this trip. Rooms are so identical that if you don t look outside you have no idea if you are in Krakow or Madrid. Walked through Warsaw about all day. Public transport are mostly busses since the Russians decided in the 60th that this was a good system to deliver more of their oil. 1600 busses with about 170 routes totalling over 2.500 km. Tramsystem delevoped again right after the war has stop developing at 800 tramcars and 240 km tracks. You see very old and very new tramcars in the streets. In recent [View Full Entry]

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Wednesday evening in restaurant Wesele in Krakow. Life music, good food. A couple was sitting next to me. She spanish 60plus , small painted blond hair. He dutch 65 plus bollheaded with grey hair at the backside flying like kind of wings. Living in London. He saw my dutch book and she told me everything. Wanted also to try her dutch vocobulair, dirty dutch words. It was excellent. I don t want to repeat that.Her husband obviously her teacher got kind of healthy tomato red head and told her she promised not to use that in public. What kind of promise [View Full Entry]

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Wednesday morning I took a tour: The three faces of Krakow. There was a female guide, there was a coach for 33 people and there were 3 passengers. 2 Norvegian women, 55 plus and myself. It were friendly women but one had a moustache and I was able not to ask during the 4 hours trip if she did not need a good shave. We saw Nowa Huta. A town built by the russians right after the war for the laborers of a new steelwork. 30.000 laborers. Now after privatisation 1000 with more output. We saw Kazimiers the former jewish district. [View Full Entry]

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