I have experimented with filter coffee and coffee bags. You can have a reasonable cup of coffee that way, as long as you take care not to scold the coffee and to get the dilution ratio right. But this trip I’m keen to have a proper “Class A” coffee fix in the morning, so I have brought along my Handpresso machine.

With a bit of practice you can make a really decent espresso with this device. Simply fill the reservoir with hot water (ideally pre-warm the device), add a coffee pad (or loose ground coffee), then pressurise to 16 bar using the pump. Finally, when you are ready to go, just press the button.

My Handpresso has an upgraded filter that slows down the extraction time a bit and delivers something with real body and a super crema.. all in about 30 seconds.

Perfect before togging up and heading out onto the platform!

I was talking to Keith (my official expedition fitness and motivational advisor) last week about how I try to stay in touch on the move. He thought readers might like to know more about the technical side to how I run my blog, something I was I little surprised to consider might be at all interesting.. Given he is right about most things, this post is therefore a guide as to how I write and prepare my blog.

First of all, let me dispel the myth that it might be possible to effectively upload blog posts on the move. Travelling and blogging by train is perhaps more akin communicating from a nuclear submarine – every few days you have to come up to the surface and send messages. In my case it’s about waiting for the next free wi-fi connection.. I have tried using 3G signals from the train as I pass through big cities, but as my blog posts mainly contain images they can take a while to upload. I have found to my cost that he worst situation you can possibly get into with blogging is lost sync between devices and a failed or partial upload – so I have given up trying to do this. I do actually have a tech friend who uses a kitchen colander to boost his 3G signal from his motorhome, but this might create suspicion on a Russian train – I hear every train still has the modern equivalent of a KGB officer on board!

It’s important to me that I write my blog in real time like a diary, so I finish posts and then save them as a local draft each day – then when I next find some reliable wi-fi I can then upload them with the press of a button. As they have been saved as draft files in real time, they get posted in the right order – by the date they were written, not uploaded. I like to write a blog in the morning and then update it as the day unfolds.
This post becomes a bit techie and possibly tedious now, so read no further if you have no interest in how to blog!

I use two apps for writing my blog on my iPad – Blogger and BlogPress. For my first trip I realised at the last minute the layout limitations of the mobile Blogger app and switched to third party BlogPress just as my ship was setting sail from Newcastle. Then last year the opposite, Blogger functionality was fixed and BlogPress was full of bugs. There is no reason why you can’t travel with more than one editor app as they all sync up with the native blog. Doing some reading today it seems an app called Blogsy is the new kid on the block. I might try that as well. Anyway, they all serve the same basic purpose, which is to allow me to write the blog, edit it and add pictures from my iPad. It’s just a matter of how many bells & whistles you need.. I think the main reason I prefer Blogger at the moment is once you have saved a draft, re-editing is cleaner and avoids and HTML code appearing on the page. With that said, BlogPress allows you to use tags and also schedule dates to publish posts. Neither have a preview facility and formatting can sometimes look a bit odd, so you have to publish, read and re-edit.

Next up is image editing and uploading. You need to get into a procedure for this and stick to it. I remove the memory card from my phone and immediately “lock it” (so I can’t accidentally delete its contents) and plug it into my iPad using a proprietary camera connector. Be careful with camera connectors, as non Apple ones have a habit of working fine at first, then after a couple of weeks not working any more, or only when salmon is on the menu in the Russian restaurant carriage. I always carry a spare now as it is a mission critical device. Once the images are copied onto my camera roll I just reverse the procedure, unlock the card and put it back in the camera. Really annoyingly IOS writes a little file onto the card when you copy it. This used to confuse and slow down my Fuji X10 camera unless I reformatted the card. I impressed myself a few weeks ago and managed to install some new firmware for the camera, and it looks like this is now fixed.

Now the creative bit. Rather than just copying in images from my photo roll, instead I launch Adobe PhotoShop Express on my iPad and there I can do quite a lot of tinkering. Once I’m happy, I save the edited photo back to the camera roll in “Photos”. The final step is to use another app called iWatermark to add a subtle blog signature. I’m glad I tried it all again today as I had to buy a new version of this app to be compatible with IOS8.

I hope this post has been of some help. In summary, my advice is simply to get into a routine that works for you and test the whole end to end process before you set off. Sounds obvious but this is at the time when you start running about doing all those last minute things. Ideally stay away from home for a couple of days, as this will force you to confront any issues with time to spare!

Oh and finally, just to report that I have posted this blog today by tethering my iPad to my iPhone with a 3G signal here in the U.K. – so it is possible, but don’t rely on it..

If you followed my trip to Shanghai last December you might remember one of my biggest issues was that I had the wrong sort of luggage. Well I have new plan. I have ditched the trusty North Face XL Base Camp duffel bag and replaced it with a hard-sided suitcase. Now that I know the resupply points better, I don’t need to carry any rations until I reach Moscow, so thats another bag gone too.

I visited my local luggage Mecca the other day and must have spent about an hour looking at different suitcases. I think the man in the shop thought I had a luggage fetish, and perhaps I do. My problem was that all the suitcases that looked about the right size outside didn’t seem big enough inside.. and then I thought of “Del Griffith” and smiled. I did used to own a trunk a long time ago..

Suitcase, Tardis and emergency toboggan, all rolled into one!

I have settled on a Samsonite Inova Spinner (81cm) model that has four wheels and is in an upright configuration. It looks like it is made of aluminium but its actually made of some clever polymer and weighs just 5kg. I know it looks massive, but at least its portable and it will fit into the large size left luggage locker found in European railway stations (90cmx60cmx40cm). The main advantage of the duffle was that it fitted under the seat on many sleeper trains. This one won’t and I will have to be more inventive with where I put it. But on the upside its easy to push along narrow corridors and will be more secure. I also have a simple combination wire lock to attach it luggage racks or if it has to go into a corridor.

That’s probably enough on luggage for now, but if you are a potential Trans-Sib adventurer, its worth making sure you don’t do what I did last time and find yourself with a 40kg duffel on your back climbing stairs with bags in both hands. Wheels are the future!

I thought some of you might like to know how the left luggage service works now. Although the station is being redeveloped, there is still a big left luggage area and a security guy on duty at the entrance. There is no traditional service though, you have to use lockers and the automated system.

If you read this blog you will know of my luggage issues, so my first mission this morning was working out how to use this facility. I’m spelling this out as I found very little detail about this online. For those that have used these machines before I know its so simple, but as there are no real instructions there, I’m going to recap for first timers like me.

1) The first thing you do is find an empty locker – it will have a green flag on the door (red means its being used). There are two sizes, I found the bigger ones further down the passageway on the left. Big ones are about 90x40x60 cms – I have guessed those dimensions, but my bag is 90cms long and it fitted in fine.

2) Put your luggage in the locker and close the door – it will lock straightaway, but don’t panic!

3) Very close to your locker will be a ticket machine – as you have just closed your locker door, the number of your locker (its printed on the locker door) will appear on the LCD screen (with multi language options).

4) The deal is that you pay a flat fee for the first 24 hours, and a supplement after this time up to a maximum of 72 hours. This means its as simple as putting in your chip & pin type credit card, entering the PIN, and it charges you and issues your ticket. The large lockers are E 12.70 today. I didn’t see the price of the small ones.

5) When you collect your luggage you insert your ticket back in the machine (it has a bar code) and hey presto, your locker door opens.

6) Bear in mind that once opened you have to pay for another 24 hours to re-lock it.

7) The machines don’t take cash, but I hear you can buy a token card elsewhere in the station. There are lots of helpful information people about in the station concourse who are also massively multi lingual

8) The man guarding the room doesn’t look like he is going to help anyone. I may be wrong, as I guess if you lost your ticket he is the man who would have to sort it all out. If you have any problems I suggest you get someone who is leaving their own luggage to help you.

9) if you can’t find the left luggage facility, as you enter from the front of the station turn right and head to the East side – it’s clearly signed but it is behind the ticket barriers. I didn’t find the barriers working ( maybe its just in rush hour?). Anyway, someone would let you through..

I hope that’s helpful – possibly the only guide to the luggage machines at Amsterdam Centraal on the web!

– Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

There might be a flaw in my thinking there, as I don’t know how comparable the “real world” of the Quayside in Newcastle might be to the Siberian tundra – the locals are both friendly, but one is a bit more chilly and and has a more limited phone signal.

First up was a trial of moving my pictures from my camera memory card to my iPad. This worked brilliantly using a proprietary plug in Apple card reader. The pictures are automatically detected and bingo, they are copied straight to your Photos folder in seconds. You then get to choose if you want to delete the images from the card or not. The only drawback I can see is that I don’t think you can select just to copy just a few images, the whole lot needs to be copied over and then selectively deleted.

Next step was to fire up Blogger, which I have found to be easy to use at home. However, I soon discovered that the mobile app for Blogger is actually about as useful as a chocolate teapot. The main drawback is with pictures. It does not let you choose where to place them, and looks like you can only add one per blog post. This is simply mad and frankly, disappointing.

After some quick research, I decided that the solution was to get hold of Blogpress from the app store and install it on my iPad. All I had to do then was to set up my passwords from Blogger and Picassa and hey presto I was up and running in minutes. In my view Blogpress looks slightly more “scrappy” visually when editing posts, but has much better functionality – including precise placement of images and control of their size. The published blog is therefore much better.

So I now have the choice of using Blogger or Blogpress – both sync all my posts whichever I choose to use. I’m also still using Twitterfeed. This automatically sends a Tweet when I post a new blog, with preset hash tags. Very neat and so far, very reliable.

I hope this might be of help if like me you are new to blogging – especially if its going to be for use on the move.

– Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

I’m back at Toad Hall today after a few days in London. On Friday I collected my passport (now with all four visas) and my paper Trans-Siberian rail tickets for my journey as far as Beijing. It feels like I’m almost there with the planning now..

Before I packed up my trip dossier for the final time today I scanned and copied all my important documents. I have decided on a three fold system in case I lose something, or worst case, have it stolen. Firstly, I have a spare copy of all documents in my duffle bag (separate from the originals). Secondly, I have sent a scan of all the documents to my email account in the cloud – all in one file marked ‘Emergency”. Finally, thirdly, I have copied all the documents to my USB stick. Its not any old memory stick though, its an IronKey – described by some as “the World’s most secure flash drive”.

I won’t give you a big gadget pitch on this item, but if you do some research you will see its a device with military grade encryption co developed by Lockheed Martin. The US approve it for storage of government data, and its easy to see why – apart from the hardware based encryption, its built out of solid shock resistant metal. If the original “Mission Impossible” were still being made today, they would  definitely use them as it literally self destructs the data if the wrong password is entered more times than the set number!

Elsewhere on the security front I have now pulled together a few belts and bags to hold my cash and documents in. This isn’t very “hi tech”, but I’m going to use two money belts and a round the neck pouch for my passport. I have small piles of low denomination notes and they take up quite a bit of space..

Is that a pile of Roubles in your pocket or are you just pleased to see me?

I think thats about it for now – I hope this post was of interest – do leave a comment below to let me know if you found this helpful.

One of my greatest Trans-Siberian nightmares (at least of the realistically possible ones) is being left behind in the middle of nowhere with all my gear still on the train trundling towards Mongolia. Apparently it does happen, normally when people get off in search of food and get either cut off or distracted from the right platform. There are no hoots or whistles – it just departs. Having once had to run for a moving train (Inter Rail, Nice – Bologna, 1986), I’m not sure if I’m now in good enough shape to catch it once it gets moving..

Most people who have done the trip comment on the weirdness of Trans-Siberian train timekeeping. Let me explain. The train starts out on Moscow time, thats GMT +4. As it crosses East it reaches as far as GMT +9 in Irkutsk, then back to +8 as it arrives into Beijing. However, the train timetable stays on Moscow time for the whole trip, whilst daily life (and vitally the restaurant carriage) work on local time. Its therefore possible to have dinner when others are having breakfast and every permutation of time lag in between!

The scheduled stops are listed on a timetable posted by the Provodnitsa inside the carriage, but I hear it can be hard to work out (mainly written in Chinese, Mongolian & Russian). I’m the kind of person who has to be early for the plane, so it wont surprise you to learn that I’m going to use technology to de-risk being left behind as best as possible. I have two key gadgets for this job.

The first is my ultra dependable Breitling watch. I have had it for about 15 years now and its perfect for travel. Its made of titanium, so its very light and it has a display on the dial so you can see a second time zone. It also has an alarm, timer and countdown function. The marketing blurb from Breitling points to it as a “professional” series watch for pilots. My model is actually called the “Repetition Minutes” – this refers to the facility to press the crown and hear the time as a series of long and short beeps. Very handy indeed if you only have one hand free in the cockpit of your F-16! I don’t always wear it when I’m away as its slightly flashy, but I have decided for this trip it is a must have.

My iPad 3 on IOS6 with new World clock function

The second is my new iPad. Or at least it was new last week, but Apple have updated it again, so its a now a “not quite so new, new iPad3”. IOS6 has for the first time put a proper clock function on the iPad, and it looks perfect for the Trans-Siberian. I have set mine up for time zones along the route – you can see above how it also shows daylight/darkness, and when there is 3G or wi-fi, the local weather. Of course the chances of getting wi-fi on the Trans-Siberian are slimmer than Michael Schumacher winning the F1 World Championship again, but I felt it my duty to point out to you the functionality..

The common best advice seems to be work on local time so your body adjusts as you go East – this means just having Moscow time only as a reference point for the arrival and departure times at key stops (all 33 of them). I also hopefully will have a Provodnitsa who will help me decode the length of time at key stops.

By the way, if you were wondering, I did manage to get on the Bologna bound sleeper train in 1986. Once I had done the comedy run down the platform and climbed on (pretending thats how I always got on a train), I realised I was not in the right carriage and they had all been locked at each end for the night. Cue another mission outside the moving train at night to get into my couchette. It is true that young people view risks differently to the rest of us!

I woke this morning with a confirmed case of man flu (although I thought might be Congo fever at first!). It crossed my mind that I probably picked up the bug on the train last week, which in turn reminded me of “The Cassandra Crossing” (see my “Great Train Flicks” blog). Anyway, I’m trying to do something semi productive today, even though I would rather be in bed, so I’m going to talk about my camera.

I gave up lugging a big camera on my travels decades ago. I used to carry two SLRs and several lenses plus all the bits and bobs that you swear you need to make you a better photographer. Then I gave up and carried nothing for several years, preferring instead to enjoy what I saw without having to look at things through a lens. Having an iPhone camera has coaxed me back to the odd spontaneous shot, and a couple of years a ago I bought a Leica D Lux – if I’m honest more as an excuse to go back to Sri Lanka and photograph the elephants!

Well this trip has provided another excuse, as I have re equipped with train travel in mind. In my defence, I was planning to carry the D Lux on the Trans-Siberian until early one morning at the airport I spotted the new range of Fuji “retro” cameras. It took me about a week to justify having one, research which one suited my needs and buy it.

I plumped for the X10 – its the smaller one with the fixed lens. I wont bore you with the detailed specification here, but in summary it has 12MP resolution, a fastish F2-2.8 lens (like 28-112 on a 35mm camera) and a nifty 2/3 inch CMOS EXR sensor. You can see more detail here – Fujifilm X10 at Amazon, who are selling it today for £319

I have had mine now for a month or so and I love it. For me its the ultimate compromise – small and light, as manual as you want, and it takes brilliant photographs. If you do your research you will find reference to some sensor problems in low light in the original version. I was worried about this, but am happy to report that the latest models have a newly adapted sensor – look for a serial number of 21N or later (mine is 23N).

My Fuji X10 with some upgrades

In  terms of Trans-Siberian requirements, I have purchased two spare batteries. As I discovered, a battery isn’t always the battery you think it is. Many batteries describe themselves as “X10 compatible” (often called NP-50) but actually have a lower capacity than the original – look for ones that have “1000 mHa” – I even ordered one on line described as this, but a 750 mHa one was delivered, so be careful. I have also purchased the two 16GB Sandisk Extreme memory cards – plenty of space, and the neat Apple adapter to allow me to connect the camera or flash card to my iPad for editing and blogging on the move. Finally a USB converter so I can blog with pictures from internet cafes.

The X10 itself is out of the box, but I have added a few extras – a decent wrist strap, a neutral density filter and lens hood, a screen protector, a soft shutter release button and a bubble level (in the flash shoe).
I’m hoping you are going to like my photos – there are some lovely creative settings that you can load into the camera modes – so with the click of a dial I can move from news photography black and white mode taking 5 fps, to single shot colour film stock like Astia, Provia and Velvia.
Finally, I have now managed to turn off all the bleeps, bells and whistles so I can be as covert as possible. I’m also going to carry it in a small Tenba bag rather than round my neck. If you are interested in that, there is a good review here on YouTube

Back from a five hour train trip to London yesterday. Five hours seemed a fair while, so wondering how five days might feel, or two weeks? I don’t think its comparable as I didn’t have all my stuff, and lets face it, there is hardly much interaction with other passengers on the 13.00 East Coast service from Kings Cross!

I thought you might like to see my small arsenal of eating irons. A minor Trans-Siberian packing point you might think, but not something I’m going to leave to chance.

Left to right – Swiss Army ‘Climber” knife, “Sodbuster” Junior knife, camping KFS and selection of plastic “sporks”..

I was always going to bring my trusty black Swiss Army (Victorinox) knife with me, but then I realised I probably needed some other eating orientated weaponry. I bought the KFS from a camping shop – they are a bit heavy, but otherwise good. The Sodbuster knife, which I have now sharpened like a razor, will be for cutting through Russian sausage and platform food. The sporks are a “back up” plan – I could probably get rid of them, but you never know..

All the above are street carry legal in the countries I will be visiting. The Sodbuster is 2.75 inches (7cm) long and does not lock – these are the two key factors in determining legality in the UK, but also in much of the rest of the world, from what I have found out.

I purchased a special Japanese whetstone to sharpen knife blades (from Global knives) and have followed plenty of advice – one side of the blade at a time, a 14 degree sharpening angle, then repeat on the other side once you have an “over sharpened” effect (I think its called a “wire”) on the first side. It seems to have worked well, so I’m going to be careful not to accidentally cut anything important off, as the first aid kit on the train is, I understand, to be quite basic.

The only reason I discovered the existence of the “golden key” was when I started looking into how to open the window to my compartment if it got too hot. I understand that in the winter it can do owing to the Russian desire for a “toasty feel” to the carriage. Given I’m hoping not to share my first SV compartment with anyone, there should be no arguments and I’m hoping to secretly get some ventilation.

Rumours are to be found in several travel blogs that the key to the windows, the compartment doors and the toilet door are in fact identical to the humble British Gas meter cupboard key. This would be what the Provodnitsa carries too for the same purpose.. I hope you don’t think I’m a bad person for telling you this!

Given then how easy it is then to thwart Trans-Siberian on board security, a few other things to consider…

Firstly, toilets. Apparently these are locked before arriving into stations as some trains just empty straight onto the tracks. I’m not for a moment suggesting that you open this door as it does not sound like a pleasant idea. However, I also hear that some trains now use a pressurised system with a holding tank, so they would not be locked. I’ll get back to you on that one. One alarming report I heard was of a Provodnitsa actually opening the door and evicting someone “ablouting”as the train was approaching a station..!

Secondly, your compartment door. It has two locks. The one you lock inside that can be opened by this key above, and a second latch that you can only open from the inside. I’m going to use both. I have read an article by Bryn Thomas on Wanderlust that there is a technique to improve security further by using a cork from a wine bottle to stop someone using a knife to open this (second latch?)

Here are some useful words from Poezda.net on security aboard (it has a great “guidebook” section)

“There is no particular need to worry about security on Russian trains, as long as you use common sense, lock your door at night and don’t leave valuables unattended in your compartment. In addition to the normal lock on the compartment door, ‘Spalny Wagon’ and ‘kupe’ compartments have a security latch which stops the door opening more than an inch or two, and which cannot be released from outside. 
  There’s also a safe place for your bags at night – if you have a bottom bunk, there is a metal box underneath the bunk which you can only get to by lifting up the bunk – in other words, for anyone to get to your bags, they will have to shift you off your bunk first! Your provodniks will probably also lock the access doors at each end of the corridor at night to prevent unwanted guests.”

Its food for thought that if you and I know about this, so too might Siberian bandits and Mongolian marauders, so I think getting the Provodnitsa on side sounds like it might be a good idea..