Beijing 11-15th April 2006

Arrival in Beijing was scarey. We had just spent 6 days on the train with little space or freedom (David likened it to the closest he felt to being in prison) and gentle motion day and night. Adjusting to not moving was weird but we did find our legs while milling round the platform, weighted with our bags wishing travel pals safe journeys. The walk through the station was simular to our crowded Russian tube experience and once we were out hawkers and beggers start pressuring you to part with you money in various ways. We find a stoney, tunnel vision look wears well in these situations, it's a suitable front line defence to warding them off. The hawkers here are not persistant and get the hint, quickly.

Not knowing what to look for, for the Beijing tube we pointed to the chinese characters in our guide and got an great result, it was right under our noses! Again with finger pointing we communicated 'two tickets please' (same as Moscow, same price where ever you like), we knew our route and found the tube trip pleasant - even if all eyes where on us!

Our hostel was located by writting the address down in chinese and with help from the locals. The entrance to the hostel was very grand, we woundered if we where in the right place but, we later worked out there is a hotel above the hostel - good idea. The hostel was clean, showers we good and the people staying where really friendly. We ate in groups making it a great opportunity to out new try dishes. I've tried chicken feet! David picked around them. They where quiet tastey really.

Beijing suffers from dust storms at this time of the year, the sand is blown from the Gobi Desert. Beijing is under threat from the encroaching desert, it is moving toward this capital at an alarming rate - there's just nothing to stop it. The weather was generally warm in comparision to siberian weather but cold at night. We saw little of the sun due to the dust and/or pollution.

During our stay we visited the Great Wall. To get to the wall we had to cross farmland where a kranky lady whelding a rusty axe wanted 2y each - we tried to ignore her and barter but eventually we guessed for 2y each it was worth more to her than to us, she also had a validate point about our effects to soil erosion. We made our trip with 8 of us Me, David, Greg, Pill, Pamela, Steph, Dave and John and it was a really fantastic day. The day after we ached like mad so decided to go for some gentle sites.
Pill acompanied us to the Summer Palace by bus, half way thorugh the day we realised this was not to be such a gentle day, oohh we where knackered at the end of this day!

If your after a true 'chinese' experience during your stay avoid Sanlitun. Its an area of town located near the western business quarter, therefore it's full of (expensive) western style pubs etc on the other hand you may find it a welcome break. It was good however to have time to catch up with Alex and managed to pick up a manderin phasebook from the Bookworm 10y cheaper than bookshops, this has proved invaluable for communicating!

Visiting a local park is great fun, especially when the locals are there. Its bustling with activity. People congregate according to what type of music they wish to listen and sing along too, playing games and generally enjoying the vibe. It was a great escape from the city at Tiantan Park, full of blossom and contrasting greens, a great place to sit and share a drink of tea. This is the park where the Temple of heaven is built, as with most of Beijing it was under construction on our visit. That was our last day in Beijing at 19.00 we got on a HARD SEAT (!!) to Pingyao.

The Trans-siberian Express 5 - 11th April 2006

Another sweaty journey to the train station we needed (there are 9 in Moscow!) with just one diversion. The train was due to leave at 21.30 so we had a good time to wait around the station watching the characters and drunks, hoping that we wouldn't be put with any of them. Once boarded we discovered who we were to share with, Mandy is from Holland and is travelling on here own, destination Mongolia (1 month) and then carrying on to Beijing.



We took ages to settle in but once comfortable we swapped stories, drunk vodka and the motion of the train rocked us to sleep. The carriage is comfortable and there is a constant supply of hot water for tea and food, with all this liquid coming in we soon learnt when the next stops were and therefore to plan our drinking wisey (the loos are shut at platforms and border crossings). On the first day we walked the train from front to back - the most excersize we did in those 6 days.



The time flew on this train, helped by the fact on the first day we passed 2 different time zones and every other day we had another. At most stops babooska's where selling food of various quality and price - my favorite food on this journey was fish! Dried, cured, smoked and fresh cooked available all delicious. Mandy met some email friends at Perm who packed her back on to the train with all sorts of lovely goodies that we scoffed. The stops were also time for the train to be filled back up with coal to fuel the heating and hot water. Chess and cards are good entertainment when the plasma T.V. is off (window).


Some of the sunsets were very impressive

In each country you get a different restaurant car. The russian one was only visited once for food (rest beer), the menu was completely in russian and the guy had limited english so being budget consious we ordered blindly by price. Mandy recieved a great soup, me and david got a plate of spam like meat and a bowl of olives! Good job we have supplies in the cabin. The restaurant car was where we met Anna and Darren who we enjoyed a drink with in Russian style and sweltering Mongolian car style (but very impressive with all the wooden carvings).

The weather was on and off depending on the location. Some areas where full of snow and below minus - my nostrils were freezing up at one point I could really feel it as I breathed. The scenery went from woods, tundra, woods, mountains, valleys, desserts dotted with industry, cities and small settlements (even gers in mongolia). Many sites where viewed (and missed) one of the impressive being Lake Baikel, you could see fisherman sitting patiently for a catch on the ice, the whole thing was frozen and it's a big lake! A treat laid on for us was passing the great wall of China - the stop was long enough to exploit our first wall camera opportunity.


Train stops were a chance for the train to get refueled with coal

The train temperature was always nice and toasty, that was until we road tho' the later part of Mongolian when the train became a tin can heated by the sun - 32 C!

Everyone in our carriage was pleasent (good mix of locals chinese and us). David particularly bonded with some Maldavian gold miners the more they drank, the more they understood one another - you know how it goes, swapping photo's etc. They only work 9 months on the year in Mongolia 'cos it's just too damn cold otherwise. The lady's next door are not quite as pleased with there cabin as we are. They originally wanted first class but they'd all gone, alternatively they'd booked a whole one hard-sleeper to themselves! We bid Mandy farewell at Ulann Bator and greeted Linsday who we where to share with till Beijing. Linsday is American and is also travelling on her own and is also excellent company. Alex is also travelling on her own and is staying a few carriages down, she is going to Greenwich next year for Uni ..wow small world! Alex is another single traveller until she meets with her partner in India and is staying in the Beijing hostel we plan to!

Border crossings where long and drawn out proceedures, it was good to have each other for moral support as the travellers tales of scams flew around the train. The Russian - Mongolian border was a dull affair. David particulary enjoyed the chinese crossing ... he thought someone had arranged strip-o-grams. The woman officals wore short skirts, black shiney boots and red lip stick!

We arrived in Beijing 14.30, keeping up with all the time zone changes really paid off as we can now get off the train no probs.

Moscow

We were prepared for the worst weather on arrival in Moscow, we both had about 4 layers on and it was a warm 6 C - Doh! The sun was shinning and we were sweating trying to find a metro station, this was easy 'cos you locate them by finding a big red M although we did get lost at first! As soon as we entered the station the Q's began. The ticket Q was tame and tickets were purchased with signing, made easy by the fact that there is one tarrif anywhere you go on the tube, you just need to state how many journeys you need. We had our Metro map in our trans-siberian book in both cyrillic and english but that just confuses you so we concentrated on the cyrillic.



The Q to actually enter the Metro was massive and not really a Q at all, just a mass gathering of bumping bods viing for the next valuable space closer to the escalators that descend forever (the tube doubles as a bomb shelter) and at twice the speed of ours. The platforms are very ornate with gold, stained glass, chandlers and fresco's.
The interchange stations are strange at first - thats how we got lost. Exiting at the wrong interchange stranded us clueless pointing at english maps and addresses for where we wanted to go to even more clueless locals! One guy was extremely helpful tho' he even called a friend of his out the shop as he could speak english, but he didn't know what we were on about either.



On returning to the station we noticed a town map in cyrillic that matched up with ours in english - bingo! - we were then able to translate our directions. Pointing at our directions where instantly understood by the locals (valuable lesson learnt here we thinks).



Once off at the correct place and after 20mins of agony and indecision we found our hostel n checked in. As our beds were not ready we searched the city for the trans-siberian tickets. The office we were sent to explained they didn't have the tickets and it was the other office on the other side of the town! Joy! Armed with a photocopy of the centre (which became an appreciated aid during our short stay) we picked up our tickets and headed back to the hostel - our beds still where not ready - they recommended somewhere for us to get some Russian food, which we were not disappointed with and finally got a bed to crash in ... literally.
The next day we had a whistle tour of the Red Square and caught the train!

Estonia to Moscow by Train 2 April 2006

Our train was ready to board at 17.00. The cabin was very plush, soft sleeper is standard on this train, very cosy! We are sharing with a married couple, the lady is Russian and the guy is Estonia - they are amused to be sharing with us and are gob smacked by our RTW proposal. They speak little english but we manage to communicate effiently enough for them to rest our fears about border crossing scams. Russia is no longer the country of bribes, it can still happen occasionally however, the officals make life hard for the locals and leave the tourists alone. We were advised that maybe 5 years ago were where all our horror stories had originated - bribing was then the norm. They even 'phoned a friend' who spoke good english, he reassured us that the customs law of claiming all monies had changed since our guide had been written (the guide advises all currency needs to claimed else lose it exiting Russia).



The train journey was very relaxing. After we acclimatised to the size of our cabin (small!) the view could really be enjoyed. The scenery didn't change much we just lost the trees. It was 22.44 when we reached Ivanogod for border control, no problems but it was an intimedating experience. Boiling water is on tap at every carriage, free tea (eh gran n other tea monsters I Know, thats our kind of train!) and the toilets are good. Arrival was 11 a.m. Moscow time.
First impressions of Moscow are very daunting as people don't readily smile and avoid eye contact. It is a reasonable 6 C, the only snow left is stacked in dirty oily piles at the road side.



Mission #1, get the tube to our hostel. This could be broken down by countless obsatcles - no matter how simple the directions are or how easy it looks on the map, don't be fooled! The tube's in London are a blessing in comparision! Once we realized we were gonna get nowhere with everything written in English we set about translating our directions into cyrillic and we started getting somewhere (well almost!). On first approach the locals come across as hard faced but infact they are extremely helpful and warm. It took an hour an a half to find the place, we were to early for checkin so headed to find lunch we had not eaten since 18.00 the previous day - it was now 12.30!

Easy jet to Estonia

We arrived at 11.15, Tallinn time. After a good 15 mins bus trip we had a sweaty walk in search of our hostel - Tatari. Now we really know our packs are to heavy - its just 0 C and there is snow and ice everywhere hindering our walk. Grateful to say our hostel is warm and clean, but we are concerned about on of our room mates who David suspects has mental health issue's, he's out cold in the day but active at night i.e. laughing and talking to himself. He's also quite paraniod as he always locks the door even when he's in so we can't get in! I have been missing my straightners, even more so than usual cos I had my hair cut before I left. I know bed head is a popular look but this just takes the mick - luckily I have a hat, even if it is bright red, oh what a state. I'm glad no one knows me!

The old town is beautiful, very ornate churches. It's all very medieval, it's easy to walk around the city absorbing the atmosphere (and beer). The cost of living here is cheap but we are struggling to stick to our budget, we buying at least one meal a day from the supermarkets to keep the cost down. Our first job here is to buy a ticket to Moscow.

The plan was to spend some time in the National Park here but with the weather and the size of our packs, it's going to be unlikely that we could negotiate a 7km hike from the bus to the park! After a good chat with the ladies in the Tourist office we decided on a plan of action.
Haapbersti - windmills and countryside. Disapointing on the windmill side of life, but we did get an excellent walk by the coast.
Tartu - Estonia's summer capital, very open and in the spring I imagine quite green. We followed a walk set up by the Tourist Office. We saw the sights and visited the markets.

Haapsalu was the best trip, most of the town was shut down (including the mud spa's!) due to it being off season but the walk on the coast was exilerating to say the least. The winds must have been gale force and at least -10 C, we thought our eye balls were gonna freeze over. We had to resign to the elements and retreat back to the city as we were losing sense in our faces! To David's amazment we found a castle in the town - it was very impressive. The house's here where by far the most beautiful, proper log cabin jobs. We scaled a bird watching tower and then realised that all the birds here had emmigrated, but it was worth it for the views.
All our journeys were made by local bus, Dave says they are like how the National Express used to be, trolly dollies n all.We would definatly come back here for the summer.

Weather in Tallinn has been drery for the first 2 days. On arrival everything was covered in snow and it rained constantly. On leaving, the place had thrawed so we had to watch the lumps of ice falling of the roofs!

The YMCA biker hat David bought me to would have really helped me blend in with the locals, it seems to be the in thing here. The kids here all wear romper stylie snow suits that are very cute. A school group walked past the other day and they were all secured in a line by a piece of rope.

'Today I have been mainy eating - fish!' goes for most every day coupled with lovely dark sweet bread. A meal costs around 300 - 500 EKK with beer (22 quid).