6am - Early start again! I thought this was supposed to be relaxing? This time I was started from a deep sleep with the arrival into a small somewhat insignificant village in the Mongolian section of the Gobi desert. Yet in a way it was the first and most significant place in Mongolia for me. I looked out of the carriage window from my bed to see a row of little wooden houses unlike anything I had seen before in real life. It was like something from the American Wild West. A rough unforgiving landscape of dry brush and houses dotted around a barren platform. There were a few workers in view although most seemed to be nursing the leftovers of yesterday’s drinks. Quite a desolate place and yet at that moment it felt like the richest place on earth to me. China was behind me and who knew what was to come? Although we were officially in the Gobi desert, it was not what most people would associate with a desert type landscape, by Sahara terms at any rate. After the initial excitement of waking up in a new and undiscovered land of unknown potential I couldn’t get back to sleep. I lay looking out of the window and taking in the dry and slaked landscape, took photographs of nothingness and read up on the shape of things to come. Almost immediately I noticed Gers, or felt yurts or tents dotted around the landscape, along with the ubiquitous rolling clumps of bushes, like tumbleweed, you see in the dustbowls of the movies. Coupled with this was he vision of what seemed to be free running wild horses across the plain.Apart from the obvious facial differences of the locals I wouldn’t have been surprised to see ‘the Duke’ ride into view packing his six shooter and Winchester. Eventually I got up from my daydreaming and tried to do something constructive. After wakening one of my compatriots, we went for breakfast in the, now Mongolian, buffet car as much to let the rest of the compartment continue to sleep in peace as for sustenance. Breakfast consisted of two pieces of dried up bread, a pat of butter, some jam, and a cup of pre mixed coffee, milk and sugar - no choices. Strangely, it also included pickled carrot shreds with garlic shards as well. An unusual combination. A far cry from the delicious Chinese meal a few hours before. Already I could feel a western influence on the diet, but was it a good one? Time would tell.
We had to walk the whole way from the back of the train to reach our carriage at the front. I hadn’t noticed any problem with smoke from our carriage when I got up but as I walked back along each of the other carriages I noticed each one was absolutely filled with smoke! Maybe smoking is ‘de rigueur’ in Mongolia I supposed, but why not in carriage number 1? Was there such a thing as a non smoking car policy? As I moved forwards choking slightly, I noticed a lady whose head was wrapped in a towel covering everything but her red rimmed eyes. Perhaps a Muslim lady sporting a burka? No, just to escape the smoke. I realised as I went further forward that the smoke was coming from the engine labouring to pull us through the desert. For some reason the heavy thick smoke was being redirected into the carriages behind. Being in carriage number 1, we were too close to catch this residue and thankfully escaped suffocating during the night. The more we travelled into Mongolia the more the landscape became desert like. Green foothills struggling to survive in adverse conditions - dry and a blisteringly hot 30 degrees in summer, down to minus 40 degrees or even minus 50 degrees in extreme winters - just beggars belief or understanding from a temperate European dweller like myself. It was still very hot: hot enough to have just a pair of shorts on - and barely that. The only way to survive was for the compartment door to be fully open to the views of all and sundry, and the aisle windows to be open also. What we didn’t realise was that the more we ventured into the country the more the Gobi encroached.
Within a couple of hours the landscape had changed to little villages sparsely placed amid full desert plains. With all the doors and windows open we were slowly engulfed with a mini desert of our own. Some of the party who had fallen asleep looked as though they were testing some kind of new facial exfoliate product on one side of their face, given that it was covered in a fine layer of sand. The sandy layer covered bedclothes, seats, pillows, anyone sitting long enough in one place and just about every other surface imaginable. It was a stark choice. Get hot and uncomfortable, or sand blasted and uncomfortable. Some choice. We opted for the mid ground. We made a brief stop in the dreadfully challenged village of Choir (probably pronounced CHO-EER as opposed to a collection of heavenly voices) and saw some children trying to sell crystals and coloured rocks on the platform. The moral question arises - do you buy or not? I personally think any help is better than no help. The majority of people who sell ‘The Big Issue’ in the UK need a helping hand. As they say, it’s a hand up, not a hand out they want. This is my philosophy also. We bought some of the stones much to the chagrin of our fellow passengers, a French couple. I felt that they disapproved of our haggling for a better price. Still, the kids went away some money in their pockets for what was essentially lying around on the ground in the village.
As we approached Ulaanbaatar in the final 100km or so the landscape began to change again to rolling green hills marking the end of the western edge of the Gobi. Horses and gers began to make their presence felt more noticeably on the landscape. Trees began to appear as we rose slowly higher and higher, to the highest capital city in the world. With each upward curve came a drop in temperature. Shorts alone became shorts and T-shirts, then T-shirts and jeans, then jumpers as well. By the time we began to enter the approaches to the city it was raining lightly and decidedly colder. The most surprising fact about Ulaanbaatar was that the written guides only gave about 10 or 20 main streets on the map of the city. This gives you the false impression that it is extremely small. Actually there is about 600,000 or more people living there - approximately half the population of the whole country. That’s about the population of my home city of Belfast. 
In reality though, the outskirts are nothing more than hundreds and hundreds of ger camps. The round felt covered tents that the nomadic people favour. The city centre itself - the city centre of permanent buildings that is - is slightly bigger than the maps suggest but is in such a rough state that it’s very hard to consider it as viable for inclusion in the map. Roads are almost as challenging as the driving. I shall never complain about driving in Spain again….Stepping off the train we gathered our backpacks and extra bags together and looked for the guide who was supposed to meet us. No show. That was okay though, as we had directions as to how to find our accommodation. The regally named ‘Tiara Guesthouse‘. Surely a jewel in the crown of Mongolian guesthouses? Sadly no. We walked with a couple of other travellers who informed us that they already had a run in with bag slashers at the train station. Thankfully nothing of value was taken but it was sobering lesson nonetheless. Never let your guard down. Following the directions to the letter we arrived at an extremely run down and garishly pink coloured apartment block in one of the back streets of the city. A mistake in the directions perhaps? No, over the main entrance door of the post-war communist block of flats was a small sign saying Tiara Guesthouse.
The tour guide company that held our onward train tickets to Russia was in the next apartment to Tiara. The guesthouse itself, and I use that word very loosely, was multiple dorm accommodation. I had no problem with that really but the fact that the front door was in all but pieces and barely lockable didn’t encourage much faith in their security. The toilet facilities were atrocious, with holes around the pipe work, and to top it all no hot water… My party went to complain about this last issue - we had been sweaty and dirty and sandy across one desert and two countries and really needed a shower badly. They were told by the management that there would be no hot water until mid August! Cold showers were had all round but I’m sorry to say I had to complain in person about the situation. I used all my diplomatic skills but got nowhere and am slightly ashamed to say that I felt obliged to mention that I was writing about the trip for a certain newspaper. Instantly the doors of hospitality opened and we were showered - metaphorically - with goodwill gestures. Another young Dutch couple told us they had complained the day or two before had been offered a couple of free trips and accepted them in lieu of hot showers. We were offered the equivalent of a four star two roomed suite at a city centre hotel. I accepted the offer graciously and we were taken by the managers in person to this hotel for top class treatment. WITH HOT WATER! I can’t help but feel that these tour operators take a chance on the unsuspecting young traveller who hasn’t the sense, or the authority of age to argue their point. The operators then charge ridiculous rates for poor quality conditions and make a relative fortune on the backs of the usual student traveller types.The new hotel room, while not the Ritz, was a dramatic improvement on what had gone before. Why did they bend over backwards so much? Well, we found out the next day, but that’s another story. Back to today - as a traveller you always try to be aware of your surroundings and your first impressions are usually right. The hotel reception was on the first floor of yet another downtown apartment block and the door was guarded by a heavily armed private security guard hired directly after the completion of the latest Rambo film. The upper floors contained the hotel rooms. We were on the top floor and I realised that apart from the main staircase outside out door, there was no other escape route in event of fire. We were so tired by this stage that we just didn’t care any more. We had a hot shower in the new hotel room just because we could! Wonderful. Then out into the Wild West streets of Ulaanbaatar.
In all seriousness, there was a threatening feel to the place. A lot of drunken persons about and most things in disrepair - cars, buildings, roads, paths, people. On day one I felt vulnerable. I had no guide, and a language that I couldn’t read or understand. Streets became alleyways, cars slowed down to look at you, especially at night leading to a certain level of paranoia that was probably unjust. By day two in UB (as it is called by ex-pats) we had settled down and accepted the place somewhat, at least during the day. I would say that after a week it would seem home from home. 
Learn some of the language, learn to read the signs and the place would open up before you. So don’t always go by your first impressions. The guide map we purchased was so haphazard that you went by pictures of the buildings you were looking for. They tended to be down side streets and alleyways or behind buildings in out of the way places you could never find. We had dinner in a recommended restaurant ‘The Silk Road’, named after the route we were more or less following from China towards Europe. The old camel drivers route for transporting silk and tea to the European teahouses and shops of cosmopolitan Europe. A terrific meal totally out of keeping with the style of the rest of UB and way beyond the normal price range, but on our first night in town it gave us some much needed westernised comfort. After an uneventful early walk back to the hotel while still daylight we retired to bed instead of finding another bar for a drink. Just too many culture shocks for me in one day.
Waiting Room 2 is a vast hangar of a room capable of holding hundreds of pirouetting passengers. Numbers built up quickly and we were checked onto the platform by unsmiling uniformed staff. On the platform in front of us was the much anticipated train. 
The first of many on our odyssey. It represented a mind shift and a new experience of our journey westwards. Photographs were taken and given and we entered the train breathlessly. It’s strange, but over the coming weeks hundreds, if not thousands, of photographs were taken, but the fervour of those first few hours of constant snapping of new images and impressions tended to become a more relaxed affair. The train would be photographed again and again as it turned yet another gentle curve through the countryside. A curvaceous metal coil snaking it’s way across the Chinese suburbs and wilderness of the Gobi desert. 
As we left the centre of Beijing, the relatively prosperous areas gave way to makeshift communities made from Blue Peter leftovers and sticky back plastic. Poverty was rife. Detritus and filth covered everything. I have wondered why people in such poor conditions can’t clear away some of the left over leftovers and, if not live in rich opulence, at least try to live in relative cleanliness. Perhaps they were so busy trying to stay alive that they cannot spare the time to keep their habitable space disease free. Perhaps their apathy at their life leads to a resignation and acceptance of fate. Or perhaps it’s simply a case of ignorance and cultural difference on my part as much as theirs. I remember back in Belfast, the middle and upper classes always kept their homes and surrounding areas at a certain level of harmony and cleanliness. Whereas the back streets tended to be less cared for. That’s not the case for all the people living there of course, just a general observation. Humanity works in cycles of social acceptance. The higher the social level, the greater the pressure to be accepted. In China, I saw people standing in Tiananmen Square asking people for empty plastic drinking bottles, that they would then recycle presumably for money. In the hovels on the outskirts, everything that could be recycled had been recycled. Nothing was left but useless waste. I felt to some degree that this included the people as well. Recycling on a human scale. 
The suburbs, still, hot, steamy and thick with smog slowly opened onto fields of rice, vines, trees and grasslands. The heavy air, slowly and reluctantly, released us from it’s grasp to be replaced by sunshine and blue skies with fluffy marshmallow clouds, taking the shapes of Chinese dragons riding on the backs of frolicking seahorses. 
Quite often, train journeys can be tedious unless it involves new horizons and experiences en route not yet envisaged. Small things become big things, and unusual buildings become monuments of wonder. We passed through a mountainous region and the train sliced it’s way through the rock via a series of tunnels. Fifty at least, of varying lengths. To help pass the time we started a little competition. Each time we would push into the inky blackness of a tunnel one of us would quickly get into an unusual position on the seat, the floor or hang upside down off the overhead beds. Until you came out of the darkness you had no idea what position you were likely to find your travelling companions in. This became more and more outrageous as the tunnels became longer and longer. Virtual yogic flying in the darkness ensued. Anything to help pass the time. Signs in strange hieroglyphs become fantastical words of wisdom, Confusian advice to the unwary. In reality of course they probably said ‘Go to Lin-Chung’s Water Margin Restaurant for the best sweet & sour in the region’ Talking about food led me to the restaurant car and a wonderful stir fry. Sweet and sour pork looked and tasted nothing like what passes for the same thing in the west. A strong pungency of vinegar guaranteed that even a diabetic could be sure there wasn’t an over abundance of sweeteners for the western palate. Accompanied by hot sticky rice and cold Chinese beer, this proved to be a delicious combination. There was a distinct absence of MSG and artificial colouring which meant that the dish didn’t have the garishness of Chino-European dishes but the flavour was fresh and clean to my jaded taste buds. Settling down in the four person sleeper carriage a little later, the tastes, smells and memories flooded back as I realised I would have all but left China by midnight. 
“Please return to your carriages!” The English version of the Chinese message was boomed out over the tannoy at around 9pm. We had just pulled into Erlian - the last contact with China on the trip. Piped orchestral music declared that we would be in high spirits and leave with good impressions of friendly Chinese officials. I felt a certain tension in the air. Soldiers filed outside each carriage window to block our possible escape in the event of our papers not being correct. In reality, this was geared towards Chinese and Mongolian traders who used this route to sell their black market goods across respective borders. We had completed customs forms for each country and waited for the various official bodies to come and allow us safe passage. Customs officers arrived and took the forms. “Stay in your carriages!” We sat like lambs facing the unknown. Large peaked caps created authoritative airs that you dared not cross. Entry and exit visas were checked, re-checked and finally stamped. All the while passports were studied by each officer and faces scoured to make sure each passport and face matched. I felt that my face was changing to a more grey shade with each passing minute. It was quite disconcerting when our passports were then taken away by the procession of communist pillars of society for further checks to be carried out. Searches were being undertaken by guards on each carriage. We were ordered out into the corridor while the place was strip searched for contraband. Nothing. Then ordered back into our carriages for the process to happen to the next compartment. 
The time had come for a decision. This was the point at which the train was taken to a shed to have the bogies, or wheel units, changed from the Chinese (and European) size to the gauge used by Russia and Mongolia. This would take approximately two hours during which time you could stay with the train and watch the process from your compartment or get off at the platform and visit the local supermarket/shop that conveniently stayed open to sell you over inflated priced food and drink to keep you going until you reached Ulaanbaatar - the capital of Mongolia some twenty hours later. We opted for the latter and stocked up on food and a few cold beers to join other travellers and talk about their exploits around Asia. I find that talking to seasoned travellers is simply a case of checking off a list sometimes and I wonder how involved people get in the cultures they visit. Thailand? Oh yeah - been there - it rained a lot. Vietnam? Yep, but the beer was warm. Phuket? Nah - too many mozzies! Not going back there in a hurry.
Day 4 - 13th July 2009 8am - Picked up by a local guide for a long drive to the great wall of China. The section we were going to was Badaling, seventy or so kilometres from Beijing. There was a closer section to the city but it would have been full of tourists and stalls where we would have been pestered by stall holders to buy T-shirts and knick-knacks for ‘one dollar - only one dollar!’ No, instead we paid for a more personal experience and went one and a half hours in a private car to another section of the wall that was full of tourists and stalls and where the stall holders pestered us with their one dollar knick-knacks and T-shirts.
The good thing about this location was the cable car that took us all the way up to the wall and back again. The section of wall at Badaling is renowned for being one where you can see mile after mile of wall and tower after tower of each section stretching over hillocks into the distance. Once up on high however, we realised we couldn’t see more than 100m in any direction, such is the smog around greater Beijing. Having walked down a few of the towers and sections, up to maybe three kilometres distance, we started back. There was another cable car further on that you could use as an alternative route back down the mountainside but not knowing exactly how far it was we decided against it. Another hot and extremely sticky day soon made its impression on our clothes and bodies as we perspired profusely. An Indian gentleman who had been leading his mother and father on a tour of the wall asked my travelling companion how much further was it. Being a bit of a wit, she said about 7200km. After the laughter died down he explained that he meant to the next cable car, but how we guffawed! Simple pleasures for simple people, I suppose. I wonder how many times a day that joke is played out on the wall? As we walked we were observed closely by giant but wispy gossamer winged dragon flies. They flitted around the castellated wall with curiosity and moved with an elegant hum that breathlessly whispered a timid ‘welcome to our wall‘. Back on the cable car sweating, we were glad to go back into the heavy mist below. Again, given my fear of heights I was quite happy that I couldn’t see the drop in front of me all the way down the mountainside. 
Stepping out of the car we ran the gamut of the T-shirt people. Sidestepping one dollar offers of life changing proportions. Che Guevara images on red stars and hammer and sickle emblems. I didn’t know Che had been so instrumental in China as well as Cuba! We made a quick stop at a pre-arranged meeting spot by a souvenir shop to look for our driver. He had a habit, we later found out, of wanting to stop at restaurants that co-incidentally happened to be next to factories for lunch, pee stops etc. These were of course a ruse to make us go into the said factory to buy something. Presumably he would then get commission on any sales. Okay, so we bought a few things. The fascinating things were the factories. This particular one that we visited was unlike any other we had seen. Maybe only fifteen workers producing these beautiful enamel bowls and other items for sale. The factory was straight out of the 30’s and 40’s and hadn’t changed one iota in sixty or seventy years. Basic hand produced goods, each section completed in a dingy little room in poor conditions. A personal guide gave us the short but extensive tour. Taking a well earned break from hammering out each section of pot in sheets of copper and then soldering them together, the workers sat at their workstations staring at us while eating their lunch of rice with well worn chopsticks. After the joining, the next room was where the copper wire was connected like fretwork, in scrolls and shapes, and fused to the main body of the pots which created a framework for the liquid enamel to be poured into. After each section is filled with enamel in yet another room, it is fired in a fourth room to fix the colour and then begins the slow laborious job of polishing in the fifth room. After various grades of polishes are used a burnished finish to the copper fretwork is completed by using lumps of charcoal as a rubbing agent. The whole process is finally completed by electroplating each finished pot in 24 carat gold. Sounds expensive but in reality the gold is so thin that it takes just pennies to get the desired effect. Once we had seen the process we were taken to the shop across the factory courtyard and tempted to buy a few things from one or two Euros up to €20,000 for vases bigger than the average man. After a bit of wheeler dealing we came away with some small items and also the conclusion that this small factory unit could not possibly complete all these varieties and styles of enamel work. There must have been an industrial sized unit nearby with mass producing machines to create such an array of products. The poor looking factory we had visited was just a tourist sham to make us feel sorry for the poor workers. Still it was interesting, and so was the fact that our driver miraculously re-appeared as soon as we had made purchases. When he saw that we had bought something he disappeared as quickly back into the shop to claim his commission. We returned to an even thicker, pea soup, smog laden and sticky 30 degree Beijing a little shaken as his driving was erratic to say the least. Considering that the other drivers on the road were every bit as erratic, it beggars belief that we arrived in one piece at all. After flying us past the ‘Bird’s Nest’ Olympic stadium and front crawling through heavy traffic past the ’Water Cube’, we stopped at a bank to change Renminbi to American Dollars for use in Russia - bureaucracy gone mad, with quadruplicate forms being filled out by section after section of humourless worker ants with no name, only numbers for identification. We came across that a lot. A number instead of a name badge seemed to rob the worker of their humanity. “So, number two five seven three six six four, did you do anything interesting at work today?” “ Nah, five one six nine four three eight, the same old forms - in quadruplicate of course.” After 45 minutes we finally had all the stamps completed and got our currency. We high tailed it outside before they found another form needed to allow us leave the building. 
The driver dropped us off at Tiananmen Square in the beating heart of Beijing to experience the spectacle of Mao’s mausoleum (it was closed and he was out visiting, apparently) , the square itself and the Forbidden City. The heat was oppressive and was compounded by the crowds of people milling around. Hawkers tried to sell you everything under the sun including my favourite - a Mao watch - his arm waved up and down to count off as each second passed. Unfortunately I talked myself out if buying one and waved bye-bye to Mao in return. In hindsight I wished I had bought it. It would have been a nice, if tacky, memento of touristy kitsch. Next, we walked to the forbidden city where the emperors used to live in complete isolation from their people. So called because unauthorised entry would mean certain death for any individual. The emperors of the Ming and Qing dynasties spent their days in spectacular surroundings and relative safety inside the walls. Keeping themselves occupied in their Chinese harem of concubines apparently filled their days. After leaving by the back gate the sky looked extremely ominous and heavy with rain. People who knew better were grabbing every available taxi and rickshaw in an effort to avoid the coming deluge. We decided that it would be more fun to walk in the heat and proceeded towards our hostel on foot, approximately 1km away. The skies grew darker and darker and rumbles forewarned of greater things to come. Common sense finally won over and we managed to get a little motorised rickshaw to take us back to the area of the hostel. The rickshaw was a wonderful if unnerving experience. We faced backwards side by side with no cover or door - or seatbelts! Riding by the seat of our pants, literally, we hung on for grim life as the driver crossed through the streets and threaded his way through the traffic like a sewing machine on speed. Cars came within inches of our feet, so much so that I could feel the cooling fan sucking air into the engine. I could have actually counted the flies on the front grill if I hadn’t been concentrating on holding on to the seat so hard. Once or twice the rickshaw hit a bump or pothole and sent us skywards towards the roof of our little motorised metal coffin. I noticed that the roof was filled with upward dents. Unfortunate previous occupiers who arrived at their final locations in a semi-conscious state perhaps? Having been dropped off around the corner from the hostel in Wangfujing Dajie (meaning ‘Well of Princely Places) on the main designer shopping street of Beijing we paid 20 Yuan fare only to be told it was 20 each. As I said, every possible chance to overcharge westerners was taken. The price had been agreed previously so we knew the driver was just chancing his arm. Having been told “On yer rickshaw mate!” he accepted the agreed fare without another blink. We were just stupid white ghosts to be taken advantage of if we were gullible enough to accept it.
After that it was off the plane and into the marvel that is Beijing airport. A massive building concept that filters you via internal tram lines to the baggage hall to end all baggage halls. It was around this time that I began to realise the extent of the heat and humidity. Although air conditioned throughout, the high ceilings and vastness of the building couldn’t cope with the body heat of thousands of travellers. Having jeans and a shirt on didn’t help of course. Once I collected my rucksack, which I had had visions of being lost en route, I left the conveyor belt area. Can you imagine explaining about a missing bag to ‘Beijing Lost & Found‘? No, no I will be in Beijing for two days, then if it hasn’t arrived by then you can try to catch me on the Chinese/Mongolian border 36 hours after that. If that’s no good then try Ulaanbaatar two days later. Still no good? Then try a Ger tent in the national park or failing that the Mongolian/Russian border a few days later. In fact just forget it, I will buy new clothes in Beijing and you and your colleagues can share my stuff when it arrives. Sia sia (Chinese for thank you)
Remember that although it was 1pm local time, for me it was 6 o’clock in the morning and I had hardly slept for the last two nights. After a change of clothes in a little art café toilet into t-shirt and shorts - and two double espressos I felt decidedly better. Well enough to take in the enormity of the art district. A former factory area that had fallen into disrepair, the government had given the area over to encourage the arts. Artists were allowed to take up residence and the result is an incredible array of work, talent and creativity to equal or outshine most of what I have seen in museums in Europe. How on earth they survive financially I cannot work out.
Traffic was hectic with cars ducking and diving in between bicycles and rickshaws. Peasants alongside the road at traffic lights begging for money and food were ignored by the constantly moving hordes. No one paid any attention to traffic lights let alone observing lane restrictions. Noise and glaring neon signs, even in daytime, blasted out their messages and sales pitches. Any recognisable letters in signage was restricted to the large multinational companies that we all use in the west. Everything else was a complete mystery. A culture so different from our own. In the hostel, a dimly lit three bed room was home for the next two days. I was tempted to lie down but knowing I would never make it back up that evening I resisted valiantly by having a hot shower and a cold beer. 
Using the tube system, we made our way over to Ghost Street, renowned for authentic Chinese restaurants. Rows and rows of lanterns lit up the entire street amid more neon signs which presumably stated the name and speciality of each establishment. One of our friends had spent the last year studying Chinese in Beijing and guided us past all the obvious front of street places with their staff trying to tempt us in, and instead took us down a little dirty alley with out of the way cafes dotted along the passage. We had to hop over muddy puddles and detritus to reach our goal.
Back in the restaurant I sat down to a fortifying beer as the wine was not to be recommended at all. By drinking bottled beer you could always tell that at least something was drinkable. Eventually the food came out and it was a delicious mix of skewers of spicy mutton, chicken wings with sweet sauces, barbecued meats and pickles and salads that were absolutely wonderful. I shudder to think what the kitchen looked like but at least everything came out well cooked and no ill-effects were felt the next day. A couple of more beers back in the hostel and I had to fall into bed after a virtually sleepless 72 hours and three flight schedule. A deep sleep ensued only occasionally broken by dreams of headless chickens trying to escape down alleyways being chased crablike by squat bald skinny Chinese men who couldn’t walk upright….. 
I was impressed by the fact that Austrian airlines had an actual chef on board the flight with white hat et al. We had a choice of hot food and service was very attentive. I decided not to have any more to drink because of my pressing schedule and watched a movie. It was possible to watch different channels on the screen and there was also a channel that let you watch the progress of the plane, the temperature, altitude and distance to go etc. This was great for me as I hate to fly at the best of times so an almost 10 hour flight was sheer purgatory. I spent a lot of time watching that screen and urging the plane onwards. With a tailwind we were doing something like 800km an hour over the ground. 
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