As we write, our Mongolian adventure is already over! We only had 8 days, but the country is so huge that to have been able to tour beyond the Terelj national park - 2 hours from Ulanbator (the capital) - we would have needed a further 2 to 3 weeks at least. We had a great 4 days staying in a family 'ger' (felt tent) in the Terelj. The food was pretty good (and pretty meaty) and the milk tea and the local hooch (made of fermented mare's milk) were both very hard...

Beijing is a real mix of old and new. This was Fran's third time (the first being 22 years ago!), while Andy was on virgin territory. We stayed in a hostel in one of the old 'hutongs' (network of alleyways). It had loads of character, a great place for people-watching and had thankfully avoided the pre-Olympics bulldozers. Also we overlapped with Emma & Jay again for a couple of days which was great. The number of vehicles on the roads was amazing, and the hu...

South Korea is country number 14 in our round-the-world trip, but our visit here is only short as it was a useful way of getting to Beijing and the start of our train journey to Europe. We're currently relaxing in the former Korean capital of Gyeongju with its myriad of burial mounds and excavated treasures. The second part of our Japanese tour was excellent. The Japanese Alps were beautiful, especially as we got great weather on the day we hiked amidst them in ...

We finally said goodbye to Manila and Bobbi & Dean last Sunday. Andy's time volunteering at World Vision International went well and he was almost used to his sweaty commute by the end. Imelda Marcos' Coconut Palace turned out to be very tasteful and ingenious, albeit very much a 'white elephant'. On our last weekend we saw a contemporary performance of the Manila ballet which was stunning and we got stuck in one of the many long traffic jams. In true Philipp...

Thanks to CIS Tours in Hong Kong, we finally have Russian visas valid for the whole of October. So after some months of uncertainty (though we had a plan B) we now know we are going to head back to Europe via the trans-siberian railway. We spent 5 days in Hong Kong last week in order to get the visa and really enjoyed exploring the cityscape. Hong Kong was devastated during the war years and the population shrank to just 10% of its current size. Immigration since...