“Head over heels” – Post by Urvi

When one talks about fashion in global sense, Moscow and St. Pete are probably the least likely to be mentioned. They may not be the ultimate trend setters but definitely have true followers. Women in Russia especially in big cities seem to have a very vivid sense of dressing up. This shows dramatically in their choice of shoes – they may all vary in the colours and styles but all are united in the height of their heels and that too at all ages, even more so than any other big cities like London, Paris and New York. It doesn’t matter what the terrain looks like these girls will put their heels on anywhere - Dressing up to go to the supermarket or anywhere else. Does this show a self-belief in own style sense or just relying on outward appearances for lack of self confidence?

Trans Siberian leg 1 St Petersburg - Moscow

Finally we are on the first leg on our trans-Siberian – St Petersburg to Moscow

So we have boarded the first leg of the longest train journey we are ever likely to take! This is the overnight St Petersburg to Moscow run, the train is the Red Arrow, and is reputed to be one of the best in Russia. It was really a wonderful train, and bang on time, we left at 23:55 and arrived at 07:55.

St Petersburg station is not that huge but is really beautiful, with a huge fresco on the ceiling of the main waiting room. We got there in plenty of time and chilled out waiting for the train, with Pizza, and cards (Snap!! Urvi let me win)



Our carriage was right at the front of the train, carriage number 2 of 18, we passed carriage after carriage of first class, where you could see the waiter service being provided etc, I was a bit worried that we would have a noisy and a bit of an uncomfortable ride, but not at all. The 2nd class service was better than i would expected even from first class, cabin attendants, large beds that were better than most hostel beds, and some hotel beds!!!!, carpets curtains, absolutely spotless cabins, and really every gadget you would expect. 1st class had TVs, but we had climate control! There was also loads of safe storage that Urvi was really impressed with.







Our cabin buddies on the trip were also from the UK, a daughter and mother combination, the Daughter – Nicola was going to China to teach – this is really popular now I guess – her Mom had come with her, for a vacation, and would return from Hong Kong.

We had both booked with Realrussia.co.uk and both were really impressed with the service of the company.

If our Moscow – Irkutsk – Ulan Bator – Datong trains are as good we are going to love it!!

St Petersburg – a real European city

when you visit St Petersburg (and maybe Moscow, but our train has not arrived there yet!) you should throw all the clichés of the soviet union, the grim, the KGB checking everyone and everything and the drab grey blocks of buildings right out of the window. This city is as vibrant as any other European city one can care to mention. Sure it is not as culturally diverse as London or Paris, and it may not be a modern and lively as Valencia or Barcelona, but it has a real quality of grandeur. If you take away the cars, you can just imagine the great and the good clopping down the wide roads in their carriages. It has a real period quality to it.




We did not sample the latest cultural vibe that St Peterburg is really well known for and were only really here long enough to get that feel of the tourist hotspots, but there is a confidence in the people that you don’t see in lesser cities, it will be interesting to contrast it to Moscow – maybe there will be more of a USSR feel and quality there. St Petersburg is by far and away the closest thing to Europe you can get in Russia, so it was probably not a bad thing to visit there first and easy ourselves into the trip.



One thing that was defiantly not apparent to me in St Petersburg, was the infamous ‘negativity’ to non whites. People were all in the main helpful, although I did sense that they do not take kindly to being asked to communicate in English, and the older citizens still maintain a pretty stern exterior cast out of the Soviet era, but then why should we expect to come to Russia and have everyone greet us in English? In the UK there are no signs in Dutch or French, so why English in Russia...?

An evening at the Ballet, for the cost of a pizza!

OK, so one of the things about backpacking is that you are on a budget, so we try and find the best deals at all times, this could mean student discounts, or looking for really simple accomadation. But does doing things on a budget include, getting box seat at St Petersburg finest Ballet?? Ordinarily not, but for us we had 3 major stokres of luck that conspired to result in us getting nearly the best seats in the house, for GBP 4 each, that was cheaper than the cost of most pizzas one would buy!!!!

Good luck No.1 – we were trying to find the tourist office in St Petersburg, and as ever were getting lost! We tried to ask at what seemed to be a pretty upmarket restaurant, one where you would think people
Would speak English, but as we quickly found out the only people who speak any English whatsoever in Russia, are the young. So the waiter did not seem to be any help, and we continued walking, a few moments later he came running up behind us, with a guide book to St Petersburg in English, this was really helpful for many reasons, including the fact that it had listings of performances going on, including the famous Mariinsky Theatre. The theate was just moments from where we were and the only performance we would have been able to go to while in St Petersburg was due to start 45mins from when we met the waiter!

Good luck No.2 – we made our way to the theatre, and everyone was arriving all suited and booted, we got in and at the ticket office we found nice old lady who did not know any English (can you spot the theme!) she showed us a ticket which was RUB200 each, that 4GBP. At that price we just jumped at it, and did not realise there were no seat numbers on them at all! It soon transpired that these tickets were unresevered, and the ushers place you once all the other seated ticket holders are sorted. We snuck in to the hall, in front of a major Chinese tourist good train (there were loads of tourists here!) and asked the usher to help us...

Good luck No.3 – not sure if it was my constant pestering or that the usher supervisor person felt sorry for us, but she spoke to her colleague and immediately she signalled to us to follow her. I thought we were being ejected from the hall, but no... We were given a room key (like those in a hotel) and given the best box in the whole hall! It was just wonderful and the view was awesome!!

Photography of the actual perfrmance was not allowed so i could only get pics of the hall, and the final call. But look just how close we were!!!








The performance of the Nutcracker was just beautiful, and being a popular ballet the music was recognisable and really enjoyable. If ever you get a chance to see the ballet, you must do it, the quality of the dance is amazing, and the physical dexterity, and agility of the dancers was mind blowing.

St Petersburg – welcome to Rossiya!

St. Petersburg is the only megapolis in the world which was included in the UNESCO List of the World cultural legacy as the monument of architecture and culture, city construction and landscape art of the 18-19th centuries. It really shows! This place is like a movie set, ornate buildings, wonderful sculptures and wide roads, and the music and art is everywhere to be seen. When we were there the weather also really helped to show off the city and buildings, it was warm and balmy, despite apparently having been snowing a few days ago!!

The city has more than 4000 ensembles and monuments, in 250 museums, 50 theatres, 80 art galleries, so if you are into your fine art, history or culture this is a place one should visit.



I must however, the first glimpse of St Petersburg , and maybe the wider city, outside of the old centre, was less inspiring. Polkovo airport is a little way of the city, and when you fly in you are greeted with the sight of old soviet planes and decommissioned helicopters, there are ‘guards’ and police dotted around the place, looking typically stern, despite their questionable importance!! It gave me a real sense of the old soviet cliché, the border officials were not to be messed, with, nearly all looked to be ladies and would quite easily tackle most of the guys coming off our flight. I could not help feeling that it was a real achievement to actually set foot into Russian soil.

The next, and maybe biggest challenge is the language – not being able to read or relate to the letter let alone the words is off putting. I would consider us as being able to tackle any European city, but when we got to St Petersburg, I felt lost, big time. You are basically at the mercy of the locals, and whether they want to help you out. Thankfully they did want to help and we got to the Youth hostel with no major hiccups. Although I can honestly say I will never smirk, laugh or lose my patience with the tourists in London, as they stand gawping at the underground map, looking as though they have just landed on mars – we did exactly this!!

Although it took a little while longer than planned, we got to the Hostel and once settled in (didn’t take long – the hostel was tiny, but really nicely located) we went about exploring the city.

Dusseldorf Summary and Couch surfing – first experience

We spoke before about couchsurfing – the networking website where you can locate and meet a host to stay with in various towns and countries right throughout the world. We have now had our first experience of the real thing, and it was great.

Must say, the thought of meeting new people is not a big deal, but then to stay at their place – this was a little daunting. Most of our friends - namely Harvir, Kevin, Michelle and later on Mike!!! were scared witless by the idea. But staying with Steve in Dusseldorf was really a nice experience and has sold us on surfing couches. Steve is a political analyst working for the ministry of internal affairs in Dusseldorf (Steve - I hope I got that right!!) and he lives in the city proper.

Steve gave us good directions to get from the airport and to his place, which we did by train and then tram (great European public transport is to be expected!) the return fare for both of us cost 7.70eur so about $7. He then met us at the local tram stop, and we went to his place. A beautiful warm day, and lovely large windows, meant the apartment was really welcoming. We arrived at about 3pm, and sat and had coffee and shortbread (we had taken this from the UK for him). It was really nice.

The thing about couch surfing is not to treat it just a free place to stay. The Hosts also want to meet new people and the whole point is to be sociable and to see a place through the eyes of a local. This way we discovered so much more about Dusseldorf, Germany and many other things than we could have ever done so by simply staying in a hostel.

We then went out for a good walk along the Rhine, up the Dusseldorf tower (great views across the whole area and out towards cologne) and on into the old town part of Dusseldorf. I found it to be a nice but fairly typical European city, but again it was made much more colourful and enjoyable because of our host. We had dinner al fresco, in a traditional German eatery, and then had some awesome ice-cream, despite the chill in the evening. I think Dusseldorf is basically quite a business and commerce driven place, it is also famous for the ‘entertainment’ mile, this is basically a long road full of bars, restaurants and other fun things to do. I personally was not so taken by that part of the town as it seemed to full of groups Stag or Hen do’s (people partying before their weddings) I was taken by the sheer number of these groups!



The town is also a very artistic place, and apparently the art museums are really very good. We were only here for the evening so we did not get the chance to check them out.



I guess given a free choice we would not have come to Dusseldorf for much time, but the day spent with Steve was really worth it, and he was a wonderful guy, who welcomed us and really got the world trip off to a good start.

It is interesting how quickly one can wander between so many topics in conversation, from political systems, to food, to what can be done to solve the problems in Sri Lanka! In many ways this open conversation and debate is really hard work, but very enjoyable.

We had a room to ourselves, and felt very comfortable, again down to our host. Steve then saw us of in the early morning before we made our way to the airport hop over to St Petersburg.

Leaving On A jet Plane!!

That’s it the day has finally arrived, we have checked in and are waiting for our plane to Dusseldorf. Not the most adventurous of starts to the world trip, but you have to start somewhere, and you have to take the first step somehow. In some ways it will be better this way as we don’t have to take a long flight and get jet lagged from the beginning.

We said our goodbyes, the phone has been ringing constantly for a week now, and we are so lucky to have all the good wishes and best of luck from all the family and our friends.

I (Anand) think we are in such a privileged position to be doing this trip, and then we have the support of everybody it, its really overwhelming...

We are all packed up and ready to ship out!!

Well here we go, the bags are now packed and we are ready to rock and roll!!

As mentioned before we have planned to take 2 bags each, one large rucksack/travel pack, and the second smaller lighter day bag.

The stats of our packs are as follows:

Urvi's main bag weighs in at 14kg
Urvi's day bag weighs 5kg

Anand's main bag is 15kg
Anand's day bag is 6kg

Not bad really, but we will soon find out how much extra stuff we have packed, that we don’t need!!

We have both taken 3 sets of shoes, and tried to limit the amount of clothes we are taking, which will no doubt result in lots of shopping later on...!

Nearly the end of one long road, and nearly the beginning of another

Well here we are, it is just over 3 days to go before we embark on our world trip. A trip that we have been planning for over 2 years and have been waiting for even longer.

Everything is done, everything is bought. All we have to do is our final packing, final good byes and we are off!!!

We still want people's ideas and suggestions of thing to do, see etc, so please do get in touch – the best way is to contact us using the button on the right side, or post comments on the blog…

The next post we make will be our final final packing post with pics… we hope that we can still take some stuff out to reduce volume and mass, but let's see!! It seems that you take out with one hand and put in with another!! As we have also to add in some emergency food provisions. I am sure that in the first 2 weeks we will soon find out just how much we can carry and what is really unwanted load.

Can winning the lottery be a let down??

If you think about something, dream about something for long enough can finally achieving it be a little bit anticlimactic? Like the lottery – if you play the lottery and dream about winning for a long time, then when it actually happens is the experience any less joyful, because it was expected??

Most people would be mad at this thought, but quite honestly over the last few weeks, I have been having that feeling of anti-climax. We have been planning this trip since January 2007, that’s over 2 years! And now that we are down to the last days before we leave I am feeling something close to fatigue and ever so slightly underwhelmed. This is a really strange emotion, and I guess I rationalise it in 2 ways, the first is over-planning, and the second is over-expectation.

I think that we have immersed ourselves in the planning for this trip and that to some extent it is mapped out in my head, therefore I don’t have such a sense of adventure and going into the unknown. I hope that this will change over time, as we get further and further away from our comfort zone. The lesson here is to curb your sense of planning and let things happen…

The second issue of over-expectation is a real worry. It is possible to expect too much from such a trip, from yourself and from your travelling partner. It is possible to expect too much and then for your expectations (which were unrealistic) to be dashed, therefore making it feel that the trip has under delivered. I personally have to counter this, and really learn to take every positive out of this trip.

One of my friends, who went round the world a few years ago, gave me the best advice I have received re this trip – he said:
“…always remember how lucky you are to be able to do this and try not to become complacent during any perceived lows – some of our ‘low’ points have since turned out to be some of our fondest memories! Oh, and always wear sunscreen”

This is a personal achievement for Urvi and Myself, we have worked hard and arrived at a place where we have been able to take this trip. We only have ourselves to blame if this is not the trip of a lifetime, and if nothing else, we should spend the next 17months really seeing just how lucky we are. We have won our lottery, and we have no right to feel let down…

PS 17days to go….