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Holidays
moondog · 28/08/2005 13:47
I lived in Russia sd,and thought of doing it. Decided it would be bloody boring though-day after day on a train going across flat steppes. The loos would be unbelievably foul too.
A fun trip is Moscow to St.Petersburg. You could come back by boat (or vice versa). A good Russian friend of mine works as a tour guide on them. Both cities are great!
moondog · 28/08/2005 18:19
Errrrr....slight ruck about formula promotion!
Check site stuff for titles of threads if you're interested-it will give you a fairly good idea.
Where were you in Brittany? Very fond of that place. Spent a year there aeons ago and still have some links,including a Welsh speaking teacher of Breton in Brest. He's just been over to Wales to see us.
moondog · 28/08/2005 18:26
Yes,wrecked.
Hmmmm,the Brit angle. Know there's been a fair bit of Union Jack burning recently.
Interesting parallels with second home ownership situation in my part of Walesalthough over there you've got the double layer-Brits pissing off the French and the Bretons.
The partying....yes indeed. Have some rather shameful memories of overindulgence at that time.
soyabean · 31/08/2005 14:37
Spacedonkey I travelled Beijing to Moscow then Berlin, Paris and home to UK, 22 years ago and it was fantastic.I wd love to do it again but not with kids...It was comfortable and I dont remember the loos so they must have been OK (although i had been in China for a year so was used to squalid ones...)
That was trans Mongolian as the route is slightly different at first but joins the transsiberian at some point. The scenery was fantastic especially Mongolia. Food was mixed, vodka good, company fun. Dont know what changes there have been since I was a lass, but I wd recommend it!
slug · 31/08/2005 16:01
I've done the Moscow - Beijing transiberian. You would think that 8 days on a train staring at the steppes would be awful, but I found it fantastically interesting. In fact I went entirely from London to Beijing via Cologne, Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus on to St Petersburg, then down to oscow, getting on the transiberian, stopping at Lake Irkusk for a few days then on to China. You can end up in several places, but I would recommend doing the branch that swings through Mongolia.
Yes the loos are awful, the trick is to get into them first thing in the morning immediatly after they have been 'cleaned'.
spacedonkey · 31/08/2005 16:24
Thanks for all the info
We're planning to go Moscow - Beijing via Mongolia (silly not to!). Like you slug, I'd like to go London to Moscow by train too - I fancy stopping off in Warsaw on the way.
Those of you who have been - did you stay in Beijing for long, and what did you do there? Did you go to any other parts of China?
Tabitha - that seat61 website is a mine of information - thank you
whymummy · 31/08/2005 20:56
hi spacedonkey
yes,we did it 8 years ago and it was fantastic,no time to get bored as we met lots of people and had parties every single night,we did beijing to moscow,came all the way from hong kong by land apart from the ferry from ostend to england,i absolutely loved the trans siberian and wished it lasted longer,hope you can go too
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