It is three thousand four hundred kilometres – a two full-day journey – to get from Irkutsk to Yekaterinburg. It is the most amount of time at one go that we will be spending on a train on the entire…
An Evening on a Trans-Siberian Train
We board our westbound Trans-Siberian train in Irkutsk. In Russia there are four classes: third, lower second, upper second, and first. We opt for lower second to: save a bit of money, and, avoid meeting no one but other foreigners.…
Baikal Lake, Russia
Lake Baikal. Our first taste of Russia. The majority of travellers cross Russia starting in the West, ending in the East. But not us. Not this time, at least. Our decision to do the Trans-Mongolian route east to west meant,…
Tsenkher Hot Springs
Us not so keen to join Zoe on an overnight horseback ride, Jen and I opt to rent mountain bikes and do a day trip from Tsetserleg to the Tsenkher hot springs. We read a fair bit online about how…
Tsetserleg Loop: A Mongolian Frontier
After some very easy coercing by our man Joe back in Ulan Batar, we signed up for a two night tour out of Tsetserleg, Mongolia. We would be traveling over six hundred kilometres almost entirely off road. Some of it…
Central Mongolia and the Holy Mountain
For the second half of our three weeks in Mongolia, we decided to base ourselves in Central Mongolia. Out of a town called Tsetserleg (pronounced “Tsetserlay”). We did so because we were very quickly and easily persuaded to do so…
Chinggis Khan Statue
An unusual post with few words. Only a handful to honour Chinggis Khan and the Chinggis Khan statue in Ulaan Baatar. He stands forty meters tall (taller than the head of the Statue of Liberty). Independently funded by some, well, rich…
The Gobi Desert Induced Digital Detoxification
It took around twenty six hours on the Trans-Mongolian express to get from Beijing, across the eastern edge of the Gobi Desert, and to Ulan Batar, Mongolia’s capital city. Ulan Batar is an awesome capital city. I might actually put it in…