Traversing the market square we passed through the Penniless Porch at the North East corner where true to its name sat two vagrants. One, bearded, attempted a Bob Dylan tune to sing for his supper or more likely to supply something to his ladyfriend sat beside him in a stupor. Her haggard face and distant gaze recalled better days. A long tatty dress covering multi-coloured stockings and leather boots seemed to freeze her in time. Two strays from nearby Glastonbury frozen in the 80s, waiting for the next festival to begin. The immense West front rose up before us, its horizontal central section adorned with stone statues reputedly the finest examples of medieval sculpture in the world. It's lucky that Cromwell's soldiers couldn't reach high enough to destroy these. The statues in the lower section within ... read more

What do most visitors do on a bitterly cold day in a Moscow winter when the very marrow of your cheekbones aches? Probably find a Soviet style bar and imbibe copious amounts of vodka, steeling themselves for the next foray on the way back to their hotel. Not these visitors. Having glimpsed the wonders of the Metro on the previous day it seemed logical to go underground and we tromped across the frozen snow to Smolenskaya , the start of an Art Deco journey, a glimpse into Soviet pride and a palliative to the Russian population after the horrors leading up to and beyond WW II. Justifiably proud of their stations, they are revered and kept clean and free of graffiti. No chewing gum or spitting here. The varied marbles brought from all parts of the ... read more

The Oxford Dictionary definition states that a smile is 'a pleased, kind, or amused facial expression, typically with the corners of the mouth turned up and the front teeth exposed.' This human expression seemed somewhat lacking as we travelled throughout Russia and the surly and non-smiling faces became commonplace. 'Make it a game', said the text from my daughter,'see how many will smile back!' Score – 0. No-one responds with a smile if you smile first. Why not? Maybe we should have taken the advice of a friend and just asked them to 'Smile,' please!' According to Hinsz and Tomhave (1991)50% of people who are smiled at will smile back. We tried to prove that statistic but came to the conclusion that the 50% of people who don't smile back all live in Russia! The Middle ... read more

The smoky brown haze of Ulan Bator disappeared behind us, trapped in its basin, as we headed southwards to Terelj National Park. The smooth rolling hills gave rise to fantasies of multiple blue runs on the wide treeless slopes. The snowed road unfurled before us and corralled camps of tourist gers (yurts) punctuated the clear white landscape. Eagle eyes spotted two black shapes, wolves we were reliably informed, racing along a hill's ridge, disappearing over the crest in pursuit of unseen quarry. Clumps of firs, possibly spruce, increased with the strange rock formations still visible under their snow caps. The van bucked and bounced over the rutted track as we veered off the road. A black dog wandered out of the trees, curious to see the source of disturbance in this otherwise silent landscape. The crunch ... read more

Whisked at the speed of 307kph between cities built and those yet to be built, we saw spanking new stations and infrastructure to support the burgeoning buildings rising like flightless birds from the land. Any small hill stands ravaged, chopped and carved for stone, slate or any other mineral which could be extracted. The remnants of a former life flung over the land but locked into a centrifugal force around the new cities springing up at the rate of at least one a month the size of Houston. Old tenements, shikumen, and hutong demolished and swallowed in the quest for new. Beijing was a place of happenstance. Thinking only of obtaining our Mongolian visa we stood in line outside the embassy for about 1 ½ hours in the bitter cold and having handed over the passports ... read more