Leaving to go Home
I had just stepped into Malaysia. Thailand was behind me. The customs officer beamed and nodded, recognising immediately that I was a fellow Malaysian. “Hello, dari mana? ” he asked. Where had I come...
Category: Trans-Siberian
How to apply for a tourist visa to Russia
Going to Russia? Here’s what you need to do to get a visa. There are three stages when it comes to Russian tourist visas. You’ll need to: 1. Obtain an invitation...
In other news…
The purpose of this post is to prove that I wasn’t lazy during my trip. I actually did some work. (No, really. Seriously). While I was travelling, I wrote a weekly column in the...
Where to see the Great Wall of China
Hello again, you great big long wall, you. I was at Mutianyu, a village about an hour and a half from Beijing, visiting the Great Wall for the second time. Unlike the first time...
Beijing, revisited
Something’s missing, I thought. It’s not the hutongs, it’s not the Great Wall, it’s something else. It was my second time in Beijing and something had changed. The city was different. It annoyed me. It...
Mongolia-China border crossing
Our train to Jining Nan Compared to the Russia-Mongolia train crossing, the Ulaanbaatar-Beijing leg can be described as slightly dodgy. The options for passage from Russia to Mongolia are more or less straightforward but...
Double-humped camels, Mongolia
I thought I’d lost these photos- I know I snapped some photos of camels but somehow couldn’t find them on my netbook. Then I went through the images on my SDHC card and found...
Bad start in Ulaanbaatar
The sound of car horns all around you. Not short, little toots but long, drawn-out angry blasts to intimidate. Coming at you from left, right and centre. Brakes screeching. More horns. Shouting. Then- crash. Welcome...
Gorkhi-Terelj Park, Mongolia
One of the best things about Mongolia is that even when you’re in Ulaanbaatar, its dusty, chaotic capital, the countryside is never too far away. Gorkhi-Terelj Park is two hours from the city and...
Russia-Mongolia border crossing
The view, soon after entering Mongolia Overland crossings are incredibly exciting; I love entering a country by land. Arriving by plane sometimes strikes me as a little too straightforward and almost uninteresting. There...
