Meet the family We arrived in Mongolia yesterday; internet connection at the hostel here is dial up so will update properly when we get to China (after 01/10/07). Tomorrow we're going out of the city centre for 3 days with a guide and staying with a nomadic family and seeing some of the countryside. Met a MAD Swiss couple earlier who are 3 years into a 10 year trip CYCLING around the world!!! *Added entry for the day* A windy day today meant lots of dust...

The joy of border crossings We boarded the train yesterday at 5.45am. Matt and I found our cabin; this time the attendants were Chinese. Our cabin was locked which meant we had to wake the poor soul up inside it. He is a man called Mr Bolat, originally from Khazakstan but has lived in Ulaan Baatar for 20 years; he spoke virtually no English . Our other cabin mate is a 70 year old American lady from Florida, called Sheila. Sheila has basically done loads of trav...

By the seaside - kind of Today we made our way to the bus station, bought some tickets and got the bus to Listvyanka by Lake Baikal. That was actually a WHOLE lot more difficult and time consuming than it sounds. The bus station makes Chorlton Street bus station (M'cr) look positively palatial. The bus window pane had the odd stone chip and several cracks but you could see out of it so what more could you want right? The transport around here is at least 150 ye...

Now in Asia Happy Anniversary Helen's mum and dad!! The following day, the soldier returned at around 11am, still drunk, with a friend. They sat opposite us for a while until I think they got the message and left. We finally arrived in Irkutsk at 06:45 Wednesday morning (now GMT + 8 hours) and alighted the train feeling like the great unwashed. We clambered onto a tram where 2 females (I think); one the driver one the conductor, were literally barking orders a...

Interesting people We left the hotel and headed for the station. I, in what would appear is my usual style these days, went into blind panic after being in the station for nearly a whole minute and not being able to locate our platform. We had established that our platform was number 1 and all the signs made reference to platforms 2-9. To cut a long story short we finally found a sign in an inconspicuous corner of the station and found it. Our carriage was numb...