Journalist Kate Young decided to combine the trip of a lifetime with a wacky writing challenge to raise money for the Earl Mountbatten Hospice on the Isle of Wight. Starting from post-Olympic Beijing, she lost her soul to the Mongolian steppes; survived the hurly-burly of Ulaanbaatar; escaped amorous advances near Lake Baikal and made it to the Tsarist majesty of Moscow in a poignant trip on the Trans-Siberian Railway.