Blogs from Urals, Russia, Europe - page 3

Our first guided tour today, to the Kungar ice caves, with both an interpreter and a driver. We booked through a company mainly hecause visiting independently would have been a challenge, with no straightforward public transport there, but it was really nice to have the whole day planned out for us with nothing to think about, plus our interpreter was highly informative about Perm and Russiain general. The ice caves really were a highlight, very spectacular, although only a small part was actually icy -the further underground, the warmer it gets, so no ice after the first couple of hundred metres or so. This didn't make it any less interesting. Highlights were the dead still underground lakes, which reflect the rocks above so perfectly that you can't tell what is real rock and what is the ... read more

So, our first long train leg with two nights on board. My first impression was that the carriages were older than the St Petersburg to Moscow train but essentially the same. Next was that it was quite warm compared to the waiting room coming in at 24°C. Nice. We climbed on board unloading our bags into the bottom bunk. This time we had an upper and lower bunk and hoped Dave would be more comfortable on the slightly longer lower bunk. Next thing we knew a couple of Russian ladies had entered the cabin and were taking up all the space in the middle. We couldn’t move so ended up crammed into the lower bunk waiting for them to situate themselves. Eventually the older lade left and we realised we had just one roomie, a young ... read more

So what is three nights straight on the train like? There were highs, there were lows. Or more accurately there was sleep, eating, turning back clocks twice a day, more sleeping, choosing mysterious dishes from the dining car, being chased by babushkas on the platforms, sleeping, eating, getting depressed by the misguided decision to read the Gulag Archipelago, getting depressed by the sheer volume of unattractive Russian men with their shirts off, sleeping, eating, changing clocks and then arriving in Kungur, in the Ural mountains for brief respite. A small town of about fifty thousand maybe, our tour skipped the ever popular Ekaterinburg, instead choosing to bring some foreign tourism to an otherwise often passed place. After a much needed shower and change of clothes, we embarked with a local guide on what became the dawdling ... read more

Shitty hostel but good craic... read more

FYI - this travel blog doesnt feature Tobolsk as a location and Tyumen is the first city in Siberia, not sure why it's saying Urals ;) After a short overnight train ride I arrived in Tobolsk: city with about 100’000 inhabitants – in Russia they call it the province – it used to be Siberia’s prosperous capital for a while. A CS originally from Tobolsk, now studying in St.Petersburg, organized a couch for me at his mom’s place. So, I got picked up by a BMW X6 – interesting :) We arrived at the apartment – absolutely in line with the car – big and fancy: modern interior, flat-screen TVs hanging on the walls in every room, in the bedroom every woman’s dream – a walk-in cupboard, in the bathroom a Jacuzzi, ... After a super ... read more