Plans for a Birthday adventure

[fluffymark]

Adventures are fun. Yay adventures!! Despite already having a Polish adventure booked for a months time, I’m still far from sated in my travelling urges. Soooooooooooo without further ado.....

My Birthday is in mid-February. It appears to now be traditional to go travelling on a short cheap break for it, and to drag as many people as possible along. snow_leopard is getting things organized, so if anyone is even theoretically interested in going, please please PLEASE fill in her (publicly accessible) I want to go on fluffymark’s birthday holiday poll. Filling it in doesn’t commit you to anything, I just want to know who’s potentially interested. Riga is top of my list of places to visit, as I’ve been drooling over mal1‘s photos of Riga all week. Pretty pretty pretty. An explosion of Art Nouveau. *swoooons*

ALSO even after Poland, I still have a whole half of my holiday allowance left for this year (until end of December). Unbelievable. What to do with it? Am most annoyed that just when I find myself with the money and time to afford a dirty weekend abroad, I find I’m still Single. Grrrrr. Any Ideas?

Also have even BIGGER plans for next summer. Trans-Siberian railway from Moscow->Beijing, via a million fab places in Siberia, Lake Baikal, Mongolia and the Great Wall of China. Will require mega amounts of planning, and I’m hoping to find others to go with. Anyone up for a real adventure?

*hopeful bounces*

Comments

[davefish.livejournal.com]

Also have even BIGGER plans for next summer. Trans-Siberian railway from Moscow->Beijing, via a million fab places in Siberia, Lake Baikal, Mongolia and the Great Wall of China. Will require mega amounts of planning, and I’m hoping to find others to go with. Anyone up for a real adventure?

That sounds fantastic! How long do you think that it'll take to do?

[fluffymark]

The train takes a week from Moscow -> Beijing, but thats with no getting off to see places. It all depends how much we want to see and how many stops along the way we do. Could be done in 2 weeks with only the odd stop at major places, or 3 weeks with more or longer stops. That'd depend who I'm going with and what we want to see, of course. :)

You possibly interested? :)

[davefish.livejournal.com]

I might well be interested :)
Okay, perhaps more truthfully, I am very interested and keen, btu I am not sure how sensible it might be to fit it in with things.

I had a fantastic time when I went interrailing, and that was to much more prosaic locations.

[bluesbell.livejournal.com]

Riga? I'm interested :)

Ooh, Poland...I hope you're going to see Gdansk, it's so pretty and so old.

Hm...

[alektoeumenides.livejournal.com]

Well, if I'm free, I might join you for part of the trains sib. All depends.

Why not return to Russki-land for your break? I mean, I know there are plenty of other cool places to go to, but coming here will mean if you travel alone, it's ok cos I'll be here :)

*real* winter? heh.

can't promise it'll be particularly dirty though. Aside from the usual Russian scumminess.

[squirmelia.livejournal.com]

Mongolia and stuff, yes, indeed, although it may depend on when exactly. I have a Mongolian phrasebook now, and have been reading the Mongolia Lonely Planet guide and also that BBC book Underneath a blue sky, or something like that. I am becoming a bit Mongolia obsessed.

In a few weeks, I am starting Russian classes, which hopefully will be fun.

[mal1.livejournal.com]

Go to Riga! Go to Riga! You'll love it!

In front of the Freedom Monument, poignant and cherished national symbol of Latvia's independence, is this monument to... chocolate. (And rather nice chocolate it is too.)


I think Riga's got fluffymark written all over it...

[redcountess]

Actually, David and I are planning on having our own adventure next Summer and going to Canada, then possibly driving down the east coast :-)

[gothstew.livejournal.com]

I am very interested. Could you let me know rough expenses and time needed off work. That sounds amazing, you talked about it when we went around in Camden and I have fancied Russia for some time, and your tales certainly caught my interest.

[gnimmel.livejournal.com]

Mmmm, Mongolia. I'm (provisionally) interested. :)

[fluffymark]

Yep yep yep and Yay for interest. Thats entirely my philosopy of it, as to be blantently honest the whole idea is enturely unsensible, which is exactly why I want to go there.

I'll be sure to post more musings on the idea soon when I have more of a plan. :)

[fluffymark]

Yaaaaaaaaaaay! I'd love you to come, becasue you're wonderful and I miss you.

snow_leopard has been making noises that you've not filled out the poll, but Riga is currently the most favoured location, so thats almsot certainyl where we'll end up. We'll keep you informed of the plan, as soon we'll be deciding on exact dates to go there.

Sadly only got 5 days in Poland this time, and will be concentrating on Warsaw and Krakow and there won't be time for Gdansk, much as I'd love to go there. Therefore saving that treat for another trip.

Re: Hm...

[fluffymark]

You'd be most appreiciated if you did come on the trans-sib, as you at least know at least some basic Russian (unlike me who used to but it went away somewhere). Do let me know if you think you can be free. :)

Am sorely tempted to go to Russia and finally visit you in Moscow. Either as a separate trip, or possibly tagged on to the end of the Riga/Tallinn thing for my Birthday (as it's looking like thats what it'll be). Could be complicated, as my current passport expires at the end of February. But yes, I want to see *real* winter. I've wanted to go for *years*. I shouln't throw this chance away, while theres someone nice I know there to visit.

[fluffymark]

Tell me all about Mongolia (other than the odd "cheese" I remember you telling me of before). I need to know. I wish to know. :)

Have not even remotely fixed a date yet, vaguely sometime next year, when it's not too cold to do it. So anytime really.

Best of luck with your Russian classes. I did attempt to learn it once when I had lots of time, but sadly I've lost most of that now. :/

[fluffymark]

Wow! Riga is very me. I must go there. :)

Must add that I loved hearing of your adventures around the Baltic. You found many places I didn't and some of them looked very nice. :)

[fluffymark]

Wow! That does sound like fun. :)

[fluffymark]

Time - as I've said above, the train if taken non-stop takes a week. But that would miss half the point. So we'll stop at the interesting places along the way. That depends on who's going and what they find interesting and all sort of other things, so it could be anything between about 2 weeks up to a month I guess. It really will be an adventure. I've not really looked into the cost, but considering plane flights from either end, plus train costs plus places to stay on the way and food and stuff - at a guess about £1000, but that could be a massive under or over-estimate depending on how long the trip takes and what we end up doing. Russia is unique and exceptional, and Siberia has an air of remoteness not felt anywhere else I've been to. As for Mongolia, it just sounds way too exciting. :)

[fluffymark]

Yay, this is good. I knew you were as we talked about this at the Cambridge beer festival. I thought it was about time to come up with a plan NOW if it's going to have a good chance of acually happening at some point next year. I'll post more ideas up soon, when I have them. :)

[squirmelia.livejournal.com]

The only Mongolia-related LJ (in English) I've really found so far is:
whatisit

Lonely Planet guide thinks that the best way to see Mongolia is to go in a group and hire a jeep with a driver. You can camp for free in most places, even within Ulaan Baatar. Going in the summer is definitely better because dairy products are frequently eaten, as opposed to just meat. Sometimes marmots are eaten, although they've been known to carry bubonic plague.

I think summer is between about July and September (can't quite remember - shall check later), but it's also the time when there is the most rainall. Nadaam festival is in July, and unless you want to go to the festival a lot, it's best not to go at that time, because everywhere gets really busy. I'd prefer to go late August or September, but that's just because that was when I was planning to start travelling, and will have no ties after that. :)

Edge of Blue Heaven: Journey Through Mongolia by Benedict Allen
is the BBC book I'm reading. It's very easy to read, but is still interesting and has some nice pictures. Apparently it was to accompany a documentary that was on BBC2 in 1998. Shame I didn't see it.

In Mongolia, the written language mainly uses a modified cyrillic alphabet, but the traditional Mongolian script is being reintroduced.

Blue is the special colour.

A lot of the population is nomadic, and sometimes people move about 10 times a year.

Re: Hm...

[alektoeumenides.livejournal.com]

Well, the fact that your passport expires at the end of Feb may well make getting a visa for Feb impossible. Anyway, you said you had holiday left for the end of this year.

I think it would be fun for you to get here, maybe some time in December. Although unfortunately the best time is around Christmas, when you'll be doing family things...maybe for once, trash the family thing? I know it's easy for me to say, but on the other hand, how many chances like this will you get?

The British Counil closes from the 22nd of December to the 9th of Jan. If I decide to stay here, I'll be vaguely free then, unless I take more cover work with BKC (but I can avoid that if I have visitors :)). Marcus will be going to Sweden too, so there'll be plenty of space here!

Re: Hm...

[fluffymark]

Oh, now I'd not really thought of that, but thats a very very good plan. :)

If I aim to be there for New Year and the week before, which may or may not include Christmas, that would work, especially as they land on weekends this year. And then I get the joy and icy coldness of Russian Winter and a Val! Yay. :) I'll feel slightly guilty if I don't go and visit home, but maybe I can do that a week before, or something. I'm sure something will work. Consider me very strongly interested. What do you think? :)

Still don't know if I can carry over holidays to next year, or if I have to go all-out on a holiday splurge this winter. :)

*excited*

Re: Hm...

[alektoeumenides.livejournal.com]

Go on, go for it. Although I'm contemplating going away for Christmas/new year, I've *never* been *here* for that time of year (not that it's that great, but it's the principle of the thing, right?) and as you have some time, why not turn up?

It really depends on your family thing. And you'll be f***ing cold. But basically, turn up anytime you like - just remember that I'll be busy until the 22nd of December (a Wednesday by the way) and after that I can engineer being free (albeit poor) for a good two+ weeks.

Let me know *soon* because if I decide to go somewhere I'll have to book *now*.