London to Beijing

20th July, Part I

2008-08-07T17:13:00.003+01:00

I am jarred awake by the phone which, when answered, plays what might well be a copyright-avoiding squawk of Vaughan William's the Lark Ascending, followed promptly by an automated bellowing voice - "THIS IS YOUR WAKE UP CALL".

Thanks.

Indeed it is. And thus my journey begins. I shower, shave, have a cup of coffee, and check-out. The taxi to Terminal 2 cots £13, so I'm going to have put the hotel's supposed savings (over taking a taxi from Islington to Heathrow on a Sunday morning) mainly into the "saved me from stress" category. I arrive to airport bedlam. Terminal 2 is a hideous, grotty little terminal, and check-in is on a floor with a ceiling so low, one can't help but wonder if the original architect forgot to install check-in and, realising his mistake, popped in a mezannine level as an afterthought.

I'm flying Austrian Airlines. Austrian, it would seem, are not fans of self-service check-in or online check-in. Or fast bag drops. Or anything but squeezing a full A321 of people through traditional check-in desks. The whole thing is a mess - as many passengers are interlining families transferring to longhaul, the snaking queue is full of suitcases. And backpacks. And DVD players. And bags of shopping. And the check-in staff are slow. And the baggage belts break down. I arrive at the airport at 4.40 am; I check in at 5.30am.

Security, too, is chaotic - frequented by that particular strain of traveller that elects to ignore the BAA staff, leaflets, notices, videos, audio warnings, and takes an age to remove their shoes and jacket, only to start an argument with the agent over having their liquids seized. By the time I clear security, it's 6.05am. Coincidentally, my flight also departs at 6.05am. I sprint through T2 to the gate, only to find that the urgent airport-wide "last call" PAs were more of a "Shouldn't we have some passengers by now?" calls. We board and, following a short delay where I'm able to note from my vantage point that several bags are being stealthily offloaded, potentially because we have too many, we depart for Vienna.

A delightful breakfast of rubbery, hard powdered egg and two hours of being subjected to awful candid camera type "gag TV" on the monitors (just do a BA and leave the map on, please!), we arrive in Vienna. A kind information woman in the terminal explains that, while I could wait in the tiny transfer area for a bus to my next plane, I'm Irish, so I'm best off just clearing passport control and officially entering Austria. So I do.

Inside, Vienna airport is quite 80s, quite hideous and definitely suffering from a chronic lack of toilets. After queueing for the facilities, I queue for exit passport control to leave Vienna. 5 minutes after I entered. And queue again for security at the gate (Schiphol airport does this too, and I really dislike it, as it prevents anyone from bringing bottled water on the plane. Granted, security is a concern, but hydration should be too!). I queue again for someone to scrutinise my visa. And again for someone to take my boarding card. And again to board the plane. And - hang on, I know that plane - grinning children and a whopping great big McDonald's logo? That's right. We're back on to the same plane after going round in circles. And I'm back in the same seat with the same dodgy recline. And the same sweet wrappers that some inconsiderate traveller on the last flight shoved in the seat pocket ...

I read David Sedaris' When You Are Engulfed In Flames, while half-watching a film with Juliette Binoche and Steve Carrell. I enjoy a rather tasty lunch of herb-infused chicken with ravioli and courgettes, washed down with a few glasses of wine. At which point I rather happily note that the rest of economy class seem to be scarfing down some rather foul and congealed-looking meatballs. Hurrah for me - sitting down the back has paid off, as they've run out of economy meals and passed a business-class lunch my way!

Migration cards are completed, and we land in Moscow. To say there was an immigration queue just wouldn't suffice: it is an absolute scrum. After 90 minutes, I have elbowed my way to the front, and after some standard glowering by an immigration officer, have my migration card and passport stamped, and enter Russia proper. Baggage reclaim is a circus, too: due to the length of time taken to clear immigration, our flight's bags have been dumped around the carousel, so there's a true scrummage as everyone searches for their cases.

30.07.08

2008-08-07T17:12:00.002+01:00

I have been somewhat pathetically remiss in keeping my diary, given that it's to be the aide memoire for my blog and, also, given the amount of crazed hilarity ongoing over the past ten days. To put 'remiss' in context, well, the previous page in this notebook is my shopping list for my holiday.

It's now 9.05am local time (or 4.05am Moscow train time - all Russian trains run on Moscow time at all times in Russia, leading to a unified time zone for the railway and endless confusion and frantic computation for everyone else).

I am travelling on train number 362 from Irkutsk to Ulaanbaatar. I had though the train continued to Harbin in China, but it turns out my cyrillic is pants. My entire carriage seem to be asleep - each of the nine compartments, each with four bunks, merrily slumbering. The view from here is fantastic - you can see for miles in both directions over glorious green and purple-hued steppes, to distand peaks shrouded in mists and fog.

I must admit that seeing the view was more accident by design - on the train, unless there's an important event at a peculiar time (alighting, worthwhile stop, border), you tend to let your own alarm clock take over, and sleep until you feel like getting up (usually called afternoon).

The provodnista - our carriage attendant - has started to clean down the carriage. I'm seated on a gold brocade seat half-way up the corridor, and she's started with the gent's toilet (this train, unlike others, has segregated toilets, rigorously enforced by the provodnistas), so I think I should be ok sat here for a while. Today is the 11th day of my adventure, and today will be the day I leave Russia. I have made myself a cup of coffee from the samovar - something of a curiosity on our study East German carriage and electric train, it's coal-powered or, in this case, wood-powered - a little stove providing an endless supply of boiling hot water. I swear our is held together by hair in a few crucial places. Also, the samovar is generally the only place to find hot water on board - it's noticeably absent (as is a shower!) from the train toilets.

I swear you can hear people breathing, snoring, turning in their sleep, although it may be my imagination amongst the constant clank and whirr of the train. Last night, we discovered the rather modern and spectacular carriage next door. I had hopped off to have a look at the wares of the platform hawkers (mainly smoked omul, the delicacy of local Lake Baikal, and something I was more than happy - after a few days of an omul diet - to forego). It was just as well, really - the Vladivostok train pulled in on the adjacent platform and, suddenly, every trader was shouting and scrabbling at its doors, omul flying everywhere. I guess the 362 just doesn't love its fish enough. Or had had a meal all too recently to recall that 5 day into a train journey desire for solid food.

The last 11 days have been wonderful: quixotic; intoxicating; intoxicated; and generally aa rather wonderful romp across Europe and Asia.

To put it in context, I'm currently around 6,000km and 5 time zones east of Moscow. I've made a note to think of some impressive comparisons (swimming pools a favourite!) of distances when I upload this. In fact I've travelled so far east that, when I reach Mongolia later today, I shall go back a time zone (that's not the actual reason for this time shift - it's just that Mongolia and China do not (or, in US terms, refuse to) acknowledge daylight savings time.

Speaking of daylight savings time, let's document the hilarity of the past eleven or so days. "Hilarity" reminds me of a contestant on this year's Big Brother, in turn reminding me that I haven't so much as seen a television or read a paper since July 19th, other than a quick and cursory scan of ft.com yesterday for the essentials (Ryanair shares down 23%, Mosley wins breach of privacy case).

We have just passed through the town of Zagustai, and I have been for my morning wash. The train bathrooms here are old-school (think BR Mark II or, better, Cravens): a flushing toilet that drops onto the tracks below; a sink (cold water only and bring your own plug if you want to avoid holding the tap in the on setting at all times); assorted hooks, handles and rails; and a hole in the floor. Through which I can see a moving train wheel. The bedding pack I bought from the carriage attendant included a small towel, the use of which happily allows me to forge ahead without resorting to my trek towel (very effective, but works by peeling the water from you in a rather unpleasant way).

Let's face it - onboard hygiene is a must, particularly as this train is not air-conditioned. It's also quite entertaining to have a wash - my general approach to date has been to make like a seal in an aquarium and improvise a shower by throwing water everywhere, a policy that worked well on our first train, the Rossiya, up until the point we pulled up next to a commuter train, and a startled bunch of besuited men got rather an eyeful through the half-open bathroom window of my nude shower improvisation. I felt that my refusal to break stride, and nonchalant continuance of luxuriant bathing, saved the day and, at least, hope I brightened up some office conversations that morning - "It was grotesque, Philomena. I could barely hold my breakfast down", etc.

It seems like an age since I set off on my journey - trekking off with my backpack on July 19th. I had reserved an airport hotel - the Jury's Inn Heathrow - to avoid an early-morning taxi ride and, bar the fact that I'm unable to find the hotel for a while (their directions should, ulaimtely, have been as simple as "We're opposite the large Concorde!"), all goes well. I check-in, have a glass of wine, and head for bed. An American college sports team are drunkenly noisy, pounding up and down the corridows, and playing their own absolutely hilarious version of hotel-door knock and run. When you've got around 4 hours of sleep ahead of you, what could possibly be more of a hoot?

Things to come ...

2008-08-07T17:10:00.002+01:00

The following posts are taken from the diary I wrote during the course of my trip. I hope they allow you to join in my adventures. You'll also find my photos here.

Shooting Stars

2008-08-02T11:14:00.003+01:00

Firstly, thanks to everyone who's commented - glad to know I'm not echoing myself in the Gobi desert!

Regarding weather questions, it's got progressively warmer as we've headed east. The Mongolian climate is unusual - it's a fiercely cold country in winter and gets down to -30C. However, in the summer, it hits 30C easily on a summer's day ... but, as it's quite arid desert land, drops right down at night, so the fleece that I never thought that I would need has been an absolute godsend on those cold Mongolian nights.

Last night, I sat out and looked at the stars, the planes clogging up the night sky, and the occasional shooting star - so strange to be able to step outside and see the night's sky!

From Mongolia, with love

2008-08-02T10:55:00.003+01:00

Greetings from Ulaan Bataar (aka UB), Mongolia, where it's swelteringly hot in the world's coldest capital city. It's currently 6pm and a rather toasty 34C.

I'm now most of the way through my journey, and only a few thousand miles from Beijing. Irkutsk proved lovely, and I was able to take in a very interesting tour around the house of a Decembrist, one of the number of people exiled to Siberia for political reasons in the 19th century. I also saw umpteen churches, a smattering of monuments, and an incredibly out of place catholic church - it's pure neo-Gothic, but the only neo-Gothic church in the whole of Siberia, and looks very quaint and peculiar sandwiched between a few Russian Orthodox churches.

That evening, I boarded the 362 train from Irkutsk to Ulaan Baatar, and our long train snaked off into the night. I was more than a little surprised to wake up and find that most of the train had vanished through the night, including the restaurant car. That situation got worse as the day got on: after a 6-hour stop in Naushki and a hike through the meadows stuffed with, oddly enough, wild marijuana, we returned to find that the international train was more like an international donkey ride: the train now consisted of two carriages.

Russian border control was relatively efficient, and didn't really much care for tourists. Mongolians crossing the border were quizzed and searched, while we enjoyed the tea run our provodnistas did. Our provodnistas on this train were fantastic: the entire carriage, toilets included, were scrubbed to within an inch of their life every few hours, and the train kept spotless. After Russian officers took the train apart looking for contraband, we crossed the border (large Russian control post with lots of saluting and military hedge clipping going on, big electric fence, no-mans land, small fence, little Mongolian control post) and pulled into Sukhe Bataar, on the Mongolian side of the border.

The Mongolians were evidently keen not to be outdone, and passports were taken and held next to one's head, while the passport officer engaged in all manners of officious squinting. Customs didn't really seem to care for us either at the Mongolian side, and just stamped all our forms, then the train was searched - revealing all manner of trapdoors and hidey holes we'd previously had no clue about!

At Ulaan Bataar, I transferred to a nomadic encampment in the desert for a few days, where I enjoyed pursuits such as hiking, trying nomadic cuisine (all rather cheesy), horse riding, getting a lift in the back of an open truck from some Kazakhs, digging a truck out of a sand bank after the Kazakhs took a wrong turn, and having a very intensive massage where the masseuse ended up walking up and down my back! I also met a trio of theology undergrads from my alma mater, Trinity - of all the places!

Mongolia is a wonderful, inviting, and friendly country, and surprisingly western and cosmopolitan: after 12 days in Russia, it was something of a welcome change to see people so welcoming and smiley! It's also incredibly cheap (2,500T is about 1 pound sterling - that gets you 3.5 hours in this internet cafe, a pizza, one and a half beers, or ten bottles of mineral water!).

Tomorrow, it's back on the train and off for Beijing. This trip has proven to be an absolutely amazing, and quite bizarre experience. On the last train, I started chronicling things a little better, so hope to flesh out the blog a little with the odd and strange events that have taken place from Moscow to Ulaan Baatar: I'm not quite sure that this is the tour that was intended, but it's turned out to be absolutely marvellous as a result!

Иркутск

2008-07-29T03:32:00.002+01:00

Greetings from Иркутск, or Irkutsk, over 5,000 kilometres and 5 time zones from Moscow (BST + 8 hours).

I set off last Monday, which seems an age ago, on a trip that traversed two continents and brought me to the heart of Siberia. I travelled slowly but steadily across those 5,000 kilometres aboard the Rossiya, the Moscow - Vladivostok service that's the queen of the Russian train fleet. By which, read twee: I have never before travelled on a train with green tasseled curtains, tapestries of Russian landmarks, and quite such lovely runner carpets.

The train journey was great - hopping on and off at stations, buying food from local traders - but, at 5 days, very, very long. It's also quite disorienting that the train continues to run on Moscow time throughout, while you inch your way across 5 time zones.

The whole experience was very entertaining, nonetheless, and highlights included: making friends from Poland, Russia, Germany and France; a couple of nights with rather copious amounts of alcohol; squeezing 17 people into a compartment as a result of the previous two highlights (no mean feat!); our provodnista (carriage attendant) getting rather drunk one afternoon and passing out in one of the compartments; making friends with the other provodnistas and provodniks; and a rather bizarre evening that involved flagging the train off at a rather remote station while wearing the provodnista's hat!

After 5 days of rather rudimentary facilities (hot water from the coal-fired samovar, cold water "showers" in the rather horrific track-drop toileted bathrooms, not enough room to swing a goat), it was a relief to get off the train and travel to Lake Baikal for a few day's relaxation. And some hot showers!

Listvyanka, where we stayed, was beautiful, and not just because of hot running water: I've enjoyed hikes to the local landmarks and beauty spots, swimming in the (freezing!) lake, and lots of omul, the local fish (nice fried, less so smoked).

Now, it's a day in Иркутск, then back this evening at 20.25 (15.25 Moscow time) on board another train for 2 days. Next stop, Ulaanbaatar and Mongolia!

So long, farewell ...

2008-07-23T16:19:00.002+01:00

And so it's goodbye to Moscow.

After a very sunny final day taking in the sights, I'm off for Siberia on the number 2 train tonight.

Moscow has proven to be quite an experience, squeezing in everything from the usual (Kremlin) to the slightly less usual (Lenin's Mausoleum) and the downright bizarre (assisting someone in my tour group who had been robbed with the militsiya). Altogether great fun, though, and a heartily recommended city to visit.

As I'm on a train for the next 5 days, scaling 6 time zones, I'll be doing some confused sleeping, a lot of reading, and a little memoir writing ... so see you in 5!

Hello, Moscow!

2008-07-22T17:06:00.002+01:00

I turned up at my new hotel on Tuesday morning with most of my possessions (thanks to not being awake, I sadly managed to leave a few toiletries lighter than I had intended, but nothing irreplaceable!).

The hotel is 28 storeys high and, well, bloody huge. It's one of 4 built out by Izmailovsky Park for the 1980 Moscow Olympics: outside, a large concrete block; inside, a rather strange shade of aquamarine with excessive amounts of marble. After registering my passport (Russia requires that you register your visa within 3 working days of arrival into the country - otherwise, you may have any number of issues with leaving!) - not made more comfortable by the fact that the hotel staff mislaid my documentation for a while - I made my way back into town to go around the city centre.

Red Square is amazing - it's a staggeringly large space, entirely pedestrianised with only marching routes for parades marked out on the ground. It's bordered by the State History Museum on one side, the Kremlin on a second, GUM (originally the state department store) on the third, and St Basil's Cathedral with the Moscow River behind it on the fourth. Yesterday was spent looking around the city centre and taking a tour of the Metro (absolutely amazing - fantastic architecture in a number of stations!). I met up with the other members of my travel party last night, and we had dinner (well, we tried to - it didn't go terribly well!) and a few drinks.

This morning, breakfast (the hotel provides a breakfast buffet with offerings such as cucumber, pickled radish, omelette cubes (!) and porridge - but, most importantly, lots of coffee) was followed by a walking tour around Moscow. Later, I went to the sculpture park (after the Soviet era, many sculptures were pulled down - some of which are now preserved for posterity/tourist gawking just outside the city), Gorky Park, and then spent some very rewarding hours in the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts. With an absolutely staggering collection, the Pushkin's only real drawbacks are that it has too large a collection and, with such a large and eclectic collection, its curatorial selections are sometimes a little stilted or unusual.

I'm about to hop in a much needed shower and rest my tired feet, then it's off to try and find a nice restaurant to celebrate my last night in Moscow!

Tomorrow night at 21:25, I leave Yaroslavsky on train # 2 (the Rossiya, bound for Vladivostok), where I'll be for four days - next departure, Irkutsk!

До свидания!

Du bist hier

2008-07-21T08:24:00.003+01:00

Hurrah, I've arrived in Moscow, beautiful capital city of Russia.

I arrived at Heathrow T2 at 4.40 a.m. but, thanks to Austrian's policy of checking everyone in at a check-in desk, and a manic full service, followed by a crush to get through security, I came close to missing the flight! Oops!

Nonetheless, made it and enjoyed good Austrian hospitality and bad Austrian food (mmm - powdered eggs!) on the way to Vienna. At Vienna, I disembarked, got a bus, went through passport control (twice) and security (once), before getting back on the exact same plane and sitting in the exact same seat. Vienna - Moscow was a pleasant flight with a good quality lunch (everyone else seemed to get meatballs, while I got a lovely thyme-infused chicken with a zucchini salad - I have a feeling that, by the back of the plane, they might have been running out of food) washed down with a few glasses of wine and accompanied by a film.

Domodedovo was absolutely manic, and it took about 90 minutes to clear passport control - which, once you got to the window was officious and efficient if nothing else! Picked up my bags and headed into Moscow. Found my hostel eventually (quite well hidden away, and they'd forgotten to mention that their sign was stuck to the third-floor window, rather than the ground) and settled in to there - it's more than adequate, with very comfortable facilities and, best of all for when I arrived, a hot shower with good water pressure!

I'd gotten to know a few people on the flight, so I arranged to meet up for drinks last night, and went to a Russian restaurant and a bar along the way, bringing yet more people - all of whom will be travelling (at least on parts) on my train.

Navigating around the Metro is quite difficult at first, but great fun once you get the hang of it - prompt services every 90 seconds or so, amazing architecture in the stations, and at about 30 pence a journey, just cannot be faulted!

I'm off to move to my hotel for tonight now, then hopefully head back into town and do some sightseeing - Moscow, here I come!

I packed my bags tonight pre-flight

2008-07-19T18:13:00.004+01:00

I have a theory (well, more of a superstition) that, on every holiday, one thing must go wrong. The plane will leave late. I'll forget my toothbrush. It's preferable that the thing that goes wrong is small and inconsequential as, when it's happened, it means that everything else on my holiday must go right, so having it happen allows an internal sigh of relief.

I think my holiday thing has already happened - I went to see J off at King's Cross St Pancras and noticed they have a new Rituals shop. Years ago, Mum gave me a present of their keemun lime tea, and I've been craving it ever since so I took the opportunity to buy some. Rather stupidly, in the course of some Phileas Fogg style send-off drinks, I then took the opportunity to lose the bag with the tea and my mp3 player in it. Clever, but hopefully that's my thing done.

I'm packed now, and ready to go to Heathrow for the first leg of my journey. My library fines are paid, so I shouldn't have my results withheld, I have my passport, visa, clothes, shoes, an array of reading material - and I think I'm all ready to roll!

Tonight, my journey starts off rather inauspiciously with the Tube to Heathrow and a night at the Jury's Inn. Tomorrow morning, it's Heathrow Terminal ... let me check that ... 2, and a 6am departure to Vienna.

Russia, here I come!

Ready to go?

2008-07-15T11:16:00.004+01:00

When you think about it, 17 days travelling across swathes of the world sounds significant but I hadn't really appreciated until last weekend quite what that amounted to in terms of preparation.

Last Saturday marked the start of holiday shopping - first, down to Boots to get a range of creams, pills and potions designed to arrest any incident, short of a serious car crash, that one might succumb to in the northern hemisphere. Antihistamines - check; oral rehydration salts - check (and in a tasty blackberry flavour too - mmm!); water purification - check; sun tan lotion - check; DEET spray - check; bite cream - check; anti-aging moisturiser - well, I was in Boots.

Thanks to the wonderful world of Boots 3 for 2, points promotions and vouchers, I managed to save a small fortune, spend a large fortune, and get a voucher for £2 off something I'll never want to buy.

Next stop, Blacks. The credit crunch and bad weather earlier in the year proved an unexpected boon, and I happily skipped away with a deeply-discounted pair of hiking boots and a fleece (Every treatise on Mongolia insists I'll need it, even in July & August, but I'm not quite convinced!). I balked at paying £35 for a Cag in a bag, so we still need to find something waterproof!

Back to Blacks (Amy, eat your heart out!) yesterday. And Milletts. And Ellis Brigham. And Ice + Snow. And I eventually found a rucksack that fitted the bill - comfortable, filled with pockets and with a nifty non-sweaty-back system. All the rage, I'm sure!

And so, I think I'm nearly ready - a few final purchases remain to be made, but this morning, I've been finalising preparations by getting my Trans-Mongolian reading list in order. Over the coming weeks, I'll be enjoying:

Paddy Linehan's Trans-Siberia: Inside the Grey Area
Orlando Figes' The Whisperers: Private Life in Stalin's Russia
Paul Grogan's Barbed Wire and Babushkas: A River Odyssey across Siberia

I'll also be enjoying some light distraction in the form of Philip Nolan's Ryanland, be guided by Lonely Planet's guides to the Trans-Siberian Railway and Moscow, and Bryn Thomas' seminal guide, the Trans-Siberian Handbook.

Hurrah - I think I'm nearly ready to go!

Eek! A week?

2008-07-09T08:58:00.005+01:00

After receiving my passport back late last Friday, I've travelled to Hamburg on business (and, sadly, probably my last business trip with my employer, as I prepare to transition out of my current roles and leave the organisation in a month), and I'm currently enjoying staying in a beautiful and very calming city.

That didn't stop me waking up with a start at 4am and hollering "Bugg*r" to myself as I realised I'm off to Moscow in just over a week ... it hadn't quite set in that I'm leaving quite so soon so, calming Hamburg influences notwithstanding, I'm considering descending into mild personal panic.

This weekend will, I think, be spent purchasing and packing in preparation!

It's almost as though people know I'm readying myself as well, as I received the following lovely missive from HSBC:

To: Mark

Subject: Charges for ATM usage abroad

Date: 08 Jul 2008

Message:

We're writing to let you know that from 9 August 2008, our ATM transaction fee for overseas cash machine withdrawals using a debit card will increase from 1.5% (minimum £1.75) to 2.0% (minimum £1.75).

Also on 9 August 2008 we'll be introducing a cap of £5.00 on these charges. This means no matter how large the amount you withdraw, you won't pay more than £5.00 for one transaction.

Did you know that ATM transaction fees do not apply to overseas cash withdrawals by Bank Account Plus customers? Click on 'Current Accounts' and then 'Bank Account Plus' to find out more.

Thank you for banking with HSBC.

To:	Mark
Subject:	Charges for ATM usage abroad
Date:	08 Jul 2008
Message:	We're writing to let you know that from 9 August 2008, our ATM transaction fee for overseas cash machine withdrawals using a debit card will increase from 1.5% (minimum £1.75) to 2.0% (minimum £1.75). Also on 9 August 2008 we'll be introducing a cap of £5.00 on these charges. This means no matter how large the amount you withdraw, you won't pay more than £5.00 for one transaction. Did you know that ATM transaction fees do not apply to overseas cash withdrawals by Bank Account Plus customers? Click on 'Current Accounts' and then 'Bank Account Plus' to find out more. Thank you for banking with HSBC.

£5.oo? How terribly kind. Thank you, HSBC ... I do so enjoy contributing to your distributable profits!

Oh, as for that passport of mine, it's firmly locked in the hotel safe, and it's staying there!

Have visa, will travel.

2008-07-05T09:13:00.003+01:00

Great news! After no small amount of time and money, I collected my passport last night proudly containing a Chinese visa, the last of my travel documents needed for travel.

All's good - have passport, so can travel to Germany on Monday for work and, ultimately, to China too. Just over two weeks now!

The Good. The Bad. The Ugly.

2008-07-02T11:15:00.004+01:00

With 18 days to go, I'm currently wedged in a sandwich of the wonderful and the less wonderful.

Good
I've finished my Legal Practice Course, marking what's hopefully the end of seven years of third-level education (and moving me another notch along the way to being a qualified lawyer). Provided I've passed my final examinations (the results of which are released when I'm in deepest Siberia), that's a massive weight off my mind.

Which leads on to the second wonderful - I went to the doctor to have my travel vaccinations topped up yesterday, and found that the end of the LPC has also resulted in my blood pressure dropping by around 20%, putting it firmly in the normal category. Double hurrah!

Bad
I still don't have my Chinese visa. The embassy have been dragging their heels as a result of new requirements they introduced earlier this year requiring tourist visa holders to prove their journey in and out of China, and show proof of accommodation for each night that they're in China. All fine, except that I'm not booking my own tickets in - they're being provided by an intermediary ... so finding a form of words that is satisfactory to the embassy has been a little challenging.

I'm hoping this morning that the documentation I've sent off will be sufficient and tick all the relevant boxes - however, the delay in getting the visa means that I've had to update to a same day rush service so I can have my passport returned in time for a work trip next week. That, combined with the introduction of a new mandatory intermediary "Visa Application Company" by the embassy has increased my visa costs by a whopping £70-odd, making consular fees a lot more than I originally anticipated.

Add to that the additional £100 I may have to splash out to be vaccinated against Japanese B encephalitis and tick-borne encephalitis (symptoms include swollen brain, swollen testicles and, erm, death!) and a happy bunny I am not at the moment.

Still, I'm hoping that these are all minor hurdles on the way to a marvellous holiday!

Ugly
Unfortunately, there has been some political unrest and violence in Mongolia this week following general elections. Here's hoping, for everyone's sakes, it calms down soon.

Welcome - one month and counting!

2008-06-20T12:47:00.000+01:00

Hey!

What's the correct jargon to use for a travel blog? Is is a travlog, a travblog, travelblog, blogvel - who knows? Well, no matter - whatever the answer is, you've found your way to mine.

In a month, I'm off on my fantastic holiday, taking in five countries, two continents, and clocking up some 18,500 kilometres. An experience like this promises to be amazing, and one that I wanted to share as much as I could, hence my creating this blog.

The ability to write copious amounts shouldn't pose an issue, as I'll be spending quite a lot of my time on trains chugging across Russia, Mongolia and China - however, managing to get that content uploaded to here could prove a greater challenge, as I'm not sure how great the Mongolian steppes are for internet cafes and the like. ;)

Still, I'll give this a go - and appreciate anyone pitching in with comments, thoughts, or general "ooh, ahh" type noises!

As for where I am to date?

Well, proudly in possession of one Russian visa (below right); one Mongolian visa (below left); and currently wrestling with the Chinese embassy to hopefully have one Chinese visa issued without too much further fuss!

So far, so good!