The departure date is three days away, and I'm getting everything ready to put all my stuff into storage and take off for three months across Europe and Asia. The plan so far:
July 3rd - leave London for Warsaw
July 4th - 5th - Warsaw to Moscow
July 6th - Moscow
July 7th - Suzdal
July 8th - first long-distance train journey, to Yekaterinburg
July 9th - 10th - Yekaterinburg to Omsk
July 11th - 13th - Omsk to Irkutsk, for a few days beside Lake Baikal
July 16th - 18th - Irkutsk to Ulan Bator, Mongolia, for hopefully a trek into the mountains, desert or both
July 30th - 31st - Ulan Bator to Beijing
After that, things are a bit fluid but I'm planning to visit Wutain Shai and Pingyao for the temples, buddhas and old towns, and also Xi'an for the warriors. Even Paul Theroux was impressed with them, so they must be worth seeing! After that, the vague plan is to get to Xining, on the edge of cultural Tibet, and do some exploring there before going on to Lhasa round about the beginning of September. The flight home is from Kathmandu on September 24th.
I'll aim to post whenever I get to an internet cafe or similar, probably every few days unless I'm up a mountain somewhere.
Bye for now
Tracey
