Trans Siberia

shinnersdcu

Hey,

I'm going rtw the end of next September and had planned to do

South America - 2months
Fiji - 2 weeks
oz - 6-7 months
Thailand/Laos/Cambodia/Vietnam and back to Bangkok 3-4 months

to fly home but now I'm thinking of bunking the last flight and heading up to china and doing the trans siberia or silk route and depending on finances maybe inter railing home through Europe

all because i watched the south park with those "dam Mongolians"

but seriously is it worth it or is it well dodge? and is it gonna cost me a bomb in visas?and will i be ripped off for the tickets?

cheers if anyone can help :-)

Fabio

First time posting here and I will not be held responsible for any deaths but I'd say if you don't do it you'll be kicking yourself...

Gaz

Im doing the Trans Sib this August, why fly home when you could have an amazing expierience like that ??

Its totally safe and way more interesting than a long haul flight home.

Check out www.waytorussia.com for help on getting a visa, and check out www.seat61.com for lots of advice on the actual train journey, costs and route etc

breadmonkey

Sounds very interesting indeed! Can someone give me a quick and very rough estimate of time frame and costs so I can tell if this is within the realms of realism before I go delving into it?

tywy

I did it last summer on the tightest budget possible.

Flew to Berlin for 1 night, flew on from there to St Petersburg where we spent 3 nights, 1 night on train to Moscow (worked it that way so wouldn't have to pay for accomodation), 2 nights in Moscow before getting on the Trans Siberian to Irkutsk. Took 3.5 days (4 nights) to get to Irkutsk where we stayed one night, went out to Lake Baikal, it was amazing! Then took a 2 day train journey to Ulaanbataar in Mongolia (7-8hrs at the border, stupid Russians :P). Stayed in Mongolia for 2 nights, should have stayed longer. It's the cheapest part of the trip so stay there a week if you can, getting out of the city ASAP. We then took the overnight journey to Beijing, stayed there 4 nights, overnight train to Shanghai, stayed there 2 nights and then flew home with Qatar Airways.

This all cost €2300 including all spending money. If you're doing it on a RTW trip, bear in mind that the flight home cost almost €600. Absolutely fantastic holiday! I'd recommend to anyone.

If you're looking to book train tickets, I booked through a Russian travel agent, everything went very smoothly. Saved a hell of a lot of money compared to booking through the UK.

If you've any questions, just ask!

RATM

Yeah defo go and do the Trans Sib- its far more interesting than a flight home. Also from St.Petersburg you can continue into Tampere in Finland from where Ryanair fly to Dublin if you dont have enough cash to continue inter-railing. If you have the balls just rock up at train stations and buy your tickets there- you'll save a lot of money over a UK agent and even some over getting them off a Russian one.
Even without any language, if train station ticket staff see Westerners out in the back of beyond of Siberia they know well you are doing the Trans Sib so buying tickets from them isnt all that hard-just point in the direction you want to go !

Agree that Mongolia is the highlight of the trip-well worth a week -try to get a tour into the Gobi desert if you can afford it. Moscow is real expensive but still do-able for 2/3 days, St Petes is a lovely city, dont miss the Winter Palace and the Hermitage.

Russian visas are the most difficult- check out gotorussia.com for your invitation

breadmonkey

tywy wrote: »

I did it last summer on the tightest budget possible.

Flew to Berlin for 1 night, flew on from there to St Petersburg where we spent 3 nights, 1 night on train to Moscow (worked it that way so wouldn't have to pay for accomodation), 2 nights in Moscow before getting on the Trans Siberian to Irkutsk. Took 3.5 days (4 nights) to get to Irkutsk where we stayed one night, went out to Lake Baikal, it was amazing! Then took a 2 day train journey to Ulaanbataar in Mongolia (7-8hrs at the border, stupid Russians :P). Stayed in Mongolia for 2 nights, should have stayed longer. It's the cheapest part of the trip so stay there a week if you can, getting out of the city ASAP. We then took the overnight journey to Beijing, stayed there 4 nights, overnight train to Shanghai, stayed there 2 nights and then flew home with Qatar Airways.

This all cost €2300 including all spending money. If you're doing it on a RTW trip, bear in mind that the flight home cost almost €600. Absolutely fantastic holiday! I'd recommend to anyone.

If you're looking to book train tickets, I booked through a Russian travel agent, everything went very smoothly. Saved a hell of a lot of money compared to booking through the UK.

If you've any questions, just ask!

Why did you spend so little time everywhere along the way!

tywy

Only had 3.5 weeks, had to work for 10 weeks and then back to stupid college on Sept 11. Left August 14th back on Sept 9th. It was the best we could do. I wanna go again in the winter. Will spend more time then.