Beijing

Bright and early on Thursday we had to catch our last train which

would bring us to Beijing. This journey included 2 border crossings, 7

hours without a toilet and the changing of the wheels on the train.

The first two bits weren't very exciting or funny, but the wheel

changing was very interesting to see and provided some entertainment

for a few hours of our long journey. The train pulls into a warehouse

type building and one by one the carraiges are lifted, the wheels

pulled from underneath them and then a new set of wheels fixed on for

the Chinese train tracks.

We arrived in Beijing just after lunch on Friday and had an hour or

two to explore the city before we went for Peking duck dinner. It's

not as good as The Eat Well in Eastcote!

We hadn't booked our tickets out of Beijing, as we thought this would
be no problem, but we didn't know that there's a public holiday on
Friday and the first available train to Xian is on 2nd October. So we
have over a week in Beijing, but we're just enjoying exploring the

city.Today we went to the Summer Palace, we've walked through Tianamen

Square, The Olympic stadium and the Hutongs in the city. The weather

is lovely and sunny; Colin is topping up his Siberian tan and I'm

barely browner than I was in London (I'm used to the African sun).

We're doing one of the hikes along The Great Wall tomorrow, so really

excited, but need an early night as we get picked up at 6am and don't

get back till 7:30pm.

Our camera is permanently out; everything is so colourful and

beautiful. Unfortunately no pictures to share at the moment, but we'll

try and add some later if we find somewhere we can upload pictures.

Ulaan Baatar

We arrived early Monday morning and were served a lovely breakfast before heading into town. It wasn't at all like we expected, some parts are really modern and there's big skyscrapers going up and SUV's everywhere. The people are absolutely lovely and very friendly. Most of them wear modern, fashionable clothes, but we've also seen older people and children dressed in traditional clothing. I don't get a second look when we're walking around, but the people do tend to stare at Colin and we've had a few sitting right by us to hear us talk and to look at us. There's a lot of colourful temples here, but you're only allowed to take photos from the outside and preferrably a distance from them. Monday night we had dinner at a Mongolian BBQ (like the one in Covent Garden, except they had a sheeps head at this one with traditional singers and a band). There's a big square in the middle of town with a Genghis Khan statue and loads of restaurants named after him too.
Yesterday we drove to a little village 2hours outside of UB, where we would spend the night at a Ger Camp. On the way we stopped off at an even bigger statue of Genghis Khan, in the middle of nowhere. They're building a big ger camp around the statue. When we got to the village we were surrounded by such beautiful scenery. In the middle was the ger camp and all around us were mountains and trees. It was absolutely stunning and absolutely freezing! So we decided to go for a hike up one of the mountains to warm up and hopefully have a great view from on top. We made our way up through the trees and up some steep slopes and only when we got to the top did we see a path. Our route was much more adventurous anyway and the view was definitely worth it. It was so peaceful and beautiful... once you could breath again.
The food was also great and the portions big enough to feed us for 3 days. Breakfast was two courses, lunch four and dinner three.
We slept in a ger last night, with a fire going all through the night and at 7am someone came in to restart it for us so that we stayed nice and toasty. It was a fantastic experience which we shared with some new (unwanted) friends 2 big spiders and a few little ones and 2 grasshoppers. But we were warm, which was the most important thing.
We drove back to UB this morning and have had another day of walking around the town and to see the last few things before we get back on the train to Beijing early tomorrow morning.
Here's a few more photos.

Rewind

We didn't have access to internet in Russia, so here's a quick rewind with some updates about our time in Russia. St Petersburg was a lovely city to walk around in and we enjoyed the 2 days we had there.
Next we got to Moscow very early in the morning, after a very claustrophobic overnight train ride. We went to the Kremlin and saw the beautiful churches and cathedrals. We did a lot of walking and a lot of trying to explain ourselves, which was both interesting and frustrating. The funniest thing we saw was at one of the metro stations. There's a statue of a soldier with a dog and the colour on the dog's nose, hindleg and paw are worn away, because everyone that walks past there, queues up to rub these parts for good luck.
From there we got on the Trans Siberian train for another 4 nights to get to Lake Baikal. The journey actually went pretty quickly, it was good to be with a group or it could have been a lot longer.
We had a guide meet us at Irkutsk and she gave us some interesting information about the city and the lake. We had a day by the lake, which was really cold, but would you believe Colin still managed to get a little sunburnt as the sun was very bright. Beforehand we were determined to go for a swim, but Annastasia tested the water with her feet and could only stand 2 seconds before her foot started aching and cramping up. We did drink the water fresh from the lake and it was very pure, nice and icey cold. We then had a day in Irkutsk before getting back on the train to Ulaan Bator, Mongolia.

Here's a few photos of us in Russia.

Leaving Moscow

We leave Moscow in a bit, and get on the trans Siberian train to Lake Bakail. Spent two nice days in St. Petersburg , walked around the city and walked through the Hermitage. Princess Annastasia felt right at home in the Winter Palace. Took an overnight train to Moscow where we've done lots of walking including seeing the Kremlin. We've only picked up a few Russian words, which we hope will still be useful in Irkutsk. Tired already, really enjoying ourselves, and we now have a few days to rest up on the train. We'll try and upload some pictures next time we're online.

And we're off

We're on our way to Gatwick, finally! Here's a photo of us all set to go. First stop St Petersburg.

Time to go

We finally start our trip tomorrow. We're both super dooper excited, but still have lots to organise before we go. We'll update our blog as often as we can, so keep an eye out.
Bye for now!