Travel Journal

The south of Kazakhstan was a great place and especially the yurt stay was a great way of feeling part of it all but it's time to travel back home now. Leaving Kazakhstan was a strange experience because Astana, the new capital, was hit by a snowstorm the night before we left. The train arrived from Karaganda covered in snow and the train track was also covered by a thick layer of snow, but no problem, the second coldest capital in the world is used to some snow so we took of exactly on time. We traveled to Moscow and strangely enough already 1 hour outside of Astana, the snow disappeared ...... bummer.....I had hoped to shoot a picture of St Basil covered in snow!

After 55 hours we reached Moscow. I spend a great evening on the Red Square shooting pictures of the most dramatic sunset I've seen in a long time. The next day I had a look on Arbat street and visited Izmaylovo market to do some last souvenir shopping. At night we hopped on the night train to St Petersburg, another 8 hours in a sleeper. Revisiting St Petersburg was great especially because spring had arrived and the weather was lovely for sightseeing. It was great to see the Church of the Saviour on Spilled Blood again and this time luckily, it was possible to see the inside of the church; 7,000 sq meters of beautiful mosaics. It was a shame I only had 1 day to explore St. Petersburg but it was time to leave Russia because the stupid Russian embassy only wanted to give me a transit visa for 6 days. In the evening I took the night bus to Tallinn and after 6 hours on the bus I was back in the EU after almost 11 months.

After 2 days in Tallinn I took the bus to Riga, another 4 hours in the bus. It was great to be back in Riga and I spend a wonderful day exploring the city and enjoying the great spring weather. In the evening I took the boat to Travemunde, another 36 hours of traveling. The boat trip was great, sleeping, reading, eating, writing and time to contemplate.... the last part of my amazing journey. From Travemunde I took a bus, a train and more trains and after 8 hours I arrived in Hilversum.........home at last.

The trip back home was a long one, thousands of kilometers, many border crossings, many nights sleeping in moving beds (but I'm really used to it by now) and so many beautiful views along the way.

I'm back home now, the great part is seeing everybody again and having great talks with all my friends, the hard part is trying to fit in again......a normal life......no more backpack and no more trains, boats or busses to catch.....

I'm quite busy at the moment simple to get organized again, but I definitely want to take time to contemplate and look back on this epic journey and share it with you!