Just south of Ulan Bator, Mongolia, the Gobi Desert begins to show itself. Giant birds of prey, hawks perhaps falcons, swoop overhead. Camels graze freely, while sheep dot the endless brown plain. Ellen and I managed to have a cabin to ourselves for the first four of six nights. The second last night, a young Mongolian girl named Munkhtsetseg (flower always in bloom) and her male chaperone shared our little 8'x 6' space. Eighteen year old Munkhtsetseg was...

"We'll meet at 14:30 here in Red Square to exchange information." I said to Ellen as she was about to slip in the front entrance of the Moscow Armoury to view the crown jewels. "Shall I call you Maxwell Smart or do you wish that I use your code name 86?" she replied in play-along.With a smile and a wink I pretended to pull up the collar on my trenchcoat. I adjusted the brim of my invisible fedora, threw the gal a kiss, then walked straight towards the side en...

The Leningrad blockade saw around one million deaths through shelling, starvation and disease at the hands of the Germans during World War II. The seige lasted almost three years and is often referred to as "The 900 days". To draw a comparison, the United Kingdom and USA suffered combined losses of around 700,000 in the entire Second World War.Ellen had been hounding me to death when we arrived St. Petersburg (formerly Leningrad) about concealing the fact that we...

Countless stories have been written and movies made with the night train as a backdrop. For me it's a romantic adventure, hurtling through the night from one town that I've just gotten used to, to another that promises to be more exciting, or sometimes scarier than the one I've just left. We were stopped at the Russian border on our way to St. Petersburg. It was just after 1:00am when the knock came on our cabin door. Ellen was sleeping like a baby; I...

"Is that the only shirt you brought with you?" Ellen asked as we walked hand-in-hand along the canal in Riga, Latvia. "It says where I'm from and I'm proud of that. I wash and dry it in the night while you sleep, my pretty little bird."Beautiful Old-Town Riga has been found by both the Germans and the British. I sometimes feel fortunate that the world has adopted English as the global language. It's so amusing to watch and listen as the Germans strugg...