Our last few days in Caerphilly unfortunately have left us with a bad taste….we arrived home to Caerphilly to find that some intellectually challenged nobs had slashed all four tyres on Kit! (Kit is/was our beloved Volvo sports car!?see earlier blog) It wasn’t worth paying to get new tyres so ended up having to give her away to a group of local bums (probably the same guys who slashed her tyres). A very sad farewell indeed. Never mind, it could have happened anywhere. We spent a few days packing up our room in Caerphilly before heading off for the next chapter in working in the UK. We had to rush our leaving a little as our landlord had decided to put his house on the market whilst we were away, so we left in a little ... read more

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 sit and wait so long as the passport process was over with quite quickly but apparently this is always the case....nothing happens quickly in Russia (I think this is the national motto??) and it seems ... read more

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 and get decent cheap accomodation. We ended up paying a fortune to stay in a room which looked like it still housed five families living close quarter communist era squalor. The place was not really ... read more

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, roads, mud) and a general feeling of reservedness and people showing very little emotion. This was an impression which would surface again every now and then but more often than not we found that people ... read more

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 or two (maybe that was just the tourists taking advantage of the low prices??). Not too much to say really....had a fantastic week snowboarding. Jas starting from scratch and Kirst reliving her youthful times on ... read more