Sep '0725
Probably the best way to visit Beijing is by bike. At least compared to buses (continuously stuck in traffic jams) or by foot (by foot??? Do you have any idea how big this city is???). And as Beijing is flat like Holland it is not too hard neither. So for 3 days we rented some high-tech made-in-China bikes to explore the city and really merge with the locals joining the bicycle-buzz visiting among others the Summer Palace, the Ancient Observatory and the Lama Temple.
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Sep '0723
If you think that Mongolia is all about arid areas, without water and without trees, then you think exactly like we did before we went to Mongolia. 
But you know what? You’re wrong! Mongolia actually has quite a lot of lakes and quite a lot of forests to explore. That’s what we did on the second part of our tour: the one in the direction of the old capital: Karakorum and towards the White Lake National Park.
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Sep '0716
Ulaanbaatar, September 2nd, 9 AM: An old Russian jeep is waiting for us in front of the guesthouse from where we will leave for the Gobi Desert. A hair-rising hour through Ulaan Baatar, a lot of almost accidents later and the sure knowledge that the brakes do not work that well but the horn does, we leave the paved road the paved road stops and off we are in the Mongolian country side.
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Sep '0714
On the 29th of August we left Irkutsk by train for the capital of Mongolia: Ulaan Baatar. We were quite excited about it, because going to Mongolia had been a thing we had been dreaming about for many years.
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Aug '0731
We just got back from a 2 times 2-day hike close to the Baikal Lake (2 times 2-days as we had to make a “blister-stop” in between to give Vera’s feet some rest…). Lake Baikal is the biggest lake in the world and the deepest one: it contains 1/5 of all fresh water in the world (to give you an idea, it is about twice the surface of Holland – yes I know we are small…). The landscapes are just magnificient and cannot be compared to any region we have visited until now.
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Aug '0719
17.08.2007:
This morning we arrived in the Altai region with the overnight bus from Novosibirsk. The night had been quite long as the departure was at 23h00 and then there were several stops on the way at which every Russian went outside (desperate to smoke, or, even more desperate, to buy their beer or vodka). This “night” added to the previous “night” in the Trans-Siberian (in which it got pretty cold, so we did not get that much sleep neither as we were freezing our buttocks off) made that we were kind of dead when the bus finally dropped us off at campsite “Globus Plus” in the Altai Region. It was the first time since the beginning of our trip that it was raining like hell also and therefore we decided to catch up with some sleep in our UNHEATED (!!!) cottage (it was quite cold, like 8 degrees and everything pretty wet, so that did not help a lot). We were on some kind of campsite with wooden cottages, providing basic equipment (basically a bed and sheets, showers and toilets were shared in some cabin (yes also outside and cold in the pouring rain)).
After a 3 hour “beauty nap” it actually stopped raining and thus we went out to have a look around. The surroundings were absolutely great: mountains, lots of trees and a beautiful, very long river that we walked along for a little while until things even got better because guess what??? The sun came out!!! It even actually got too hot! (Yeah we know, never happy, always complaining…). 
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Aug '0716
Some tasks are just very simple, like for example buying stamps at a post office. Even in Spain or Italy, if you do not manage to speak a word of the local language, you just show up with your postcards, point at the place where the stamp should be and there is a big chance they will understand.
Not in Russia…
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Aug '0712
Around midnight we find ourselves at a train station in the middle of Moscow, amidst other travelers (mostly Russian) and looking at some board indicating the platforms for departing trains. We are at the Yaroslavsky Vokzal also called the Leningradsy Vokzal and still another name for a local station towards the suburbs. However, the metro station to get there is called Komsomolskaya or Kalanchevskaya. Still get it?
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