We shared our train cabin between Beijing and Xi’an with two young Chinese men, one of them had an interview in Xi’an and the other was accompanying him for moral support. They were interested in hearing what brought us to China and what we would do whilst in Xi’an,…

As we got off the train in Beijing we had come to the end of our Trans-Mongolian train adventure, travelling approximately 6,000 miles, spending seven nights on a train and stopping in seven different cities in Russia and Mongolia on the way (St Petersburg, Moscow, Kazan, Yekaterinburg, Novosibirsk, Irkutsk, Olkhon…

So finally we were about to embark on the part of our adventure which will answer the long pondered question: can Gemma buy Mac makeup in Outer Mongolia. We were intrigued to see what Mongolia was like long before we started our adventure at the beginning of this year…

We thought Yekaterinburg was unique in having a line painted on the floor around the city, guiding tourists around the main attractions, yet when we arrived in Irkutsk we found they had exactly the same set up in place. As it worked well in Yekaterinburg why not have it in Irkutsk…

Back when we decided to take the Trans-Mongolian train from St Petersburg in Russia to Beijing in China, we didn’t know exactly which stops we wanted to make on the way. The majority of the reasonably priced tours started in Moscow, then go to Irkutsk which is three and…

Our first night aboard our Trans-Mongolian train had been a success, due to departing at around midnight and arriving first thing in the morning, we did little else except sleep on the train. The gentle swaying motion of the train as it pulled us from St Petersburg to Moscow…

After the best part of three months following a backpackers trail around South East Asia we had spoken to over a hundred people about what their travel route was: where they had been and where they were going next. After a while we noticed a regular pattern emerging, with lots…

To finish off our month in Thailand we had two destinations left: Phuket and Bangkok (where we had a flight booked to take us to St Petersburg to start our adventure through Russia on the Trans Mongolian train). We only had a very short stay in Phuket and had…

With Gemma finally feeling better and us feeling happy from making some elephant friends in Chiang Mai, we were ready to board a flight back down towards Southern Thailand, with our first stop being Krabi. Gemma was excited to be able to get involved with more activities now she…