Destinations
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19 September 2013 – En Route from Ulaan-Baatar to Beijing
Met some cool people, swapped wheels at the border, traveled on Chineese train.
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18 September 2013 – UlaanBaatar, Mongolia
Quick and dirty video from-the-hip of the famous State Department Store in UlaanBaatar, Mongolia. Apologies about the poor quality.
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Krasnoyarsk – Transsiberian stop #4
Founded: 1628 Pop: 974,000 Train station in Krasnoyarsk We rolled into Krasnoyarsk at 7:30 am local time / 3:30 am Moscow time. In just 6 days we conquered 4 time zones. Luckily train is conducive to sleeping so the jetlag was hardly noticeable. Notable fact: we shelled out the big bucks for our 34-hour ride
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17 September 2013 – Ulaanbaator, Mongolia
We climbed one steep hill to enjoy (and bring you!) the panorama of UB.
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Yekaterinburg – Transsiberian stop #3
Founded: 1723 Pop: 1.4 million Other names: Sverdlovsk Yekaterinburg Train Station We had just 6 hours in Yekaterinburg, which wasn’t a great deal — but enough to see memorials to the town’s somber history. Russia’s last tsar and his family were shot and then bayoneted to death in Yekaterinburg in July of 1918. The building
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Kazan – Transsiberian stop #2
Founded: 1005 Pop: 1.1 million Gleaming Kazan train station. We were most impressed with Kazan from the moment the train pulled into the station. Clean, modern, even slick. Beautiful city, colorful, interesting people (and many of them). Budget friendly too – we paid only 100 rubles for bag storage at the train station, whereas in
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16 September 2013 – UlaanBaator, Mongolia
Back to the city, back to wifi, warm showers and comfortable beds, back to civilization, back to UlaanBaator.
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15 September 2013 – Kharkhorum, Mongolia
Mongolia, Day 2 – trying to find things to do in steppe and failing.
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Nizhniy Novgorod – Transsiberian stop #1
Founded: 1221 by Grand Duke Yuri II Pop: 1.2 million Other names: Gorky Monument to NN founder Yuri Vsevoldovich and his teacher Simon We took high speed train – Sapsan – from Moscow, which got us there in just 4 hours. Fun fact: St Petersburg is the same distance from Moscow as Nizhniy Novgorod, but
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14 September 2013 – Kharkhorum, Mongolia
Greetings from the steppe and a tour of a Mongolian ger!
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13 September 2013 – Naushki, Russia
Stuck at the border crossing at Naushki, Russia for 5 hours. Talked to the customs officer, made a new friend, Chema from Spain, and helped out a nice Japanese gentlemen – Shinya Watanabe(shinyawatanabe.net)
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12 September 2013 – Ulan Ude, Russia
Our last day in Russia – spent in Ulan Ude. We saw the city, visited Russia’s center of Buddhism, and of course caught up with internet work and blogging before taking off for Mongolian steppes!