Simply looking at photos of Astana, you can see that this strange capital is something else. Whether it’s the glass pyramid, the giant tent shopping m...
Read MoreMonth: September 2018
Where to Stay in Turkistan

There are very few accommodations listed online for Turkistan. The two that are commonly recommended are Hotel Sabina and Hotel Edem. We stayed at Hot...
Read MoreOmsk – Four Things to See and Do

Again, like Novosibirsk, we had very little time to experience the city and we had to cherry-pick the best things to see and do in Omsk.
Omsk railw...
Read MoreWhat To See in Novosibirsk – 6 Sights On Our Whistlestop Tour

When we visited Novosibirsk, we had a grand total of four hours between trains and after checking our bags in and out of the cloakroom, that equated t...
Read MoreThings to Do In Irkutsk Based on Our Own Experience

We’ve created a list of things to see and do in Irkutsk based on our own experience. We went to Irkutsk knowing that it was seen as the entrance to La...
Read More(Disappointingly Few) Things to do in Ulan Ude

When we researched good places to stop on the Trans-Siberian, we decided to definitely include Ulan Ude. It was touted as the Buddhist capital of Russ...
Read MoreTsaatan Elders and Shamans – Interviewing Those Who Ride Reindeer in Mongolia

The Tsaatan (or Dukha) people have ridden and relied upon reindeer for generations. Originally, they came from Russia, not Mongolia. Fearing how the c...
Read MoreDiary – The Tsaatan and the Taiga – Reindeer Herders in Modern Mongolia

In the last diary entry, we described how we crossed the Taiga to find the Tsaatan (also known as Dukha) people in the forested hills neighbouring Sib...
Read MoreDiary – Finding The Reindeer Herders in Northern Mongolia

The Tsaatan, or Dukha as they self-identify, are a people of reindeer herders in Northern Mongolia who rely on reindeers to meet many of their basic n...
Read MoreDiary – Mörön to Tsagaan Nuur – A Journey From Hell

When you travel large distances, the journey is just as much a part of the adventure. The journey going from Mörön to Tsagaan Nuur was no different an...
Read More