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Taken from the train - A small Siberian station.

Siberia whilst being beautiful is certainly unchanging. The train journey lasted four nights, when I look back on it, it was worth undertaking – the longest train journey I shall ever take. On the forth day I think I had a bit of ‘cabin fever’! We were located in a comfortable four berth cabin. Sharing it with only one other guy. Vladimir, the name I shall give him for lack of being able to find out his true identity, was a quiet sort. This suited us just fine.
We had rushed through Europe and taking a ‘holiday’ from travelling for a few days was very relaxing. I spent many hours staring out of the window at great plains dotted with copses of spindly birch trees. Apart from the odd small station accompanied by an even smaller village. I saw little sign of life – no wildlife at all.
There were dirt tracks weaving this way and that where a vehicle might have passed this year of last. A perfectly still wilderness.

Wilderness - Siberia

Prior to boarding the train, taking the advice from our MonkeyShrine handbook (an invaluable resource), we had stocked up on instant noodles of various sizes and flavours. I had also purchased some rice pudding which turned to be mashed potato; and some couscous which turned out to be red wine gravy granules. Given this they provided a very welcome change from the noodles I had being eating in excessive amounts! However as the days passed my hunger left me as the stock of noodles was depleted. Not doing anything for hours, days at a time I did not need my normal amount of sustenance.
All trans Siberian trains have a boiler, either fired by coal or wood to boil and therefore sterilize water. Knowing this in Istanbul we had purchased 500grams of apple tea, and 500grams of orange. The tea was said fruit, diced, in the case of the orange was just the rind. Needless to say the tea turned out to smell wonderful, but be disappointingly tasteless. As boiling water was the only form of liquid we had the tea would have to suffice. We found by filling our French press half full with the apple bits, brewing it for five minutes then depressing the plunger almost to the point of breaking the pot; you could extract something which was okay at best – at least it made the cabin smell pleasant. The orange tea was unpalatable.
On the last night Vladimir purchased a couple of large cartons of beer from one of the platform stalls. This intake of beer seemingly allowed Vlad to come out of himself – perhaps he was also suffering from cabin fever. Chatting away in Russian interspersed with violent impressions of a bear, like we understood and like such things are normal. What I understood from his ramblings was that he drove a Volvo (of all things), lived in a large house and that Siberia was his garden – I can only hazard a guess that that is where the bear came into the story?! I shall never know. A bizarre end to a long ride.

The Route So Far

So a bit of an update.

Paris went on a boat trip up the River Seine, very nice recommended by mother! Had a wonder around, found a nice hostel just up a small cobbled street, free breakfast! Paris was very nice, stayed one night then after a mad rush across the city metro got onto an overnight train to Munich.

We arrived in Munich very early, so early that nothing was open, no tourists. We found a small coffee shop and sat down to read the Lonely Planet – a book which was quickly becoming indispensable. After a quick wonder we found a bike hire place, and rented bikes for the day it turned out to be the best was of seeing the city and its parks.

Cycling through Munich

Leaving Munich we headed East to Praha, or Prague. On a train then a coach. Entering Czech via coach gave us a unique insight into the country and its economy seemingly built solely on logistics companies.

We found that there was a camping site located somewhere north of Praha, so we got off the coach around 2030 to find the camp site. This however proved to be harder than anticipated! at around 2330 we gave up, sitting on a curb in a part of town nobody seemed to go to wondering what to do. It was then we happened across the Belvedere Hotel! The Belvedere is everything we could of hoped for although not quite at the budget that we were looking for, but needs must and we checked in. I think this will stick in my mind as possibly the nicest place we shall stay over the whole trip. As i wondered from our spacious room to our marble clad bathroom i thought, now this is the way to travel! a good nights sleep and in the morning discovered that we had taken tram 14 from a choice of 14 and 17. Tram 14’s route had changed since the guide had been written and as such no longer went anywhere near the campsite. After a long walk across a park, and the river we arrived. We saw the sights of Praha, the castle and the old town and various bridges accross the river. Praha i would strongly recommend.

Praha Castle Guard

Another train and a coach to Krakow, Poland. People stopped smiling in Germany it seemed, and after several attempts at using this multilingual sign we gave up. People seemed focused and it certainly felt like we’d left England. Unfortuntly i don’t have any pictures from Krakow as my camera was lost with the pictures on it.

On arrival into Krakow again late into the evening is when we first met Gvosyna; With Dan fleeing the toilet attendants Gvosyna was offering us a room for an amazing price, we took her up on the offer. With nervous look between Dan and I, Gvosyna took us on a tram across the city talking the whole way about various bus numbers, tram numbers, road works, then repeating herself in this never ending account of the current state of the Polish transport network. By the time we got off the tram we were feeling more confident that this was not a scam as she had seemed genuinely helpful up to this point. A few minutes walk down this street and that took us to 13 Konarskope Road. Number 13 was what looked like something left over from the communist times of the past. We were led into a dark hallway – this if any would be Gvosyna’s best chance to strike! The strike never came we were led up to an apartment up a couple of flights of stairs, everything seemed to be in basic, but good order. The oldest thing in the place was the fridge which wasn’t on, and looked like you could shelter in it from a nuclear blast! on the whole very nice. Gvosyna had collected loads of tourist leaflets in various nationalities which she proudly went through with us. Fortunately picking only a could from the literal hundreds on the table.

From one of those leaflets we learned of the best thing about Krakow – the Wieliczka Salt Mines. A very enjoyable trip which takes you down a 700 year old salt mine. Salt being in times of old the only way of preserving food and therefor as valuable as gold! The feel of the place accompanied by a splendid guide made the trip a highlight of the adventure so far!

I shall continue as we move onto Budapest!

The Eurostar Train

The starting point of this adventure: St Pancras, or Pancreas.

Met Dan with identically huge and heavy well packed bags outside Costa Coffee at around 0800. Went to board the Eurostar, loaded our bags onto a security scanner only to be flagged up a dodgy. It seemed something in Dan’s bag was contraband. After a bit on confusion it seemed as our bags were seemingly identical both bags would need to be searched in the interest of security. I wonder how many ridiculous things are carried out under the banner of Health and Safety?

So bags were laid out whilst we had to stand and watch someone painstakingly unpack what seemed to be more that could ever fit back into the bag into the table and into various boxes to be screened, scanned and otherwise tested. After thirty minutes and a lot of mumblings about ‘what a lot of stuff’ it became clear that the problem was the camping gas cylinder which i had in my bag. Dan’s bag didn’t need to be searched at all. Unfortunately they also found my penknife during this search which was up-apologetically thrown into a perspex bin right in front of me. Shame. With 3 minutes to spare we ran from customs and onto the Eurostar!

Next Stop Paris!

Canon G10

I will post an update soon, just tonight my camera has managed to loose itself. I was booking a hostel on the phone, and gave it to Dan to hold with my other bag, in the confusion managed to leave it on a bench. Needless to say – very annoying!

Not anyone’s fault, but i wont be trusting Dan with anything ever again!

So yeah I  shall update hopefully borrowing some of Dans photos to show you all what i’ve been up to and where.

All in all a good first week, but a shame about my camera and all the pictures that it holds are in someones thieving little hands!

I’m off to the police station tomorrow where I am promised someone will understand English. Tried to get there tonight. We managed to by way of getting on a train which made an unscheduled stop for us to get off at, only to find broken English confused with German, no number of drawings really helped that much.

As they say..

Tomorrow is another day – and I hope to find a camera shop!

James at Temple Meads Rail Station

I have finished packing my bag, it weighs in at just under 20kgs. I have just updated the route page, so see there for more information regarding our rough itinery. Just a quick message – tomorrow I’ll be getting the 4:47 train to London from Bristol, ready for the Eurostar and paris!

If you’re following this blog, post a comment somewhere so I know who’s out there?

Saturday afternoon – decided to climb Snowdon so Matt and I set off, got to North Wales and found a campsite around 2030.

The Camp Site

Weather was pretty bad along the way, almost turned back at one point. Set up camp and enjoyed a meal, bottle of wine and some cards.

Broke camp and set of down the A5 looking for snowdon. We were aiming to do the Watkin Path. See here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowdon#Watkin_Path

The Watkin Path

The route would take around 6 hours and is the hardest route; climbing the greatest altitude – 1015m.

Walking up we could see the cloud coming in.

Path to the clouds

A hard scramble later we were up at the top, surprisingly we found it to be rather crowded. Aparently there is a train that runs to the top, and now it is complete with a cafe. A welcome cup of coffee later we headed down the ridge back towards the car.

The Ridge

Here is Snowdon viewed from further down the ridge covered in cloud.

The Summit

See the rest of the photos here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/webjames/sets/72157621273655639/

I was pleased to see my tent functioned well and kept out the hardest wind and rain.

All the more excited about the off now!

I’ve just installed WordPress! everything seems to be working – stay tuned and bookmark this page!

To your left is the side bar, and below in the footer you can register and log in although this is not necessary to comment and browse the blog. On the side bar is a link to my Flickr page where I will be posting my photographs which I take on the trip.

If your reading this please comment.