Click here The park is alive with the sound of music! Those who know me well know that I get up early in the mornings. I love to walk and experience the newness of each day. I think it’s the closest I get to living in the moment, that sense that every day is a […]
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I’m learning Mandarin, I think I’m learning Mandarin, I really hope so… There was a point earlier this year when we three went for a walk, my family often humour me by coming for a walk with me on Sundays, but this one was a frosty affair. Rosa was giving clear non verbal signs that
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Is it ever black and white? Life is different on a two day sleeper train in China. For a start our compartment companions were a well organised couple who had lots of excellent food in sensible containers and not much luggage. They didn’t speak English and we didn’t speak Mandarin (yet!) but we got on
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The pointed finger Our beautiful big red bus arrived in Yining at 18.45 but we didn’t know if our train left at 20.21 or 22.21. All Chinese trains run on Beijing time and Yining and Urumqi, the city where we were headed, operate on local time (two hours earlier) so we were in a hurry
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The big red bus to China The big red bus journey to China was easily the best bus journey we have had. I wasn’t scared by the driving at any point, helped largely by the flat terrain but the bus was also big and demanded a certain amount of respect going around corners. None of
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Okay, is this really happening? When we finally decided on our route to Australia, Kazakhstan was the first jewel. A vast undiscovered land with hidden treasures and camels! I spent a while ‘discovering’ Kazakhstan, usually before work at 4.00 in the morning on days I couldn’t sleep, and eventually I found somewhere for us to
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One month in…our top tips 🙂 Tomorrow we head for China and we are not clear what access we will have to the internet so we may not be in touch for a while. We will carry on writing though because it’s great remembering all the tiny details of just how awful travelling can be
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The Tien-Shan Mountains The rest of our train journey to Almaty was tedious. Long flat plains are okay if you have a comfortable seat where you can read and play cards, occasionally staring out of the window and spotting a camel chewing belligerently in the distance. Then, an air of romance might be kept in
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In search of a camel We boarded our next sleeper train at Atyrau in Kazakhstan, bound for Almaty in the east, and I had just got comfortable in my window seat when I noticed something crawling on my leg. A small brown praying mantis, instantly named ‘Manti’ – we have no idea of gender but
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From Russia, with love (…and if I’m honest a little bit of fear!) Halfway through the train journey that took us out of Russia and into Kazakhstan, I had to delete this post. At that point Theo had been being interrogated for nearly an hour by Russian security forces. Theo spoke quickly and
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