Sunshine (and some snow!) in Pingyao
China | PingyaoAfter a hectic but great few days in Beijing we were excited to be leaving the city and heading inland to a more rural setting. We left early on Sunday morning and caught the Metro to Beijing West station – the biggest railway station in Asia. Potentially disastrous but we managed to find it without too many problems (pointing at words in a guide book can get you a surprisingly long way!) despite my constant moaning about the weight of my backpack and the miserable weather. God knows what I’d do without Dan because he has somehow managed to navigate us everywhere without ever getting us too lost! My sense of direction and ability to map read is shocking. But I’m always happy to ask for help, unlike some!!
The station was enormous but thankfully had plenty of English signs and translations so we quickly made our way to the waiting area for our train, which was similar to an airport waiting lounge; it was really big with shops and cafes and nowhere near enough chairs for the hundreds of people packed into it. The Chinese queuing technique is great – it all seems very civilised at first but once the doors open it’s every man for himself as the crowd surges forward in a mad rush to get to the front. There was no need for us to join in with this; we had our seats booked on the train. But somehow we got caught up in it all and were pushing and shoving our way through with the rest of them. Our big backpacks definitely worked in our favour on this occasion! Read the rest of this post by clicking here…
The Great Wall of Forbidden Duck
China | BeijingWe arrived in Beijing on Monday afternoon very much in need of a shower and some clean clothes, so we headed straight for our hotel. The metro in Beijing was far easier than either of the Russian ones we’d been on, with English signs, announcements etc, so we made it without too much hassle and a bargain 19p each! Spent most of the afternoon scrubbing ourselves down and unpacking and then headed out for some food. 
Not for the first time we sought out somewhere from one of our guidebooks only to find a building site in it’s place! We ended up in a dingey little backstreet place behind the hotel, where the staff spoke no English and the menu was all in Chinese, but we managed to order through a mixture of pointing and sign language! Ended up with far too much food but it was delicious after the Russian stodge, although a rat did run under Gem’s chair and into a hole in the wall at one point, which put us off the food a bit! Luckily we’d pretty much finished by then so we didn’t leave hungry! Read the rest of this post by clicking here…
Six nights on a train
Mongolia | Nizhny Novgorod, Perm, Yekaterinburg, Omsk, Novosibirsk, Krasnoyarsk, Irkutsk, Ulan Ude, Ulan BatorWe made a slightly dodgy start to the big train trip – I’d been telling Gem all the time that we were in Moscow that the train to Beijing left at 2pm, when in fact it was 9.30pm! So we actually had an extra day in Moscow that we spent in 
the State Tretyakov Gallery of Russian art, apparently the best Russian art gallery in the country. We then stocked up on supplies for the journey (mainly noodles, beer and vodka) and sheltered from the miserable weather in the hostel. I managed to fall over twice as well – once on the stairs of the hostel (blaming the wet conditions for that one) leaving a huge purple bruise on my backside, and once coming out of the Metro just before we caught the train. Onto to my face this time, and the fall claimed the vodka we’d bought for the trip and left blood pouring down my arm! Made the train ok though and settled into our compartment.
It wasn’t quite as fancy as the train to Moscow but still fairly spacious, and the train wasn’t full so we had the cabin to ourselves for the time being. Quite a mixture of people; Aussies, Swedes, Americans and a few Germans, but no Russians at all in any of the carriages near us, so it was a bit like being on a tourist train! We had the Chinese train for this trip rather than the Russian (they alternate), so we had Chinese carriages attendants. Our attendant was very friendly (excusing the frequent spitting!) and for the first couple of days sold us cheap Chinese beer. Unfortunately, along with the Aussies, we quickly drank his supply dry! Read the rest of this post by clicking here…
Москва, Россия
Russia | Moscow
Still struggling to get to grips with the Cyrillic alphabet, the above is “Moscow, Russia” for those who don’t know it (including us!). So far we’ve mastered Кафе (cafe), Бар (bar) and Ресторан (restaurant), but not much else!
Despite that, we managed to make it from Moscow to St Petersburg on the train, on The Krasnaya Strela (Red Arrow). It was far more luxurious than our previous overnight train. We had a cabin with two other people, a comfortable bed that I could almost fit in and announcements in English from someone who’d clearly taken English lessons at Buckingham Palace. The other two people in our compartment were English, the first we’d met in Russia; a Bristolian couple called Dan & Sarah doing a similar trip to us which was nice. Managed to get some sleep and were in a half decent state when we arrived in Moscow at 8am. Read the rest of this post by clicking here…
North to St Petersburg
Russia | St PetersburgOn arrival at Baltiyskiy Station we thought we’d avoid the temptation of a taxi and get the Metro to our hostel. At the ticket booth we indicated we wanted two tickets to Nevsky Prospekt station. The woman stared at us blankly and said something in Russian we couldn’t understand. After a couple more vain attempts to communicate we decided to give up; a small queue was forming behind us and it was rush hour, so we opted for the taxi after all! We tried to barter with the taxi driver – another fail! Still, we got him to turn the meter on so hopefully didn’t get too badly ripped off.
Got to the hostel at about 10am, luckily our room was ready so we checked in and dumped our stuff. We avoided the temptation to go straight to bed after the previous night and just had a much needed hot shower before wrapping up warm and heading out into the city. God knows how we’ll survive on a train for 6 nights – after just one we were walking around in a daze! Read the rest of this post by clicking here…
First Stop Riga
Latvia | RigaAfter all the months of talk we’ve finally got going, and touched down in the Latvian capital Riga on Wednesday night. Everything went to plan with Wizz Air and we turned up at the tastefully decorated Tiger Hostel in the early evening. We were the only people staying there, so having it to ourselves was quite nice!
We’d planned to get the train to St Petersburg the following evening, so went across the road to the station. Blank looks from the station staff though, so ended up ordering them online! Time was getting on after that and Riga in October isn’t the warmest, so we ended up just going for a couple of beers and some Latvian hotpot! Read the rest of this post by clicking here…
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