http://blogs.bootsnall.com/teethbenitez Baltic to Bangkok overland Sun, 04 Oct 2009 03:24:21 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en It is quite easy to spot other backpackers on the trans-Siberian.  Even as out of practise as we have been through lack of opportunity these past few weeks.  So while waiting for 11:15pm to roll around it is a nice surprise to see a young guy come into the waiting ... http://blogs.bootsnall.com/teethbenitez/where-anthony-makes-an-appearance.html Courtesy of Rdoc http://blogs.bootsnall.com/teethbenitez/a-video-introduction-to-life-in-platscart.html Krasnoyarsk is a place that makes itself very hard to like.  The buildings are dour and the sky has not changed its dark gray complexion.  Most likely because of the continuous smoke you can see belching from the smokestacks across the river.  In the central area every lamppost has two ... http://blogs.bootsnall.com/teethbenitez/joyous-nature.html Seventy-nine kilometres out of Tomsk is the junction where the branch line we are on rejoins the main east-west route.  In a classic piece of short sighted lobbying the Tomsk city administrators of the time wanted to protect their own transportation monopolies and so got bypassed by the railway.  Then ... http://blogs.bootsnall.com/teethbenitez/train-leg-9.html   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 ... http://blogs.bootsnall.com/teethbenitez/womble-town.html   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 ... http://blogs.bootsnall.com/teethbenitez/disproving-chekhov.html     http://blogs.bootsnall.com/teethbenitez/song-of-the-rail.html Being in a city for only a few days you are really only trying to build a slight impression of the place.  For Yekaterinburg that would be unfinished buildings.  Most strikingly was what I assume was supposed to be a communications tower.  Instead of one aerial thrusting upwards there were ... http://blogs.bootsnall.com/teethbenitez/blowing-up-the-kitchen.html  It has felt like a long time coming but after nearly four weeks of baby steps the trans-Siberia starts now.  Technically only starting in Moscow the traditional route goes down through Nizhny Novgorod across through Perm and the Ural mountains to our current destination of Yekaterinburg and then further on ... http://blogs.bootsnall.com/teethbenitez/straddling-continents.html The thing is that, despite all previously documented troubles, Kazan is a really great place and I am really glad that the route was able to be influenced away from the usual stop in Perm to include it.  Officially the third capital of Russia and recently done up to celebrate ... http://blogs.bootsnall.com/teethbenitez/the-great-river.html