So after rather too many lazy days in Darjeeling I finally left permit in hand (you have to have a special permit just to enter the state) for Sikkim. Sikkim is the smallest state in India but is also without doubt one of the most beautiful, the mountain kingdom (home to Khangchendzong the worlds 3rd highest mountain) was an independent country until 1975 and has benefited from some major investment from Delhi in recent years. I left Darjeeling by a very cramp sh...

Right well i know i am currently about 5 months behind with this blog but with a new year bring totally unfounded optimism that i will be dedicated and keep it totally up to date so here goes. I have now finally reached India country number 23 (i think!) of the trip so far, a few months later than originally anticipated but Nepal was just so incredible i didn't feel any need to leave. so after a great deal of queuing at the India embassy in Kathmandu and stops a...

I survived my 52 hour train trip to Irkutsk and immediatly got the buis down to a small town called Listvyanka. the trip wto Irkutsk was quite monotonos with just rolling hills and and forests but reaching Baikal was a real highlight. In terms of water volume Baikal is the biggest and deepest lake in the world it is also one of the cleanest . it holds about 40% of the worlds fresh water not including the poles all at a constant chilli 8 degrees. anyway enough of ...

well i decided to get off the main TransMongolian Line before Beijing to i took a slight detour to visit Hohhot the capital of Inner Mongolia (china). The boader crossing into china was realativly painless and despite haveing to cue up in 30+ degree heat. the first thing that struck me about china was just how developed the place looked. Hohhot looked more like a cross between Las Vagas and New york after Ulaanbaatar. anyway i only stayed in Hohhot 1 day but st...

Well after leaving RUssia and a 10 hour boarder crossing i finally arrived at Ulaanbaatar i guess a nice way of putting it would be to decribe mongolia's capital city would be as a down market version of Liskeard another way would just be to call it a s*** hole. trying to get over the notion that first impressions last. Ulaanbaatar is really the only city in Mongolia so all the s*** is all condensed into one small area also the mongolian don't seem to have any id...