Ukraine: My Trip to Chernobyl and Pripyat

Warning: Photo overload! As mentioned in my brief post on Kiev, my primary reason for visiting Ukraine was to take a look at the site of Chernobyl, the site of the infamous nuclear accident of April 1986, and the neighbouring towns and villages. If you’re not too familiar with the whole thing, there’s a basic summary here. Following many years of instability and severe radioactive fallout, the place has been opened to tourists since 2002, with the number of visitors increasing steadily each year. There are […]

Ukraine: Kiev

After I received my new passport in Amsterdam, I booked a flight out to what was going to be my next destination after Russia: Kiev, Ukraine. I actually don’t know anybody from my friends back home that have visited Ukraine. My decision to go here was met with mixed response when my friends heard; a combination of, “Oh, cool!” and, “Wait, isn’t that a war zone?” Whilst the entire country hasn’t been at war for quite some time, there is conflict with the Russians going […]

The Netherlands: A Small Detour

If you’ve read my previous post, you’ll know that I’ve had to abandon my plans for St Petersburg and fly pretty quickly to Amsterdam to get a new passport. I’ve got to be honest; although this whole drama has thrown a spanner in the works in terms of my original goal of not flying until I got to The Netherlands, it’s been somewhat pleasant being in a place that feels like home for a few days. It wasn’t my intention to document this part of […]

Russia: Losing My Passport

It was my last day in Moscow. I planned to head to St Petersburg that night on an overnight train, and was really looking forward to checking out the renowned culture capital of the country. I packed up my backpack, jumped on the subway and arrived at Leningrad train station to buy my ticket. I arrived and stood in a line for about 20 minutes. No worries, the train only leaves in an hour. I’ve got time. Cancel that, wrong station. Out the door I go, […]

Russia: Moscow

Moscow! Well, I’ve now technically reached the end of the Trans Siberian railway line. Since Beijing I’ve covered 9,001 Km by train, and I still have St Petersburg to go! As I write this I have a few hours left in Moscow before heading up to St Petersburg. I’ve been in Moscow for around five days. It’s one of those places where you can fill a couple of days up with a lot of sightseeing and tick off a lot of the major ‘must-visits’ as a […]

Russia: Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg and The Train

I picked my next stop along the Trans-Siberian to be Novosibirsk, a relatively large city in the centre of Russia, just above eastern Kazakhstan. I didn’t pick Novosibirsk for any real reason other than to break up the journey; spending several days on a train without stopping is something I’d rather avoid, especially when I don’t have too much of a time constraint. I wasn’t feeling too flash when I set about this leg of the journey so I opted to buy a bed in […]

Russia: Irkutsk and Lake Baikal

After spending a couple of weeks exploring the Mongolian sparseness it was finally time to embark on the next leg of the Trans-Siberian train to Russia! This I was looking forward to! I booked a ticket at the station in Ulaanbaatar. On the Trans-Siberian line there are a number of different trains you can take, each with different journey times and accompanying prices. I chose the cheaper local train, which would take 35 hours, as opposed to the 24 hour train which I would have […]

Mongolia: The Gobi Desert, Part 2

Part two of the Gobi trip! Carrying on from where I left off last time, we stayed in a ger one night with a woman who told us we were the first tourists she’d hosted that season. In the morning we also visited her shop, situated in another ger, where she sold some souvenirs and home-made clothing, shoes and hats. This is another frozen river, which begins at a decent sized frozen waterfall. You walk along the ice to get to it. Pretty cool stuff. […]

Mongolia: The Gobi Desert, Part 1

Upon arriving back to Ulaanbaatar from Kharkorin, I still had over week to go until I got my passport back from Legend Tours with my visa, clearing me to head off to Russia on the Trans-Siberian train. This meant I had loads of time to check out more of the Mongolian desert life. Fortunately, my friend Karen, who I’d met on my trip to North Korea, was also heading into Mongolia the next day along with her sister, Annika. After some deliberating, we organised to […]

Mongolia: Kharkorin And Beyond

Warning: A shit load of photos incoming! One does not simply travel to Mongolia without going on some sort of trekking expedition. The country is the least dense in the world, a population of around 3 million gives Mongolia a density of just 1.75 per square kilometre. Outside of the capital, Ulaanbaatar, the land is mostly untouched, with vast plains, rivers, mountains and valleys just waiting to be explored by foot, horse, motorbike or car. This is the reason most people, myself included, travel here. […]