Paris Gare d’Est is a charming and rather old school French railway station. By modern standards it’s simple, but perfectly formed. The atmosphere is relaxed, but there are signs of obvious tension around the edges. Paris has suffered so much and security is obviously at a heightened state, especially at railway stations. My immediate priority on arrival is an emergency ablution pit stop. I’m not well. As I have a first class ticket for my next train, I head straight for the SNCF Grand Voyage lounge. Outside the lounge are a pair of female soldiers dressed in full combats. They […]
Read More
I had only been on the Eurostar once before, and that was 18 years ago. Not only did they now depart from the reborn St Pancras station (rather than Waterloo), but there were a new generation of trains. I liked the check in system at St Pancras, and was only sad that that the champagne bar above the platform was closed for my visit. Security and immigration were a doddle, and my luck was in – I found a seat, from which I people watched and nursed my stomach, ravished by cramps from something I had eaten that it clearly […]
Read More
It feels good to be on the move again. Tonight’s journey was not originally planned as part of my London – Istanbul trip, a recreation of the Orient Express for the modern age. I thought I would be starting my trip in London, but in fact I’m a few hundred miles further away from the start line, in Edinburgh. Waverley Station has a strange atmosphere on a Sunday night. Police officers patrol a fairly deserted concourse. The bar is busy with stag and hen parties winding down after a busy weekend. They mix rather uncomfortably with walkers and cyclists returning […]
Read More
Next week I am getting back on the rails and heading for Istanbul, a journey I last completed in the 1980’s. Not surprisingly I have been doing some packing, much reading of Seat 61 (it feels like I have been cramming train times and numbers for some sort of European Interail qualification), and a bit of reflection on what I got out of Interrail all those years ago – and what I want to get out of this trip. First the bad news. Interrail isn’t as simple as it used to be. I would expect it to be more expensive, […]
Read More
Last year I wrote about my plans to travel by train from Bangkok to the Bridge on the River Kwai. I also got sucked into the history and the amazing story of Eric Lomax. You can read the article here. I actually made the trip earlier this year, so thought it was about time that I shared my experiences. I like to think of this as a rather good “micro adventure”. I decided the way I wanted to do it was to take the regular train (there is also a special weekend tourist carriage) and get there and back in a […]
Read More
Since I have returned to expedition HQ I have been busy catching up with my blog and a few writing projects that I have been working on. One that I have recently completed is a series of short guides for Real Russia – if you don’t know them, they are probably the biggest and best known specialist Trans-Siberian travel agency. They asked me if I minded doing a short interview to help introduce myself to their readers. I found it really interesting to do this as I don’t get asked about my motivations very much. If you are interested, you […]
Read More
There was some excitement at expedition HQ this week when a package arrived from from the team behind the European Rail Timetable. I last held “The Bible” back in 1988 and it was an immediate trip of nostalgia into past European rail adventures. Back then it was produced by Thomas Cook who had been printing the “continental” timetable since 1873. Today it still produced in the familiar format, and is now run independently since Thomas Cook discontinued their involvement in 2013. In today’s world to some it would perhaps be inconceivable that there was a time when there were no […]
Read More
My arrival in Hong Kong has feels like a bit of an anticlimax at first. It’s not like anyone was there to greet me or say “well done, old chap” or “are you the only person to have ever completed both the Trans-Manchurian and the Qinghai-Tibet railways in one journey?”. I walked the streets of Kowloon amongst throngs of tourists who had no idea that I had just joined them by taking the train from Edinburgh Waverley to Hung Hom, not to mention a side journey to Lhasa. I was very careful at first not to tell everyone what I […]
Read More
After the experience on the train from Lhasa, I gave myself 48 hours in a reasonably plush hotel to decompress. I must have had some train related PTSD, as I found myself on sentry duty during the night, guarding my bathroom from non existent smoking Chinese passengers. Also without really thinking about it, I worked out that the square footage of my bedroom would accommodate 32 people in the density of soft class. My time in Guangzhou was short, but I felt very relaxed here. I last visited in 1990, and of course hardly recognise the place now. I took the […]
Read More
My second day on the Z266 train from Lhasa to Guangzhou begins with a gentle but firm tug on my ankle. It is the guard. We go through the Chinese train ritual of me returning my train plastic gold card in exchange for my original ticket (I think they do this so they can remind passengers when they will be getting off at the next stop). Then she surprises me by getting out her smartphone and pointing to the words “change train”. This wasn’t in the script, as my train was already going to Guangzhou. Anyway, I shall go with […]
Read More
