trans-siberia

i did it!

last summer.

9,289 km from moscow to vladivostok.
(just to compare: south africa to the middle of europe is about the same distance...)

144 hours 45 minutes on trains.

all my russian colleagues thought i'd gone completely nuts when i told them about my planned trip. why would one want to spend 6 days and nights on russian trains as holiday?! i caused even more headshaking when i said that i wanted to travel in 3rd class ("platskartny") as much as possible. why why why?! would everyone ask me. hi hi... it got even worse when i announced that i was going to do this all by myself, all alone...

and i did it! during 3 weeks. and i loved every single minute of it!

i had some of the best moments in russia during my transsib trip. forget about them moscovites, they are a different species of their own. i encountered so much friendliness and warmness during my trip. probably also exactly because i was by myself. one young (yes!) chick traveling by herself caused a lot of openness from the side of the russians.

i took a lot of pictures from all the places i visited. kazan, ekaterinburg, novosibirsk, krasnoyarsk, irkutsk, lake baikal and olkhon island, ulan ude and ivolginsk, khabarovsk and vladivostok. and all my russian colleagues were really impressed and somewhat envious about my trip. i had seen much more of russia than them. now they all want to do it as well...

i say, go for it!