long red lines across a map

  While I freely admit to having a bit of a boner over trains, being forced to take a bus really makes you realise why.  My poor cycled out knees ache when forced to stay in one position for too long and with seats this tight I cannot even get into my usual sleep sitting up position.  Maybe this love of the locomotive stems back to when I was a kid and our family won a trip in the cab of a steam train.  Or that there are so few trains back home which is such a shame as they really are the best form of transport.  It just feels so much more civilised than being herded into some metal tube.  Another advantage that trains have is that once you board at a usually central station it just goes.  None of this tedious getting out of town through traffic and intersections just two rails pointing in the direction you want to go.  Even just boarding is fun.  Stand on the platform as a mighty piece of engineering pulls in.  The immaculately presented providnista’s stand ready to welcome everyone aboard.  Once underway there is so much more freedom to move around and looking out the window is far more accessible than a bus and more interesting than a plane. [read on]

  I think we were all well ready to leave Yekaterinburg.  Myself because the kitchen incident was still a thing of embarrassment, Rdoc because the keyboard monument was a moment that could never be topped, and Arnika because she is a restless soul who has to keep moving.  As this was to be the longest single train leg it was a nice feeling to be embarking with a pack full of freshly laundered clothes.  With free breakfast, free wifi, free washing machines, a good selection of movies in Russian the Europe Asia Hostel really was a big improvement on the previous assortment of hotels and monasteries.  Except in one key area; snoring.  Both nights spent there have had the same occurrence of two big Russian guys coming into the room about 4am promptly collapsing [read on]

Today we leave Moscow for the Golden Ring towns.  Even though many of the stops along the way are going to be major cities it still feels as though this is the end of the easy part.  The further east ... [Continue reading this entry]

"I will not be jet-lagged!" "I will not be jet-lagged!" I kept repeating this mantra in the hope that the force of will would change reality.  One early night for recovery might be acceptable but requiring two, come on.  Having made the ... [Continue reading this entry]