Advertisement
Published: November 4th 2007
History: I joined a womens travel organisation, and in July discovered a tour of New Zealand planned for early 2008.
With my Green principles, I wanted to travel as far as possible overland. After reading Barb's blog (the woman who travelled overland to a wedding in Oz from CAT last year) I discovered The Man in Seat 61 (seat61.com), they have been my chief inspiration, suggesting how to do this. I've since joined forces with another woman heading for the same NZ tour, and met up with her in Berlin last weekend (travelling by train of course), partly as a dummy run, and mainly to meet up with her. I have done masses of off and online research, checking out places to visit, where to stay, various trains, it's a wonderful way to virtually tour the world.
It's difficult to buy reasonably priced tickets for the Trans-Siberian railway in UK, it's all done via agents who add on anything from a short stay in Moscow to a full-blown tour of Russia, so I was delighted that my friend had found an agent (the old East Berlin connection with Russia came in handy) who could get tickets for us for under 500 euros each, in a 2 berth compartment. We decided to give ourselves that luxury, and a little more space for our elderly bodies - after travelling in a top bunk of a four-bed couchette for one night, I realised how cramped they are. So we've booked our T-S tickets.
We needed to be sure of dates before applying for the several visas we'll need. If I travel to Moscow by train from the UK, via Belarus (the normal route) I would need a transit visa for Belarus! (£65 from Real Russia, who I'm using to obtain all my visas). After much thought I've to allowed myself a small dispensation, and will miss out Belarus; I shall take the Eurostar to Berlin via Brussels as before, then take a flight to Moscow with my travel companion.
She'd found a very reasonable flight for 50 euros, saves staying overnight in a very cold Moscow, we can go direct to the train station (one of many in Moscow), and start our Trans-Siberian journey. We've also agreed not to stop on this trip across Siberia, as it will be bitterly cold, but to travel direct to Beijing. So now it's visa applications for RUssia, Mongolia, China and Vietnam, Real Russia will do all of these back to back, which will help.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.144s; Tpl: 0.01s; cc: 8; qc: 42; dbt: 0.0841s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Jack
non-member comment
Hey mum, so excited for you! Please post dates when you can! Are you still leaving on new years day? p.s. To anyone who's reading this; click 'subscribe' to get an email whenever Margot adds new entries!x