Today, my railway journey from 🇹🇭 Bangkok back to 🇫🇷 Alsace finally begins.

[pvdrijst@mastodon.social]

@lewd Wondering how this journey goes, Iran is a no-go I think and Russia a maybe so I think it might involve a boat.

[richardibbo@fosstodon.org]

Good to see it was a worthwhile journey . I'll look forward to seeing the rest of it. Reminds me of some of the trips that I did

@lewd

[richardibbo@fosstodon.org]

Yeh .. I've done most of that myself. On one trip I found myself talking to Joanne Lumley on the train back from China to Siberia and Moscow. What a trip that was

Joanna Lumley - Wikipedia

(en.wikipedia.org)

@lewd

[lewd@zug.network]

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.

#FOSSRail #CrossBorderRail

[dwardoric@chaos.social]

@lewd Safe travels!

[serac@troet.cafe]

@lewd
Sounds adventureous! Thank you for sharing.

[bene64@chaos.social]

@lewd safe travels!

[wrzlbrnft@troet.cafe]

@lewd I suppose there will be a the train but tickets will only be sold at Manzhouli.

[wrzlbrnft@troet.cafe]

@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.

[wrzlbrnft@troet.cafe]

@lewd No. Only a few high-speed routes so far. I'm aware, I need to change this.

[hatetsu@mastodon.com.pl]

@lewd Thinking on it, it would make a very twisted kind of sense to mark Chinese traditional train classes as СЪ, СЬ, ЛЪ, ЛЬ

[jonathan@charade.social]

@lewd safe travels!

[govinda_hari@hostux.social]

@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.

[hatetsu@mastodon.com.pl]

@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

[lewd@zug.network]

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 !

#FOSSRail

[minibill@mastodon.uno]

@lewd insane? /pos

[jonathan@charade.social]

@lewd is my spirit animal

[lewd@zug.network]

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.

#FOSSRail #CrossBorderRail

[zugreiseblog_eu@mastodon.social]

@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 don’t see any reason why you would use German as a third language.

[lewd@zug.network]

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 353Ь 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 .

#FOSSRail #CrossBorderRail #TeamNightTrain