I’m sitting in Moskva (”Moscow”), an upmarket Russian restaurant in central Sofia, with my mother and Ray. The carpet is thick, the tablecloths are immaculate and the elaborate chandeliers hang from a pristine white ceiling with gold trimmings topping the deep maroon walls. We’ve all just enjoyed a traditional Russian meal of various dishes including lapsha (chicken noodle soup, pelmeni (stuffed pasta) and chicken kiev complemented by some excellent Bulgarian merlot, plus some fabulous live entertainment from a pianist/vocalist and violinist playing everything from Russian classic to Russian folk.

The waiter, whose precise nationality is uncertain, has been decidedly surly all evening, but this may just be part of the authentic Russian experience. However, his opinion of us seems to be enhanced considerably when we decide to finish the meal off with my favourite vodka. The waiting team swarm around us with frozen shot glasses and from a great height pour in the 50ml shots of frozen Nemiroff, fresh from the Ukraine. This establishment knows how to dispense the stuff properly.

*If you can name the film, put it in a comment below. For the first correct answer I’ll buy a shot of Nemiroff.

The orthodox minister chanted in Bulgarian, with Millena’s mother Mariana occasionally chipping in with English translations, a role she reprised several times during the day as everything down to the speeches are carefully translated into the other language. It was a day Pimms and local wine, of Bulgarian dancers and late night disco, of wedding cake and shopska salad. A truly bilingual, bi-cultural wedding unlike any other.

Tonight, the two waitresses in Angelina’s have been running around all evening catering to our every whim, but as we prepare to leave they are incredibly happy. Our party of 24 eating tonight have rounded up the bill giving them a tip of around £50 (US$100) between them, a small fortune by local standards.

“They are worried about getting caught”, she says, “very worried. And I don’t want to be in there if they do”.

I’m on the train from Belgrade to Sofia, which has been running slowly and stopping for the whole day with no apparent reason, and is now something like two hours late. It’s looking like I’m going to miss the last bus to Etropole, the small town in the Bulgarian mountains where my cousin is getting married in two days’ time, and might end up staying the night in Sofia or doing the two hour journey in a taxi.

I’d seen the dodgy looking men with rather too many bags with rather too many right angles protruding from them, but it hadn’t occurred to me that anyone would want to smuggle cigarettes from Serbia into Bulgaria. I can’t imagine them being anything but incredibly cheap in both countries, but they must be doing it for some reason. The train staff and even the Serbian police appeared at one stage to get in on the deal, and the dodgy looking bags were spirited away as we approached the border; presumably to be hidden somewhere discreet in the depths of the train.

As we trundle across the frontier towards the Bulgarian customs post the train is clearly home to a number of highly agitated people. The men in uniform board, check passports and poke around suspiciously in various bags. They know something is going on but can’t seem to find anything. When the train eventually pulls away the relief is apparent; beers are opened and celebrations ensue. Pity I’m still not going to make that bus.

For reasons that will always be a mystery to us, a local character is carrying a hedgehog around the rows of makeshift bars and bustling tables. Actually, ‘makeshift’ is doing them a disservice; the local brewers have clearly gone to town with their illuminated giant inflatable beer bottles and enormous branded banners. This is not the kind of festival to attract connoisseurs of rare ales so much as a free rock concert geared up to sell as much of the stuff as humanly possible.

As the dubious Serbian rock music booms out here below the walls of the historic Belgrade castle, at the point where the river Sava meets the mighty Danube, the bizarre man stops to entertain us, or perhaps to be entertained by us. Becci does indeed get to stroke his hedgehog.

I’m surprised. The train has run out of beer, and despite the heavy night in Munich, ten hours of travel has left me hankering for refreshment.

“Vodka?”, I reply hopefully, and the man nods and heads for the fridge. The train is now in Croatia, the fourth country of the day. It all started at 0726 in Munich with the journey heading south through the beautiful Austrian Alps where I struck up conversations with students heading home; an Austrian to Vienna and a young Serbian bound for Belgrade after her first ever trip to Western Europe. Then there were the Japanese girls en route to Dubrovnik.

The restaurant-bar was coupled on after we emerged from the Alpine tunnel that connects Austria and Slovenia, but it was the Croatian hordes who boarded in Zagreb that seem to have consumed all the beer. Maybe it was something to do with the burgeoning temperatures.

As I sip my rather disappointing (but astonishingly cheap) Serbian vodka it starts to get dark and I chat to a gynaecologist on her way home to her family in Serbia from her job in Ljubljana. As we approach the final frontier of the day I begin to wait impatiently for this pento-national, fifteen hour ride to finally conclude.

Ozzy is herding a group of some 40 travellers, from places as eclectic as South Africa and Georgia (that’s the country, not the state), along with the inevitable bunch of Australians, around the city, telling us all about beer, hitler, beer. churches, beer, bratwursts, biergartens, Bavaria and beer. I left London on the Eurostar yesterday and had to hang out in Paris drinking beer for the evening before taking the sleeper to Munich; so I’ve only been in the city a couple of hours and I can’t say the rattling German night train gave me my best night’s sleep.

After the magnificent churches, famous brauhauses, historical monuments, watching the surfing on the river, and sneaking past the naked hordes in the Englisch garden, we settle in the city’s largest biergarten to enjoy Munich’s most famous product - The amber stuff itself, served in traditional one litre steins. Quite a few of those later and we’re making our way in the dusk to the Augustina Brauhaus where there is even more beer and quality Bavarian food. As things start to get really hazy I realise that I have to catch a train to Belgrade at 7.30 tomorrow morning. Eventually I manage to stagger back to the hostel, fill up on water, make my bed and set my alarm.

I left London on Sunday on the Eurostar to Paris. The evening TGV to Stuttgart was full, so I had to book onto the overnight train to Munich and spend the evening hanging out in the bars around Gare de l’est.

Arrived in Munich at 9am feeling shattered; went on a free walking tour of the city which ended up in a beer garden. Drank several litres of beer and ate several bratwursts; ended up in a brauhaus eating traditional bavarian fare with more beer. Didn’t get to my dorm room until 11pm feeling rather worse for wear. Thought I’d best get an early night before my 7.30am train to Belgrade.

A 15 hour train ride across 5 countries with some beautiful scenery, and I arrived here, the capital of Serbia recently famous for Slobodan Milosevic and the ‘accidental’ bombing of the Chinese embassy.

Like I said it’s hot, so I’m off to the beer festival to cool down.

Where was the best food?
Again, this is a toughie. I’m not a big fan of Chinese food on the whole, but the food in Beijing was remarkably good. The food in Tokyo was also very good, especially the curry.

Which was the best train?
The German ICE from Berlin to Koln was the most comfortable daytime service; the Beijing to Shanghai ‘Z Class’ express was the nicest sleeper, the Japanese rail system had the most helpful staff and the Trans-Siberian trains were the most fun.

What was your favourite beer?
The one and only Beer Lao, though Cambodia’s Angkor and Russia’s Sibirskia Corona were pretty good too. China’s Tsingtao was definitely the cheapest; 640ml bottles for 2 yuan in Beijing. That’s about 15p or US$0.30.

How do you pronounce ‘Laos’?
There’s some debate about this one, though it certainly isn’t ‘Lay-oss’ Many people say ‘Louse’ but the proper name of the country is the Lao Peoples’ Democratic Republic or the Lao PDR, and as a former part of French Indochina it seems likely that the S should be silent. Besides, ‘Louse’ is a horrible small crawling insect. I’m going for ‘Lao’, rhyming with ‘Mao’ (as in the chairman) and ‘Cow’ (unless you’re from the westcountry).

Where was the worst ho(s)tel you stayed?
The rudest staff member was in the Hotel Tsentralnya in Novosibirsk as featured in ‘The spy who rang me‘, although she was up against some pretty stiff competition. The most soulless place was probably the guest house on the Khao San road in Bangkok where I ended up for a night. The room looked like a prison cell. The single most unpleasant night was also one of the most expensive, at the HK hostel in Hong Kong, where I found my mattress infested with bed bugs and had to demand the security guard do something about it at 3am. I found a better, and cheaper, place the next day.

How did you get a Russian visa so easily/quickly? Did you need an itinerary?
There’s a lot of misinformation circulating amongst travellers about Russian visas. It’s not that hard really. Technically you need an itinerary but, depending on where you apply, this doesn’t need to be much more than a vague list of towns and hotels, and no-one expects you to keep to it once you get there. My visa support was arranged through WayToRussia.net who I’d thoroughly recommend.

What’s it like travelling on your own, did you get lonely?
Absolutely not! Travelling on your own is the best way to meet new people as well as do exactly what you want to do. It’s more sociable than travelling in a group.

How did you get from KL to Siem Reap?
I flew. Sorry. I feel like a cheat. I haven’t flown since though.

Are you going to publish a book?
I’m flattered that several people have suggested this. I’m looking into it. In the meantime I’m working on a calendar featuring some of the best pictures from the last 10 months.

Where are you going next?
To the bank, to beg for an extension on my overdraft, then to the job centre - I’m out of money; but if I had any, it’d be Eastern Europe from the Ukraine through to Greece, then I’d seriously consider India.

There are a lot of albums in the gallery marked ‘INCOMPLETE’ are you going to finish these?
Yes, there are a whole load more pictures to go up. I’ll post major additions here.

Is this the end of the blog/website?
No, but I’m not sure what’s going to happen here next. Any ideas?

Twenty years ago this was the site of the most heavily fortified border in the world; between East and West Berlin. Double walls topped with wire and lined with watchtowers, a patrol road in between, with guards, dogs and Kalashnikovs. This was a border created and patrolled by communist East Germany, the DDR, to contain and control an unhappy population desperate to escape to the bourgeois west. Some say that world war three nearly started right here, when US and Soviet tanks faced off across Checkpoint Charlie after a diplomatic dispute 45 years ago in October 1961.

Tak and I left Warsaw on the very comfortable, crowded, and ultimately rather late EC40, the Polish operated Berlin Warsaw Express, which was supposed to take six hours but ended up taking more than seven. After spending our remaining Zloty on some fine Polish beer and a lovely dinner in the restaurant car, the amiable men in uniform, Polish and German officers working their way down the train together, arrived for what will be my penultimate passport check, as there’s no border control between Germany and Belgium. From the station in the former East it was a short ride to the hostel, also in the former East, so this crossing of Checkpoint Charlie is the real deal.

Leaving the last hints of Lenin behind me, I walk along the former course of the wall to see the Brandenberg Gate and another dramatic scene of 20th century history, the Reichstag, which was reconstructed in the 1990s by architect Sir Norman Forster with a huge glass dome, and is once again the seat of the Bundestag, the German government. The fire that gutted it in 1933 ultimately gave Hitler the pretext he needed to abandon democracy, and some say that the Nazi government intentionally orchestrated the attack with this end in mind; that’s not all that different to some of those modern-day conspiracy theories is it?