ICE 3 – “The Most Civilised Train in Europe”? Image courtesy Wikipedia. Well, its official – the winter timetable is now out and Europe now has even fewer night time express trains. From my point of view the main loss is the brilliant “Jan Kiepura” (EN447) from Amsterdam. It seems that Holland is now literally “A Bridge Too Far” from Germany and Poland – so I will have to get a train to Oberhausen where my Warsaw train now originates from. Why Oberhausen I have no idea – its not even as far away as Cologne… It feels a bit […]
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The “Easter Dream”, courtesy of Marine Traffic In 1989 “Around the World in 80 Days” was a major success for the BBC and a new turn for Michael Palin’s slightly flagging career. This show was at least partly to blame for creating my latent desire to attempt off beat journeys, something that I had little time for until a couple of years ago. After all, not many people would be able to get away with telling the boss, their clients, and significant others that they were off for a journey where phone coverage was scare and without a return date! […]
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The Yonago “manga train” courtesy of lowco2motives Apologies for not posting recently. I have been swithering a lot about my next trip, and today I have made the final decision. I need to update the “departure board” to read “Tokyo via Vladivostok”! If you have not read my recent blog posts, this winter I had hoped to travel through Central Asia, taking advantage of the route out of Russia and through Kasakhstan. I encountered several problems planning and researching this journey. Firstly that travel to the other Stans was looking like hard work by train – not impossible, but for […]
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It is now that time of the year when my thoughts turn to mad ideas about possible train journeys to places that I can hardly even find on a map. I seem to manage to suppress such thoughts most of the time, consoling myself by thinking about a comfy trip on a plane to somewhere where the food is quite spicy. However, this time last year my mood seemed to change quite quickly from “I’ll never do that mad train thing again!” to “I wonder if can I go by train all the way to Singapore?” in only a few […]
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Downtown Pyongyang. Source: TripAdvisor I had a bit of a quiet day on the work front yesterday, so some time to get myself into blogging traveller mode. I’m really quite new to blogging, and like not just the way I can diarise and share my journeys, but also interact with others who have similar interests. I have found inspiration for this trip in a few great places. Of course, as always, Mark at Seat Sixty-One. He has given me the confidence to plan the parts of the route I did not know much about – especially the crossing from China into […]
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The title of this blog post refers to the fact that the first “cunning plan” (a plan so cunning that you could brush your teeth with it) was my trip from Edinburgh to Shanghai last December. So I now have “another cunning plan” – from Newcastle to Singapore. Sorry I haven’t posted much over the last month. I did consider it, but my only real news has been the steady arrival of tickets, visas and equipment here at HQ. I have also not been very well, so working hard to get fit for the adventure ahead. A few people have […]
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“The Hunt for Red October” (1990), Paramount Pictures If you followed my journey to Shanghai last year then you may remember the semi military command structure of my Trans-Mongolian train. As a recap, there are a pair of Chinese guards in each carriage and they report to a “Sergeant Major” who in turn works for the top man – who I imagine is the “Commander” of the train. I’m sure he has a better official title than this, but hopefully you get my drift. Its all in the flaps! The C in C (left) and RSM (centre).. On my first morning, […]
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Denholm Elliot blends in with the locals! Indiana Jones (1981) I’m not sure if Peter Gabriel would approve of the title of this post, but there is a valid reason for it. More on potential border crossing problems in a moment.. My travel team have been busy. E-mail is a great thing when it comes to making these sort of long distance arrangements, and I don’t think it would have been possible for me to arrange this trip, say 15 years ago, without an army of travel agents and a lot of fax paper. Possibly even a telex machine! Emily […]
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The French Connection (1971), 20th Century Fox Two bits of good news this week. Firstly, my Chinese visa was issued in London on Wednesday without any further questions about my travel arrangements. This breaks the “Catch 22”, and it can now be used along with my Vietnamese visa to get in the queue ready for getting a ticket on the T5 train to Hanoi. Happy days! Secondly, the Real Russia team in Moscow have tracked down Alexey, my guide and interpreter from last year. I’m really pleased to have him on the team again as he was brilliant at supporting […]
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“The Man Who Would Be King” (1975) Columbia Pictures What a great opportunity to combine a blog about one of my favourite films with a possibility for train travel! If you want to get in the mood for this, it’s time to get your pith helmet out and start shouting loudly “Stop throwing those bloody spears at me!”.. I remember first seeing “The Man Who Would Be King” shortly after leaving university (in about 1989). It had a big impact on me at the time, and is one of those films that seems to just get better and better with age. […]
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