Hi. We are in Beijing! We got the train on Thursday. It took a day and a half from Ulaan Baatar, but the border crossing was much easier than getting into Mongolia. On the way we passed through the Gobi desert, and also saw the Great Wall - photos coming shortly. We have been taking it easy, and sharpening our bargaining skills at the shops. They know how to drive a hard bargain here, but we still managed to snap up a few things. Food has been good includin...

Greetings from Bayan-Ulgii, Mongolia's westernmost province. We have been here for just over a week now, together with our entourage! When we booked our tour in Mongolia we thought that we'd be part of a group of around 10 people, but it turns out that we're the only ones to book this tour. As a result we have a translator (or two translators - more about that later), a cook, and two drivers with an old Russian jeep apiece. We are thus being waited on hand and fo...

Greetings from Mongolia. Tomorrow we embark on our two week trip. (If you want to look at the details of our tour then you can find them here: http://www.nomadstours.com/2004-itineraries/eagle-festival.html) We just about survived the nine hours it took to cross the border yesterday, mostly spent doing nothing on the Russian side of the border. We are not going to attempt to do very much today - just catch up on various bits and pieces. We're going to drop in on ...

Hi, We have had a great few days in Russia. Left Moscow on the 17th and spent the next 4 days on the trans-mongolian train. The scenery was nice but didn't change at all during this time. We shared a compartment with a couple of Irish people who were lovely, and managed to entertain ourselves with card games and backgammon and drinking beer. We got to Irkutsk and were taken down the bumpiest road I've ever been on to Lake Baikal where we were staying in a vi...

We're in Moscow. We've just been to the Kremlin. Yesterday we went to see Lenin in his mausoleum as well as St Basil's. The day before we did a river cruise, and then took a stroll in Gorky Park. This was all fairly enjoyable in spite of the amount of queueing and misinformation associated with visiting anywhere in Russia. We spent almost as long queueing to get into the Kremlin this morning as we actually spent inside looking at things. St Petersburg was ...