The Hermitage

St Petersburg is home to one of the greatest art galleries that not that many people have heard of. The Hermitage houses some amazing works by some very talented folk. We spent about five hours wandering the gallery, which is inside what used to be the Winter Palace for the Russian Royals. I think we only managed to see about a quarter of what the gallery had to offer in that time and Trent and I managed to lose each other for about an hour just in the Italian artists' section.

The Hermitage

A wall of military leaders

The amazing ceiling

Some guy (yes I forgot to take notes) that looks good in black and white

Trent admiring Matisse's Dancers (yes, left open to comment)

So much detail to take in

Leonardo da Vinci's Mother and Child

St Pete's

St Petersburg is decribed as the more artistic, easy going beautiful brother of Moscow. Criss-crossed with canals and housing some amazing architecture and art galleries, this great city dispelled even further our preconceived notions of Russia. With only a few days, we mainly hung around the city, doing plenty of wandering late into the night as the sun doesn't even really ever set this time of year and even at midnight there is still a strange twilight warming the city.

One of the many canals in the middle of the city

And an artists impression of such

Ok, so maybe some of this stuff can still look quite intimidating, especially when shot in black and white

And the name of this beautiful church being the 'church of spilt blood' isn't all that warm 'n' fuzzy

But the colours and detail are spectacular

Long shadows of the never setting sun

An angel looking over the city

Someone fleeing the local paparazzi

Getting to the more interesting underbelly is always possible when you climb a tower

Another street artist

The influence of the orthodox church in Russian history is very evident through the arctitecture

Damn paparazzi

Apparently Dostoevsky used to eat at this establishment so thought it would be a good place to try some caviar

Russia's Golden Ring

We had a chance to escape the big Russian cities a couple of times and headed out to the Golden Ring towns outside of Moscow that were once-upon-a-time the sites of old capitals. Once again, the architecture is overwhelmingly grand, especially the domed monasteries and churches.

The blue and gold domes of the massive monastery of Sergiev Posad

A dove caught in Trent's frame

An less touristed church in Yaroslavl with amazing tiled green domes

And some more modern local artwork on an adjacent wall

Finally some of the best food we had to date in Russia, the food kit on our overnight train from Moscow to St Petersburg- pate, bread, wafers, chocolate, yoghurt (generally the food had been pretty expensive and not that varied given our inability to understand Russian)

Moskvar

A flight from Urumqi, via Novosibirsk, took us out of Asia and into Europe's biggest city, Moscow (Moskvar to the Russians). Far from the dour, grey place it's sometimes made out to be, Moscow is full of pastel pinks, blues and yellows and the glistening domes of the cathedrals in and around Red Square are fantastic.

A Kiwi on our flight happily relayed stories of Russian gangs and street crime prior to our 10pm arrival, and while Russians aren't always great at welcoming smiles and exhibit a penchant for drinking on the street at any time of day, its a pretty relaxed place overall. The weather was perfect, and the city centre dazzling - we were already feeling in a very different part of the world.

St Basil's Cathedral is an amazing sight. Ivan the Terrible was so thrilled with it that he blinded the architects so it would never be equaled

Many of Moscow's buildings are daunting in size but beautiful in appearance

The view across an empty Red Square, with Lenin's tomb overlooking it all

One of the many cathedrals within the Kremlin. Small Russian choirs sing haunting hymns in the dark recesses of these churches - an eerie experience

Around Red Square, the architectural masterpieces abound

Walking over the crest into Red Square, once the centre of the Soviet Empire, is an intense experience

St Basil's bright onion domes

KKH

For four days we waited in Kashgar for the dust to subside so that we could venture to Karakul Lake, which sits just off the famous Karakorum Highway linking China to Pakistan. We had seen beautiful pictures of this mysterious lake, but were dreading that we would not be able to see it for all of the spring dust. On the last possible day for our trip we woke to clear blue skies and headed off with our guide Tudajim and our driver.

As we headed south of Kashgar, the desert plains gave way to rugged sandy mountains

... And then these mountains gave way to snow covered peaks

Locals call this absolute beauty 'Sand Mountain'

One of the locals

Here is Karakul lake - the Kyrgyz yurt village that we stayed in is dwarfed by the surrounding mountains

Trent and our driver tucking into some local Kyrgyz cuisine inside our stunningly decorated all-in-one kitchen/living/bedroom

The hospitable local people that we stayed with

The view back to our village when we went for a stroll around the lake

Who thought we would have seen so many camels near the snow

Unfortunately, our time at Karakul Lake wasn't all beautiful scenery... it will also be remembered as a time when I got the sickest that I have been for a while. Without going into graphic details, let's just say that my tummy didn't agree with the half a dozen cups of yak butter tea, or maybe the yak soup, and at 11pm, 11:15pm, 11.30pm 11.40pm, 2am and 3am... I made dashes out into the exceedingly cold and windy night air to go to the open air toilet (ie dirt paddock). I dragged Trent out on some of these excursions (as official torch holder), including at 5am, when, to our surprise, it was snowing! By 7am, the wind had died completely, revealing an amazingly tranquil scene.

This is what we woke to - magic

This was the end of 14 months in Asia for us. The contrast between Karakul lake and our starting point of bustling Seoul reinforcing to us the incredible diversity of this continent.

Kashgar- Home of the Uighurs

For our final week in China we travelled yet further west and into the Uighur heartland of Kashgar. The Uighurs are a central Asian race of people that in no way resemble the Han Chinese from the east in respect to their appearance, food, language or religion.

Kashgar is a historical silk road town that sits on the edge of the Taklamakan desert, which at this time of year can be transformed into a raging storm of dust and sand. We experienced this first hand when, having flown to within 30 mins of Kashgar, the pilot announced that the plane was turning back because of visibility problems. Our flight, originally due to arrive at 10am, eventually got us there at 11pm after we were sent to a hotel to wait out the weather (admittedly this ended up being out nicest accommodation in China!).

Uighur men chatting on the steps of the Id Kah Mosque

The colours and shapes of buildings in Kashgar's old town

One of the favourite Uighur pastimes- sipping black (rather than 'Chinese' green) tea

One of our favourite aspects of Xinjiang cuisine was the Enani bread- consumed with almost every meal and cooked in an oven like a tandoor

On the outskirts of Kashgar lies the Abakh Hoja Tomb- as well as the burial site for one of Kashgar's rulers, it is also claimed to be the resting place of a concubine of a Chinese Emperor

Trent colour coordinated with the spectacular green glazed tiles of the tomb

A lakeside teahouse was a good way to escape the heat of the day

Some silk from the Silk Road

One of Kashgar's wildest scenes is the livestock market. Held every Sunday it sees tens of thousands of people flock to town to buy and sell all creatures great and small.

A dusty mass of people and animals

Before the deal is done, a test ride is in order!

A young entrepreneur does a stocktake

We couldn't believe the passive obedience of this arrangement...

...but not all participants are as cooperative