Another day, another bullet train. This one was marginally faster with a top speed of 305 km per hour and took 6 hours and 10 minutes to do the trip from Xian to Shanghai. Once in Shanghai, we were bussed
Terracotta day today – lots and lots of it ….. In fact, according to some estimates more than 8,000 terracotta warriors, 130 chariots and over 600 horses. The terracotta army is about an hour’s bus ride outside Xian. We started
Another day, another train …. This one, however, was different. This one flew at the speed of a bullet – well, a bullet train anyway! From having got used to clattering along and bouncing around at a maximum of 80-90
A second day in Beijing today and, being a Sunday, we got to watch the Chinese at play. One of the things the locals like to do is apparently to head out to the Summer Palace to the north of
A day in the frantic, bustling (and smoggy) capital of China – Beijing – today. With a pollution warning of ‘high’ today, we took the complimentary face masks out with us for the day. How many other hotels in the
Another day on the train today. We left the hotel around 6am for a 7.30am departure from Ulan Bator. The route took us through the Gobi Desert and while a remote and desolate landscape, it nevertheless had a raw beauty
At last, a day off! The relentless pace of the trip has slowed slightly today as we have a day completely to ourselves in Ulan Bataar. For the morning we decided to have another wander around the Gandan Monastery. It
Yekaterinburg is famous for two things. Which one is more significant, I will leave you to judge! We arrived there on the train after lunch today having crossed the Ural Mountains. Yekaterinburg is the fourth largest city in Russia with
Slightly bizarrely we spent the first part of the trip heading off to the east, stopping for a couple of hours at Novgorod and then heading all the way back west again! So, when we woke up in the morning
A particularly exciting day today as we saw Vladimir Putin. Well actually we didn’t, but our guide was fairly cyonvinced that he was in one of the line of 15 or so blacked-out Mercedes which streamed last us as we