Good news and bad news!

Here's the good news: we are off on a 2 week tour of Mongolia in about 20 minutes, so I thought I should write and let everyone know that I won't have access to the internet for that whole time but I promise to write when I get back! The 'tour' is really 6 people in a little 4 wheel drive van going out into the desert and the mountains to have a look around and commune with nature a bit... so I'm really excited.

We arrived in Ulaanbaatur on Sunday, after a 5 night train journey from Moscow which was absolutely brilliant. Travelling 1st class we had a gorgeous little cabin and sat eating sausages, reading lots of books, napping, and watching some stunning scenery out of the window. It was probably my favourite part of the trip so far - I was dissapointed to leave the train which does sound odd after all that time I know.

You might expect me to be uploading lots of photographs from my trip in Moscow and across Siberia (I took hundreds!!) but here comes the bad news: Last night in an internet cafe here I had my bag stolen. I was actually at the cafe in order to upload (and back up) the photographs I had taken for the last 2 weeks, but the system wouldn't work so I put my camera back in my bag to find somewhere else instead. Steven was booking flights and it was getting late so I sat with him for a while. Then I had that familiar sickening feeling all of a sudden - Where's my bag?? There was no one else in the cafe by this point and no way anyone could have got under the table infront of me surely?? I ran outside but it was dark and whoever had my bag was long gone.

I felt absolutely sick. I hope I'm not that materialistic, but I could only think of my beautiful camera, all those photographs, and the fact that I was about to see some of the most amazing scenery in central Asia without it. People who know how much I love having my camera will know how absolutely gutted I am.

Anyway, life goes on. I just want to say that amongst all the things I had stolen was my phone so I no longer have any phone numbers, so that includes friends, family, clients, anyone I met recently(!) so please email or message me here with your number.

I will definitely upload photos when I get back - Steven has promised me his little point and shoot camera for the rest of our trip so I'll consider it a bit of a challenge!

Much love to everyone and please don't worry. I'll be on the look out for a Mongolian urchin with a big professional camera with him :)

Smiling ruskies

img_8695
Originally uploaded by Sinead Jenkins

Caption: The russian girl on the left is thinking "what are those strange people doing with their mouths in this picture?!"

Central cathedral in St Petersburg

img_8716
Originally uploaded by Sinead Jenkins

From Russia with ...a stern handshake

I'm going write a bit then link to my flickr page so you can see some photos from our stay in St Petesburg and Moscow so far (I've organised them into groups). We travelled by train for a day and a night through Belarus before arriving in St Petersburg, in our own little cabin where I was able to eat sausages and bread and take photos out of the window, bliss! The train stopped in a hot and dusty Belarusian town and we went for a walk through the long main street which was flanked on both sides by bleak looking communist style flats, the occasional shopfront (void of any advertising) and small lanes leading off into the distance and little wooden houses. We exchanged about 4 sterling in the station and got back about 20,000 belarusion. We didn't manage to spend it all although I had a white choc-ice with apricot jam in the middle and steven had a purple cornetto.

Our accommodation in St Petersburg was a number of ex soviet style apartment rooms converted into a hotel. Apparently one whole family would have lived in our room. We visited all the major sites including the Winter Palace, the Peter and Paul fortress, a place called Peterhof which is surrounded by huge gold statues and fountains, and walked the length of Nevsky Prospect with the uber-wealthy designer shoppers, the groups of wannabe gangster boys and the beggars. It was Russia day the day before yesterday and the streets were also lined with russian flags and hundreds of police. St Petersburg is one of those places you could easily get cathedral-fatigue, but they are so... grossly impressive that somehow you don't.

The russian people in the cities we have managed to talk to properly (only the people who work in the hotels/hostels really) are helpful and friendly, but I'm struggling to say anything nice about pretty much everyone else we encounter here - people in shops, restaurants, tourist sites, people we ask for directions. The nicest thing I can say is that they are stoic, and most people are physically very strong. Like the woman who pushed me out of her way in Moscow train station yesterday (both hands), or the old ladies who elbow me to get to the front of russian orthodox shrines. There are lots of girls here who dress up in expensive clothes, don huge stilletos and gold coats to parade around the centre of town, and they look down on me in my jeans and sandals with utter derision. If we ask for help people either wave us away or shrug and look back down at whatever they were doing. Hopefully when we depart Moscow in 4 days for the trans-mongolian railway we can meet some real people without their city pretensions.

In the meantime we are seeing the funny side. We had a little competition going in St Petersburg to try and make someone smile (no prize since the likelihood was so rare). I was completely unsuccessful (despite a number of attempts at holding doors open, catching hats in the wind, excessive tipping), but Steven is steaming ahead! He managed to make 2 old ladies in the Hermatage museum cloakroom smile (by making out that they'd stolen his camera?!), and then yesterday he had a shop assistant in stitches by doing a (very risky in my opinion) impression of her colleague. I think we're learning.

Last night we went to red square at dusk and it was fantastic. The Kremlin, St Basils Cathedral and GUM department store all lit up in the night sky. Seeing the square in the sunny day time seems strange to me - my visions of it are in the bleak mid-winter with all the ruskies wearing furry hats.

One last thing - the Moscow tube stations are incredible! Each one is a monument to soviet communism with statues, mosaics, chandeliers, marble pillars. Photography is forbidden and I'm such a wuss I haven't risked taking a photo yet but I will!

www.flickr.com/photos/sineadphoto

Lovely food in Poland

Mmmm, I didn't expect to love the Polish food so much, but considering how much we ate during our stay (and probably how much weight we put on) I think I can safely say it went down very well. Polish food is like the ultimate comfort food, lots of mashed potato, stew, amazing soups, peirogi, which are like ravioli, cheesy bread, and then lots of cabbage too. Luckily, I love cabbage!

On our last day in Poland we were in Warsaw, and Steven took me to Wedel, the finest chocolatier in Poland. I was tired and needed a pick me up, so when we arrived in these dining rooms it was like entering a chocolate dream world. (See picture below I stole from the internet because I think if I attach my camera to the computer I'm sitting at it may grind to a slow halt).

We ordered the speciality hot chocolate (that you could almost literally stand your spoon up in) and two very simple sounding icecream/yoghurt dishes. I'll see if I can get a photo up in a couple of days because they were amazing!!! They came not in dishes, but in something more akin to a vase, with huge chocolate things sticking out the top. Woohoo!! Man, I was wired after eating all that. Steven felt sick and couldn't finish his chocolate so I had his too. Then in the evening we went to pizza hut.

Somehow I don't think thats the kind of food that skinny travellers are meant to eat but then surely I need my energy for the weeks ahead. Steven thinks he's definitely lost weight and where's the harm in going along with that?

In St Petersburg now so will blog again in Moscow. Internet is v expensive and I'm trying to be stingy. xxx

Hello from Poland!

Thought I would share some photos from our trip so far. Plus of course I promised Max that we would keep in touch.

A little update on the general plan, since I know a lot of people aren't sure exactly what we are up to. Well, the initial idea was to travel over to New Zealand overland by train (as far as possible), via London, Brussels, Cologne, Warsaw and Krakow in Poland, St Petersburg and Moscow in Russia, and then through Mongolia - stopping for a while - into China, then Tibet and down to the south of India. Foreigners are no longer allowed into Tibet though, and now China has changed it's visa regulations, so we will change our plans for that part of the world, but so far we are booked as far as Mongolia - how exciting! We may fly into Japan from there, but will see...

In the meantime, we have managed to get as far as Krakow in Poland, which is an amazingly beautiful city. Hospitable, full of gorgeous old buildings, and sunny aswel, so we are starting to relax and enjoy things. I can't upload photos to my blog at the moment, but here is a link to about 10 that I managed to get on flickr. I'm not allowed to start missing my laptop though!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/sineadphoto/

will write again soon x

Panna and Vishnu's Wedding

I've been so busy I haven't blogged any photos from Panna and Vishnu's wedding in City Hall, Cardiff last month. Panna contacted me because she heard I was around for these extra couple of months, and I'm so pleased she did, the wedding was a very happy, relaxed and joyous day. Panna and Vishnu are both lovely, chilled out people and their families are full of real characters, we had a great time. Not much time for words, but here are the photos!

Panna looking beautiful in a relaxed yet stylish way:





Her lucky husband Vishnu (also looking stylish and relaxed):





Love this one of Panna and her mum:











If you have a late afternoon wedding, you can have photographs outside the museum when the doors are shut!






A beautiful day:









This guy was an amazing dancer!









Thanks for being such a pleasure to work with guys, enjoy your slideshow.x

I'm off to London this lunchtime, and then Brussels tomorrow to begin our big trip. Might have to go and do some packing then...