Train through Russia and China

Pack alot of food that you can make by adding boiling water

>>1175541
judging by my life experience from the mobile game 80 days

this will be a very boring train trip

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I left from Finland on oct 26th. Travelled by train: Kouvola-Moscow-Beijing-Shanghai-Xiamen-Nanning-Hanoi. Continued by bus: Hanoi-Cat ba island-Hoi an-Nha trang-Ho Chi Minh city-Phnom penh-Sihanoukville-Siem reap. Next stop Bangkok. What do you want to know?

>>1175667

Is it worth it over just flying?

>>1175667
You are the man is seat 61.

I have taken the Trans-Siberian Railroad from Yekaterinburg to Beijing. Was supposed to go through Mongolia but it was detoured for some reason and I had to go through Manchuria instead.

I did this when I was 16 back in 2011.

Customs between Russia/China took forever. It took like 6 hours just sitting there on the train.

And there was nothing really to see in Manchuria anyway. You should make sure to go through Mongolia, you know, where your ancestors are from :^^^)

AMA

>>1175541
Chinese trains are easy I used c-trip to pre-book most of mine. Pick up at the station can still take an hour or more also be prepared for long delays about 10-15% of journey time.

>>1176495
Did you get drunk with russians on the train?

>>1175541
I very recently took the trans-siberian route from Japan to Germany taking a ferry from Sakaiminato, Japan via Donghae, SK to Vladivostok and another one from Helsinki to Germany.

Tips for the train:
platskartny (3rd class) is fine and most people are friendly or neutral, lots of families etc. but make sure you get a LOWER bunk so you have somewhere to sit. otherwise you have no right to a seat and the upper bunk headspace is to low for anything but lying down. also study the seat plan closely, we made the mistake of booking two bunks that were next to each other on the plan but were actually separated by a wall the first time around. the dining cart can be a nice relief from the stuffy sleeping cart but be prepared for sketchy drunk men bothering you there (flipping your index finger against your throat means "get drunk", not "i'm gonna kill you")

kupe (2nd class) is obviously more comfortable but also has less to keep you entertained. here upper bunk head space is high enough to sit. Bring enough reading material in any case - I recommend Svetlana Alexievich's Second-hand Time which will make you understand today's russia so much better and is also generally an amazing book.

definitely bring tea and instant noodles. we brought good ones from japan but the best brands available in russia are korean.

on trains around St. Petersburg and Moscow there may be more amenities and comfort than on siberian ones.

i recommend going through mongolia, we did a side trip there and it was really nice. i did not take the trans-siberian in china but i've taken other trains there and it was generally a similar experience to being on russian kupe trains.

>>1176805
another thing:

if you're getting off the train in russia you can get simple but good food for extremely low prices at cantines called stolovaya (cтoлoвaя) in russian. speaking russian would of course be easier in those places but pointing works just fine.

nice stops on the russian leg are obviously St. Petersburg and Moscow but also Kazan and Irkutsk/Lake Baikal. There's a big Lenin head and a bus to Mongolia that is faster than the train in Ulan-Ude but not much else.

>>1176495
Get at me on some social media nig, It'd be cool to hear some stories.

My email: [email protected]

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>>1176287
Is it worth travelling through Asia for 2 months and visiting 4 countries on the way? If you just want to go to Thailand then maybe not. In this kind of travelling it might be more about the journey than the destination

>>1176805
No OP but I want to do this route solid post. Ty Anon

Why are people recommending instant ramen to bring?

>>1175541
Last year I did the trans-Siberian from Beijing to St Petersburg and then travelled on to Helsinki by train. My only non-subjective advice is don't be a sucker and don't buy tickets online. They tell you that the international trains sell out months in advance but thats bullshit. Our train from China to Mongolia only had a dozen people on it and we bought the one from Mongolia to Russia about 3 minutes before it left because of a big fuck up with our original ones. Train tickets are half the price if you buy them at the train stations locally instead of booking online. Just bare in mind the they can sell out a day or two in advance.

Other than that I'd recommend traveling 3rd class. It's really not dangerous and it's cheaper and heaps of fun. But its definitely not the comfortable option so depends on your preference.

Don't know how long you have but Mongolia is beautiful and I wish I'd spent a month there instead of a few days. I spent six weeks in China but I could have spent more. It's such a huge place and I feel like I barely scratched the surface. My main advice would be to avoid major tourist spots because they are overrun with Chinese tourists and end up being completely underwhelming. Lonely planet guides are actually great here because they suggest things that are off the Chinese tourist track. The great wall lives up to its hype but pay extra to go out to the obscure parts where you can actually hike along it in peace and not spend your whole day queuing up.

>>1176802
no, I wish though

>>1176967
emailed you

>>1177095
Low cost
Easy to prepare
Taste isn't too objectionable given the first two factors
Small size
Lightweight