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Chris + Elli: World Tour
  • Chris Keeley
  • Elli Thomas

Chris + Elli: World Tour

Around the world in a year and a bit Read more
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  • Chris + Elli: World Tour

    Back to Ulaanbataar

    Jul 7–10, 2024 in Mongolia ⋅ ☀️ 24 °C

    Nothing too exciting, just adding this so there aren't any unsatisfying gaps in the trip history!
    We got the 10 hour bus back to UB, spent a day collapsed, then had a day that we were intending to spend getting a few things in order, but Elli got some sort of stomach virus so we did very little. So began the 7+ days in which we kept recovering, then one of us would get taken down once we thought it was over.Read more

  • Chris + Elli: World Tour
    The whole of the open steppe and we are in a traffic jam
    Horses are essentialDancing to open the festivitiesYou even go to the stalls on horsebackThe celebration dance for the wrestling is to dance like an EagleWinners of the horse racing crossing the finishing lineCurd cheese for everyoneOur very comfortable ger

    Kharkhorum

    Jul 10–13, 2024 in Mongolia ⋅ ☀️ 15 °C

    Mongolia has two main biomes so having done the desert, we recovered for a day, during which Elli contracted a horrific stomach bug, and then headed into the steppe.

    We hired a jeep from a woman who genuinely couldn't understand that we were going to drive ourselves, cook for ourselves, and sleep in the car, and off we went into the traffic jam.

    Quite by accident we're in Mongolia during Nadaam which is their annual festival and every town has its own version. This meant that we were driving out of UB with everyone else heading back to see their families and despite leaving at 6am, we didn't get to Kharkhorum until 6pm. It was boggling that in a country which only has about 5 roads that we were stuck in a standstill traffic jam on one and most people just drove off the road to avoid it, resulting in multiple buses in the ditch.

    We'd thought the stomach bug had passed but alas no and by the next day Chris was ill too, so we spent a slightly delirious couple of days gratefully staying at Gaya's guesthouse in a very comfortable ger and whenever we had enough energy, going to the Naadam festival down the road. It worked out relatively well, since Naadam is a great spectacle but aside from wrestling, archery and some horse races that you can only watch the end of, actually not very much happens.

     Most of it features people zooming around on horses and then sitting in their family tents with piles of curd cheese given out to everyone who walks in, which we greatly appreciated, mostly for the shade.    Read more

  • Chris + Elli: World Tour
    The floor is littered with bits of broken bumper, including from this PriusHairy moment watching this people carrier climb the hill (our car did it one, thankfully)2Seemingly all of Mongolia congregating at the Orkhon waterfallOne particularly spicy moment in the Orkhon valley2Enjoying Shampanskoye from the Russians who we towed out the bog

    Central Mongolia

    Jul 13–17, 2024 in Mongolia ⋅ ☁️ 16 °C

    After Nadaam and a bit of stomach bug recovery we stocked up the jeep and headed out into the steppe proper. There weren't any roads from this point on, just routes marked on the map and a few track marks where people had driven before us. We spent 5 days driving into the middle of nowhere and discovering what it's really about and why you really do need a 4x4 in Mongolia, although it is true that most locals drive Priuses everywhere, and we still don't know how they do it.

    The woman who rented us the jeep had been insistent that we see the "sights" because that is what you "do" but after discovering that most of them are only mildly interesting, several are hilariously bad and all of them are crawling with tourists, we concluded quite happily that the best bits about Mongolia are the parts with noone in them and the endless and amazing landscapes. It is like New Zealand but bigger, emptier and more incredible, and you actually can camp anywhere and not see a soul for days.

    Luckily for us we were still relatively on the beaten path, which meant that we could be rescued by a friendly and very capable family when our tyre started deflating (which it did every day, thanks to a fault with the valve) and we could rescue a Russian couple whose car got stuck in a ditch.

     There is a wonderful mentality among the Mongolians of straightforwardness and kindness which doesn't carry any expectation with it, while simultaneously having basically no manners at all (everyone walks into each other and never asks permission for anything, but when you get used to it it's actually very refreshing).

    We both learned lots of new driving skills including how to assess how to drive across a river, how to reverse down a narrow mountain path surrounded by trees, and how to herd sheep and yaks in a jeep.

    5 days was about our limit before we needed a shower and a bed, since the back of the Jeep was pretty painful even once we'd stopped sleeping on the tools, but if we hadn't already booked our train tickets we might have been tempted to stay longer and just enjoy the endless nothing.    Read more

  • Chris + Elli: World Tour
    Ulaanbaatar Railway Station
    3First class accommodationHot water heaterOur first meal in China - vegetarian food! Choice! WowErlian: a very different kind of architecture to MongoliaBut we are still in the desert and there are still gers (although no good photos of them)High speed rail from Hohhot1Beijing 🤔

    Chinese border: Ulaanbaatar -> Beijing

    Jul 18–20, 2024 in China ⋅ ⛅ 32 °C

    If we were travelling in a different geopolitical climate, we would have taken the Trans Siberian railway. We can't cross the border to Russia, but we can still do the Trans Mongolian through part of it - and our aim is to do as much overland as we feasibly can.

    If we'd known how difficult this journey would be we might have done something different, but hindsight is a wonderful thing!

    We left Ulaanbaatar on Thursday afternoon on the train to Zamiin-Uud on the border. It was a beautiful thing - like a Soviet-style tanker and probably about half a kilometre long. There weren't many soft sleeper choices left so we went first class, and had our own compartment with sheets and towels, and at either end of the carriage, a huge wood burner for heating (unnecessary in July) and a little water heater fuelled by a tiny wood burner. We watched more of the steppe go by, and Elli continued the misfortune of the stomach bug that simply will not go away, and which is especially unwelcome on a train.

    Got to Zamiin-Uud at 7.30 and we really hadn't known what to expect at the other end: there are some bits of travel you just can't research, there's very scant information! We managed to get a bus to take us over the border, which involved driving through several areas of no man's land and getting out to firstly cross the Mongolian border and then the Chinese. We had our first experience of Chinese queuing, i.e. they don't, pushing each other out of the way. The Chinese border gave us some clues of what was to come: a modern, clean and efficient building and service, with more security cameras than I have ever seen.

    They spent some time reviewing our visas (everyone else there was Mongolian or Chinese so we got a lot of stares) but waved us through into the town of Erlian, after some confusion

    We had our most race-across-the-world experience yet, when we got off the bus in the wrong part of town and had to march back to the bus station, only to find that the buses we'd hoped to catch were full. We had to wait 3 hours, so we twiddled our thumbs and eventually went out to get some food. A good shout, as we went into the first restaurant we saw and ate more vegetables than we have seen in WEEKS - neither Japan nor Mongolia really does vegetables and we are very glad to be in China.

    More surprise, though, at the huge differences between Inner and Outer Mongolia - they have the same climate, landscape and way of life, at least for a lot of people outside the towns - but the quality of life and infrastructure is worlds apart. We are very clearly in China even right on the edge of Inner Mongolia.

    Took the bus and it didn't get to Hohhot (the provincial capital of Inner Mongolia) until 7pm so rather than try to get to Beijing that night, we prolonged our pain a bit further and stayed in a hotel in Hohhot. Had our first experiences of "how on earth does anything work in China" in failing to find any food for two people who couldn't move (in the end the friendly but confused receptionist made a takeaway order for us on her phone via Google translate) and slept.

    The next day we managed to buy train tickets on a third party ticket website, which is at least easy even if more expensive, but all the trains were full until 3pm. Elli was still slightly ill and dazed and Chris had a very confusing time trying to work out how to redeem a ticket (it turns out that you just scan your passport - this, or Chinese ID, is the key to absolutely everything in China). Eventually the high speed train proved as efficient and delightful as Japanese trains, albeit busier and noisier, and we made it to Beijing by 8pm - 55 hours after leaving Ulaanbaatar. 😴    Read more

  • Chris + Elli: World Tour
    The longest stretch of the Great Wall that's open to the public
    And we walked the whole thing (both ways 😩)Not too much has changed, but it's a lot hotter late July than early JuneSo did MervynInside the Forbidden City (after 8 security checks)1The one peaceful spot in the Forbidden City - noone seems to visit the gardens1More touristsLots of cheap noodles, some tasty, some less so - this was a good one!

    Beijing and the Great Wall

    Jul 20–24, 2024 in China ⋅ 🌙 32 °C

    Staggered into Beijing on Saturday evening and we were very much in debt from a couple of weeks of being off the beaten track, sleeping in a Jeep, ill and then better and then ill again, and from the long journey.

    We did at least have a bed in a room with a window (this has become our new minimum standard, you'd be surprised how hard it is to find) although our confusion at China continues as despite Chris' best efforts (and his best effort is quite impressive) there was no way we could access the WiFi without WeChat (which you need another user to verify you on) and a Chinese mainland phone number.

    We took a day to recover and do our laundry (again, difficult - there aren't any self service launderettes here) and try to catch up on sleep.

    Then to attempt to do Beijing in two days. Chris has been to Beijing before and on Monday we went to see the Great Wall of China at Mutianyu where he visited in 2014. We left at 7.30am to catch a bus that had stopped running in 2020, and after two different buses and bailing out our new friend Nick from the US who we met on the bus, Elli got her first experience of Chinese tourist sites: that is, insane crowds and pushing everywhere you look.

    Despite that and the insane heat, we climbed up to the wall and then walked all the way to the south end, to the point where they have sadly now bricked it up so you can't continue on to the unreconstructed parts (fun sponges). Then we turned around and walked up to the North end. 12km in total. We were beyond exhausted but the views were actually incredible and the whole thing pretty awesome in the original meaning of the word.

    Next day we were exhausted but with one day left Elli got up to see the Forbidden City. Another day of chaos ensued in which she tried and failed to get into Tiananmen Square without a prior booking, but after wandering around the outside of the Palace was let in by a side gate. Turns out you can still buy a ticket on the door despite what the official rules say. Despite the Forbidden City being absolutely huge, it is still a series of courtyards all of which are absolutely heaving with tourists jabbing you in the ribs and the eyes. Sort of impressive, if only for the spectacle.

    Chris meanwhile had a lie in, and then had exactly the same experience trying and failing to get into Tiananmen Square and unable to replicate the walk from when he was in Beijing last time, but we met up and had some restorative noodles and melted in the sun again. Tried to go to the food street market at Wangfujing which also closed down during Covid, before heading north for a wander round the Hutongs, a very welcome albeit expensive pint of craft beer, and more marvelling at the ability of crowds of tourists to ruin what used to be probably quite nice parts of the city.

    Home, sleep, back on the train tomorrow. 😴    Read more

  • Chris + Elli: World Tour
    The Bell Tower, and all the women wanting photos with it
    Absolute chaos at the Muslim Food StreetElli is very happy with our findActual life size, amazing scenesDon't leave me hereStreet food market north of the city walls which Chris went to when it was 1 stand a decade ago50p beers and choose your own food to deep-fryThis was pudding - "ice powder" with every flavour of jellyCycling the city walls on a painfully tiny tandem1

    Xi'an

    Jul 24–28, 2024 in China ⋅ ☁️ 27 °C

    Finally back to a normal pace and full health as we zoomed into Xi'an on the high speed train. 🚆

    Still kept ourselves on our toes, by leaving lots of time for the train and then arriving at Beijing West only to discover our train left from Beijing Fengtai. 😨 We fully legged it out the station to the taxi rank and somehow managed to make it across town in 15 minutes to sprint onto the train with a few minutes before it departed, absolutely covered in sweat and panicking.

    But we had a tasty train lunch and then a trip across Xi'an on the metro to our absolutely lovely studio flat just outside the south gate: it was a great location and a properly cosy place so it felt like being at home for a bit.

    Went for a walk that evening into the city - loads going on on the streets, lots of girls dressing up in Tang dynasty clothes and taking photos in front of the Bell Tower, and then a walk through the Muslim Quarter which was full on chaos disneyland with millions of people.

    Luckily a few streets away we found a fantastic Biang Biang noodle bar where you choose all your own ingredients and Elli went into a happy noodle reverie for a while. 🍜

    Next morning we had to register at the police station - usually hotels do it for you but since this was a homestay we had to go - a slightly bizarre cultural experience which took an incredibly long time. Then had a very relaxing day at home and wandered round the local street food places in the evening (this time for some more disappointing noodles - the good is great here, but there is a decent amount of mediocre too!)

    Elli went to see the Terracotta Warriors (which Chris has already seen and mercifully didn't have to run the sweaty tourist gauntlet) which was a hot and stressful experience but still very amazing and very moving, if you could elbow your way to the front.

    On Saturday we had intended to be up the city walls by 8am to do the 14km cycle before the sun got too hot - we didn't make it till 8.30 but outside the main entrances there weren't really any crowds and we hired a (very small and extremely uncomfortable) tandem to go round it. The wall is a really serious bit of fortification and absolutely huge, and has some fantastic views along it, as well as a few off the side. We made it round and recovered with ice cream, a nap, and later on, a fantastic discovery: a completely vegetarian Chinese buffet for 23 yuan each (about £2.50) so we're started to put back on the weight that we lost in Mongolia 😁    Read more

  • Chris + Elli: World Tour
    A very happy panda
    Panda on his way to a napVery hot potThe fruits of our labour with JerryThe delightfully surprising roof terrace on the top of our hostelThe Global Center - so large we had to walk several hundred metres to be able to fit it in a shotThe even more boggling inside of the Global CenterThe Wenshu Monastery, one of China's largest Buddhist complexesOne of our favourite local dinner spots - grilled skewers, a very delicious Chengdu specialityKittens for sale on the street 😿

    Chengdu

    Jul 28–Aug 5, 2024 in China ⋅ ⛅ 36 °C

    Heading further south and west to Chengdu: somewhere that Chris hasn't already been for a change, so finally a chance to explore somewhere new!

    Our timing being in China isn't great: it's the summer holidays so everywhere is full and it's hot. On a couple of days this week it's been 36°C, feels like 42°C.

    Still, turns out Chengdu lives up to its reputation as being a chilled out city and we were lucky to be staying in a very nice youth hostel right on top of the metro station, with some great street food stalls around us, so we could spend a very comfortable week enjoying a cheap and easy quality of life.

    We'd planned to stay 5 nights and extended once we realised there weren't any seats on the train until Monday, which we weren't unhappy about.

    So had a week being able to chill out and see things in a lazy fashion. A large part of the reason we went to Chengdu was Elli's enthusiasm for Szechuanese food, so we went for a hot pot on the first night which was a delicious though also totally overwhelming experience which resulted in a burnt hand and a need to lie down. And we did a half day cooking class with the very enthusiastic and informative Jerry who introduced us to all sorts of weird ingredients we'd never even conceived of (like fermented tofu, or "tofe", as he calls it). Mostly we rejoiced in the amazing street food, and ate a lot of bao, eggs boiled in flavoured broth, grilled skewers and noodles.

    Sichuan is home to the majority of China's giant panda population, so one day we took the train out to the Dujiangyan Panda Base. We were glad we travelled out beyond the local one, since we saw the smallest crowds we've seen at a tourist attraction anywhere in China, and got to wander round several times visiting all the bears, which included black bears and red pandas (or the lesser panda, as they are unfortunately named) as well as giant pandas. They did a lot of napping in trees and in shady spots and did an impressive job of carefully demolishing large piles of bamboo with great intent.

    We were also delighted to find out that Chengdu is home to the largest building in the world measured by internal floor area - the Global Center, which contains a shopping mall, water park and hotel. We had a fun if confusing day there getting flashbacks to the days that we spent in Kuala Lumpur getting lost in cavernous shopping malls.

    Special mentions must also go to Mr Lee, the blind massage practitioner who Elli not only managed to communicate with but also got the best massage of her life for 70 yuan, and the fantastic seamstress who fixed Chris' broken pockets and sewed new ones into Elli's trousers.

    We hit the road again with deeper pockets, in at least one sense anyway.    Read more

  • Chris + Elli: World Tour
    1High speed trains for days
    Amazing dinnerLanzhou: a pleasant climate and street lifeLanzhou West Train StationEvery train station in China looks the same

    Lanzhou

    Aug 5–6, 2024 in China ⋅ 🌙 27 °C

    7 hours from Chengdu to Lanzhou on the direct train, which was very pleasant and mostly uneventful. Then a very quick stop overnight between trains in Lanzhou as we head west. Lanzhou is the provincial capital of Gansu and is a big city, plenty of industry and used to be an important stop on the Silk Road. It's meant to be a bit of a shithole but we ended up with a very warm impression of the place - we arrived late, found our hotel and then 5 minutes wander from there found a street busy with people outside drinking and eating. They gestured for us to sit down, which in China is rare enough that it's started being a prompt for us to go somewhere rather than off putting, and we had a truly fantastic meal of spiced naan, garlic chili aubergine, tofu and onions and some very reasonably priced beer.

    Sleep, metro across town, and back on the train.    Read more

  • Chris + Elli: World Tour
    Getting cold, wet and hilly on the train
    Statue of Marco Polo, who presumably came through Zhangye?Big parkThe obligatory evening Chinese dancingThe wooden pagodaStripy mountainsMore stripy mountainsMore stripesRidiculous ice cream waffleNight Market of many delights

    Zhangye

    Aug 6–7, 2024 in China ⋅ ☀️ 30 °C

    Just 3 hours from Lanzhou to Zhangye, which is a small city of only 1.2 million 🤔 . A smooth train ride and getting colder and wetter, especially as we went through the mountains.

    We'd thought it would be worth a stop because of the Zhangye Danxia landforms, which have stripy rainbow colours in the sandstone. Turns out the town is mildly interesting as well and now quite a popular tourist town, the major downside being that we're now sufficiently off the beaten path to be really weird to most Chinese people and the level of staring has reached new peaks.

    Our train got in at around 2 and thanks to a very hot day and unnecessarily stressful taxi faff decided to rest rather than trying to go to the mountains that day. Went for an evening wander and discovered that the town has a very active and interesting night market which has enthusiastically embraced one of China's greatest scourges: the recordable loudspeaker which anyone can buy, record a message on and blast at full volume from their stall. Lost our hearing. Ate things on a stick and very tasty bread.

    Went to the mountains the next day which involved walking to the bus station, only to discover the bus we'd aimed for had sold out and Chris had left his passport at home. Walked back to the hostel, and Elli nearly accidentally bought 32 bao. In this part of China 1 bao seems to equal 8 small bao. All very confusing. Corrected the error, retrieved the passport, took the bus, later wished we'd bought more bao.

    The Danxia mountains were peak Chinese tourist attraction: you could only get round them on a shuttle bus, which to be fair in the hot sun is the only sensible way of seeing them. The mountains were fabulous, though then you turn around and see 500 tourists all getting their umbrellas and visors up in each others business and screaming. It's a shame that the photos of Danxia are so ridiculously unrealistic - they look nothing like most of the posters but are nonetheless still very cool. In the visitor centre afterwards we were relaxing with a drink and a mother and her maybe 8 year old son had a furious battle of wills in which she desperately wanted him to speak to us, while he would clearly rather have eaten his own shoelaces. We tried our best to manage both of them and then made some hasty excuses to leave.

    Back to Zhangye, collapse, and headed out with our bags. Delicious cold noodles and preposterous ice cream waffles for dinner, and we hid round the back of the park to avoid being followed by tourists - it didn't work.

    Our night train to Dunhuang was at 00.13 so we spent an hour in the train station before it was ready to go, and it felt in the end like we'd been there quite a lot longer than 1.5 days.    Read more

  • Chris + Elli: World Tour
    We were in carriage 加2, which was located between carriages 11 and 12. 10 carriages of squeezing..
    One of the many delightful doorways of Dunhuang's smaller streetsNight market chaos1Local delicacy is goat headThe shop dedicated to Chairman MaoVisiting Chinese tourist attractions in the summerStanding at the feet of the BuddhaThe Mogao Caves, you can also buy an ice cream shaped like this1Desert life

    Dunhuang

    Aug 8–12, 2024 in China ⋅ ☁️ 18 °C

    Early arrival into Dunhuang on the sleeper train from Zhangye. Top bunk on the hard sleeper, so we slightly drew the short straw there but it was quiet and we slept surprisingly well. The perils of not buying your tickets on the day they're released.

    We're getting pretty far west and edging between the Tibetan Plateau and the Gobi desert, so big sandy landscapes and more Islamic influences everywhere - seen in the architecture, food and a lot of the restaurants are Muslim, though also they have obviously also capitalised on this as a novelty in the fake tourist "bazaar" at the centre of Dunhuang's astonishingly chaotic night market.

    Our first day was one of those total fail travel days. We had booked to stay in a tent on the edge of the dunes to see the stars, and in the afternoon went to where the map said the address was. Found absolutely nothing, and a local took pity on us and phoned the number they'd given us. Apparently they had decided to cancel all their bookings because a storm was forecast. It started pouring with rain, so we huddled under an umbrella desperately trying to book somewhere else to sleep. Took the last available hotel room in Dunhuang that wouldn't have meant dipping into the emergency disaster travel funds.

    Anyway, next day we moved to a very nice hostel with a roof terrace in the night market run by a couple with an eclectic taste in books and jazz, which was good other than the man with the boombox opposite who played the same call and response song for 3 days on repeat.

    Dunhuang is the smallest place we've stayed in China - a mere 150,000. So pretty much all walkable, which made a nice change. Unfortunately because it's such a big tourist destination you have to elbow your way through crowds to get anywhere (again, just don't visit China in the summer holidays). We had a hit and miss experience with food, but our favourite thing here has been the liangpi, which is cold noodles made from wheat gluten with chili, and the bao that we've eaten for the last few weeks has been replaced by flatbreads and a phenomenal kind of chili bread pancake.

    Dunhuang is partly now a tourist hellhole because it was one of the main stopping points on the Silk Roads and marked the western edge of the great wall of China, so was an important trading post for a long time. Aside from that it's also home to the Mogao Caves, which were built in the 4th century by a Buddhist monk who had an immense spiritual experience and built the caves as shrines. They also contained a treasure trove of incredibly important texts, like the first ever manual to the Chinese board game Go and some of the Buddhist sutras, but the person who discovered them sold them to the British and now they're all in... the British Library. 🤦‍♀️

    It was still quite spectacular, although not quite the transcendental spiritual experience that they were originally intended to be.

    Finally managed to get out to see the stars on the last night, so our first night fail was made up for in the end 🏜    Read more

  • Chris + Elli: World Tour
    The Milky Way
    The Plough. Possibly pointing at Polaris on the right?More Milky WayYou just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mindbogglingly big it is

    Dunhuang Desert Stars

    August 12, 2024 in China ⋅ ☁️ 24 °C

    We had originally intended to stay at a camp in the desert to see the stars, but it got cancelled (without telling us of course) due to cloud cover.
    Probably a blessing, we met a woman who worked in the industry who said that there was actually lots of light pollution from the camps, better to drive out into no man's land.

    So we hired a driver for a few hours, and after a few false starts where there was still a lot of light pollution, we found a spot on a seldom-used road to look at the stars    Read more

  • Chris + Elli: World Tour
    We made some friends from Zhangye who got us very drunk on some Baiju
    When parenting gets too much and children have to be entertained somehowSharing China's opportunities in XinjiangThe Grand BazaarWe ate a huge egg and this friendly man from Harbin took a photo, so we took a photo with him tooSelling fermented mare's milkThe dramatic if pedestrian unfriendly view from our hostel1Tianshu Lake, or the Heavenly Lake1Peaceful and serene, like all Chinese tourist attractionsObviously at a Chinese beauty spot you can enjoy some cultural appropriation and fancy dress

    Ürümqi and the heavenly lake

    Aug 12–14, 2024 in China ⋅ 🌙 23 °C

    Arrived into Ürümqi / Wulumuqi (depending on who you're talking to) after a long journey from Dunhuang. Two hour minibus from Dunhuang, in which we narrowly avoided being thrown up on by someone who mercifully got off before he really got going, then two hours waiting in the train station while a lot of children stared at us with their mouths open and then 5 hours to Ürümqi for a little more staring from more children. 

    We were astonished when we got off the train to experience the first hassling we'd had in weeks, from crowds of taxi drivers. Managed to get to our hostel by about 11pm, on the 23rd floor of one of many tower blocks, and then had to wait another 45 minutes while they security checked our passports. It's very noticeable how much more security and policing there is in Xinjiang, with security scanning bags on the entrance to most shops and armoured police vans across much of the city centre.

    We had a day in a half in Ürümqi and had intended to go to the Heavenly Lake the next day but after all the travel and going to bed late we didn't get up and out until nearly 12pm. We decided to go the next day instead, which was a good idea, as we later discovered. Instead explored the city, which is a strange combination of far more obvious Uyghur and Muslim influences than we'd seen before, but most of the Mosques are boarded up and there is a lot of obvious Sinification of many of the cultural references to make it palatable for visitors and tourists, especially in the Grand Bazaar. 

    That night we had Chuanr (street kebabs) from next to our hostel and after failing to pay for it with WeChat, some men on business from Zhangye said hello and invited us for a drink of some bizarre rice and starch liquor. They were very excited to meet us and thanks to google translate we chatted for a while and got accidentally smashed. 

    We still managed to make it out by 10am to go to the Heavenly Lake, but in the end it took 4 hours to get there, after trying to get a bus that potentially didn't exist, then getting a shared taxi, then two shuttle buses. The lake was, at least, very beautiful - like some of the more dramatic European lakes in Switzerland or Montenegro - although like everywhere else in China, also accompanied by the inevitable enormous crowds of tourists, blaring megaphones, music and yelling. Still, we had a couple of hours wandering around the lake before heading back, and it took us 4.5 hours to get back to the hostel and we only just made it to the station in time for our night train.    Read more

  • Chris + Elli: World Tour
    Soft sleeper
    This is the Eurasian Pole of Inaccessibility, I swearSunrise not long before KhorgosThis part of Xinjiang is further from the desert and feeling oddly at home with fields and trees11 hour trains have the advantage of reading timeHuerguosi/Khorgos Station: our final stop in ChinaCosy but at least he was entertainedHellooo Kazakhstan

    The Eurasian Pole of Inaccessibility

    Aug 14–15, 2024 in China ⋅ 🌙 13 °C

    From Ürümqi we made it onto the night train headed for the border at Khorgos. We are going up in the world - soft sleeper this time, so 4 to a cabin and more space to actually sit and chat. Had the essential train noodles and watched the world go by for a bit.

    Around 4am we were about 10km from the Eurasian Pole of Inaccessibility, which is the place on the globe furthest from any ocean. It was dark and in the middle of the desert, which seems appropriate, and there a photo to prove it (sort of).

    Xinjiang is on GMT+8, and Kazakhstan on +5; it's the most misaligned time zone in the world, to the extent that they have tended to use +6 locally to give them some sunlight in the morning. Instead the sun rose just before 8am and went down at 9:30.

    Off the train, a taxi to the bus station that would take us over the border and to our mild concern they'd sold out of bus tickets to Almaty that day, so we bought a ticket to wherever they'd take us (Zharkent) via customs and border checks. This took an unfeasibly long time with a lot of long queues, to exit China (entering Kazakhstan was a breeze). However we gained 3 hours after the queues so we still had plenty of time, and were jetlagged without the jet.

    We spent all of 10 minutes in Zharkent in a sort of fever dream before finding a shared taxi with a family and a toddler who spent the 3.5 hour high-speed drive to Almaty (we hit 174km/h) crawling all over the car and making friends with Merlin, our meerkat, who has enjoyed having his tail chewed.

    Arrived in Almaty in the sunny late afternoon having only eaten a handful of peanuts all day and all round quite exhausted and confused. Were delighted to discover that there are three Georgian restaurants within 250m of our hostel, ate our body weight in Khachapuri and went to bed - we are truly in Central Asia now.    Read more

  • Chris + Elli: World Tour
    Almaty Cathedral, in a park in the centre of town so you walk past it all the time...
    Almaty Mosque, plus a ger, or as it's known here apparently, a kiyizCarriages which play booming Kazakh beatsAlmaty's pretty delightful take on Soviet architectureOn the way up the mountainHaving got back down the mountainYes we were those people, had a pint of London Pride in the Shakespeares ArmsAs far into the Arasan Baths as you're allowed with your clothes on

    Almaty

    Aug 15–23, 2024 in Kazakhstan ⋅ ☀️ 33 °C

    As we crossed China it was fascinating to see how much it changed culturally as you head west, but we were still surprised at just how different it felt across the border in Kazakhstan - especially in Almaty.

    Almaty isn't (as far as we can tell) much like the rest of Kazakhstan: most of Kazakhstan is open steppe, and Almaty and the surrounding region is much more mountainous and like Kyrgyzstan. Add to that Almaty is actually a relatively cosmopolitan city with a bigger ethnic and nationality mix than we've seen in months - lots of people are tourists and visitors, and now we don't get stared at walking down the street, which is novel. A decent mix of food although to be fair quite dominated by meat (Kazakhstan, like Mongolia, has a core diet of meat) and a lot of Georgian and Turkish food, which we're definitely not unhappy about.

    Decided it was a nice enough place to spend a few days and we had planned on hiring a car and exploring a bit further afield but in the end were valuing the rest and spent a bit more time chilling out, particularly with the absolutely excellent cat who lived in the hostel. He slept on our bed most nights and actively snuggled up to us at every possible opportunity, which is a level of affectionate we've never seen from a cat but was very delightful.

    Other than that, Elli got a much needed haircut, and lots of walks around town. It's got a lot of quite fabulous Soviet architecture from the 1980s of a slightly more decorative nature than we're used to from Eastern Europe and it's a very walkable city though does have absolutely awful pollution that smells like a plastic fire every other block so not somewhere to live... it has a good bazaar (we went twice although never when it was in full flow), an incredibly scenic and beautiful Orthodox Church, and in theory views of the mountains down all the streets though in practice the air pollution sort of blocks that.

    We went hiking up to the Kok Zhailau plateau in the mountains to the south, which was a decent trek with entertainment from all the many couples who go camping up there and invariably feature the man carrying ALL the camping equipment, and then back down the other side of the mountain only to get slightly and ended up bushwhacking down a cliff. Elli regretted wearing shorts but then by total bizarre chance as we hit the road again, we ran into two English people, one of whom went to Elli's old school, who gave us antiseptic cream for the scratches and shared a taxi back to town.

    A final word to the excellent and only mildly stressful bathing experience Elli had at the Arasan Baths in town which was built as a sort of rival to Tashkent's baths... it's architecturally amazing with huge vaulted Turkish hammams and swimming pools (no photos obvs), Finnish saunas and a Russian Banya that is hotter than any sauna Elli has ever been to and was full of locals wearing a bizarre collection of felt and wooly hats thrashing themselves with leaves. It is quite an experience swimming naked in a huge round vaulted room with nothing but a scarf wrapped round your head.    Read more

  • Chris + Elli: World Tour
    The White House
    The Victory Monument (of victory over Nazi Germany)The history museum, a pleasing cuboidMore steppe between Almaty and BishkekThe Kazakh/Kyrgz borderAiran, which is somewhere between yoghurt and cottage cheese and is drunk, weirdly enoughLaghman, a very tasty noodle dishStalls selling kymyz, which is fermented mare's milk. It's the national dish and is sold everywhereTrying kymyz. It's actually not unpleasant. Kind of fizzy.Where we spent most of the week - the garden at the Tunduk Hostel

    Bishkek

    Aug 23–27, 2024 in Kyrgyzstan ⋅ ☁️ 31 °C

    From Almaty to Bishkek, on the bus, which was a bargain at £6 and was only meant to take 5 hours except that some idiot left their bag on the bus at customs so we all had to stand around in the sun waiting for the bus to come back. Other than that a straightforward border crossing and then a taxi across Bishkek.

    We were staying in a decent hostel on the outskirts of town, in dorms for the first time in a while but they were cheap and it had a nice garden and a swimming pool so it was a good place to hang out. All sorts of really friendly and mostly very interesting people, with almost everyone doing some mental overland journey so we were in good company, including some who were cycling (rather him than us though).

    It's a good thing it was pleasant because Bishkek, well, you don't go to Kyrgyzstan for Bishkek. We spent a day exploring the main square, park and city centre: the highlight was trying kymyz (fermented mare's milk, slightly alcohol, think champagne but with more protein) and some tasty kebabs but ultimately it is just quite a boring place so we decided to not flog a dead horse and preserve our energy.    Read more

  • Chris + Elli: World Tour
    1The Seven Bulls from across the valley
    1Restbreak with Tiffany2Ashlan Fu, one of the 3 times we wentOrthodox Cathedral looking divineThe mad Dungan mosqueSushi pizza, you can even put sushi on your pizza if you likeEssential yurt pictures1The Karakol Valley

    Karakol

    Aug 27–Sep 1, 2024 in Kyrgyzstan ⋅ ☀️ 24 °C

    Took the 6 hour bus from Bishkek to Karakol which goes all the way round Issyk-Kul (second biggest Alpine lake in the world, so quite big) and is bumpy for at least half the journey.

    Stayed in a hostel that was slightly abandoned by its owners but with a lot of very friendly travellers and had a very sociable few days out hiking and hanging around the hostel/town.

    Karakol is one of the main hiking bases and is surrounded by valleys so did two days out hiking: one up the Jeti Oguz (seven bulls) valley with a lot of very fabulous big views across the mountains and plateaus and another up the Karakol Valley, which we screwed up a bit because we could only get the marshrutka halfway along the road and not to the trailhead, and most people do 3 days up to a lake, but it was still a scenic bit of valley.

    Karakol is known for some really fabulous cold spicy noodles called Ashlan-Fu from the Chinese-Muslim Dungan diaspora, which we ate a LOT of (the six bowls between three of us elicited some impressed eyebrow raising from the owners) and we also sampled that Kyrgyz speciality of sushi pizza (it's sold as a combo everywhere, we're still not sure why but apparently could be some "his and hers" thing).

    Otherwise Karakol is a quiet, quite suburban but mildly pleasant town with an amazing wooden Orthodox cathedral and a wooden mosque which was built by the Chinese Dungans in 1910 and looks more like a Buddhist temple crossed with a Bauhaus explosion...    Read more

  • Chris + Elli: World Tour
    View of the mountains across lake Issyk-Kul
    Across the valleyThat Bloody RiverElli did some sheep herding to get them off the pathPetroglyphs - some are a bit ridiculous but this is a hunter chasing a deer with snow leopardsOne of a number of fabulous breakfastsTorrential rain storms from our balconyBeach lifeMore beach lifeThe tiny kitten at the guesthouse, who seems to live off porridge

    Cholpon Ata

    Sep 1–5, 2024 in Kyrgyzstan ⋅ ☀️ 20 °C

    Cholpon Ata is the main tourist resort around Lake Issyk-Kul which in theory is hopping with Russian and Kazakh tourists enjoying the closest thing Central Asia has to a beach. This is unless you come on the 1st September, which is the first day of the off season. We booked 3 places to stay, each of which then told us they'd closed for the winter before finally chancing (mercifully) upon an excellent guesthouse, owned by the friendliest woman we've met in months, who looked after us like we were family and fed us to within an inch of our lives with some incredible breakfasts.

    Cholpon Ata itself is an extremely nondescript and unscenic place along a main road. It does however have some genuinely nice beaches if you can brave the water (decently warm in the evening, icy freezing in the morning, but it is an Alpine lake to be fair).

    Some sunny mornings mixed with some incredibly violent storms which implies that we are having autumn (after 14 months of summer we don't mind too much) and a power cut for extra fun.

    We also went on a very lovely hike up into the mountains north of the lake which featured lots of delightful waterfalls and canyons and after carefully fording several rivers, one which was only bridged by a large tree trunk. Unfortunately Chris made it across with some impressive upper body strength and Elli did not, so we peeled off and Elli went back while Chris completed the circuit. Turns out Chris got the short straw when he got to the end slightly traumatised by some vertical scree slopes.

    All in a normal day's work for us and we continue onwards...    Read more

  • Chris + Elli: World Tour
    Making bread on the street
    Lots of snowy mountainous backdropsThe less scenic ends of the valleyPlovYurt camp on the way to Kol UkokKol ukok lake, at just under 3300mSnow!The very painful long road home

    Kochkor

    Sep 5–9, 2024 in Kyrgyzstan ⋅ ☀️ 25 °C

    We've been engaged in a sort of battle of wills with Kyrgyzstan since we arrived, in which we have been trying as hard as possible to not fall into a pattern of intense travel that exhausts us while also finding that the way to see a mountainous and wild country which most people do through multi-day treks by foot or on a horse. We went to Kochkor in the hope that this was a place where we could get into the mountains without having to walk for days.

    We were half right. It's not impossible, and Elli did spend a very memorable if absolutely exhausting day with 9 hours on horseback up to Kol Ukok, a lake at 3,300m. Some incredibly spectacular views, plov and chai at the yurt camps, and some extreme knee pain. Seems like Kyrgyz horses like snow but don't like snowball fights.

    Other than that we had a ridiculous day in which we tried to walk north into the mountains on the other side of the valley and walked into a rubbish dump and a load of abandoned farm buildings before giving up and going home, and another day in which it rained and then we got caught in a huge windy dust storm. Not the most charming place we've ever been but you can't roll high every time and we still had a big plate of vegetarian plov so you can't say fairer than that.    Read more

  • Chris + Elli: World Tour
    Hotel Uzbekistan, Elli's new favourite building
    The Hazrati Imam complex1Chorsu bazaar with its pleasing Timurid Soviet vibesAlso excellent from the insideWith an amazing collection of nuts and picklesA lot of good café cultureElli got excited about Soviet residential architectureEven more excited when she saw thisToo excited when she saw Dom Zhemchug, an experiment with vertic mahallas (Uzbek neighbourhoods)And a lot of very amazing metro stations

    Tashkent

    Sep 10–14, 2024 in Uzbekistan ⋅ ☀️ 16 °C

    Tashkent is definitely one of those places we didn't have much of an expectation for and proved to be just excellent. It started well when we arrived from the (surprisingly not too traumatic) overnight bus and the hotel we were staying in let us check in early and fed us breakfast. They opened two weeks ago and were trying to butter us up for good reviews, which absolutely worked in our favour and we had a very comfortable few days.

    Lots of wandering around seeing increasingly fabulous Soviet architecture, of which Tashkent has in bucket loads, of a particularly beautiful Uzbek decorative form, including the slightly mental decorated metro. And we went a bit mental in the Chorsu bazaar which is fun and has more pickles and nuts than it really needs.

    Went up the Hotel Uzbekistan at night for a drink. It should be very fancy - it is certainly a 10/10 building and has a good view from the top - though the bar is hilariously shit in a sort of entertaining way (kind of like a cafeteria that sells cheap beer and shisha).    Read more

  • Chris + Elli: World Tour
    Gobsmacked at the Shah-i-Zinda necropolis
    More Shah I zindaUzbek trains - sold out on the fast one so slow train for usElli made friends with the conductor, who did some drawings for her2Gifts from the train conductorSiyob BazaarVery tasty figs now in seasonThe RegistanRegistan at sunsetBibi-Khanym mosqueThe teahouse next to our hostel, where we went at least once a dayGates to the rest of the cityWandering around the Jewish quarterThe fabulous shashlik that we discovered on the last dayAesthetic points for the courtyard of our hostel

    Samarkand

    Sep 14–19, 2024 in Uzbekistan ⋅ ☀️ 27 °C

    Took our first Uzbek train in the morning from Tashkent to Samarkand. Sold out on the fast trains (the upside is that Uzbek trains are great; downside is that everyone uses them, so they sell out quickly) but we had an easy 3.5 hours on the train and got to Samarkand for lunchtime. After loving Tashkent for being an immensely relaxed and cosmopolitan city (a lot more developed than anywhere in Kyrgyzstan) the trend continues - Samarkand is an easy, clean and calm place to be so made for a very chilled journey and arrival.

    That's partly because it's much more of a tourist city and in the centre a very tidy and prim boulevard has been run right through the city between the main sights - though there are gates through the wall to the rest of the city and the Jewish quarter which makes for good wandering.

    As for most of Samarkand, it's famous for its Islamic and Timurid architecture but having not done too much research before we got there, it did elicit genuine gasps and frequent dazed reveries over several days of wandering around (mostly from Elli, though even Chris was impressed by some of it, which is saying something). Just the scale of pattern, colour and delight in endless tilework was a constant visual feast.

    Add to that a lot of feasting at the market, enjoying of many of the classic Uzbek courtyards with cool shading from the sun (which isn't too hot anyway, thank god we're here in September) and a lot of fantastic shashlik and we have had a top time in Samarkand.

    We ended up staying 5 days, partly because it was nice, partly because we wanted the rest, and partly because we spent a lot of time anxiously waiting for Elli's Tajikistan visa after throwing lots of arbitrary money at the consulate. Thankfully it arrived just in time so no need for rapid replanning of the next stop...    Read more

  • Chris + Elli: World Tour
    The new Parliament Building in Dushanbe
    The border at PanjakentCrammed into a shared taxiEntrance to the tunnel of death5m of visibility at bestWe were staying with a group from Turkmenistan, who we had breakfast with11Local students, very well dressedIndependence monumentBig flagRudaki Park

    Dushanbe

    Sep 19–23, 2024 in Tajikistan ⋅ ☀️ 30 °C

    We took a taxi from Samarkand to the border with Tajikistan (only about half an hour) and despite the easiest border ever, which we walked straight across, the chaos started straight after when we realised we had no internet, not enough money, and no way of getting money thanks to Tajikistan not supporting Mastercard. (We did in the end find a visa card for emergencies...) While we figured this out, we crammed ourselves in the back of a shared taxi with 7 people and drove 5 hours to Dashanbe.

    We knew Tajikistan was hard to travel around and very mountainous but this whole experience was something else - most of it was through an increasingly precipitous mountain range with a maniac driver. We drove through the "tunnel of death" as its known locally - 5km of unlit unmarked tunnel. Best way through it is to close your eyes.

    Dushanbe meanwhile is a bizarre contrast between the very tidy, clean, shiny boulevards and streets in the city centre, featuring a whole series of brand new monuments built by the Tajik government with China (including the 160m high flagpole which was the tallest in the world for 3 years only) to celebrate independent Tajik culture and to neatly divert funds away from the rest of the country which really needs it. There are large photos of the President all over the city and the streets are full of university students in suits with briefcases which gives a slightly weird formal vibe to the whole place.

    Meanwhile go two minutes outside the city centre and you get much more of the style of slightly dusty streets and courtyard homes that we've seen elsewhere across Central Asia - simple and still very beautiful in its own way.    Read more

  • Chris + Elli: World Tour
    Sheep and goat saddlebags

    Fann Mountains

    September 22, 2024 in Tajikistan ⋅ ☀️ 23 °C

    Tajikistan is mostly about mountains (93% of it) so we did a day hike from Dushanbe up into the Fann mountains at Gusgarf. It was hot (34*C) so 10km and 600m ascent felt like a LOT but it was a good walk and incredibly peaceful - lots of autumn leaves and the only people we saw were a few herders. Hitched a lift back into town in a car that was already full but stopped for us in about 3 minutes.Read more

  • Chris + Elli: World Tour
    11Onboard tat sales

    Two days by train to Khiva

    Sep 23–25, 2024 in Uzbekistan ⋅ 🌙 27 °C

    A very long journey out of Tajikistan and then across Uzbekistan. We had originally planned to stay a bit longer, but heard there was one international train out of Tajikistan that was launched in 2022 but only runs once a week, so thought we would take it, with the added benefit of not having to take a second trip through the tunnel of death.

    We had to go to the station in person to buy tickets but the train was only about a quarter full so there was plenty of space. We had a bizarre trip through customs (in which they tried to tell us we needed to go back to the border we crossed into in order to get a form that they'd forgotten to give us, and then forgot to stamp Elli's passport) and then were given a pot of tea on the train in our cupé, which was extremely comfortable and we had to ourselves. About 11pm we got to the Uzbek border and the guards turned the whole train upside down, sniffer dogs, searched the roof, gave our bags a poke and frisked Elli but not Chris, maybe she looks more suspicious, or maybe the female guard just wanted something to do.

    Then had a whole day of entertaining ourselves in Samarkand before a 1am train to Khiva - third class this time, and we had the upper bunk so had a very difficult time getting into the bunk in the dark without standing on someone's face but we ended up with a good nights sleep and some friendly people in the carriage when we woke up and enjoyed a bit of the desert early in the morning before getting in at about 11am.    Read more

  • Chris + Elli: World Tour
    1

    Khiva

    Sep 25–28, 2024 in Uzbekistan ⋅ ☀️ 26 °C

    For reasons mostly revolving around our visa to Turkmenistan (which you don't argue with once you have it) and train timetables, we did our dash across Uzbekistan to see Khiva before we then go back east. So we are quite far west, right on the edge of the desert (the main strip of habitation in the south of Uzbekistan is the oasis of the desert) and Khiva is one of the main silk road cities that's around 2,500 years old.

    It's a tiny place and not many people live here - the whole town is small and the old walled town at the centre is a living museum. We spent most of a day just wandering around getting lost and it is really fabulous, in quite a different way to Samarkand - still some good tiles but thr main delight is the narrow streets and labyrinthine buildings which suddenly pop out into decorated courtyards.    Read more

  • Chris + Elli: World Tour
    Made a lot of friends on the trainEnglish teacher from East Uzbekistan, and her father who was a French teacherMan who had lived in Birmingham, and his colleague on their way to get a visa in TashkentShort nap before needing to wake up at midnightMore madrassasQayesh, which is meant to be served with meaty sauce but which is surprisingly delicious withoutMore cats than usual in BukharaMadrassasEven more catsTiny and beautiful mausoleum in the middle of a residential neighbourhoodA different take on local carpet makingMosque

    Bukhara

    Sep 28–Oct 4, 2024 in Uzbekistan ⋅ 🌙 15 °C

    We left Khiva in the early evening and had a 6 hour train to Bukhara. Immediately got befriended by half the train carriage who could speak English (or French) and were all keen to make friends: we were offered lots of bread and fruit and vodka, and according to the Uzbek man who had lived in Birmingham it would be bad luck if we didn't drink the bottle. He drank more than half, Chris a significant amount and Elli a more modest amount, which did at least mean that Elli was sober enough to realise when we arrived in Bukhara and to just about get Chris out of bed and onto the platform.

    It was 1am and tricky to get a taxi, but found one, and got to the guesthouse and to bed only to be woken up by the host hammering the door down at 8am telling us that water was pouring through the door. No need since by that point we were standing in an inch of water which half our bags were sitting in as well while the toilet cistern continued to happily explode itself over the floor.

    Needless to say we were not happy campers about this and dragged our hungover and sleep deprived selves across town to a hostel to camp there instead.

    Since we knew we'd have a pretty full on week afterwards through Turkmenistan then west to the Caspian, we were planning on taking it easy, which we more or less did in between varying levels of accommodation chaos: absolutely everywhere in Bukhara smells overpoweringly of drains, which is a bit grim. We did meet a few nice people in the hostel from Germany and had some decent food, although nothing earth shattering.

    Perhaps because this is our last stop in Uzbekistan and we have seen a LOT of Islamic architecture it does mean it is now more or less variations on a theme, so perhaps we would have been more awed if we hadn't already seen so much of it. Nonetheless it is objectively a very beautiful city, perhaps with a bit more of the small alleyways and streets than Samarkand and more of the amazing tiles than Khiva, and maybe more tourists too (more Europeans over 60s tour groups: it is a bit ridiculous how no other demographic has cottoned on to Uzbekistan).

    Elli continued the theme of visiting bathhouses everywhere we find them and got scrubbed violently and left on a stone slab for an hour covered in very spicy ginger and coconut which was an almost psychedelic experience, especially in the medieval hammam...

    By the end we were a bit bored, which we generally regard as being a good thing these days since every day is a different form of overstimulation and it means we're doing something right.    Read more

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