Today, my railway journey from πΉπ Bangkok back to π«π· Alsace finally begins.
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Definitely not on my bucket list for today : I won an overnight stay in
Boten, the special economic zone right at the border to 
China. -
Today, my railway journey from
Bangkok back to 
Alsace finally begins.Marking the start of my trip, I visited the Hua Lamphong railway station. The beautiful building with a huge departure hall, flowers and fountains is sadly only served by
commuter trains and the 
subway in present times since the mainline operations were completely moved to the new Krung Thep Aphiwat Central Terminal in 2016.Nevertheless, the railway station nowadays hosting a museum with beautiful old Thai trains serves as an excellent location to start my trip : I will spend the next two weeks all on trains : Sleeper trains, high-speed trains and adorable regional trains will hopefully safely guide me for 17.000 km on rails spanning from Thailand via China, Siberia and the Ural to Europe.
Follow #FOSSRail or this account to travel along with me in this thread !
@lewd Safe travels!
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@lewd
Sounds adventureous! Thank you for sharing. -
Today, my railway journey from
Bangkok back to Alsace finally begins.Marking the start of my trip, I visited the Hua Lamphong railway station. The beautiful building with a huge departure hall, flowers and fountains is sadly only served by
commuter trains and the subway in present times since the mainline operations were completely moved to the new Krung Thep Aphiwat Central Terminal in 2016.Nevertheless, the railway station nowadays hosting a museum with beautiful old Thai trains serves as an excellent location to start my trip : I will spend the next two weeks all on trains : Sleeper trains, high-speed trains and adorable regional trains will hopefully safely guide me for 17.000 km on rails spanning from Thailand via China, Siberia and the Ural to Europe.
Follow #FOSSRail or this account to travel along with me in this thread !
@lewd safe travels!
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@lewd I suppose there will be a the train but tickets will only be sold at Manzhouli.
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@lewd I don't know if there are any check-in gates at Manzhouli. If so, there must be some way to obtain tickets before.
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@lewd No. Only a few high-speed routes so far. I'm aware, I need to change this.
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@lewd Thinking on it, it would make a very twisted kind of sense to mark Chinese traditional train classes as Π‘Πͺ, Π‘Π¬, ΠΠͺ, ΠΠ¬
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@lewd safe travels!
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@lewd
envious.
.. And I wish I could get Douyin. Tiktok, I check the uBO panel every few days to see if the Ggl trackers show up. -
@lewd Presumably because they don't expect the heating to keep up with the tempurature dropping deep into freezing as you climb? Hmm, doesn't explain the luggage thing, though
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After 10 hours, I reached my final destination for day 5 of my journey :
Manzhouli. I quickly figured out how saying "I speak English" in *Russian* is the most important conversational skill to survive here as a foreigner. Fair, the city is populated by more Russian-speaking than Chinese- and Mongolian-speaking residents together and neighbors to 
Zabaykalsk in Russia.The experience at the railway station was peak
CR service : Three employees at the ticket office, in the middle of the night with no more train today. Of course, they could *not* sell me a ticket to Irkutsk and explained me I'd need to buy this in Beijing. Only bad, that in Beijing Zhao at the international ticket office, they explained me there are no trains to Russia.At least we all agreed there in fact is a train leaving to
Irkutsk tomorrow at 2 p.m. and they suggested that one of the many Russian travel agencies will likely be able to issue me a ticket.My hotel was also highly confused how I don't speak Russian, also cannot fill a form entirely in Russian, didn't want to pay in Russian Rubel and showed them a foreign passport that was neither Russian nor had it a Chinese visa.
At least the receptionist told me there's a Russian travel agency right next to the hotel and she was convinced they could sell me
tickets.After all, this will be my quest for tomorrow.
Good night Fedi
! -
Today, my railway journey from
Bangkok back to Alsace finally begins.Marking the start of my trip, I visited the Hua Lamphong railway station. The beautiful building with a huge departure hall, flowers and fountains is sadly only served by
commuter trains and the subway in present times since the mainline operations were completely moved to the new Krung Thep Aphiwat Central Terminal in 2016.Nevertheless, the railway station nowadays hosting a museum with beautiful old Thai trains serves as an excellent location to start my trip : I will spend the next two weeks all on trains : Sleeper trains, high-speed trains and adorable regional trains will hopefully safely guide me for 17.000 km on rails spanning from Thailand via China, Siberia and the Ural to Europe.
Follow #FOSSRail or this account to travel along with me in this thread !
@lewd insane? /pos
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@lewd is my spirit animal
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While travel agencies are *really* a thing here, currency exchange seems to be strange here.
Finding a travel agency who could issue me a cross-border ticket to Russia took me less than 10 minutes, I was searching for a currency exchange for over two hours - unsuccessfully. Even the banks were astonished when I asked them whether I could exchange money.
After three hours, I was finally told that the regional headquarter of the Bank of China does currency exchange and this is where I'm waiting now. It btw. took almost 10 minutes until I could clarify that I don't understand Russian.
I'm slightly nervous because my
train is leaving in less than an hour and I know how picky Chinese railway workers are when it comes to international trains. I will time-gap waiting here to 15 more minutes and otherwise cross the border with just my 20.000 spare Ruble hoping for an exchange opportunity in Russia even though the rates will be much worse there.While I expected a boring printout of an
online ticket, I was handed a wonderful classic ticket booklet consisting of the cover booklet ticket, distance fare, sleeper ticket and transport remarks - all written in Chinese, Russian and - of course - German. -
While travel agencies are *really* a thing here, currency exchange seems to be strange here.
Finding a travel agency who could issue me a cross-border ticket to Russia took me less than 10 minutes, I was searching for a currency exchange for over two hours - unsuccessfully. Even the banks were astonished when I asked them whether I could exchange money.
After three hours, I was finally told that the regional headquarter of the Bank of China does currency exchange and this is where I'm waiting now. It btw. took almost 10 minutes until I could clarify that I don't understand Russian.
I'm slightly nervous because my
train is leaving in less than an hour and I know how picky Chinese railway workers are when it comes to international trains. I will time-gap waiting here to 15 more minutes and otherwise cross the border with just my 20.000 spare Ruble hoping for an exchange opportunity in Russia even though the rates will be much worse there.While I expected a boring printout of an
online ticket, I was handed a wonderful classic ticket booklet consisting of the cover booklet ticket, distance fare, sleeper ticket and transport remarks - all written in Chinese, Russian and - of course - German.@lewd do you have any idea why they have German as a third language on the ticket? I was already surprised when my ticket from Bukarest to Chisinau featured German text, but on a ticket from China to Russia I donβt see any reason why you would use German as a third language.
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While travel agencies are *really* a thing here, currency exchange seems to be strange here.
Finding a travel agency who could issue me a cross-border ticket to Russia took me less than 10 minutes, I was searching for a currency exchange for over two hours - unsuccessfully. Even the banks were astonished when I asked them whether I could exchange money.
After three hours, I was finally told that the regional headquarter of the Bank of China does currency exchange and this is where I'm waiting now. It btw. took almost 10 minutes until I could clarify that I don't understand Russian.
I'm slightly nervous because my
train is leaving in less than an hour and I know how picky Chinese railway workers are when it comes to international trains. I will time-gap waiting here to 15 more minutes and otherwise cross the border with just my 20.000 spare Ruble hoping for an exchange opportunity in Russia even though the rates will be much worse there.While I expected a boring printout of an
online ticket, I was handed a wonderful classic ticket booklet consisting of the cover booklet ticket, distance fare, sleeper ticket and transport remarks - all written in Chinese, Russian and - of course - German.Goodbye
China, hello Russia !The Bank of China told me it'd take two more hours to exchange currency so I had to leave without. Idk, I always thought currency conversation was strictly regulated in Europe but in China this seems to be an even more restricted business.
I arrived at the station 25 minutes before the departure of my
353Π¬ train hopefully bringing me to Irkutsk.I say "hopefully" because I don't have a ticket. My cross-border ticket is literally just for the 25 minutes ride between
Manzhouli and Zabaikalsk whereas there hopefully is an electronic reservation for the rest of the journey stored with my passport number. Fingers crossed 
.In any case, it stays interesting - may the journey behind the enemy's line go safe
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@lewd do you have any idea why they have German as a third language on the ticket? I was already surprised when my ticket from Bukarest to Chisinau featured German text, but on a ticket from China to Russia I donβt see any reason why you would use German as a third language.
@zugreiseblog_eu Germany is the UIC standard language for international tickets. Any UIC member issues classic booklet tickets in German. Another interesting remark : Where every you are in the world, if the railway still issues classic ticket booklets, the agents *will* understand the German terms "Buchfahrkarte", "Streckenfahrschein" and "Bettkarte". This already avoided lots of trouble on my travels in countries where we didn't find a common language.
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Goodbye
China, hello Russia !The Bank of China told me it'd take two more hours to exchange currency so I had to leave without. Idk, I always thought currency conversation was strictly regulated in Europe but in China this seems to be an even more restricted business.
I arrived at the station 25 minutes before the departure of my
353Π¬ train hopefully bringing me to Irkutsk.I say "hopefully" because I don't have a ticket. My cross-border ticket is literally just for the 25 minutes ride between
Manzhouli and Zabaikalsk whereas there hopefully is an electronic reservation for the rest of the journey stored with my passport number. Fingers crossed .In any case, it stays interesting - may the journey behind the enemy's line go safe
.@lewd be safe
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@zugreiseblog_eu Germany is the UIC standard language for international tickets. Any UIC member issues classic booklet tickets in German. Another interesting remark : Where every you are in the world, if the railway still issues classic ticket booklets, the agents *will* understand the German terms "Buchfahrkarte", "Streckenfahrschein" and "Bettkarte". This already avoided lots of trouble on my travels in countries where we didn't find a common language.
@lewd thatβs interesting, didnβt knew that until know. Is that also part of the reason why they use the word βPlatzkartβ in Russian?
