Reading to Beijing

Well its been a bit of a tiring week or so but it feels like I've been away for 3 months already as so much as happened! I'll try and keep this short though!

After saying goodbye and getting the 10.12 (Sat) train to London I met the guys at Waterloo, in typical fashion we had a few leaving beers and almost missed the first train. We had left the pub at 12.30 and the train was leaving at 12.40 but we forgot we had to check in and also queue. Luckily we just pushed straight to the front (a few grunts and groans from other passengers as we did) and were quickly rushed through customs. This then happened for the next 2 connections, we had to run for each train at Brussels and Cologne. It was all a bit tight but we made it and after going through Belgium, Germany, Poland and Belarus we finally made it to Moscow on Monday morning about 9.30am!

When we arrived in Moscow we were a bit lost. None of the signs were in English, nobody spoke English and to be honest there was not an English thing in sight! I think we had 5 Euros between us and no way of changing money so we walked until we found something that looked like a bank. Turns out it wasn't but we met this guy did the usual shout in English very load, point and hold up the note. 20 mins later he pointed us to a door in the street, we changed our money and we got on our way to the travel agents.

Moscow was not really what we expected. I think we thought we were going into an 'Eastern block' type of place (queues for bread etc) but its actually pretty modern and well stocked with all the things you get at home if not a not of a mission to get around (nyet speaky Engliski). We spent 2 days touring the Kremlin, Red Square and generally getting lost! It's a nice place for a weekend but I doubt we will go back in a hurry...

On Tuesday night we boarded the 004 21.35 train to Beijing! When we got on the train we were a bit apprehensive as the cabin had 4 berths and there were 3 of us! Expecting some random weirdo we were happy when this crazy French guy called Cyril popped his head round the corner. Cyril can only be described as a French Mr Bean impersonator, he looks exactly like him and acts almost the same - very amusing! He was on his was to Shanghai to study for 10 months, he also spoke fluent Chinese which helped us and the guards learn some new words! We were pretty chuffed as some passengers had screaming kids + families, some weren't in the same rooms or even the same carriage as their friends and others had some really moody old boots who hated everyone and everything (basically this woman who stayed next to us - funny that?). Anyway so the next 6 days were spent eating Russian pot noodles (really depressing food), getting drunk on cheap nasty beer and generally doing the job of chief entertainers and chief annoyers to the rest of the carriage! We went through Russia, Mongolia and then into China. Russia was pretty much the same all the way through, green fields, lots of trees, more trees and then some more trees with some funny looking houses thrown in - the scenery was really boring until we hit lake Baikal (the worlds largest fresh water lake). Mongolia was pretty awesome as we had to go through the mountains and the Gobi desert where we saw camels and a lot of Nomads in the middle of nowhere digging for little gophers! It's a pretty desolate place but rewarding on the eye! Finally we reached the Chinese border, It was so nice getting back to Asia as Russia and Mongolia were a bit of a struggle! At the border the first thing we did was hit the supermarket and buy all the things we couldn't get on the way, basically anything apart from noodles! We then got back on the train and were happy to know that the following morning we would arrive in Beijing - we had lived like scum for the previous 6 days! On the way into Beijing we caught sight of the great wall and it was pretty cool if not a little hot and humid! So after 9 days and 8 countries we finally made it to China! Thank god for that!