Category Archives: Travel Wash

Haven’t renewed that in a while:

Moscow in the clouds. And I don’t mean the good kind. I mean the nasty wildfire smoke clouds. We arrived early afternoon, but the smoke made it look very dark, like very very late afternoon. The streets were mostly empty, … Continue reading →

Next train ride, another overnight, to Novosibirsk, but the first one without a border crossing. Train was nice, but nothing special. We only had one compartment companion, a very quite man, who didn’t speak English and was also not very … Continue reading →

Irkutsk looks like Berlin! Here we were in the middle of Asia, but I was feeling like walking around in a typical European city build in the 19th century. Wide streets, Jugendstil buildings together with Plattenbauten. So very different than … Continue reading →

Oh my, no wonder this train right is so long. We first sat for several hours on the Mongolian side of the border without much happening at all. A Mongolian woman and her son asked us if they could hang … Continue reading →

Second train, Ulan Bator to Irkutsk, actually a shorter trip by distance then Beijing – but there is a Russian border and crossing takes a lot of time apparently. The Russian portion of the train (aka the part actually allowed … Continue reading →

It was only two and a half days in Mongolia, but it was quite an impressive stop. Ulan Bator (UB) is a mix out of modern city (main city square, parliament and surrounding buildings), run down communist buildings (2nd circle … Continue reading →

Alright, borders. Like real borders. I never been to a real border, only airport border controls and what counts as a land border in Europe. At the Chinese/Mongolian border we were kicked out of the train when it was already … Continue reading →

Finally on a train. Beijing to Ulan Bator. The train wasn’t the newest Chinese model (no A/C), but pretty comfortable. I also made my first contact with a train samovar. The train had so many Europeans, the whole 1st and … Continue reading →

Walking around in Beijing today made me finally realize something I subconsciously noticed the moment I arrived: There has been enormous progress made regarding the English language. I mean, 5 years ago, there was no way I could order a … Continue reading →