After our snow safari we left Listvyanka on Monday morning amidst a crazy snow storm with BaikalEx's Leonid, a serious looking Russian, who thankfully rocked up in a sturdy looking 4x4 (there are an awful lot of very old Lada's is bad nick around these parts). We were headed for Olkhon Island, a few hours North of Irkutsk, in the centre of Lake Baikal, reached by boat in summer, and by car in winter, across a series of "official" and non official ice r...

After another day on train, which pretty much merged into the former three, we reached our stop in Irkutsk. Minus nine degrees celcius, not too shabby for 5am in the morning. The capital of Siberia, Irkutsk is the nearest city to Lake Baikal, the Pearl of Siberia. Baikal is the world's deepest lake (1637m) and getting deeper every year as the rifting tectonic plates that formed it, gradually separate. Eventually it will become the earth's fifth ocean, splittin...

After another two days ambling around Moscow, taking in the whimsical tree-lined boulevards of the city, majestic golden domed cathedrals, markets, art museums and cafes, we made our way to Yaroslavskaya station, the departure point for all TransSiberian and TransMongolian trains. I loved Moscow, but it is here the adventure truly begins. With Moscow now 1000km behind us, we have settled into life in our cosy compartment on the no. 4 train to China. Unlike our ...