Life on the rails .... part 3

Finally the Ural mountains and some scenery. Or at least it would be if it wasn't dark - for about 30 minutes we had pine clad valleys before the lights went out and another night of gently rocking along trying to get some sleep.

Another 24 hours and we arrive in Krasnyorsk, beyond which we cross into more picturesque Eastern Siberia. Finally some decent platform food - we took on supplies of hot sausage rolls and Siberian dumplings at Llanskaya. By this stage our body clocks are all over the place - as well as gaining an hour or two each day, the train and everything in it continues to run on Moscow time right up to the border. Breakfast today was served at 3am. Another semi-interesting train fact is the toliets - press flush and you get a nice view of the tracks, it just deposits it there for nature to do the rest. Of course if you're really lucky and the wind is right you get blowback ... a little like the winners challenge on the Crystal Maze. Nice.

After a pictureseque climb through logging country we settled in for our fourth night aboard. We set our alarm early & awoke to the scenic highlight of the journey - Lake Baikal, the largest freshwater lake on the planet and we had great views for around 3 hours as our train followed its shores for 180km before heading South for Ulan Ude, our last major stop before the Mongolian border.

After Ulan Ude we left the mountains and a dramatic change of scenery and weather as we hit sunshine and the rolling plains that would lead us to Mongolia, as we followed the course of the Selenge Gol river.

The Russian border crossing was a hellish 4 hour, full toilet lockdown, culminating in us clearing immigration only to roll out of the station straight into a floodlit pen, where once again the undercarraige was inspected at length. Seriously, someone should tell these guys the cold war ended a long time ago. So at last we made it over the border, and arrived 21km later at the far more relaxed Mongolian border - we're liking this place already. Next stop Ulan Bator ...

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Life on the rails .... part 2

With the weather very firmly now changed from bloody freezing to warm and humid, it's time to head back to Yaroslavki Station for the beginning of our epic train journey across Siberia to Mongolia. In and around the station is definitely the worst part of Moscow we saw, "full of crazies" is no understatement. I drew the marginally shorter of the 2 straws and left Mel in the waiting room, surrounded by drunks and rough sleepers (occassionally being beaten awake by the police - nice) and headed out into the surrounding night market to stock up on supplies. As with everywhere in Russia so far, if you make the effort then people are genuinely warm and helpful. So I was soon performing a series of mimes to describe which goods I wanted to buy from the people staffing each kiosk (no self service here) - much to their amusment. I got a bit delayed, because the pot-noodle seller decided he needed to practice speaking French to me. Only in Russia ..... So after 2 hours of what is possibly the most intimidating train station on the planet ... we finally boarded the legendary train 4, bound for Beijing. Not all the way in one hit, but we'd be spending the next 5 nights aboard so decided to go for the luxury 2-berth Kupe compartment. As it was a night departure, we missed the picturesque spires of the golden ring cities completely, waking up to scenes of Western Siberia. Bascially 2 days of this... And occasionally one of these ... And that kind of sums it up really. Our guidebook had assured us of plenty of opportunities for taking on supplies at stations, sadly we found this to be a slight exaggeration and were almost immediately on emergency rations -apart from a very occasional visit to the awful and ludicrously priced Russian restaurant car (even GNER could learn how to profiteer from these guy's). Without a doubt the most fun I had in the first 2 days was watching Mel trying to eat her pot-pasta with a drinking straw - someone had forgotten to pack a fork ..... although exacty who it was is still a matter for debate ....


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Painting the town Red ... Moscow - part 2

Well, our night out in Moscow was one to be remembered ... It started well, and we found the recommended Indian restaurant no problem - only to discover it was dry after we'd sat down at our table. We decided to move on. After some searching the locality we ended up in a cellar bar with a nice atmosphere and half decent food menu, but more importantly beer. So we settled down to fajitas and lots of ice cold pints of Staropramen. We'd been there about 30 minutes when we realised most of the rest of the bar was there for a birthday party. If we hadn't realised already we would have around an hour later as the bar filled up and a certain critical mass of alcohol had been reached. Every minute the same girl would shout "hippy birt-day!", then every other minute would come a big shout in Russian and everyone would drink a shot of Vot-ka (see we've been learning Russian too!). This phase lasted around an hour and everyone was getting in very good spirits. Then something we didn't expect. Enter the stripper. Not just the standard UK pub stripper dressed as a police lady - but a very professional young lady indeed, who performed in 3 separate acts (each with it's own stage custume) lasting about 45 minutes overall. Then 2 of the party guests started pole-dancing, at the same time, in what can only be described as a well choreographed girl-on-girl routine. Clearly they we're professionals too. Then everyone else started having a go (including the men), and in case you hadn't guessed the party was in full swing by now. By the time we left to catch the last to catch the last Metro home, the second table full of plates and glasses had just gone over - we figured the party had probably reached it's zenith ...

Next day, and nursing a pair of very sore heads indeed we headed off to Red Square & the Kremlin for some slightly more sedate cultural activity - more photo's from there on my flickr account. Tomorrow we head off on our trans-Mongolian train journey - so it's off to the local shop for a litre or two of that cheap Stoli ......

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Greetings Comrades - Moscow part 1 ...

So, after some time deciphering our Cyrillic Moscow A-Z came the realisation the hotel we'd booked in at was 10km outside the city centre ... by the murderous look of the taxi touts hanging around in the station - the Metro would certainly be our best option. Grand, palatial, ornate, run down and utterly confusing are all expressions that would sum up our first taste of the underground system here. Saturday morning rush hour seemed to be full of people dressed in sixties leather jackets (and sometimes trousers & waistcoasts) generally looking stony faced and malnourished ... Thanks to some masterful translation of our A-to-Z and equally impressive navigation through the Metro by Mel, we finally made it to the right station in the suburbs of Moscow. Our first impressions on exiting consisted of "this can't be right ... can it?" and "why would there be a hotel out here ...?" - we were somewhere between row after row of Soviet apartment blocks, a train junction about the same size as Clapham, hundereds of industrial units and a 12 lane wide main road. Nice. No exaggeration, we had to use the compass on my GPS to find the hotel. In the end despite the outward appearance of some of the buildings we decided that Vladykino was probably a nicer place than our original impressions suggested, and we finally found our hotel on a tree lined street where the helpful staff let us check in at 9am (try doing that in London without paying for an extra night!) ... or perhaps it was our aroma after a night on the train gradually filling reception? After a first day of getting to know Moscow it's beginning to grow on us, London prices at the main sights it may be, but at 35p a Metro ride, 420p (yes there's no pound symbol on this keyboard ..) for a litre of Stoli there are plenty of bargains to add some balance - added to that and Mel's student card is gaining near legendary status for gaining free or discount entry to various museums etc. Sunday and we headed for Moscow Zoo (free for Mel, of course) - now I'm not a big fan of zoo's in general & would much prefer to see animals in the wild, but then again a Siberian Tiger is not one I'm especially likely to come across ... Sunday being the day that winter changed to summer - we we're joined be every Muscovite with a child under 10 years of age, not exactly relaxing but a nice day out all the same. Needless to say, the tiger we'd come to see was in the next to last enclosure, and asleep, but we got a good view anyway.

After catching the Metro back to base we enjoyed the first warm weather of our trip with a 12 rouble (25p) ice-cream against the backdrop of Vladykino's soviet apartment blocks before getting freshened up for a night out on the tiles of Moscow ....

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life on the rails - part 1 ...

So it's goodbye St. Petersburg as we take the first (and shortest) leg of the epic railway journey across Asia - the 8-hour sleeper train Moscow. Sleeper may be not be the best description - jiggling around slipping in and out of consciousness to a constant clackety-clack would probably be more apt. However overall our first taste of Russian railways was pretty good, the train was clean and fairly comfortable - and luckily it wasn't full, so we managed to get a 4-berth compartment to ourselves for the night. The trains seem to run minute perfect here - so we set our alarm for 6am, and after freshening up, ate our breakfast boxes as the scenery changed from a sea of birch to villages vaguely reminiscent of the opening scenes of Borat as we approached the outskirts of Moscow. We'd pre-booked our hotel for Moscow, but somehow we managed to forget to print the directions - so armed with only the postal address and worrying memories of reading "Moscow experiences" we pulled in to the station at 7am, just in time for the Saturday morning rush hour .......

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window on the west ...

Our Saviour on the Blood Cathedral Originally uploaded by markf2006.

St. Petersburg is a city of real contrasts where old meets new Russia with a mixture of slightly crumbly old buildings and neon. The fun started on our journey from the airport, where we avoided the ludicrously priced taxi rank and hopped on a local bus to the outskirts of the city to pick up a cheaper cab to our hotel - sounds easy enough until you factor in the difficulty in translating to Cyrillic for a taxi driver who reads of speaks no English!

So 2 hours after arrival we finally made it to the excellent Art Hotel - a small haven of luxury curiously located in one of the rather run down courtyards to be found off every street in St. Petersburg.

After dinner at a local Serbian Restaurant we were presented with our first suprise of the trip - mints in the form of Wrigley's chewing gum - a practice we would see repeated more than once over the next 3 days.

There are some really strange food combinations here ... baked cauliflower and fish, or how about a cheese roll "boat style" with a fried egg in the middle anyone? Actually in general we're enjoying the Russian food so far - even if it is a little quirky.

Then there's the local characters - like meeting the self billed "only Rasta in St. Petersburg" DJing in a bar opposite the US embassy - not so strange you might think, until you discover he looks something like a cross between Spike Milligan and Ken Bates ...

The Hermitage is even bigger than the Louvre in Paris - despite the fact that the building appears to be crumbling away, the collection of paintings is staggering ... literally rooms full of Gaugin, Picasso etc.

One of the more interesting excursions here was a boat trip through the city straight from the Soviet era .... complete with folding chairs on deck and the most tartan travel rugs you're ever likely to see in one place outside Scotland.

You can see all my photos from St. Petersburg by clicking on photo's in the media section - tonight we set off on the first leg of the Trans-Mongolian train journey across Asia with an overnight sleeper to Moscow.

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Setting off in style ...

Champagne breakfast
Originally uploaded by einalem.

It's Monday morning and we're finally on our way ...

We decided on a celebratory breakfast of Champagne accompanied by smoked salmon and cream cheese bagels to mark the start of our journey (and lets face it, it may be some time before we can commit to such luxuries again)

Everything was going so well .. until Grantham that is, and our train was terminated due to technical problems (sound familiar anyone?). It kind of messed up our plans to meet my pal Sean from LA at Kings Cross - so what followed was a real test of the "haulability" of our new luggage on a sweltering day in London.

After fighting our way through thousands of people returning to the station from a false security alert, we caught a cab to our new meeting point in Islington - finding the pub we'd chosen was unexpectedly closed, we then had a further trek (with luggage) 750m down the road to finally meet Sean at a friends apartment.

After a pleasant lunch with Sean and Nadia where we topped up our alcohol levels once again - we then headed by tube and bus to Brentford to meet Sinead and her new baby Fergus for the first time. After a brief rest, yet another test by public transport took us to Heathrow and at last we arrived at our hotel for the evening.

Tuesday morning - and time for one final breakfast rendezvous at the airport with Mel's friend Paul (who commutes to Heathrow from Northern Ireland) and at last we climb aboard our flight to St. Petersburg - Russia here we come!

Life in a vacuum ...

It's Sunday, and the eve of our departure from Leeds. Despite the good weather that would normally have had us headed to the Dales for the day - at 7.30pm we're still sat here packing all our gear away into bags and boxes for storage in the spare room ... I've discovered today that there's precious little you can't vacuum pack - here's most of the clothes I'm leaving behind in 1 handy bag ... in fact it's almost a shame we can't bring the hoover with us! Tomorrow we catch the train to London, where we'll spend the day meeting a few last friends before flying to Russia on Tuesday morning. I guess future updates may now get a bit variable, dependent on local conditions - but I'll try and keep the flow fairly regular with some time delayed updates (this is one of them) when we're out in the middle of nowhere. So by the time you read this we'll be well on our way - here's to our new life - no worries, no hoover & very definitely no work for the next few months !


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