Hi Dear Friends, sorry for the big silence, we haven't posted any entries for long... partially because of the trip to North Korea, but let us start with Beijing first! After the harsh weather in Mongolia we really longed for the high 10s or low 20s C in Beijing, which thankfully awaited for us there. OK, no fliplops weather, but we could get rid of the long john's, gloves, caps and fleece jackets... big difference. Spent 6 days in Beijing, and enjoyed it a lot. It's a buzzing city with noise, traffic and lots of smells, so different to the Mongolian steppe :-) We took it easy in Beijing, but managed to do the main highlights, being Summer Palace, Forbidden City, Tianmen Square, Great Wall, Acrobatics, Peking Duck, etc... Great architecture and thanks God the tourist ... read more

Mongolia Ok we just came back from the Mongolian countryside where weve traveled 6 days from Ger to Ger (round tent which the local nomads still use as houses) with camels and horses. All pretty cool, but it depends heavily on the saddles... Authentic Mongolian saddles (read: 100% wood, no cushion) are NOT recommended. But the whole experience was great. Horserinding through the plains in the snow. Catching some sun and throwing goat shit at eachother with the local kids (no they were not chasing us away, we were just having fun). But I gues that the weirdest thing was actually when we went with camels to a local holy place on Sunday, where we were spontanously invited to join a Mongolian Sunday lunch: sheep. All ok, but at the moment we arrive they were just ... read more

Hey All, we still owe you with some pictures from the Baikal Lake as that posting went without photos... sorry. So here you go, enjoy! Greets, C&A ... read more

Baikal Lake Area Hi Dear Friends! Sorry for not writing so long, it's not because we have forgotten about you. Since our last entry we crossed from Europe to Asia and after our adventureous trip on the Trans Siberian we arrived to Irkutsk on 1 October. 4 nights, 3 days on the train sounds horrible, but actually was not that bad... we shared our cabin with 2 Russian guys, both on a 7 day trip to Vladivostok... ouch... one of them was a military pilot. We asked him why he did not fly on this long trip, he said he does not trust the Russian commercial airlines... maybe he likes to be in control??? We had some funny chats with him and his friend, he understood approx 20 % of what we said in English, ... read more

As promised, this time we write a decent blog entry... SPB Saintpetersburg (SPB) was great, we spent there 3 days. Lucky us the youth hostel was in the centre, so all sights were in walking distance. SPB is the favourite city for many Russians as it's a buzzing place with lots of nice buildings and people are very friendly. The only negative they say about SPB is the weather, it can be very very cold and dark, a bit depressive sometimes. We were lucky though, the sun was shining, blue sky and not much wind. We visited the Hermitage, which is a museum much bigger than the Louvre in Paris. Amazing collection however we liked the building itself most. Full with ornaments, lots of gold on the ceilings and walls, all rooms reflect the richness Russia ... read more