12th march After 5 minutes of geting off the train at Novosibirsk we were being harassed by a man with very lanky hair, nasty clothes, a broken nose and loads of severe scars on his face, a typical male resident of the city. we hurriedly lost him and headed for an in ternet cafe to contact our hospitality contact here, Dara, an Englishman, who seemed very cool and happy to help us however he was able, although a 10-month stint in russia has obviously left its ...

got the train from Moscow and started our Trans-Mongolian journey proper. on board, we wrote this poem:The Army Man The Army man eats nothing but spamWhich he eats with copius ammounts of jamThis is the Major's favourite treatA sandwich made with a kilo of meatTo make it, he slaughterred his firstborn sonAnd drank his blood through a straw in oneIt tasted like s*** but he was thirsty no moreIt made him mad and he chopped off his mum's hand with a sawHis mum, who...

Not a lot happned on our first day in the capital. after we checked-in at hostel 'Home From Home' (run by a very friendly man and his weird cleaner/servant woman) we went on a snowy walk through the Moscow streets and in the evening went to a nightclub (which was actually just a sort-of cafe place where we just sat drinking tea until 3am), but our first impression is that Moscow is nowhere near as nice as St. Petersburg: the drab grey architecture that stretches ...

26-28th Feb - Train to berlin was pretty uneventful, I lay awake for an hour or so until a very drunk german man came in and gave me half a pint of port in a paper coffee cup, which sent me to sleep very quickly. I spent the morning and early afternoon walking around berlin, checking out some sights. berlin seems like quite a boring capital city compared to most i have been to in the past, with few impressive buildings and not a very lively atmosphere. I then ...

5 nights on trains 4 in a cave 1 in polish tower block the rest in hostels We have now made it to Russia one day ahead of schedule and await the arrival of comrade oscar