Most people do get sick on the road at one point in their travels. If you are lucky, your illness will require a quick trip to the doctor and some antibiotics or anti-parasite medication. If you are me, your illnesses will straddle several continents, a multitude of body parts and an exploration of Eastern and Western medicine – all in the span of one year.

Dispatches from the longest border crossing of all time, from Siberia to Mongolia.

After almost 2 weeks of train travel through Russia’s cities and Siberia’s wilderness, I’m at a loss about where to start this wrap up. Given that I’m off again this evening (overnight train to Ulan-Ude, Siberia) I’ll do a bullet point wrap up for each place we’ve visited, and the trains as a whole.

There is something utterly spellbinding about the Trans-Siberian Railway. The brutally hot summers in the Gobi desert, the terrifyingly cold winters in Siberia and the sheer massiveness of 10 time zones in going from Point A to Point B all contribute to the magnetic appeal of the trip.