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(Day 39 on the road)This is it: After more than four weeks on the road, I will finally start the Trans Siberian Railway today. My train leaves at 1620h from Moscow's Yaroslavl station, and I am heading for Yekaterinburg, arriving there some 26h later. I am traveling with Alex, a Dutch guy I met in Moscow, for this leg of the journey, who his on is way to Iran through Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan.
The epic Trans Siberian is maybe the greatest train journey in the world, and I have dreamed about taking it for a long time. When you think of the Transsib, don't think of it as one train going across, but more like the tracks extending all the way from Russia's west to the east coast. It is actually one of the busiest railways in the world, with many different trains traversing it in both directions, some going all the way, some local trains going just part of it.
There are three branches of the Transsib: The main one, the true Trans Siberian, runs from Moscow to Vladivostok in the very east of Russia. Then there is the Trans Manchurian Railway, which goes through Manchuria and from there into China. Finally, there is the Trans Mongolian (the one I am taking), which goes from Moscow through Ulaan Baatar in Mongolia and on to Beijing in China, a journey of 7865km in total and crossing five time zones along the way. You can either choose to go non-stop in seven days, or stop in many different places along the way (what I will be doing) and which is arguably much more interesting, as you get to see the "real Russia".
I could write a lot more about the Transsib, including its construction, but there is an excellent
Wikipedia article. if you want to know more (maybe to plan your own journey?).
Next stop: Yekaterinburg (Russia).
To view my photos, have a look at
pictures.beiske.com. And to read the full account of my journey, have a look at the complete
book about my trip at Amazon (and most other online book shops).
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Chus
non-member comment
That sounds thrilling. Enjoy it..