Ulan-Ude ("OOH-lan ooh-DAY") is the capital of the Buryatia Republic region in Eastern Siberia. There is not much to see in Ulan-Ude city centre - the highlight is the world's largest statue of the head of Lenin. However, there are lots of interesting places to visit nearby.

I was staying with a lovely couple, Andrey and Svetlana, and their two children Yasha (20) and Masha (18). They were so welcoming and Svetlana made great food. Andrey and Svetlana were also my guides here and they are so enthusiastic about the local area and the traditions. Andrey has done a lot of work on the development of tourism in the region, focusing on ways that it can benefit the local community (particularly involving young people) and minimising the impact on the local environment. He has lots of great ideas and is seeking government support for them.

The first place that I visited was the small Atsagatsky Buddhist temple near a Buryat village out in the countryside (Buryats are the native ethnic group of this region, they are closely related to Mongolians and have many cultural similarities, Buryats are traditionally Buddhist). The temple has a waxwork figure of a smiling Dalai Lama inside and is very brightly decorated. I was amused to see a couple of pyramids of Ferrero Rocher among the offerings to Buddha.

We went to another Buryat village nearby for lunch in the home of a lady name Guelin. She was dressed in the traditional costume and gave me the customary Buryat welcome by offering me a bowl of green tea with milk wrapped in a blue scarf. Her house was filled with pots of vegetables that she is growing. She showed me how to make poozy (meat dumplings) and I had a go at making a few that she then steamed for lunch. We also had a local balsamic spirit with herbs, which is 45% alcohol but apparently it's medicinal! After lunch she taught me a few traditional games that they play using sheep's ankle bones and then I tried my hand at archery (the national sport).

The next day I visited the Ivologinsk Datsan - a large collection of Buddhist temples, schools, houses for the lamas and related buildings - it's the centre of Buddhism in Russia and many lamas and student lamas live there. In one of the temples they had pinned up a letter from the Russian President in February, wishing them well on the Lunar New Year.

Later we visited a couple of 'Old Believers' villages - these are people who stuck to the old Russian Orthodox beliefs and traditions after the reformation, they were exiled to Siberia a couple of hundred years ago and there is a population of about 250,000 of them here now. In comparison to the Buryat villages, the houses are much more colourfully decorated and they have planted lots of trees. We went to a museum of Old Believer heritage which is just a collection of artefacts put together by the local priest who is enthusiastic about remembering the culture and customs.

The area around Ulan-Ude is a valley and the landscape varies from vast flat, dry land where barely anything grows to greener areas where the river passes through, always surrounded by mountains with lots of trees. Very little of it is fenced off and the few animals that I saw just wander freely - on the edges of villages they sometimes wander among the houses and shops as well, I saw a group of cows taking shelter underneath a road bridge - I don't know how the farmers keep track of them!

I had my first earthquake experience this morning! They have them fairly often here and they are usually small - Yasha and Masha actually slept through it. At about a quarter to six the bed started moving back and forth across the floor, I was lying there wondering if that's as bad as it would get or if I was going to have to go and find cover while dressed only in my pants... happily it stopped after about ten seconds, no damage done. I looked it up on the internet later - the epicentre was about 100 miles north of Ulan-Ude and the magnitude was 5.2 on the Richter scale.

On my last night Masha, Yasha and I got up at 3:45am to watch Manchester United play Chelsea in the Champions League final (it generated a lot of interest in Russia because it was being played in Moscow). I was due to leave the house to go to the train station at 6am but the game ended in a draw and went to extra time... no goals in extra time and it went to penalties... still level after penalties, at which point it was about 6:30am and I was quite nervous about missing my train... finally Man Utd took victory Andrey and I ran out of the house and I made my train just in the nick of time!