The inspiration for this trip was after reading Henry and Linda’s account of how they travelled back to Britain from Thailand by train in 2014, their blog for the trip is here http://henryandlinda.weebly.com/ I have to thank both of them for answering any questions I have put to them and for the advice and encouragement to actually get off my backside and do the trip.
Planning was started in January 2016 and the basics of the trip followed the same plan as Henry and Linda. The first stumbling block was how to get a visa for Russia without going back to Britain first? Basically with the visa I have to stay in Thailand, impossible. I would need to get either employment, as a barber no work visas are issued in Thailand, or open a Thai company!! To be able to take a train through Russia? No Way, much too much hassle!!!
So the Russian part of the journey was scrapped and the flight from Almaty, Kazakhstan to Gatwick was its replacement. I might be able to get a visa for Russia while I’m in Britain and, if finances are available; I may travel from Britain to Almaty by train and then fly into Bangkok for my return. But let’s see what happens in the meantime.
The Man in Seat 61 (http://www.seat61.com/) was an absolute blessing for all information on train travel around the World. I spent hours drawing up an itinerary using the information on his site, and it’s constantly being updated. Some of the fare prices are for if you can buy your tickets from the station, buying from agents online trebles some of the quoted prices but gives peace of mind that the tickets are in place before starting the journey.
Hotels and rail tickets were eventually purchased or reserved in early May 2016. I used http://www.chinahighlights.com/china-trains/ and http://www.chinaodysseytours.com/ for all my rail tickets from Hanoi to Almaty. China highlights suggested the stop in Nanning, China to significantly reduce the cost of the journey from Hanoi to Beijing. The Chinese travel agents were eventually helpful in getting letters of invitation to show my entry into and out of China. These letters were used to obtain my visa from the Chinese Embassy in Bangkok in Mid May.
What a relief to receive a phone call in the afternoon to say my application was successful and to collect my passport and visa the following day!! The people in the visa office are not very helpful and seem to enjoy making you feel you have wasted your time and money making your visa application. My advice? Take every possible document you can think of, including your hotel reservations in the countries before and after your Chinese travel.
http://www.vietnamimpressive.com/ has been great arranging the train ticket in a soft sleeper to Hanoi. I was very impressed with the service from Dora. The ticket has been sent through as a .jpg that I am able to use to get on the train!!
I am hoping to be able to upload video and photo to this blog as I go along; if you read Henry and Linda’s blog you will notice that he has a few problems with phones and Wi-Fi in his journey. So if you’re following this little blog, please be patient as some of the video files could be fairly large!! Especially if I can’t master the video editing as well as I would hope.