As you may be aware we’re back home now, as we opted to surprise everyone by coming home for Christmas so apologies if we lied to you with our whereabouts but this is the story of what we have really been doing for the last month. It’s amazing how you can drop off the grid if you really try. If you know us by now; travelling the easy way isn’t for us so we came up with the plan to head back on the Trans-Mongolian Railway……enjoy!

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

24/11/2011 – 25/11/2011 (Yes Mum’s that’s 5 days after you left)

Step one was to leave New Zealand as we flew from Christchurch to Kuala Lumpur on the 24th November. We have already been here twice so we only had around 14 hours here, we booked into the Tune Hotel beside the airport which reminded us of our first hotel when we left almost 2 years ago – the easyHotel where everything is optional. We didn’t do too much apart from catch up on emails – have some curry and a coffee as we jumped off to Hong Kong.

Hong Kong

25/11/2011 – 28/11/2011

This was unchartered territory for us and the place is insane, it’s a major stopover point for people heading around the world and approx one million shops are there, true story. Our flight arrived in around 11pm which was enough time to get into the city and locate our “double bedroomed” guesthouse in the ChungKing Mansions. Mansions you normally associate with grand hallways, huge gardens and possible a peacock or 2, this was not these mansions. Think more “the Barras” with elevators. Also we booked a double room but Hong Kong double is definitely not used to Western proportions and was more like a large single bed – we were lucky though as we were upgraded due to our long stay (3 nights) to a room with another bed in it.

The population of Hong Kong is 12 million or thereabouts and no one is in a hurry anywhere, which is quite nice to see. Just milling around trying to sell a suit to you or if you want your shows shined. The star ferry is the main transport option for locals to get from Kowloon to the city and it’s super cheap at around 20-30p and is a good way for a cheap harbour cruise. The skyscrapers leave you feeling very insignificant, especially after coming from little New Zealand. Once we hopped off the ferry we were whizzed along on the worlds longest escalator….what a brilliant idea, it carries people to the more residential areas of Hong Kong.

We stumbled across the botanic gardens in the centre which is free, our kind of price. Not only this but it has a zoo inside with various monkeys, reptiles and birds to stare at. It is also within a stones throw of the Hong Kong Peak and tram service to the top, stunning views from up the top complete with it’s own shopping centre! The majority of the CBD is wedged into a narrow part of the Island whereas the other side is pristine and green, quite a contrast. Locals use the top as a fitness track, dodging past cyclists and tai-chists while trying to avoid choking on the smog.

The Hong Kong light show is a major attraction, kicking off at 8pm, masses congregate on both sides of the harbour. It’s the largest permanent light show in the world but what the gained in size completely lacked in substance to be honest. We just laughed our way through it. All part of the trip though.

Our last day was spent in shopping as we hunted for Katie’s boots in preparation for the freezing temperatures up ahead, also we spent the night in Hong Kong Night Market which isn’t as good as the others we’ve seen during our travels to be honest but I think we have been a bit spoiled for choice during our Odyssey trip but once again the street food came up trumps with amazing sweet and sour chicken (Neill you would be impressed).  Overall Hong Kong was well worth a visit but don’t worry Mum, we won’t be moving here.

Beijing, China

28/11/2011 – 29/11/2011

In order to get to Mongolia we had to stopover in Beijing and as you are aware we were left a bit annoyed by China the last time we were in the country. To our surprise though the immigration team granted us a special visa to allow us to leave the airport for 22 hours to see the city. Plans were thrown together to see the Great Wall, Tianamen Square, Forbidden City and even sneak in a wee bit of Peking Duck. These were thwarted though by the huge flashing sins on our head (TOURIST – PLEASE SCREW ME OUT OF MONEY.) Every option tried to charge us around 5-10 times the normal rate so we checked into a “hotel” instead.

The FX Hotel Beijing has to be seen to be believed, it was more Brothel than Hotel. The room had the shower in the middle of the room, so when you’re lying in bed you can watch whoever having a shower….nice! All that was missing was the mirrored ceiling and revolving bed. We left Beijing the next morning only to be delayed by a drunk Mongolian on the plane who refused to get off the plane for around 2 hours, damn you China how you mock me! Once again Mum, we won’t be moving here.

Ulan Bataar, Mongolia

29/11/2011 – 3/12/2011

Before arriving in any of the above mentioned cities we did a quick Google check of the expected temperature so we can prepare what to pack etc. Mongolia was no exception and after an almost heart-attack due to our lack of appropriate clothes we “warmed” to the idea of –35 Degrees, talk about the land of smuggling peanuts. We didn’t think it would actually be that bad, but when we looked out of the window of the plan we were in for a bit of a shock, the white fluffy clouds below was actually snow, and a lot of it. We realised in the airport in fact that Ulan Bataar is in fact the worlds coldest capital, and we certainly didn’t feel prepared.

Ok, so we knew it would be cold but –18 being the daily high, brr. Anyway’s we layered up in preparation as we landed into Mongolia’s capital, Ulan Bataar.

Ulan Bataar is a built up city in the middle of lots of snow, you can see the city limits, it just stops. It homes 2.6 million people which is 60% of the countries population. We were greeted by our driver at the airport (he had a sign and everything saying Stolrat Taylopr?!) and he took us on a bumpy ride to our accommodation. Driving here is crazy, there are no lanes and people just drive anywhere, needless to say there were lots of beeping horns but it somehow worked.

As we arrived at our guesthouse we were told not to go out after dark as it was too dangerous, but it was getting dark, we needed an ATM and some food so we went off in the dark absolutely petrified, of what we’re still not sure. We survived and managed a nice burger on the way.

We only had 3 nights in Mongolia and we decided to spend one of them in a traditional Mongolian Yurt with a local family. A short drive to the Gorkhi Terelj National Park, the temperature gauge was reading –29 degrees outside. Famous for it’s temporary yurts while ours was made ready and we were slightly surprised at it’s contents; a flatscreen TV with surround sound, a computer, washing machine, microwave and all the mod cons you’d need for the middle of nowhere, very surreal.

We were joined by 3 other travellers and quickly shown our yurt for the night. We had 4 bed,. a mattress on the floor and a stove.. what happened to the flatscreen tv etc! haha. Anyways, we had the rest of the morning to wander around and after lunch we had 2 hours of horse riding, which didn’t look very promising when one of the girls were kicked when we went up to meet them, she’s ok by the way, just a little scrape.

Our lunch consisted of rice, meat, veggies and chips all mixed together, it was quite tasty. We ate on our own with very little interaction with the family apart from the man of the house tending to our fire every so often and having a few shots of Vodka on his way out, very simple currency. Next was the horse riding, or should I say pony riding as we all looked a little overgrown for them, it must be to do with the cold but all the horses are short and round but sleep outside in the freezing temps. Some numb bums and a couple of hours later we were back at camp doing impressions of John Wayne.

After dinner, of noodles, meat, veggies and chips all mixed together we had a few beers a nap and watched the sun go down. It was so picturesque and the next day we waved goodbye to the others who had a few more days of roughing it, while we went back to Ulan Bataar.

Our train to Russia was booked for the following afternoon so we went for a big walk around the city to see the smog level from the view point at the edge of the city. A few random shopping malls here and a bit of an ice skate in the city square there and we’d seen most of what Ulan Bataar had to offer, quirky city where the UK’s health and safety team would have a field day with all the ice on the pavements. UB is definitely the ying to the national parks yang; with pristine countryside and the most hospitable people you could want to meet, to the smog polluted, cramped city. Unicef operate here as many children have to live under the streets as the heating pipes for apartments run under the roads providing much needed warmth for homeless families. Various parts of the centre are rife with these underground cities - a country of 2 sides.

Trans Mongolian Railway

Ulan Bataar to Irkutsk

Train 001   2/12/2011 – 3/12/2011

22 hours it would take us from Ulan Batar to Irkutsk, we boarded the train without any clue of what was about to happen. Bags and bags of stuff was being brought on board and packed all the cabins, we had a 4 bed cabin which we shared with one other lady who had filled the room with huge bags of stuff and we just smiled and sat down. Once the train left the station the bags were ripped open, it wasn’t just the girl in our cabin who had a lot of stuff everyone had loads and everyone was ripping into their bags throwing stuff around and preparing for the Russian border. All we could gather was that everyone was only allowed a certain number of stuff so the women who had hundreds of handbags passed them around to everyone, the man with loads of leather jackets spread them around everywhere so everyone had a little bit of something, and it all matched, we thought this would look a little suss, but somehow it worked. Our cabin mate hid socks in her mattress, wore a whole lot more than was needed and then went to sleep, the border was near and no one wanted to draw any attention to themselves.

We were lucky going through the border, the Russians were more concerned about the Mongolians than us so we breezed though, and after some thorough checks all the Mongolians got through too and before we’d even left customs they started handing back all their stuff and re-claiming what was there’s ready to sell at the next stop. Weird experience, but the time flew by and before we knew it we arrived in Irkutsk after watching the stunning scenery of Lake Baikal the largest freshwater lake in the world.

Irkutsk, Russia

3/12/2011 – 5/12/2011

Irkutsk is a small city in the middle of Russia mainly used as a stopover on the Trans Siberian railway for supplies and a visit to Lake Baikal. True to form we stopped for a few days to prepare for the trans siberian but had a wander around anyway. This was the most Christmassy we felt the whole trip so far, ice sculptures were being made in the main square, there was snow on the trees everywhere and a massive Tree in the centre, stunning! Katie’s eyelashes did freeze though, literally even though it was slightly warmer, –27 degrees is still cold no matter what.

We managed to book our tickets to Moscow all by ourselves even though there are no signs in English and no one wants to help tourists, so we were pretty proud of ourselves. High Five!

Irkutsk to Moscow

Train 339  -  5/12/2011 – 9/12/2011 (yes 4 days)

We hoped on our train to realise we had a cabin all to ourselves at the start, we were unsure of how long but it was quite nice to have some space. Not the same experience as our last train journey, this time it was pretty quiet, no one selling anything or keeping us up all night. We had been told it would be a lot of families who would want to interact with us, play games and drink vodka, but our experience was very different as it was a very quiet. Everyone was very quiet and no one even smiled at us so we were in for a lonely 4 days to Moscow, but that was ok.. can’t say I’m a big vodka drinker anyway. Turns out the numbers triple in summer months and as we are travelling East to West and in Winter, hardly anyone does this apart from the locals. Locals waltz around on the train with the same routine; sleep, smoke, eat, smoke, drink, smoke, get off train, smoke….you get the idea.)

Days pass by so easy when you don’t have to worry about a thing, landscapes pass from snow covered birch trees to snow covered Christmas trees. Everything snow blasted as if direct from a film set. Small villages whizz by, mixed in with abandoned factories, all in all fascinating to see the middle of Siberia and how so many people can survive here. We hear stories on the road about snow in Scotland, puts it all in context when it’s a daily occurrence but everyone doesn’t grind to a halt.

We passed the time reading books, watching movies, eating noodles and more noodles, took a trip to the restaurant cart and even a few steps outside. The days were pretty short and time flew by and we made it to Moscow safe and sound, thanks to Leona and Mike who were on call in case no one heard from us and we’d been kidnapped!

Moscow, Russia

9/12/2011 – 11/12/2011

Rolling into Moscow and the end of the longest train ride in the world was amazing, not only having crossed the largest country in the world but just to properly stretch our legs. The recent elections in Russia caused quite a stir with rumours of fixing and corruption in the air, protests were rife when we arrived complete with riot police and army everywhere. As we tried to remain anonymous from back home, we had TV crews on every corner so we may have roused suspicion with our attempts to avoid the action.

Moscow is gargantuan in size, as the largest city in Europe it’s hard to get your head around the size, but thanks to Google Translate we managed to bumble our way around the city. The Red Square is the main tourist draw with the Kremlin on one side, the fairy tale like St Basil’s Cathedral and GUM deluxe shopping centre on the other. The cathedral is one of those places you know from films/magazines/TV was a pinch yourself kind of moment,Picture perfect snow started to fall as we queued to view Lenin who is embalmed here, but was quite a strange experience joining the throngs of tourists to see a dead guy. Apparently he was “treated” shortly after his death in 1924 and has yearly maintenance to update his paintwork.

We had managed to miss traditional Russian food, search was short lived as we located a nice cheap place beside our hostel. Food was amazing but Georgian! Haha was nice to have it again though even if there was a bit much dill on everything.

St Petersburg, Russia

11/12/2011 – 14/12/2011

We spent 8 hours on the train to St Petersburg where we managed to see some men fishing in the ice and a lot of snow! We opted for 3rd class which we thought was going to be a free for all wooden bench fiasco but ended up being comfier than ScotRail, having reclining seats and lots of leg room. We arrived into St Petersburg around 10pm and basically had to fall into bed as our hostel was so close.

Our hostel needs to have a special mention here, Soul Kitchen, If Carlsberg did hostels, Soul Kitchen would be it. We’ve spent lots of time in hostels and this is by far the best we’ve ever stayed in. It’s a mixture of great location, exceptionally helpful and friendly staff, excellent breakfast (free), laundry (also free), wifi, clean, comfy and everything else you' could want. We ended up having a 10 bed dorm to ourselves so threw the contents of our bags around and did a much needed clean of everything that would fit into the washing machine! In the evenings we were given nibbles and we even managed to be there for pasta night, another free feed. We were extremely spoiled here and didn’t want to leave.

We had 3 nights here and 2 full days to explore, we spent the first day wandering around the city, all along Nevsky Prospekt (Russia’s most famous street) passed a few markets into Gostiny Dvor (a big shopping centre), passed the place where Singer sSewing machines were originally made. Passed the Church of the Saviour on Spilled Blood, another onion topped building which looked like it was from Disney Land. We then headed across the river into St Peter and Pauls Fortress, spent some time on the beach (in the snow) and headed back to bargain for some Russian dolls. All in all St Petersburg looked like Amsterdam, felt like Paris but the weather more suited the Arctic.

The next day we spent the entire day at the Hermitage Museum, this is a massive museum housing one of the largest collections of art in the world. Not something we’d usually visit but we were so glad we did. Exhibits ranged from Egyptian to Picasso and also included Thankas from Tibet and pottery from the Silk Road and it was all housed in a stunning building, definitely worth getting lost for a few hours!

Sadly our time in Russia was coming to a end and our trip to surprise Katie’s big sis was in full swing, a quick stop off in Riga and we’d be sitting in the Hard Rock Cafe Berlin waiting anxiously behind some menus for Vicky and Mike.

Riga, Latvia

14/12/2011 – 16/12/2011

Our flight from St Petersburg to Berlin included a free stop off in Riga and being Scottish we had to see it as it was free! Our first day didn’t consist of too much as slight jet-lag caused internal combustion of our brains, so the day consisted of cinema (in English-amazing) and some cheap Cesu beer before falling into a 12 hour slumber.

Day 2 was more eventful as we took ourselves on a city walking tour. Riga is similar to Prague but without the thousands of tourists, apparently stag weekends have now found this out though and ruin it at weekends. Lots of little cobbled streets home various churches and museums, as well as various Christmas markets.  Sights ticked off included the Cathouse, Dome Cathedral, St Peters Lutheran church, RIga Castle and the Central Market.

The Central Markets are based in old Zeppelin hangars in the centre of town and are massive, literally with everything you need under one roof.

Berlin, Germany

16/12/2011 – 19/12/2011

The last section of our trip before arriving back in the homeland was to Berlin, the land of sausage and beer. We flew with AirBaltic to Tegel and hot footed it to our hotel in the pissing rain/snow in preparation to make surprise number 1. We mad contacted Mike (Katie’s sister(Vicky) husband) way back in March and plans were formulated to surprise Vicky during a romantic getaway to Berlin. We poked our heads round their door in the hotel so a chorus of screams and tears. Well worth it!

Berlin is a city of 2 sides, one one side its funky, arty and modern and the other is closely linked to it’s communist past. Memories of the wall are everywhere as well as remnants of the war. It’s quite important to check these off so we popped round the Potsdamer Platz, Brandenburg Gate and the Reichstag in the morning. The Reichstag and Gate are the iconic images of the capital as well as the memorial of the murdered Jews beside the gate which opened in 2005. The blocks start out at ground level on the outer edges of the memorial, and then grow taller towards the middle, where the ground also slopes downwards. 3.5 million visitors in the first year make it one of the most visited memorials in Berlin - and it's worth it, as it's one of the most impressive memorials in Berlin.

Berlin doesn’t attempt to mask it’s grizzly past and even a section of the wall is still intact near Mühlenstraße next to river Spree which we visited closely after Checkpoint Charlie. Formerly, it was the only border crossing between East and West Berlin that permitted foreigners passage. Residents of East and West Berlin were not allowed to use it. This contributed to Checkpoint Charlie's mythological status as a meeting place for spies and other shady individuals. Now the remains of the Berlin Wall have been moved to permit building, including construction of the American Business Center and other institutions not given to flights of John Le Carré-inspired fancy.

Nights were spent mostly around the various Christmas markets huge amounts of Currywurst, the largest bowl of chips I’ve ever seen, knocking back copious amounts of beer, Gluhwein and even one small dose of Jagertee – not recommended unless you have a cold.

And so it comes to an end – 617 days since we left Scotland, we got back to Scotland to surprise everyone else at various stages over Christmas as people thought we were at the other end of the planet. This ends our travels for the time being anyway, 30 countries visited, 1 truck, 7 trains, a few flights and around 70,000 km’s travelled overland. This time we’re ready to stop for a while as we aim to work in London for the time being the blog will cease to be …………until we hit the road again