Mr & Mrs Gilfeather

Caye Caulker

2010-02-09T20:01:00.001-08:00

Off the coast of Belize we had our first taste of the Caribbean sea at Caye Caulker. Its all very nice but a bit pricey so we didn’t stay too long.

We at least stayed long enough to take a sailing trip out to the barrier reef for the best snorkelling of our trip so far. All the pictures of turtles, stingrays, nurse sharks and moray eels are on the underwater camera so you’ll have to take our word for it and make do with Sarah swanning about on the yacht instead.

San Ignacio

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After learning some Spanish in Guatemala we crossed into English speaking Belize to make sure we forgot it all instantly. First stop was a lazy jungle town called San Ignacio.

We went on a day trip called the ATM tour, which was a lot better than it sounds. We swam and waded up an underground river to find some caves with the remains of some ancient human sacrifices.

Food Pic #29. Jerk chicken, rice and beans. Belize has some tasty Caribbean food.

Iain’s ever expanding head was getting him down.

But a trip to Floyd the barber didn’t seem to perk him up.

Flores - Guatemala

2010-02-09T05:38:00.001-08:00

We left the mountains of Mexico for the jungle of North Guatemala – or at least a pretty little town on a lake, near the jungle. We were struggling without our Spanish speaking guides, Ali and Ed, so stayed in Flores a while to take some lessons.

Our teacher Paqui, was great and did her best with the willing yet hapless estudiantes. At one point she looked up the English translation of her name ‘Paquita’, which turned out to be ‘Fanny’. She was very disappointed when we explained what her name meant in contemporary English – American or British.

A school outing.

Iain’s trying to point out the second biggest ball court of the Mayan empire. It’s so big it didn’t fit in the photo. It’s also still unexcavated so not much of a photo really.

Iain quite chuffed to be holding a piece of Mayan pottery, about 2000 years old.

Sarah’s birthday cake. It was accompanied by a rendition of “Feliz Cumpleanos a ti” (Happy Birthday to You) by the school staff. They have a second verse “Queremos Pastel” that demands to have cake.

Our headmaster, archaeological guide, cake provider and general host, Dieter. Anyone visiting Flores should make sure they bump into him at some point, for at least a beer if not for one of his tours. Some German’s do have a sense of humour, it’s just not the same as anyone else.

Birthday margarita.

Food pic #27. Umm big burritos.

Food Pic#28. Pescado Blanco, from the lake. (Also ‘Tasty fish found only in one lake in the world’ #2.)

Lake activities.

Most people visit Flores for just one day as a base to see the ruins at Tikal so we saved them for our last day. They’re really impressive, spread over a vast area of jungle with monkeys to keep you entertained between each ruin. We think we’ve seen enough ruins for a while now though, as like Buddhist temples and Colonial churches, it feels like ‘you’ve seen one Mayan ruin, you’ve seen them all’ (but don’t tell Dieter we said that – or any monks or priests for that matter).

Palenque

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Heading south east through Mexico we were entering Mayan territory and the chance to see many of their ‘lost cities’. The first of these was impressive Palenque.

The ruins are generally found in the middle of the jungle. The jungle has some big leaves.

San Cristobal de las Casas

2010-02-06T19:07:00.001-08:00

After finally dragging ourselves away from the beach we headed to the mountains again to get cold.

On our first night we went to the cinema (a cold room at the back of a cafe) to watch a documentary about the local guerrillas, the Zapatistas, fighting for indigenous peoples’ rights. They’re still active in the surrounding forests and after the film we jumped every time a firecracker (that Mexican’s seem to love so much) went off. The situation didn’t seem so serious though, when we discovered you can buy cute knitted figurines of the outlawed guerrilla generals from the local indigenous market.

Quiet colonial streets.

Busy colonial streets.

A good piñata.

We went for a high altitude bike ride with a nice chap called Marco. We chose the easiest route he had on offer but Iain still nearly couldn’t continue after the first small hill. Altitude really does make a difference – as does 4 months of eating and drinking your way around the world.

Looking for amber in an amber museum.

Back in Puerto Escondido

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We got to spend a few more days chilling out in Puerto Escondido before we managed to drag ourselves away and head off on the road again. It was difficult to leave after just three weeks and we now realise why Ali n Ed called it home (that’s their house above) for more than a year.

Fee fell in love with Charlie but we’re not sure she’s told Mini yet.

Sarah just tormented him.

The locals hard at work as usual.

Before being rudely interrupted by one of the resident pelicans.

If you look closely you can see someone surfing a quite big wave – unfortunately its not Iain as Sarah failed to capture any of the (much bigger) waves that he caught.

Last sunset in Puerto.

Oaxaca City

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We took a short city break from the beach life in Puerto to visit the local state city and some surrounding sites. It’s a really nice town but very high up in the mountains so also pretty cold. We hadn’t realised Mexico had so many mountains so we’d dumped almost all of our warm clothes after Siberia. That meant we had to share one cardigan and a pair of jeans between us in Oaxaca.

Monte Alban is the big local attraction – impressive ancient ruins with amazing mountain top views. Iain had read about Mesoamerica’s Mayan culture in a book and wasn’t too impressed that this place was created by some unheard of civilisation called the Zapotecs.

More non-Mayan stuff, this time from the Mixtecs – whoever they are.

Ali n Ed have become even more ‘arty’.

Food Pic #26. Posh starters, including cones of manchego cheese. Part of the poshest meal we’ll have for the whole trip thanks to big Sis splashing out.

This cactus gets turned into Mescal – the superior alternative to Tequila.

This cactus doesn’t get turned into booze but it does look a bit like a thingy.

Mexican Christmas and New Year

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We went to visit Ali and Ed in Puerto Escondido, Mexico and were joined by Willie for two weeks and Fee and Chris for three. That meant we got to have a long, proper (if you only count childless siblings) family Christmas and it was brilliant.

Food Pic #24. Christmas Dinner. We had the works – turkey, roast potatoes, paper hats and a moustache for Sarah.

New years eve started with a deep sea fishing trip, where we were joined by hundreds of dolphins swimming around the boat, jumping and spinning. We thought the dolphins would distract us from the important business of catching fish but fortunately there were so many that we soon got bored of them and forgot they were there.

Sarah was very pleased with her fishing belt.

We caught lots of yellow fin tuna that didn’t look that big until you got Ali to hold them up.

New years eve evening was a little more traditional – we got drunk.

Food Pic #25. Service station tacos. Will didn’t let being asleep in the middle of an 18 hour bus trip stop him from eating.

Most of the time was spent at the beach trying to surf and get sun burnt but we didn’t get the camera out till sunset.

Melbourne

2010-01-21T19:34:00.001-08:00

We couldn’t really be bothered with visiting Australia or New Zealand on our way round the world as we’d heard they were rubbish. But we had to stop off in Melbourne for a days to visit a few friends who have moved there. (There’s no one worth visiting in New Zealand).

We met up with Aaron on the first day before he kindly went on Holiday and let us use his house for the whole 10 days we were there. And his car, his DVDs, his booze and a few other things he doesn’t know about.

We were looked after by Coz, who took us on a trip down the Great Ocean Road. We stayed in his friends holiday house, that had the most amazing sea views from every room.

We also got to meet mini Coz – Gabriel – as well. Neither Iain or Gabriel seemed to know what to make of each other though and were more interested in feeling the wind in their faces.

We went out to the leafy suburbs to see Mark and Sam for the first time in about 3 years and met Eva for the first time. Iain managed to provide an excuse for Mark and Coz to go out for a ‘few beers’ in town, a rare treat for Dads but all too common for a travelling bum.

We’d arrived in Australia just in time to share a Belgian beer or two with Martin at his leaving do. You certainly need a few drinks if you’re leaving Melbourne after a few years to go back to Carlisle.

We also met up with Marie (without her travelling companion, Gabriella), our Swedish friend from the Mongolian yurt trip.

Food pic #23: Proper home cooked breakfast from Sam.

Iain visiting his favourite Melbourne site from his last visit. The impressively bog-eyed Steve Davis mural.

Sea views on the great Ocean road that are almost as good as the ones from our flat in Brighton.

We hang out with prams these days.

Singapore

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We had one night in Singapore en route to Australia. Enough time for Iain to try his favourite dish – Singapore style noodles.

This man cooked them.

Whilst Sarah enjoyed a Singapore Sling of course.

Sadly we weren’t staying here.

A fat bird.

Our second Christmas tree.

Iain making the important decision of which dumplings to order. Sadly we weren’t allowed to take photos in the restaurant. Sarge told us about this place, it was wonderful thank you.

Koh Raya

2009-12-17T01:29:00.001-08:00

After a few raucous nights in Phuket we needed a bit of isolation so we took a treacherous speed boat ride to Raya Island. We had wanted to try some Malaysian islands but found out it was rainy season so then thought about Koh Tao but it was rainy season there as well. If only we’d listened to Allan before we left we would have known all this and saved ourselves a lot of planning time. I blame Iain.

A nice hand painted map of the island showed lots of good snorkelling spots. We didn’t find Nemo though.

Map symbol for snorkelling spot.

Iain hitches a ride on the local transport.

Food pic #22 - “Fish of three tastes”

Home looked nice but it was right in front of a stinking canal. You could get a room at the non-smelly resort for up £1600 a night but they wouldn’t give us a discount.

A frog we upset by waking up. He was hiding in some flippers.

We had this bay to ourselves for a day – complete with abandoned reggae bar:

It wasn’t really a happy morning for Iain because Sarah had been moaning again.

The speed boat looks like a pleasant way to travel but all I could think about whilst clinging on for dear life was Donald Campbell and whether the big bumps could rupture my spleen. I could hardly walk in Singapore because my back ached so much. Still it was pretty exciting.

Sarah had to wear this mask as her goggles are no more, sob.

Phuket

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Sarah is looking so happy because we got to Phuket and managed to swap the usual grotty backpacker places for this 4* hotel.

This was the reason for coming to Phuket, Paul that is and not the bucket.

There was a fire competition at the local beach so we got our fix of people setting various things alight and trying to outdo each other with the different ways they could twirl them about.

This guy lost votes when he set fire to the audience.

This was the winner with his Michael Jackson themed routine that included wearing white underpants over his black jeans – no one could remember Jackson ever doing that but somehow it worked.

Feeling festive, this was the first Christmas tree we saw this year.

We visited the Gibbon Rehabilitation Project. This chap is called Sam and he can’t sing (due to maltreatment) so he can’t find a mate. Even Sarah shed a tear on hearing this.

After leaching on to Paul’s holiday, with wife Amanda and friends providing an instant group of drinking buddies, we stayed a few extra days for fear of returning to nights on our own running out of things to stay to each other.

Food Pic #21. Carrot served as embellishment to bright green Mojito.

Siem Reap

2009-12-17T01:11:00.001-08:00

After a few weeks lazing around at the Beach we had to get back to some sight seeing. Siem Reap is the Cambodian town from where you can see the many temples of Angkor, supposed to be the most impressive temples of SE Asia.

Iain had been having a few foot problems so he tried out a fish massage in preparation for all the trudging around temples that was to come.

Trudging around temples.

We tried to see sunset at Ta Prohm but there were a few people in the way.

We were the only people at Angkor Wat for sunrise but we had a terrible time keeping our eyes open after having to get up at 5am.

Iain having to deal with Sarah’s moaning again.

The temples were worth all the trudging.

Our favourite – the Tomb Raider one, with the jungle trees clinging to the buildings as they’ve grown through them.

Silk worms.

Giant pig on a bike.

We managed to meet up with Amanda and Tony (from Hove) on the last night in Siem Reap. They had the temples to look forward to the next day.

Cambodian Beaches

2009-12-17T01:04:00.001-08:00

Sarah purchased some lovely new goggles for the occasion and we headed straight for Sianhoukville, believing it to be the undiscovered beach paradise we were looking for. Unfortunately we found it to be thoroughly discovered (by 18 year olds) and that the beach had been washed away by a particularly stormy rainy season.

So we headed off up the coast and found this nice spot.

Food pic #19 – Fresh shrimp delivered straight to our sun lounger.

But that wasn’t deserted enough so we chartered Captain Sang to take us to a nice little island called Ko Ta Kiev.

This was our house for a few days.

After lying in the hammock or on the beach we thought we’d get some exercise but Iain couldn’t really be bothered.

Orion over bungalow, umm nice.

Our second home on the island was this tree house at Jonty’s Jungle Camp where we had the place to ourselves being the first customers of the season.

The view from the tree house just before the noises from the creatures of the night tried their best to stop us from sleeping. When we took this picture there was nobody on the beach or so we thought, ooh spooky.

Food pic #20 Freshly caught crab from the beach.

Jonty’s staff were better at sucking the flesh out of crab claws than us.

Sarah enjoying her new goggles.

Bangkok

2009-12-17T00:58:00.001-08:00

Bangkok was just a necessary 2 day stop over on the way to find the beach in Cambodia but, despite the worst accommodation we’ve had yet, we managed to have some fun.

We stayed in a ‘guest house’ that consisted of bamboo huts and pre-fab rooms raised above some dirty water at the edge of the river. We managed to drink enough to not think about the rats under the room and to play with water snakes handed to us by some locals.

The Tuk Tuk driver struggled to understand Iain’s request to go skyline drinking.

We had a night out with the lovely Nino, including skyline drinking even higher than Hong Kong and some great Thai seafood.

We had to trudge through the flooded alleyways to escape our guest house because it was high tide when it came to leaving.

Food pic #18. Chicken Satay (being eaten by a Kho San Road alley cat after we decided it was a bit too pink for us).

Hong Kong

2009-12-17T00:53:00.001-08:00

We spent a few days in hectic and expensive Hong Kong but it was made much more comfortable and affordable by staying with Adam (Sarah’s long lost cousin) & Gemma.

The lovely hosts.

Skyline drinking on the 32nd floor

We were joined by Hannah & Peter from Lake Baikal so the ping pong tournament was resumed. Sadly it had to take place in this municipal sports hall after we were thrown out of a swanky private club.

Happy Valley cheap tram, 20p a go and originally from Glasgow.

Best value boat trip, just a few pence to cross the harbour to see the light show from another skyscraper bar.

Cocktails in the skyscraper bar cost a bit more than a few pence as you can tell by Iain’s face when he realises he’s only allowed one.

Food pic #17 – Market noodles (more like tinned spaghetti), the worst food we had in Hong Kong. Can’t believe we didn’t take a pic of the amazing Chinese feast we had with Ad and Gem.

No picture of the feast, but evidence of the Hay booking.

Yangshuo

2009-12-17T00:47:00.001-08:00

We went to Yangshuo in South China because the Prendergasts advised us it would be a good place to chill out for a week, they were certainly right. We fancied slowing our pace of travelling down (we haven’t managed to pick it up since).

We arrived via a complicated combination of minibus, bamboo raft, electric car and local bus. Thankfully a friendly group of Chinese tourists took us under their wing and ensured our safe arrival.

We spent the first 3 days bumping into our new friends everywhere we went. They were always very excited to see us.

Food pic #15 Beerfish, the local speciality.

Most of our time was spent cycling along rivers and through rice fields surrounded by amazing craggy limestone hills.

When we were fed up of cycling we decided to learn how to cook beerfish. Under close supervision it was quite successful but we’ve only managed beer and fish separately since.

Food pic #16 – Iain samples his beery fish.

We also visited some interesting caves where every other rock or stalactite formation was meant to represent some animal or someone doing something. This is one of the better ones but you still need a bit of imagination. Can you see what it is?

After guessing the shapes correctly we were allowed to play in a pool of stinky cold mud. It was supposed to be good for your skin but with a steady stream of tourists bathing in it daily we suspect otherwise. Afterwards we washed off in a “natural” hot spring. It was suspiciously just the right temperature and had perfect bath sized openings in the cave.

Warriors and Pandas

2009-11-05T08:44:00.001-08:00

We continued travelling by train after Beijing but its not the Trans Siberian anymore so its officially not exciting – which allowed us to get some sleep.

A couple of brief stops in bustling, smoggy cities allowed us to tick off the Terracotta Warriors and some pandas on our way south.

We both want to come back as pandas. The most difficult part of their day is when they have to roll over to get at the food they were sleeping on.

John Prescott. (on the left. ha ha)

Beijing

2009-11-05T08:39:00.001-08:00

We loved Bejing and stayed a few days longer than we thought we would.

We were there for the final couple of days of the week long 60th birthday (since becoming communist China) celebrations. So there were thousands more Chinese tourists there than normal and its normally pretty crowded anyway – it is China.

Generally they find it hilarious to see foreigners wandering around and many try to sneak a photo of you while you’re not looking or just come and grab you by the arm and drag you into their group photo. We felt somewhere in between rock star and freak.

Apart from one windy day, Beijing was covered in smog but footage of the main 60th parade the week before, being shown on giant screens in Tianamen square, had perfect blue skies. Apparently they can conjure up blue sky at will by firing special stuff into the sky that makes the smog rain down, then sending planes up with big fans to blow the rest away. Only in China.

To quote one American president, the Great Wall “sure is a great wall”. It’s a good way to do some hill walking across the peaks of some amazing mountains using a convenient foot path laid out a few thousand years ago. The trick is to buy just the right amount of postcards to stop the souvenir touts from following you.

We saw “Diabolic Love Machine” on tour from Germany after a tip off from Robert (you know, from the Trans SIberian 2 blog)

The forbidden city was all a bit much after a few beers with Diabolic Love Machine.

Olympic things happened here.

Food pic #12. Our first Chinese food. Wow it was tasty but we ordered a little bit too much.

Lots of different ‘food’ is available on sticks at the night market. We skipped the scorpion, snake and silk worm and tried the banana fritters instead.

Food pic #13: Banana fritters (with no banana).

Trans Siberian 3

2009-11-05T08:25:00.001-08:00

The final leg of the Trans Siberian train was a two day journey taking us out of Mongolia, into China and onto Beijing.

It had perhaps the most varied landscape of the whole train journey – crossing the Gobi Desert, before passing through North Chinese farmland and mountains with distant views of the great wall.

Beijing might be the end of the Trans Siberian but we’ve got lots more trains to come before we reach Hong Kong. Woo.

Food pic #11: “Big Bon” pot noodle. Our staple train food.

Swapping fat Russian/Mongolian bogies for skinny Chinese ones.

Our first class cabin actually had a shower on this train! It didn’t work but we didn’t mention that to all the 2nd class passengers we were gloating to.

Mongolia

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We arrived into Ulaanbaatar and spent the afternoon sight seeing and failing to find the black market which is supposed to be amazing. We found a rubbish market right next to it and bought Iain a new wallet and some long johns in preparation for our 3 day trip to the countryside.

Our trip to the countryside was brilliant and we wish we could have spent more time seeing the different landscapes of Mongolia. We stayed with a lovely old woman in her Ger for two nights, with her 20 cows, 2 goats and 3 sheep outside. We herded animals by moonlight, chopped wood and tried their food – a little insight into life of the Mongolian farmer, mixed in with the comforts of some fellow backpackers, English speaking guide and vodka.

Our friendly driver, Onga who taught us how to play a new card game and ankle bones.

Copious amounts of vodka and games of pig by the roaring stove kept the cold away.

Food pic #9: pastries, dried yoghurt (tastes like hard cheese), yak’s milk butter and a cup of milky salty Mongolian tea.

Horse riding for us meant going where the horses wanted to go, which was often nowhere.

Iain with the world’s biggest statue of a man on a horse – Chinngis Chinngis Chinngis Khan, “Man of the Millenium” (we’re standing on the horses head)

Getting away from it all.

Food pic#10. Various bits of the inside of a goat including ‘paunch’, lower intestine and other tasty (if slightly chewy) bits.

Our guide, Boggi, explains what our host, Tseme, is serving us but we think “Both inside and outside meat” loses something in translation.

Next week’s “inside and outside meat”.

Sawing wood for the fire while Onga looks for his fags.

Trans Siberian 2

2009-11-05T08:17:00.001-08:00

Leaving Olkhon Island, we headed off for our second leg of the Trans Siberian that would take us out of Russia and into Mongolia.

We had a bit of a sour end to our time in Russia as Iain got pick pocketed on a tram in Irkutsk. Not too much lost, just left with a bad impression of the city, which we’ll remember every time we play Risk.

We had the indignity of downgrading from Lux wagon to second class and shared a 4 berth cabin, which is still very comfortable really. We were lucky to have good room mates, Katja and Robert from Dresden, who had also come travelling with their Yahtzee dice. It was thoroughly needed as crossing the border was an arduous task, 4 hours of sitting on the platform while the train carriages were slowly taken away one by one until only ours was left. Then 3 hours wait on the Mongolian side. Although we had the hilarity of a man nearly missing his train going the other way and executing a proper action film style jump onto the moving train.

2nd class

Yahtzee!

Endlessly waiting

Check out what this Glaswegian managed to sniff out at the border.

Food pic #8: first taste of Mongolian food, “beef “ that didn’t taste like beef.

Lake Baikal

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We arrived in Irkutsk at 5am to be greeted by local Russian lads keen to ply us with vodka and practice their English in the local cafe. They’d been up all night drinking but we’d just woken up and all we wanted was a shower after 4 nights on the train. We managed to persuade them that 1 shot each was enough and headed off to find a bus to Olkhon Island.

Olkhon Island is the biggest island on Lake Baikal, the world’s deepest fresh-water lake. It’s an exciting six hour minibus ride away from Irkutsk. The tarmac stops half way making for a bumpy ride and the bus slowly filled up with drunken villagers who managed to smell worse than us. Lake Baikal was well worth the trip though, the scenery is outstanding and it is so hard to believe that it is a lake and not the sea.

We spent four days here walking around, appreciating the views over the lake to the mountainous mainland and visiting the important spiritual sights, which seem to include every rock on the island.

Nikita’s homestead was a great place to stay particularly as it is run by an ex USSR table tennis champion, so ping pong a plenty. It was a good back packer meeting place and we made a few friends including Peter and Hannah, who are losing 7-3 and 2-0 in the table tennis and chess tournaments respectively. Also, a friendly member of staff , Dimitry, who seemed to be running several businesses on the side – including keeping the tourists plied with beer, while telling us stories about Olkhon Island and life in Russia.

Away from the backpackers the local village was an interesting place with several villagers each owning a cow that wondered around grazing on the unpaved streets and being chased by the stray dogs that howled every night. A highlight was being invited to a local ‘concert’. We sat through a few Russian speeches and poetry recitals before any music got under way. When it did, we were treated to a seemingly unending succession of old villagers singing god knows what, quite badly – all good fun.

We were fed well at Nikita’s, including this lunch in the woods.

The food was good and included at least 3 portions of Omul a day. Omul is a tasty white fish found only in Lake Baikal.

Food Pic #6. Omul Soup. A lot tastier than it looks.

Food Pic #7. Omul on a plate.

For Sarah’s librarian friends: the local library

Trans Siberian 1

2009-11-05T08:06:00.001-08:00

Leaving Moscow, we started our first and longest leg of the Trans Siberian railway – a 5185 km, 75 hour ride to Irkutsk.

The journey took us through European Russia, over the Urals into Asian Russia and eventually Siberia.

What to eat and drink was obviously our main priority for this trip of a life time so we managed to almost miss the train while running round the local streets trying to find a bottle of vodka. We didn’t know the Russians don’t sell vodka near their stations – it’s the only place you can’t find it.

On the train, food choices were either an over-priced and empty restaurant car, Babushkas (Russian Grannies) selling their wares on the platform at each stop or any of our own supplies topped up with free boiling water from our carriage attendant. We tried to be adventurous with the Babushka food but Iain didn’t really like the cabbage doughnuts and caviar flavoured crisps so we survived mainly on our own supplies - a diet of purple porridge with nice cups of earl grey tea and lemon.

Food Pic #5. Purple porridge with a nice cup of Earl Grey.

We both loved the days spent on the train with the only decisions being whether to keep looking out the window as Russia flew (or trundled) past, read a book or maybe have a little sleep. The views out the window were pretty consistent – vast expanses of grassland or birch forest spotted with haystacks, pretty wooden houses and ugly concrete towns.

But despite mainly looking out the window at birch trees for 3 days, we were a bit miffed when we had to get off. Although that might have had something to do with it being 5 in the morning.

Our main companions and neighbours on the train were a friendly pair of Finnish gents, escaping from their wives for a trip to China.

Our cosy Lux wagon cabin.

It was Iain’s birthday on the train. This nice Russian man gave us a lock-in at the restaurant car after we bought his under the counter Chinese vodka. (he also found and returned Iain’s cardigan the next day)

Iain didn’t think much of the purple porridge.

Update from Cambodia

2009-11-05T07:57:00.001-08:00

We’ve been hampered by lack of internet connections, governments blocking the web and laziness but we’ve just reached the hub of the international, electronic super-highway that is Cambodia, so finally we can update the blog. Here goes…

Update from Beijing

2009-10-09T03:46:00.001-07:00

We’ve just arrived in Bejing and checked in to our most luxurious hostel yet. So coming up is a blog back log…

Update from Beijing

2009-10-09T02:43:00.001-07:00

We’ve just arrived in Bejing and checked in to our most luxurious hostel yet. So coming up is a blog back log…

Update From Mongolia

2009-10-03T18:51:00.001-07:00

We’ve just arrived in Ulan Bator, Mongolia. Spent the last week and a bit travelling through Russia on the Trans Siberian trains and staying by Lake Baikal. We’ve not had any internet access – probably a good thing – so we’ve not been updating this blog. Hopefully we’ll get a chance to post some exciting pictures and notes about Siberia soon. In case you were worried, we’re having lots of fun.

We’re off to the Mongolian countryside for a few days, then to Beijing. Speak to you soon…

Iain + Sarah x

Moscow

2009-10-03T18:37:00.001-07:00

Arrived bleary eyed at 5.55am to find metro station closed, managed to purchase a street map and decipher it enough to get to the next station and on to our hostel – Chocolate (one complimentary chocolate on the pillow). The metro is amazing, very ostentatiously decorated.

It was very exciting to be in Red Square following the route of all those nuclear missile parades. Unbelievably for us, we were there so early that nothing was open yet.

The most exciting (and slightly scary) part was walking through Lenin’s dark tomb where the many guards usher you through quickly by snapping their fingers and shushing anyone who speaks. Lenin looks unreal, all lit up so his head glows like a lamp. Maybe this is because his brain was removed and studied at a secret institute for years.

The highlight of the day was the outrageous goose stepping by the changing of the guards. Inside the Kremlin we saw a great collection of Faberge eggs and other treasures, 16th century royal carriages (including a mini one for children that was pulled by dwarves), and a massive pair of boots owned by Peter the Great.

To complete the list of dead Russians we saw Stalin’s grave behind Lenin’s tomb and made a trip to a cemetery full of famous people. Unfortunately the woman selling maps was on her tea break and so the only grave we could find was Boris Yeltsin’s.

Yeltsin’s grave.

Food report: Russian restaurants serve very good food but nothing exciting enough to photograph.

Sarah was impressed with the soviet architecture.

Food Pic #4. (bit of a cheat) Elaborate decor of local supermarket.

St Petersburg

2009-09-23T14:34:00.001-07:00

We nearly cried for help and turned back on arriving in the in-hospitable suburban St Petersburg station we arrived in from Helsinki. Several signs helpfully pointed several different directions to the Metro but all of them lead to a dead end of barriers, cleaners and guards. Station staff eventually took pity and let us out but it was a while after that before we found the tube.

Finding our way round has been tricky, especially learning the Cyrillic alphabet as we go, but somehow we managed to find the Liverpool Bar, The Pickwick Pub and Anglo Tourismo Boat Tours, so we’re feeling pretty Russian now.

Actually, Anglo Tourismo didn’t have any boats left, so we joined a Russian speaking tour – St Petersburg is a beautiful place to look at, but we’ve no idea what any of it is.

Its a grand European style city with lots of colourful palaces and cathedrals but our favourite trip was to the Vodka museum. Not sure what we learnt but we had some nice vodka accompanied by herring, salted pickled cucumber and rolls of salted pig fat on rye bread.

Food Pic #3: Salty pig fat.

Our train to Moscow was amazing - complimentary slippers and a quadruple cognac each.

Helsinki

2009-09-20T05:06:00.001-07:00

Food Pic # 2. Meaty donuts and cinnamon buns.

We cycled around Helsinki using it’s rather excellent cycle paths, complete with their own bike traffic lights. Sarah struggled a bit with Phil’s one-gear-no-brakes, ‘easy rider’, but Iain was right at home.

The Helsinki food and drink report is: good but expensive. Sarah was keener than Iain was on the Finnish salty liquorice vodka.

Phil and Aino were brilliant hosts and we’ve had a very easy introduction to our travels. They had their work cut out as we weren’t the only visitors with some other friends, Steve, Sarah and baby Stuart joining us on Saturday.

In gratitude for their hospitality, Iain beat Phil in the table tennis tournament.

We took a boat trip to a sea fortress island to play with some cannons but we’ll have to come back and visit again to explore more – hopefully in winter to have a dip with the locals in the frozen sea.

Sarah looking for Finnish U Boats.

Here’s one.

We’re off

2009-09-17T23:42:00.001-07:00

Food Pic #1

Arrived in Helsinki to a warm welcome of Bear beer and crisps from Phil and Aino. Neo Pig the guinea pig was so excited to see us, he weed all over Sarah’s lap.

3 peaks video on You Tube

2009-09-09T16:12:00.001-07:00