The EN447 “Jan Kiepura” arrives on time at platform 5B, December 2012 Its been a productive week on trip planning. I have had confirmation that my first train ticket has actually been issued. It’s an auspicious sign of progress and adds some respectability to my otherwise still slightly ragged plan. The train in question is the EN447 that leaves daily from Amsterdam on its journey around Western Europe towards Warsaw. The really odd thing is that I seem to have been issued a ticket in exactly the same compartment and berth as I had on this very same train last […]
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“Contact!” outside my hotel, Siem Reap, 1992 There are moments in the day when I think about what could possibly go wrong with the latest trip. I try to focus on the positive, but as they say, it’s always good to hope for the best but plan for the worst.. I have been fortunate in having very few problems travelling around Asia in the past, but one notable exception was being part of the war in Cambodia as the UN and Vietnamese withdrew in 1992 – leaving the government to deal with the KR. I spent a few nervous days […]
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Planes, Trains and Automobiles (1987), Paramount Pictures 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 […]
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A busy weekend here at Toad Hall planning and sending emails to travel agents and hotels across South East Asia. I decided to do the decent thing and create an online map in Google. Do have a play – its fully zoomable. I should point out though that its hard to plot the train track in places, so its not exact! I have added a map room link on the right so you can look at this map at any time if my posts from places you have never heard of before confuse you! I have also uploaded some static […]
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Welcome to my slightly revamped blog! You may notice that I have made a few changes, including moving to a new blog address and having a new name. This reflects my decision last week to use the blog for more than the single “big trip” that it was originally intended for (more of this in a moment). I have also added some labels – below the archive to the right – so that you can search by trip and location as well as using the monthly feed. The only downside is that if you have a bookmark to my old […]
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You might have thought that after a 12500km journey earlier this year, I might have got the train bug out of my system. Happily I can tell you that this isn’t the case. In fact only seven months after “The Big One”, and I’m already wondering if I could find a new challenge on the rails. I hugely miss the satisfaction of making my journey the overland way – the people, the places, the food, and even the red tape were all well beyond my expectations. So I have had the books, maps and brochures out again and I feel […]
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Now I have been home for a couple of weeks I thought it might help to reflect on my choice of route in case it helps with your Trans-Siberian trip planning.. I used a route option based around a Seat 61 suggestion, (coming from the North of England) and it worked well, but like any plan was slightly exposed to the vagaries of timetable change. Without knowing I also chose to travel just a few days after the start of the European winter schedule kicked in. This had some minor consequences to actual train times, but worst of all Russian […]
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This post is another anoraky one, so unless you are visiting Amsterdam and have luggage, I’d move along to another blog entry..! 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 […]
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Up until yesterday all my blogging had pretty much been from my Mac at home. Having a day in Newcastle on the way out has been a really smart move, as I got to practice photographing and blogging in “real world” conditions. 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 […]
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Trans Siberian 3rd Class train toilet (image courtesy of Way to Russia) The subject of slightly unsanitary bathrooms on dodgy trains seems to be a popular one. I have heard much about this including some words of insight and wisdom. Please don’t read this blog unless you have already had your tea today.. The quality seems to vary quite a bit by train type and class of travel. The slowest and least popular Trans-Siberian trains probably have facilities something like the picture below in their 3rd class (quite similar actually to what I see sometimes on the East Coast mainline […]
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