:: zone3 ::

Serious thinking of doing theMongol Rally next year. Waiting for entries to open on the website.

Haven’t decided on what route to take yet, although starting to think about it. Given the time of the year, St Petersburg could be a good option making it for white nights… Am very interested to see as much of the ‘Stans as possible and get a feel for what the ex-Soviet states are like and how they are changing since 91.

Just now need to convince friends to join the expedition...

Back in China. Nice to be back visiting again.

Was expecting some nice sunny weather but arrived yesterday morning to rain in Beijing. Was only light, much finer today.

All a very un-eventful series of flights over. I'm beginning to think it is better to have a few delays or missed flights, at least it makes it a bit more exciting.

So far having the fun just adjusting to the time zone and catching up on sleep.


Have decided when travelling it's not the major cultural differences you really notice. As John Travolta put it in Pulp Fiction "It's the little differences." The big ones you're sort of ready for and they don't creep up on you. However the little ones are the ones that sneak in and blind side you.

Got around to updating this after a few days off line

Well, the Hermitage is big. Very big. It has about 2.5 million exhibits,
makes Te Papa look very small in comparison. Spent about 4 hours walking
around looking at works of art. Getting to see works of De Vince and the
like. Pretty cool when get to see some works have seen on the History
channel recently.

After finishing up in St Petersburg, was off to Moscow overnight by train.
Spent the day walking around the Red Square and visiting Lenin, pretty
much looks as though made of wax.
Included a fun couple of hours of Metro station hopping. The Russia’s made
a number of the underground stations pretty much works of art. Made for
fun jumping on and off the trains…

An interesting city to get around. On the way back to the hotel last
night, was about to turn the corner. The women ten meters in front was
stopped by a man that would look in place in a Russian mafia movie dressed
all in black and directed to cross to the other side, I promptly decided
to do the same. As was crossing, could see why. About ½ a dozen mafia
looking guys had the house on the corner surrounded and about a dozen
uniformed Police were milling in the entrance with sub-machine guns. Would
have loved a photo, but thought better of it.

Had a nice walking tour around the city, a lot more beautiful old buildings
to see. St Petersburg is one of Russia’s younger cities, ‘only’ 350ish
years old. A lot of the buildings are over a hundred, they’re the young
ones.

Well made it to St Petersburg...

Made for about the worst set of connecting flights have ever had. Wlg to
Akl was fine. Got fun from there.

The plane to Shanghai brunt up a lot of fuel due to the weather on the way
and with fog in Shanghai had to divert to Naha, Japan to re-fuel. That put
things a bit late getting to Shanghai, had 60min to until my plane to
Moscow took off. Shanghai customs etc was fast lucky (fastest I've had in
any coutry), check-ins for my next flight had just closed, but they let me
on...

Then that flight was delayed in Shanghai, so got to Moscow with again
60mins until my next flight, however there is no way can transit Moscow
that fast... Getting myself on to a later flight to St Petersburg was fun
considering I about 5 words of Russian and the airport staff don't speak a
lot of english. Had some Russians that were on the same flight me to
Moscow and also going to St Petersburg, they were pretty friendly and helpped
me get re-ticketed and on the right plane.

Off on holiday for the next 5 weeks to Russia, China and Mongolia...

Taking the Trans-Seb from St. Petersburg throuh to Beijing, then going on to Shanghai.