25 December 2013 by thesmartwayround

Happy Christmas from China!

Happy Christmas wherever you are!

Christmas for us has tended to be far from traditional , but always fun! This year we are in China and will be celebrating with Sweet and Sour and chop sticks – this is a definite upgrade from the noodles we were eating on the train!

We have given ourselves a small budget to buy a tacky Secret Santa pressie for each other (not so secret as there are just the two of us!) so we will post whenever we can to show what Santa has given us!

Wishing you a happy and healthy Christmas as well as prosperous New Year!

Mr & Mrs Smart xx

Christmas in Torquay 2012

19 December 2013 by thesmartwayround

Eating Our Way Around China

Trying the various foods of the countries you visit is one of the real highlights of travel. Certain dishes are synonymous with some countries, such as steak in Argentina, curries in India, (which I can’t wait for), and pasta in Italy. So it was with great excitement, and a little trepidation that we arrived into Beijing.

One thing that Asia has that Russia And Mongolia were lacking was street food. Having both backpacked around South East Asia before we were hoping that China would be the same. For the budget minded traveller or those on a prolonged adventure like us, street food is your best friend.

As we do, once we arrived in Beijing we hit the ground running. On our first night we headed up to the Drum and Bell towers to hunt down a small little bar nestled between the two, have a drink to celebrate arriving at our most Easterly point overland and stare upon the beautifully illuminated towers to toast our success. Well that was the plan.

Sadly for whatever reason the towers were not lit up, but undeterred we stumbled upon a small hole in the wall bar to have a drink. It was about the size of a broom cupboard but at about a pound per beer how could we say no. Luckily the night wasn’t a total loss because not far away was our main aim for the night, a street called “Ghost Street”.

Ghost Street was originally home to a small evening fresh food market, and the silhouettes of the vendors against the lantern lights made them appear like ghosts. Now a days the street is a strip of flashing neon, red lanterns and dozens of restaurants specializing in hot pot cooking. We walked the entire length and the choice was endless! You could tell which restaurants were the good ones as there were huge crowds waiting outside, huddling under gas burners snacking on sunflower seeds while they waited for their table to be called.

We finally settled in for our first local food experience. One thing we had heard about China was how spicy everything was, and that they eat EVERY part of an animal and tonight proved to be the case. The menu contained what Natalie described as ‘every type of offal’, from turtle heads, chicken gizzards and feet, sharks fin and Ox intestines, it was there. You can imagine Natalie’s face with some of the options!! We ordered a tame beef dish and a “dry pot” potato dish. Both came out sizzling hot and smothered in loads and loads of chilies. Now I love spicy food but even for me this was hot! By the end of the night neither of us could feel our mouths and we made mental notes to avoid any dish with the word “spicy” in it in the future.

Following day as we explored the Forbidden City and numerous city parks we our first street vendor experiences. As you leave the Forbidden City you are instantly accosted by hawkers selling everything from tuk-tuk rides, scarves, Chairman Mao figures to all different types of food. It was these hawkers that drew our attention. On the back of a bicycle was a foam pyramid full of skewers of various fruits covered in a type of toffee. I can’t lie, I really wanted to take a photo of this guy’s bike so Natalie bought one as I snapped away a few photos. Wow! These little things became one of our favorites. Kiwi fruit, mandarin, small miniature apple like fruits and cherry tomatoes all dipped in a hard toffee. They would become our staple afternoon snack when sugar levels were low and energy levels flagging in the afternoons.

That evening it was time to splurge. Early on in the journey we had promised ourselves to blow the budget so to speak and go out and celebrate making it from London to Beijing overland, and if you are going to splurge in Beijing it means one thing…. Duck!

Peking duck is the signature dish in Beijing, and there is one restaurant that towers above the rest, the Qianmen Quanjude Roast Duck Restaurant, established in 1864 and the most famous restaurant of it’s type in the city. Everyone from Fidel Castro, Pele, Sir Edward Heath and George Bush Senior to this night, The Smart Way Round have dined here. The restaurant was not only enormous but also beautiful, and looked like something straight out of the movies. We ordered our half duck with pancakes and eagerly awaited our dinner.
To make the experience all the more special, the restaurant sends a chef out to your table and freshly slices the duck up for you while you watch. The waitress then showed us how to construct your pancake using chopsticks and you are good to go. We persevered but decided that the ‘rolling with your fingers’ technique that we adopt at home is more efficient! While Peking Duck in Beijing is probably very different to what you may have experienced back home we both agreed it was well worth it!

Over the next few days we continued to try various street meals. Every morning for breakfast I would grab a plastic bag of steamed pork dumplings from a vendor near our hostel. Ten dumplings for a pound, what an awesome breakfast! By the end of our time in Beijing he would see us coming and greet us with a smile and my dumplings ready to go. Natalie tried various different things over the days including a deep fried bread stick and a pancake mixed with a fried egg, something that looked almost like french toast and some leaf vegetables. Street food was definitely the way to go.

We also fell upon a fantastic little local hole in the wall restaurant we ate at regularly for dinner. Not only was the food amazingly tasty but also incredibly cheap. A large beer (630ml) was only three Yuan or 30 pence! In fact our dinners were regularly coming in at around three to four pounds a night for two people. We were also quite the attraction, with locals asking for us to pose with them for photos and on our last night the whole family thanking us and saying good bye!

Our next stop on our China adventure was the stunning little town of Pingyao. From the moment we jumped off the train we knew we were in a small town, and it really felt we were off the beaten track. As we walked around the UNESCO Heritage listed streets the restaurant signs advertised ‘Assorted Cats Ears’, ‘Dog Meat Casserole’, ‘Sliced Donkey Meat’ and the ‘Clear Cooked Bulls Penis’. With so much choice we were never going to go hungry. We did try some fantastic corn cobs from a street vendor, bought some tasty apple chips and I tried a pretty forgettable steamed bean curd wrapped in a cabbage leaf. Needless to say, many of these options are slowly turning Natalie more and more vegetarian!

An overnight train has now bought us to the town of Xian, right in the heart of Shanxi Provence. Their specialty here is a 3.8m long noodle served in a soup or broth of your choice. That’s the great thing about Asia, if you are willing to go and look for it and prepared to go local you can enjoy some of the best food you will eat and eat for a fraction of the cost. Too many travellers (and we saw a lot of it in Beijing) only eat in their hostel or hotel because they serve “Western” food, but to get a real flavor of a city or country you have to hit the streets. China has been incredible so far, and one of our next blogs will be about what we have been up to, but for now we are of in search of 3.8m noodles!

Don’t forget to check our Instagram account for photos of our adventures in China. Thanks for the feedback to let us know Instagram is posting to Twitter and Facebook. See you all on The Smart Way Round….

– Dean

15 December 2013 by thesmartwayround

Chapter Two: Irkutsk – Beijing (Including Magnificent Mongolia where it snows glitter from the sky)

* Please excuse any funky formatting and lack of pictures. It appears that WordPress is also on the ‘hit list’ of banned sites in China. However the app (with very limited functionality) appears to be working on my phone, but only with basic text. We are still managing to put pictures up via Instagram which should be linked to our Facebook / Twitter page – we will not be stopped!! Enjoy the next installment and sorry if it looks funky we can’t check it! N&D

After our amazing journey from Moscow (which Dean wrote about in his previous blog), we jumped off the train in Irkutsk and immediately reached for another layer! We had a few nights here to see the sights as well as get out to Lake Baikal. The city was apparently experiencing some unseasonably ‘warm’ weather which meant the ice and snow melted by day, and froze at night! Not falling over was the name of the game – one that I seemed to do better at than Dean! The main square was gearing up for the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics next year, and had winter sports themed ice sculptures everywhere which I was very taken by!! The architecture in the city was great and we stumbled across these tourist walking route boards and read everyone with great enthusiasm!

We headed out to Lake Baikal and it was beautiful. We were there in a bit of an in-between season – summer activities had finished and winter ones were yet to start, so we just spent time walking around in the beautiful snow taking in the stunning views. It really was a tranquil, attractive place.

From there we jumped on the train again and tracked the edge of the Lake to Ulan Ude. Most people on the Trans-Siberian train do this leg of the journey at night, but Dean had read how pretty it was, and so had sought out a local train so we could do it during daylight hours. The water from the Lake was almost lapping at the train lines, so it was a beautiful few hours.

I think one of the highlights of the train journey came for Dean in Ulan Ude. Here there is a giant 7m high ‘bust’ (head) of Lenin. We were prepared to be either over or underwhelmed, but thankfully he was very impressive and we were so glad we had stopped. Russians think it is testament to the greatness of the man that the pigeons don’t poo on him…. the cynics say it is all down to the bird spikes sunk into the top of his head out of view that keep them at bay 😉 Throughout Russia and Mongolia we saw many many ‘Christmas’ trees – however for the local people these are put up to celebrate New Year and not our festive season. I appreciated them though for Christmas as well! As well as trees and lights, in Ulan Ude we were again treated to some ice carvings – quite the thing here. We didn’t know it at the time, but it was here that we felt the coldest but it was well worth it.

What came next was magnificent Mongolia – not only a trip highlight but also a huge country highlight for both of us which is really saying something! Such a special special place it is hard to put into words our time here. Due to visa restrictions and there only being one train a week between Ulaanbaator (UB) and Beijing, we were limited to one week here, and what a week it was. At over six times the size of the UK but with a population of approximately three million (and over half of them live in UB) it certainly lived up to its reputation for being remote in parts.

We had a couple of days in UB where we explored from one side of the city to the other – literally when it turned out there were two bus number 7’s!!! We met a lovely couple of local guys who pointed us in the right direction. The following morning we headed out to the Gandan Khild Monastery and had our first experience of the monks chanting – so relaxing. Keen to see as much as possible we then arranged to have a driver and guide from the Hostel for a few days to take us out to the countryside. We piled into our old Russian Combi van and spluttered our way out to the Hustai National Park, where we went out to spot some of the Przewalski wild horses. Originally native to Mongolia, they became extinct several years ago, but 15 creatures were reintroduced from ones held previously in zoos around the world, and it has been very successful as there are now over 300 in the wild. We trekked up hill to see them and they were stunning. It was here that I turned round to face the sun, and with the backdrop of a clear blue sky, the sun was catching the snow particles that were being blown into the air and it really did look like it was raining glitter – beautiful.

We drove on and veering off the road onto a barely marked track on the edge of the Semi Gobi sand dunes the adventure really began. We kept driving and driving in land, before eventually a couple of Gers came into view. These belonged to Bor and Yandag – a nomadic couple, who lived off the land and moved twice a year from their winter site to their summer and vice versa. This would be our base for a couple of days and we both agreed it was the most authentic family homestay we had experienced – it was just awesome. We were welcomed into the Ger and given hot milky tea (the thing to drink in Mongolia). Soon after we went out horse trekking to see the sunset and it was the most at ease I have felt on a horse for a long time. Mongolian horses have smaller legs – so maybe it was just that I didn’t have as far to fall that gave me some sort of comfort!!! Dean on the other hand was not so keen, as he puts it “horses are dangerous at both ends and crafty in the middle,” a quote he stole from a movie! That night Dean took some amazing night photos and we had flash backs to our nights ‘bush Camping’ on our Oasis Overland – only this time it was a bit nippy at night!! We wiled away the hours in the evening playing ‘Ankles’ with Yandag who seemed to have a genuine desire to not let her guests win any game! She had such a beautiful smile despite living such a simple yet hard life. Ankles was a game I quickly grew to love… however it has to be seen to be understood and my new found ‘set’ will soon be winging their way home to join the rest of the traveller tat!! ‘Ankles’ are various games of chance played with sheep ankle bones. Each side of the bone represents a different animal and the general idea is to throw certain matching combinations.

The following day we headed out to Kharkhorin City to visit a Monastery. After a day’s touring, we arrived back at camp and this time headed off on the back of Camels Lawrence of errrr Arabia style! They were huge woolly two-humped beasts and they quickly became Dean’s favourites! Unfortunately by this stage my stomach had taken a turn for the worst, so I was treated to several late night treks to the ‘facilities’. These ‘facilities’ were located 30 meters away from the Ger, and we were reminded of the golden rule of loos abroad – don’t look down!! Seeing Orion’s Belt shining so brightly in the night sky will always remind me of this special place. Staying with this family far far exceeded our expectations. There were no big tour groups there… just us. And them. Communicating in the only way we could. Words can’t describe it – we were very privileged to have been there.

We headed on back towards and past UB and went out to more of a tourist guesthouse Ger stay in Terelj National Park. The landscape changed completely and we were greeted with the rugged sights of the harsh mountain landscapes. There were a couple of puppies and I utterly fell in love with one of them – he kept shivering in the cold and so I was helping out by picking him up (although we later learnt that Pedro was indeed a Pedra!!). He would have come with us if he could…. We headed out to visit another monastery here (no we are not bored of them yet!) and then the jewel in the Crown came for Dean – a visit to the massive Chingiss Khaan Statue. Completed three years ago at a cost of 4.1millions Dollars, this 41m high stainless steel statue is immense and matches the feeling towards the great man. Most excitingly for Dean, for a small price you could go up his tail(!) and pop out on the top of his head! From there you could see the never-ending Mongolian skyline that we had become so accustomed to and loved so much. 360 degree of pure sky – we were on top of the World.

And so it was time to head back to UB after not only one of the best weeks of our trip so far, but one of my all-time best travel weeks. For us, the World is too big to keep going back to the same place and there are few places that we visit that we vow to come back to, but Mongolia is one of them. There is so much to see and do and the people are so beautiful that it is hard not to be touched by the place. We didn’t freeze, instead we found it to be quite mild… maybe we have just become accustomed to – double figures. What’s -10 degrees between friends?

I remember very vividly Anastasia, the receptionist at our St Petersburg hotel looking out of the window at the grey weather and saying very passionately and forcefully (over and over and over), “why would you want to take the train now, I mean why – look at it its grey it murky its dirty? Why would you do it now, why?” Dean could see me cringing thinking “it’s time to be quiet now…” but we have our answer. For me and for us (yes we are getting on super well despite the jokes from some people before we went that we might not!!!) this could not have been a more perfect time to come. Yes the odd thing has been closed, and yes the hours of daylight are shorter and it been cold, however we have been treated to some of the most breathtaking scenery, much of which has been covered in beautiful white winter wonderland snow. Who could ask for more? A perfect scene has greeted us and we have loved every second. Winter in Siberia and Mongolia is amazing. As one of Dean’s good friends said, if you come prepared you will love it and we did.

So our last journey on the Trans Mongolian route took 30 hours and took us between UB and Beijing. It was sad in many ways to be completing this journey and both of us are still slightly in disbelief about how far we have come! Rather than two Chinese or Mongolian cabin buddies, we were faced with one very nice Chilean guy and an Italian who showed little interest in anything other than sleeping and looking at my chest – oblivious to the fact that Dean was here and I was scowling at him in disgust!! Fortunately the views out of the window as we crossed the Gobi Desert more than made up for our lack of ‘local’ companions and with mixed emotions we pulled into Beijing raring to go with the next stage of our adventure.

– Natalie

11 December 2013 by thesmartwayround

Thank you for your support

After the most amazing time in Mongolia (more about that in the blog to follow) we are really sad to leave this special place, but are looking forward to boarding our train to Beijing in the morning. Internet access is likely to be a bit more ‘few and far’ between, and social media quite restricted, so we wanted to take this opportunity to say a big thank you!

Sending stories back about our trip has been different for us this time round. In the past we have sent big round-robin emails, but this time we thought we would blog and see how that went.

I have heard numerous comments from people in the past (not always positive!) about people always putting things on Facebook and Twitter about their travels, so we thought the best thing to do would be to start up ‘The Smart Way Round’ Facebook page. We invited all of our friends to ‘like’ the page, that way people could either opt in or out of our travel updates. At the time it all felt rather self-indulgent and like we were promoting ourselves which was not the way it was intended at all! In short, we were blown away with the response we got so maybe more people are interested in our travels than we first believed!

So above all this is just a big THANK YOU for your support both before and during our journey. We will continue to post blogs were we can, although it may not be possible to post these on Facebook. You can always sign up for email updates via ‘The Smart Way Round’ blog page, or alternatively we will be back on Social Media as soon as possible (Dean can’t be parted with Twitter for too long)!

For now, thank you and see you in China (you better pinch me as it doesn’t seem possible)!

– Natalie

8 December 2013 by thesmartwayround

Vodka, the Military and News Crews – Life on the Trans-Siberian Railway

All aboard the famous Russia “2” Train

‘ВЛАДИВОСТОК 13:50’

Vladivostok 13:50, the sign popped up on the check in board at Moscow’s Yaroslavsky Station followed by the platform number. The moment had arrived, this was the major part of this trip, the whole journey had been planned around catching the famous Trans-Siberian Railway, our home for the next 74 hours.

About to board our carraige

The journey from Moscow to Vladivostok covers an impressive 9289km in roughly six full days. Our journey however, covered only 7858km to Beijing and if done non-stop takes roughly the same length of time. Most people, locals and tourists alike will break up that journey or only travel a small section of the line. Our first section, Moscow to Irkutsk, covered just over half the total distance and this was our longest section on the train.

There was an air of excitement on platform number two as everybody started to pile onto the train. Luggage, boxes, goods and supplies all being loaded on. The Trans-Siberian is not a tourist train, it is a living, breathing important transport hub linking one side of the country to the other and a vital, and cost effective mode of transport for many locals. As we would later learn it is a service that they are immensely proud of.

Waiting at each wagon door was the ‘Provodnitsa’ or cabin attendant. They work in a team of two and ride the train back and forth for a month before getting time off. She checked our tickets, showed us to our cabin, handed us our linen and gave us a rundown of how to use the bathroom, all in Russian of course so we understood perfectly!! She also ensured the Samovar (hot water urn) was always full and had snacks and supplies to buy and generally ruled the roost. Ours even had a pet dog that twice escaped making a beeline for our cabin and food bag (and was pulled away with Natalie chasing to stroke it!)

There was almost like a party type atmosphere on the train that first afternoon, not just because of our excitement but also from many of the locals. The main reason we wanted to catch the train was for the chance to mix and interact with the locals, meet new people and we certainly met a number of characters.

As the train pulled out of the station and meandered through the outer suburbs of Moscow, we found that we had the cabin to ourselves for the first stretch. We explored the train, settled in (took over the cabin!) and watched the city melt away to the snow covered Russian countryside. This idyllic picture was interrupted by the singing and shouting coming from the cabin next door. It was not too long until we met the culprits and had our first social experience on the train.

Sergei, his friend Petr, and who we assumed to be one of their wives or girlfriends but never did get her name burst into our cabin when they saw the door open. Sergei began chatting to us (in Russian), asking here we were from and where we were going. There was lots of giggling and laughing, apologies for his poor English and our poor Russian. Eventually his friends pulled him away, only for him to come crashing in minutes later to continue the conversation.

His friend Petr also not wanting to miss out would appear in the doorway and yell out the only thing in English he could say, ‘My name a Petr’, sounding exactly like Sasha Baron-Cohen’s Borat. He would then produce a three quarter empty bottle of vodka to which Sergei would quickly push back, tell him to hide it and continue the conversation. We were obviously causing a bit of a commotion as there were several walk-bys from the Provodnitsa giving us un-approving glares resulting in the girlfriend/wife dragging the boys back to their cabin.

This again, was only short lived. Sergei now entered bearing gifts and we had our first experience of Russian generosity, something you hear so much about from people who have ridden the train. He gave us some small sticks of a local chocolate, (and every time Petr arrived and attempted to add to the gifts with the vodka he was quickly shooed away!), and with help from his girlfriend/wife said to us ‘Welcome to Russia forever’, he then ran out the room. Sergei quickly returned this time with the Provodnitsa in tow and presented us with two cups of tea and a block of chocolate, followed again by a ‘Welcome to Russia forever!’ (Petr still reciting ‘My name a Petr’ in the background)! With that they were gone, they were getting off at the next stop and had to drunkenly prepare their things.

We barely had time to digest our first train experience before there was a knock on the door followed by ‘Are you guys tourists?’ spoken in perfect English. The voice was owned by Jean-Francois Belanger, the Moscow correspondent for CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) and his local cameraman Alexi. He was doing a number of short documentaries about Russia for the lead up to the Sochi Winter Olympics and one was about the train, the people who worked on it and the people who rode on it. He asked if they could film a little of what we were doing and ask us a few questions about why we were travelling on the train. Our budding television careers had begun!

With Jean-Francois from CBC and his cameraman Alexi

As luck would have it the train arrived into Nizhny Novgorod and our cabin quickly filled up, Alexi,(yes another one), a young guy who spoke a little English who left us first thing the next morning and a lady who kept to herself and left us the middle of the next day. We spent some time talking to Jean-Francois who was a very interesting guy and then settled in for our first night on the train. Oh did I forget to mention we had polished off a third of a bottle of vodka as well? Somehow it tasted better than ever…

The following day the train was incredibly quiet. It was as if the entire train was sleeping off a vodka fuelled hangover, or perhaps the realisation of how long the journey actually is had set in. The landscape slowly opened up as we crossed the Ural Mountains and left the continent of Europe behind and with the cabin to ourselves we both had time to contemplate what the train ride meant to us. Writing our diaries, listening to the iPod, a number of cup noodle runs and all the while mentally checking off each kilometre, how long to the next station and a chance to jump off the train into the chilly Siberian air and stretch our legs.

After an hour of playing the card game UNO and working our way through another third of a bottle of vodka we were contemplating what to do when Jean-Francois knocked on the door and invited us down to the dining carriage for a beer. How could we say no?

Dating back to the late 70’s the dining carriage is the place to meet people. There was Jean-Francois, Alexi his camera man, Yelena their ‘fixer’, Michael, an American guy from Oregon we had met the day before, and a number of young Russian military guys. By the time we had arrived the party had well and truly begun.

The army boys were continuously toasting and downing shots of vodka, while we decided to play it safe and stick to beers. One of the young locals, Vladimir was heading home after completing his military service, and for him it was time to celebrate.

Natalie and Vladimir getting ‘Gangsta’, though Natalie didn’t know what that meant!

Vladimir was only 20 years old and had served his one year compulsory military service in the dog squad detecting landmines. His English was very good and was eager to practice it with us as well as teaching us a few Russian words, none of which are printable here! A couple of beers later for us and many more vodkas for the army guys, they finally excused themselves and retired to bed. As they did a voice piped up, ‘I hear you speaking English, may I join you?’

Sergei, (yes another one) now joined us, and true to the amazing Russian hospitality more beers arrived without us knowing how to say we had had enough. Armed with a gravelly voice that belonged in an action movie, and a face a bit like Sylvester Stallone, Sergei worked in the oil and gas fields in the north of Russia, one month on, one month off and was heading home for some much needed rest. His English was incredible and was another great person to chat to. We finally made it back to our cabin knowing we had an early start the next morning as the train was making one of its only stops of the day early and we wanted to get some fresh air.

With another Sergei, who do you think he was more interested in?

The alarm went off at 6:30am and it definitely felt early – we are not sure if that was the beers of the third time zone change in as many days! The train came to a creaking stop at the town of Barabinsk and we had 30 minutes to jump off and explore, do some exercise and hunt down some provisions. Jean-Francois and Alexi wanted to shoot some footage of us sourcing out supplies from some of the local ladies on the train platforms and we bought some interesting cabbage filled pastries and caviar bread. It would be fair to say the caviar bread was not really a hit, but it was great to support the local economy. Things could have been worse, we could have bought the smoked fish hanging off wire clothes hangers from another lady!

With one of the local ladies selling goods on the platforms

We retired to the dining car for a tea and a last chat with Jean-Francois and Alexi before returning to our cabin to watch the Siberian flatlands stretch out before us. We arrived into Siberia’s capital, the city of Novosibirsk, where we said farewell to Jean-Francois and Alexi, took a couple of photos of a WWII memorial dedicated to all the Siberians who left this train station for the war, before reboarding the train to continue our journey.

The series of trains known collectively as the Trans-Siberian Railway have played an important part in Russia’s history, particularly during WWII and Soviet times, a show of strength and engineering know-how. Many stations have either a memorial to commemorate locals heading off to war or an old steam locomotive on a pedestal to celebrate the train line’s construction linking that city to the larger network.

That’s the amazing thing about the Trans-Siberian, it does not matter how small a village is, how remote or isolated it may appear to be, one of the world’s greatest engineering achievements means somehow, nearly every Russian is connected to it. However, many of these stops also have darker history, either being used to transfer exiles to the infamous Gulags (such as in the town of Perm), or to relocate those ‘unwanted’ members of society, such as the Polish Jews deported to Zina.

It was the final day of our journey on the train that this all dawned on me. The Trans-Siberian has played such a vital role throughout Russian history, but it also gives you a glimpse into all aspects of Russian society. From our vodka swilling friend Sergei to Vladimir the young man returning home after his military service, this was why we wanted to ride the train. Most people only ever visit Moscow or St Petersburg, but to get a better understanding of Russia what better way to do it than to take one of the world’s most iconic overland journeys?

Now having completed part of the journey it feels kind of weird to call to hear the reverence people use when speaking of the Trans-Siberian. The journey has developed a mystic over the years outside of Russia, and we kind of got the feeling many of the locals were amused by the ‘tourists’ catching the train. It has been there for over a hundred years, while incredibly proud of it, it was merely a simple way to get locals from A to B.

That may be the case for the locals, but for us that mystic still exists. It doesn’t matter if you ride non-stop the whole six days to Vladivostok or break up your journey along the way, the Trans-Siberian will change the way you think of Russia, and is an experience you will never forget.

– Dean

With our train

3 December 2013 by thesmartwayround

From London to Irkutsk – The First Chapter

As we travel on the Trans-Siberian train its day two, there is a blissfully perfect wintery snowy scene out of the carriage window and its time to turn our thoughts back to all the amazing things we have seen and done on this adventure so far. As we look back we find ourselves reaching for the brake pedal – slow down its going too quickly!

There is only one way to toast a big trip!

The last few weeks before we went away were a whirlwind and before we knew it, we found ourselves on our first overnight train (just!). For those of you that read Dean’s earlier blog you will know that it was a close calls that testing my ability to run with my backpack from the offset!! Good job we had packed light!

When we woke the next morning we have travelled through three countries – from the UK through France, Belgium, Germany, and finally into Poland. I remember Dean remarking that in many ways Poland was like the UK – full of Costa’s and Tesco’s! I can’t deny there were definitely similarities, yet it had a character all of its own that was an amazing introduction to the trip. Our day and night there would prove to be the first day where we walked our socks off and racked up the miles. As we got off our train, we walked out of the station and were greeted with the mighty sight of the Palace of Culture – a big imposing building that welcomed us. We discovered the ‘singing’ Chopin benches (that’s right – park benches that play Chopin music!), explored the buildings in the old own square, walked the Old City Walls, had a Costa coffee (why change the habit of a lifetime?!), dashed down to see the Jewish Ghetto Memorial as the sun was setting and eventually toasted our arrival with a Polish beer – Nasdarovje!

The beautiful old town square

Our next journey was by bus (double axel as Mum spotted in the pictures!). It was possibly the poshest coach I have been on and came complete with cheesy chick flicks and aeroplane style entertainment system. True to form I chuckled away at a naff film!! After an 8 hour journey, next came Vilnius and our journey into Lithuania. I had received many reports of what a pleasant city it is and it certainly lived up to that. Our hostel was just outside the old city walls, so a short walk and we were down in amongst the beauty of it – you can certainly see why it is UNESCO World Heritage listed. Lacking funds we had our first taste of noddles for dinner. We had a full day to explore and again we walked and walked. If this trip doesn’t tone my legs nothing will!!

The Green Bridge

We walked up the main shopping street and down to the river where we meandered along the banks and came to the Green Bridge. Built in 1956 this is the only bridge in Lithuania that has statues on it. Given the adornment of statues on bridges in other cites this fascinated us! We then carried on and walked up the hill and went up the Gediminas Tower which gave us a brilliant view over the city.

The Old Town Square in Lithuainia

All too soon it was time to leave. On the way back to the hostel we came across this little local bar. It was basically park benches outside, and I convinced Dean that it would be good to have a drink with the locals. I was the only woman in there (apart from the lady behind the bar) but we paid our 50p and got our ¾ pint of beer. It was so good that we thought we’d invest in the economy and have a second!!! When we got on the train a couple of hours later, we were greeted with red velour beds and animal print blankets – it was almost like something out of a 1970’s dodgy film!!

Using up our last 50ps

It is fair to say that crossing borders on a night train doesn’t make for a very restful night’s sleep. First our stop in Latvia and the Latvian border control where Dean got a stamp, and then an hour later came the Russian side. At 4am we handed over our passport and hoped for the best. To pass the time we had a midnight feast and tucked into our big bar of chocolate – bought to use up the last of our Lithuanian money and a great investment! Finally we were stamped in and rolling again, and next came awesome St Petersburg.

Our cabin for the night

We spent the next three days exploring everything from the Hermitage to St Peter and Paul Island, St Isaacs Cathedral, The Church of the Spilled Blood (my first introduction to the ornate frescos), Udel Naya flea market as well as going to an Ice Hockey game – go SKA! We had planned to go to Swan Lake, but as it was too late in the season this made a nice alternative. We ended right on the edge with the opposing team so we had to keep cheering for SKA so there was no confusion as to who we were wiling on! It was no wonder the seats were both cheap and still available – no one else wanted them!!! It was a mammoth couple of days full of taking LOTS of pictures (both day and night). I couldn’t get over the amazing architecture everywhere – the buildings were just stunning and I was blown away. Definitely a city to come back to!

In the Hermitage

Our last stop was Moscow before the journey onwards. It had a lot to live up to for me as I’d loved St Petersburg. We took one of the German built express trains between the two cities, and arrived into Moscow at lunchtime. There is no denying that seeing St Basil’s for the first time is one of those real ‘I have made it moments’ and I was amazed by what I saw. It is the most stunning building and really does stand up to every expectation you have about it. We went inside and this amazed me too. I expected a big wide open space in there, instead it’s essentially lots of smaller chambers with the most beautiful frescos and artwork. Wow. The next few days were spent paying our respects to Lenin (I was the first of the day in there and had it all to myself which was very eerie!), going round the Kremlin, visiting the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, riding the Metro (Dean was amazing at navigating and we managed to sneak a few pictures) and going out to the old Communist All Russia Exhibition Ground. There was a really funky memorial to the Russian Space exploration out there which was quite unique. We loved our afternoon out there exploring lots of the old buildings and architecture.

Wow!

So as we got to the first of the ‘big train’ train journeys there was a small amount of sadness that we were saying goodbye to these amazing cities. It had been the perfect start to our overland adventure, and we were well and truly on our way!

So what have we learnt? Successful travel as a couple is much easier if you a: tell the other person when you are hungry, b: tell the other person know when you are tired, and c: tell the other person when you are struggling! Follow these simple guidelines and you can’t go wrong!

Above all, in the words of an advertisement in Warsaw…. ‘Life’s Good’!

Life’s Good!

– Natalie

30 November 2013 by thesmartwayround

Adding to the Traveller Tat – when you think of Russian Souvenirs, what do you think of…?

… Russian Dolls (Matryoshka Dolls)!

I have got into a bit of a routine when I go and see Dean in Europe. He works, I go off shopping. Now for someone who isn’t really a shopper, it makes it all the better when abroad. I can buy things guilt free as it’s simply written off as a ‘holiday expense’. Granted nothing is ever that expensive, but it’s still nice to have something different.

This trip had to be different. I confidently packed my main back pack and it weighed only 13.7kg – 1.7kg over my normal guidelines, but I decided to live with that given the cold weather stuff in there. I intended it to stay light. This meant no shopping.

Dean has a set of Russian dolls depicting former Soviet Leaders, (given one of his previous blog posts you won’t be surprised!) bought whilst he worked up here and I wanted my own set (purple of course) to sit on the shelf alongside them.

Russian Dolls (Purple!)

Why the Dolls though? Where do they come from and why do people have them? The Matryoshka dolls, or nesting dolls, were first created in 1890, and were based on the design of wooden dolls from Japan. In 1900 they were awarded the Bronze Medal at the World Exhibition in Paris. Shortly after this, production of the dolls appeared all across Russia and became a popular gift for any occasion. Now days they come in all shapes and sizes, anything from three dolls to twenty dolls fitting neatly one inside the the other. Soviet politicians, American Presidents, football teams, TV shows and of course the traditional scarfed girls can all be found adorning these dolls around Moscow and St Petersburg today.

We had kept our eyes open as we walked round, but nothing cheap enough, small enough and purple enough had stood out (guess the most important criteria there?!). Well that was until we took a trip out to the ‘All Russia Expedition Centre’ – a 2km long and 1 km wide former Communist playground, with masses of buildings and fountains (of course turned off) and wide pedestrian avenues, rich with buildings from yesteryear. A fascinating place. Contained within one of these buildings (next to a massive Lenin statue) were the usual array and tourist tat and there we spotted the newest addition to the Smart family! From looking at the building outside you would never have guess what it housed. Our purple and black doll! Best still they don’t weigh much so all we need to do is guard her all the way home, and then place her on our ‘tourist tat’ table at home along with the miniature Pousse Pousee from Madagascar, miniature hat from Lesotho, miniature beer stein from the Hofbrauhaus – I wont go on!

Outside with my purchase(s)!

That’s it… no more shopping again now….. for a while…

– Natalie & Dean

P.S Oh and we might have bought my Russian Dolls some friends… Some Russian Christmas Dolls…. Watch out for them in a future blog!

28 November 2013 by thesmartwayround

Covering new ground – the adventure really begins!

When we were planning our trip, one of the really exciting parts was the journey across Siberia and the mass of nothingness…. So it feels slightly surreal that we are staring this stage of the trip square between the eyes, and we both really have mixed emotions about it. How can it have come round already? Are we really about to do this? After months of planning it is actually happening!

During a stop on our Vilnius to St Petersburg journey

I have been lucky so far. I’ve had my own personal (Trafalgar accredited) Travel Director / travel buddy to show me around all the places we have been. We hit the ground running in Warsaw, sought out the back streets in Vilnius, strolled around like a local in St Petersburg and rode the Metro with ease in Moscow (without Dean I think I would still be doing loops on the brown line!). So for us, the real adventure was always going to begin when we left the comfort of where at least one of us had been before and where be both started to experience something new. That in itself is exciting.

We (the Royal ‘we’ of course) have spent months planning this trip, pouring over train timetables and deciphering schedules, only to come up with our perfect route. The choice of which train(s) to take was made for various reasons. We could have split our next 72 hour journey up into smaller sections, stopping more often or evening staying on longer. However we thought 3 ½ days on the train was long enough to get a real sense of the scales and size of the country and for us, it worked perfectly. Besides we are travelling in winter, and some things are closed, fountains turned off and plants covered for the winter, so we had to be realistic about what we see and do. Seeing Red Square and St Basil’s with a dust of snow was magical, so for me it is a very special time of year to be here and I wouldn’t trade it for peak season for anything.

We are hoping for Animal Print covers on this train again…!

I remembering sitting on a bus from Alice Springs to Cairns, and it was one of the best things I did in Oz. Watching cattle station after cattle station and kangaroo after kangaroo pass by reaffirmed what I already knew – Australia is a big place! I’m sure this journey will do the same. We have got some great stop overs on this epic journey, but first we must tackle the long first stage.

We are likely to drop at least 10 degrees along the way – and coming from a temperature of -4 today that won’t be pretty, but we are prepared. We have our cold weather gear (not forgetting my awesome funky boots!) and our cameras at the ready. We have our Vodka to keep us warm (!) and games to keep us entertained. Above all we have our provisions – porridge, tea, noodles, soups etc. all to live like kings on this magical journey. For us this is the really start of our trip, the exciting venture into the unknown and we can’t wait to get going… but we don’t want it to go too quickly! Dean remembers talking to me in Africa and apparently I said to him that the next and last big trip I wanted to do was the Trans-Mongolian Train across to Beijing. I don’t remember that conversation and neither of us knew at that point we would be doing it together!

All set and ready to go!

So all that’s left now is to hope we end up with good cabin buddies on the train… who don’t make us drink TOO much Vodka. See you on the other side of / in Siberia!!!

– Natalie

25 November 2013 by thesmartwayround

From Russia With Love

I first came to Russia eleven years ago. Since then I have been lucky enough to return on several occasions with work. When the initial planning of this adventure began the inevitable question and discussion arose between us and several friends who had visited Russia as well. Which city do you prefer, St Petersburg or Moscow?

Since I first visited Russia this had always been a pretty simple question for me, the answer was Moscow, without a shadow of a doubt. However, on this visit, the answer is not so clear cut. A lot of water has passed under the Neva and Volga rivers since I was last here, and a lot has changed.

It would be fair to say that St Petersburg wowed Natalie. The architecture is stunning, from the St Peter and Paul’s Fortress, St Isaacs Cathedral and the Church of Spilt Blood and all culminating at the Palace square with the Winter Palace, it is obvious the city was built with a plan in mind rather than built generation upon generation like so many cities around Europe.

The Winter Palace, St Petersburg

Every building was once a palace built for another noble family wanting to be as close the Czars as possible. Every street, every corner, there is another amazing building waiting to wow you. There are so many similarities with other Central and Eastern European cities yet also so many differences.

According to the current edition of the Lonely Planet Trans Siberian guide book, the city is looking the best it ever has, and to be honest I have to agree. The first thing I noticed was how clean the city was. You struggled to find even a cigarette butt on the ground which is incredible in itself considering how many people still smoke over here. The metro is spotless so are all the streets, also quite incredible considering the lack of rubbish bins everywhere.

The next thing I noticed that had changed so much was the amount of ‘Latin’ signs everywhere. Cyrillic can be tricky at the best of times, (I clearly remember taking one of my tour groups in completely the opposite direction to the one I wanted to go in on the Moscow Metro one day because I had misread the direction I wanted!), but now the Metro stops are all labelled in Latin, and even some announcements are made in English. The difficulties that once existed for non-Russian speakers seem to have dissolved away, in fact in some sense St Petersburg felt very European. Perhaps that is why for so many people who visit Russia, St Petersburg is their favourite city. It is not only beautiful, but it feels familiar and you are no longer too far out of your comfort zone.

Maybe that is why I always preferred Moscow.

Today we caught the fast train or Sapan train from St Petersburg to Moscow, and there were almost more English announcements than Russian, and all the messages on the carriage electronic info boards were in Latin and not Cyrillic, another sign of the times.

Moscow couldn’t be more different than St Petersburg. As the train rolls in you see row after row of former communist apartment blocks, many desperately in need of some love and attention. Arriving into Leningradsky Station those differences become more apparent. That dull grey architecture hits you as you exit from the station, the vibe feels different as well. Moscow definitely has that big city feel and its citizens that big city mentality, but what else would you expect from a city with a population of eleven and a half million?

However, while St Petersburg has all the palaces and the Hermitage (one of the world’s largest museums), Moscow has the Kremlin and Red Square and for me this is why Moscow wins. The Kremlin/Red Square area is quite simply, breathtaking.

St Basil’s Cathedral, Red Square, Moscow

I think my fascination with Red Square comes from growing up in the days when the Cold War was petering out. My main memories and all I ever remembered of Russia, were the military parades on May Day that were beamed on TV all over the world. The troops marching, the tanks, missiles, here was the Soviet Union in all its military glory. All the history in that square – the powerful figures who have graced the steps and are buried in the walls of the Kremlin, not to mention the preserved figure of Lenin (if it’s still really him).

Moscow appeals to the history nerd in me, and as depressing as it looks, I also love the former communist architecture and Stalin’s ‘Seven Sisters’.

I’m really looking forward to revisiting some of the sights around Moscow over the next few days before we board the Trans-Siberian, and as much as I loved St Petersburg, I think Moscow will always be my favourite, but the gap is getting smaller! This of course will lead to many discussions between the two of us and with our friends on our return, but I guess that’s the beauty of travelling, different things appeal to different people, maybe I’m just a communist at heart…..

Do you prefer one city over the other? If so leave a comment below and let us know your preference.

– Dean

21 November 2013 by thesmartwayround

Start as you mean to go on…

Our plan had been to have a couple of simple meals out and get into the throw on being on the road again before we went hard core cooking for ourselves…. However after a slightly more extravagant night in Warsaw, we decided Vilnius was the night to switch to hostel cooking.

Fortunately I checked out the kitchen facilities before we went off to buy food. I was met with two VERY scaly kettles, one toaster and two microwaves in various states of (dis)repair. Hummm – now being here for only one night we didn’t want to do anything fancy or buy anything more than we needed, as space in our backpacks was at a premium.

After looking round the supermarkets we were met with problem number two – lack of funds! We had arrived into Vilnius quite late, meaning all money changers were closed, and our bank cards were locked away in the safe. We did have some Euro, but only the very upmarket hotels were willing to take those. There was nothing for it – time to start on the noodles already!!

So we strolled back to the hostel and chose our provisions carefully. After some canapés (left over ready salted crisps), I polished off todays cheese, which was a sign things were desperate!! Dean opted for the two course dinner – Tomato and Veg soup, followed by 19p Morrisons Saver noodles. We had expected to at least get to the train before we used them, but unlike ready meals we had discovered two-minute noodles were not in short supply in Lithuania! I went for the one course – noodle only option, and did mine first to make sure our skills were up to the task!

We trotted down to the kitchen armed with our supplies – cups and all and made our feast. Well the cups worked a treat and the noodles provided us with 250 calories of err goodness!

Gourmet dinner – all with change out of 50p!

So now we really have started – proper backpackers on the road eating dinner for less than 50p. My only fear is that we will have peaked too soon on the noodle front and will be fed up of them by the time we get to Russia…

Dinner in a pot!

– Natalie

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