This looks interesting:
Great journeys: Cardiff to Taiwan by train
In the first part of his overland adventure, Gary Merrill drinks Kölsch on the steps of Cologne cathedral and breaks bread with a lawyer from Volgograd…
Part One:
guardian.co.uk/travel/2008/j … ow.cologne
Part Two:
guardian.co.uk/travel/2008/j … ian.russia
I assume the third and final part goes online any minute now…
which Taiwanese station does the train from Vladivostok stop at?
I can quite understand someone’s eagerness to get the fuck out of Cardiff, but why by train?
Because then you can savour every moment as you get further away from the place. (This morning, I’m another 420 miles away from South Wales. I’m getting still further away at 80mph.) If you fly there you’re done with the elation in a day or so.
The Guardian story is more digestible (three easy chunks), but there’s more meat on the blog.
Because then you can savour every moment as you get further away from the place. (This morning, I’m another 420 miles away from South Wales. I’m getting still further away at 80mph.) If you fly there you’re done with the elation in a day or so.
The Guardian story is more digestible (three easy chunks), but there’s more meat on the blog.[/quote]
I knew that’s where Taffy got the story from. Bleedin’ cardigan wearing woolly liberal that he is. I can imagine the scene. He’s reading the Guardian in his dressing gown, he puts it down next to his cappuccino on the coffee table, which is awash with copies of Friends boxsets, Bridget Jones’s diary and Dido’s greatest hits.
Imagine, hmm - yeah. Look, I’ve told you to stop hiding in my airing cupboard. One more time and I’ll call the police, you mark my words.
Imagine, hmm - yeah. Look, I’ve told you to stop hiding in my airing cupboard. One more time and I’ll call the police, you mark my words.[/quote]
Or what? You’ll get all passive aggressive on me?
Nah, the local plods have enough passivity for us all.
is that the twin you never knew you had Sandman?
he’s coming to reunite
This trip has been done a million times (OK maybe not the last (ferry) part, and at first glance there is nothing particularly special in the way this guy did it. My first question would be, why end the trip in Taiwan of all places (why not in Japan or Beijing or Shanghai or Hong Kong)?
If you want to make that train trip REALLY special go to Beijing instead of Vladivostok, and then go south through China, Vietnam, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia, or – if you have the stamina – go back West from Thailand through Birma, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Iran, and end the trip in Turkey.
[quote=“dablindfrog”]is that the twin you never knew you had Sandman?
he’s coming to reunite[/quote]
Feck! I’ve a doppelganger and he’s a fuckin’ WELSHIE! The ignominy! The shame! He doesn’t look as mean as me, though. Thankful for small mercies.
that’ll only happen if he stays in Taiwan as long as you 
I made my first trip from London to Taiwan by train and boat, without any flying. I always used to avoid flying if I possibly could back in those days (and still heartily dislike flying now).
The Trans-Siberian Express back then (the mid-1980s) was quite luxurious, with Georgian champagne and caviar served in the restaurant car every day (as part of the all-inclusive and highly inflated Intourist ticket price). I did it in the autumn, when Siberia was at its best - bright and sunny one day, blanketed in snow the next.
But I took several months over the journey, lingering and making various side trips in East Germany, Poland, the USSR and Japan along the way, before finally ferrying down to Keelung via Naha and Ishigaki.
I wanted to go home from Taiwan on the train. Then realised that I couldn’t be arsed and had no desire to go through Russia on a train. Collected respiratory illnesses in China, instead.
That would make a good title for a half finished memoir.
That would make a good title for a half finished memoir.[/quote]
Well. WELL.