Our final stop in Russia was Chita, an industrial city that we picked purely for its proximity to the Chinese border. There was not much to see there, especially since the smog was the worse we've seen. We didn't mind though, as our plan was simply to prepare for the border crossing. We knew that we would soon lose access to Google, which meant no more apps can be downloaded, no more email and having to use alternative maps (of all those I tried, Maps2Me has bee...

Hello All, Sorry for a two-week delay, our first week of China has involved lots of travelling. No Trans-Siberian train journey should be partaken without a detour to Lake Baikal. We visited in the off season but found the forming ice stunning and the temperatures (though sub-zero) bearable (especially with our many layers we are now glad to have packed - hooray for long johns!) On arrival we had to walk 1km to our hostel (thankfully uphill so almost warming) ...

One of the joys of Russian trains is meeting people, which you can still do if you don't speak the language. A lot of younger Russians know English, and on our journey we shared a compartment with a musician also going to Irkutsk. She spoke good English after studying in Munich for a few years. She was entering a fanfare competition as part of a saxophone quartet and as it was free to watch, we got to see her perform a few numbers, but sadly couldn't stay to find...

Previously on turners-on-a-train; waiter in Saint Petersburg claims Krasnoyarsk dirtiest City in Russia. 8 inches of snow forecast for November. And now: The Turner's go to Krasnoyarsk. We arrived to no snow whatsoever and stunning sunshine. Our second day here felt practically tropical at a nice 6 degrees. The smog we'd been warned about was nowhere to be seen. Everyone told us this was extremely abnormal so we felt truly blessed. The main draw for us of Krasn...

Our journey here was our longest yet; 26 hours on a train. Sleeping in the train is ok, but when you wake up and have a whole day to spend before you can get out, then cabin fever starts to set in. On the plus side, I have read far more books while travelling than I did before. We can strongly recommend A journey into Russia by Jens Muhling, which has helped fill the hours. We had low expectations for Novosibirsk. We had picked it as a stopover, to avoid spendin...