Morning Departure

I set off from Edinburgh late on a bright December morning. With an already low winter sun behind Arthur’s Seat my old school Virgin East Coast train rumbled out of Waverley Station and chugged south towards the English border. Thankfully no visa formalities are yet required. I have fond memories of this journey when I used to be a man in a suit, but invairably my journeys would start at a crazy time in the early morning darkness and often finish late at night. But today the sun streamed through the windows of the coach and I sippled fizzy water whilst […]

The Story So Far…

First of all, welcome to you if you are a new visitor to my blog and have found my website from great places like Wanderlust, Seat 61 and Real Russia. It’s great to have you here. I’m now in the final phase of preparation for my latest challenge. This post is a bit of a recap on my plan, just in case you might not have read some of my earlier posts. In a couple of weeks I shall be heading east again – this time with a destination of Hong Kong. But there is a twist. I’m going to […]

South Learmonth Gardens

I had the opportunity to share some of my adventures and forthcoming plans with a select group in a rather unique setting this week. I’m a great believer in the sense of place, and there are few more special to me than Ernest Shackleton’s Edinburgh residence. He lived at 14 South Learmonth Gardens between 1904 and 1910. By some coincidence, this week marks the exact 100th anniversary that “Endurance” was finally swallowed by the ice of the Weddell Sea in 1915. (In passing there is a brilliant exhibition of restored photographs now open at the Royal Geographical Society in London to […]

The Dark Side of the Moon

If you are a Pink Floyd fan, I’m very sorry but I might have brought you to this blog on rather false pretences. I was trying to explain to a friend this week what I find so appealing about Trans-Siberian travel. It’s not an easy question to answer – the extreme climate, the questionable catering, the lack of sleep, the lack of sanitation, the sense of isolation and the challenge communicating with nearly everyone. But these are not insurmountable problems and I actually long to be back there. It gives me a rather special feeling, one which I can only […]

Back into the Deep Freezer

I consulted the world weather map in my Daily Telegraph over some tea and toast this morning at expedition HQ. I can see that the forecast temperature in Moscow tonight will be -2C. Freezing already and it is only mid October. This is a sure sign that winter is now approaching and it is also a reminder that I must press on with the final stages of my preparation – equipment, visas and tickets. (As far as I’m concerned the colder Moscow is in the winter the better. In the past I have experienced the city in the -20’s and […]

Time Travel

I have been busy doing some planning for the Trans-Manchurian part of my next adventure. It’s an excuse to not be writing my book. In fact almost everything is an excuse not to be writing my book at the moment! If you have read about my past journeys you will know about the issue of what constitutes the right time on board the train. I have been thinking about this quite a lot lately – both from a philosophical and a practical point of view, as I have also been writing an article on the history of “train time”. Today […]

The Railway to Heaven

I have been doing quite a bit of reading this week about my planned journey from Beijing via Golmud up to Lhasa. I’m really trying to get my head around the enormity of what has been built and there is a serious danger that I might accidentally slip into trainspotter speak. Not only the highest railway in the world, but the highest tunnel, the longest mountain tunnel and specially built on supports in the permafrost (with passive heat exchangers, what ever they might be). There are 675 bridges and the trains have an enriched oxygen atmosphere onboard. You can read […]

The Railway Man

I have been busy planning a few small adventures on the route of my forthcoming journey across the world. Even though my trip will technically finish in Hong Kong, I will be exploring parts of Asia by rail afterwards. One trip that is now firmly in my diary is a visit to “The Bridge on the River Kwai”. You probably know all about this, but just in case you don’t, this is the bridge at the location in Thailand where the Burma “death railway” crosses the Mae Klong river, made infamous by the David Lean’s epic 1957 film. In passing, […]

Vostok

I am very much looking forward to taking one of the least known Trans-Siberian routes on my next adventure. It’s called the Trans-Manchurian, and the main train on this line is a Russian one, known as the “Vostok”, which translates simply as “East”. It is also known by it’s number – “20” going east, and “19” travelling west. Surely the “Vostok” must be one of the most evocative train names out there? “Vostok” image courtesy of Local Life In my experience nearly all Western travellers opt to travel on the Trans-Mongolian route, especially if it is their first Siberian adventure […]

Where next?

Since returning from my journey to Japan earlier in the year I have been trying to decide upon my next adventure. To help me with planning I have a large National Geographic map on the wall in expedition HQ – the 1959 version – “Asia and adjacent areas”. This keeps me on my toes, as so much of the world looks quite different today! Thanks to the huge amount of information online I have been able to save a lot of time this year and compress my planning cycle, so here I am in April for and for the first […]