Trains and boats and planes... a journey through Asia

Early in october, 1987, we boarded a train (taking our rucksacks and dragging a big bag with food along) in Groningen in the north of the Netherlands, to go to airport in Amsterdam to fly to Moscow, there we took the Trans-Mongolia Express to Beijing and travelled on by trains, buses, boats and planes through China, via Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and Burma to Calcutta, to the south of India, Rahjastan and Nepal and in the end , late march 1988, we flew back home again. On this site you'll find lots of photo's and stories about this fascinating part of the world. And what's more - at the left of each travelpage - lots of interesting and amusing extra's, that differ according to the country or area visited, like fragments from the one-line diary I kept at the time, the postcards I sent home, animations like rolling Hong Kong dollars, the exciting Trans-Mongolia train-experience, a (dull?) rainy day in Yangshuo, romantic Hong Kong by night (down-loadable as a full-screen back-ground picture!), books and links concerning that particular area and lots, lots more.

photo's travel China Asia Trans-Siberia Express Hong Kong

Travelling Asia - description of our route

We started the journey with a flight from Amsterdam to Moscow. There we took the Trans-Mongolia Express (a variant of the Trans Siberia Express) through Siberia and Mongolia to Beijing, China where we arrived after 6 days of continuous train-travelling. We travelled (with some difficulty, some places where only quite recently opened to tourists) for a few weks through China: from Beijing another day and a half by train to the village of Yangshuo,(near Guilin) and later on by bus and river-boat to Canton (Guangzhou) and finally by plane to the small seaside town of Xiamen.

After a few days there we took a night-boat to the surprising and fascinating city of Hong Kong, where we stayed for a week and a half and (amongst many other things we did) bought airplane-tickets to Singapore. From there we travelled north by local buses slowly along the eastern Coast of Malaysia, staying in several of the villages. In the meantime the monsoon had started. When life at the east coast got too wet we went on to the multi-cultural town of Penang, at the western coast of Malaysia.

From Penang we went by minibus (and boat of course) to the coconut-island of Koh Samui in the very south of Thailand. By now it was december and we thought we earned a break from all the travelling. So we had our Christmas-holiday on the beaches beneath the coconut trees, lazing, reading and planning the rest of our journey.

A night in the train took us to Bangkok, just before the New Year, there we had a lot of ticketoffices and embassies to visit and papers to fill to get visa and booking flights in and out of Burma , India and Nepal. We stayed in Bangkok for nearly two weeks, a little longer then we had ment to because we coulkd not get on an earlier flight to Burma.

In Burma it was not allowed to stay longer then a week on a touristvisa. We had a wonderful week though, in Burma's capital, Rangoon, with it's marvellous Shwedagon Pagoda and in the antique and impressing temple-area of Pagan, in the centre of Burma.

With the famous Biman Bangladesh we flew from Rangoon to Calcutta in India. We had to spend one night in Dacca, Bangladesh. After spending some time in Calcutta (very worthwhile) we went by another train, the Coromandel Express, to Madras from where we travelled by more trains, buses and a boat through the south of India: Tanjore, Madurai, Quilon, Aleppy, Cochin to end in Mysore and Bangalore. In Mysore we bought the flight-ticktees to our next destination, Udaipur and also return tickets New Delhi - Kathmandu and for the last leg of our journey from New-Delhi to London.

But first we took our time in colourful Rahjastan in the north of India. For the first time in months it was cold enough again at night to sleep under blankets and appreciate hot showers. By way of Udaipur, Pushkar, Jaipur, Bharatpur and Agra and still more trains and buses (no boats) we finally arrived in New Delhi. From there we went by plane to Kathmandu in Nepal, our final destination. We stayed there for nearly two weeks, but because I fell ill we hardly went beyond the town itself. I just was well enough to travel when were due to fly back to New Delhi (where we slept one more night, in the filthiest hotel of the whole journey) and on to London. In London we bought air-tickets to Amsterdam right away, so we arrived a little later the same day in Amsterdam and finally Groningen.

The website - what will you find here?

• The backbone of this site consists of the stories, accompanied by many photo's, of the successive stages of our journey. The end of one part always has a link to the next part of the travel. When you want to view the stages in random order you can use the route-map of our journey through Asia or the description of the route above.
• At he left side of the travel-pages you'll find the "Add On Menu ": this menu contains extra information about the part of the journey described in the page itself. For instance when you click "Books and links" while you're reading about the Trans-Siberia Express you'll get books and links about the Trans-Siberia Express, while when you click "Books and Links" at the page about Hong Kong you'll see books and links about Hong Kong. The books and links (or any other information from the "Add On Menu") appears in a new, small window, so it adds to the original page with the description of that part of the travel. You can have as many extra options open as you like. Apart from "books and links" you can choose from fragments from the "one-line diary" I kept at the time, "postcards I sent home", "extra photo's" (on some special subject), "what does the money look like", and so on. Some Add-On items are specific for the part of the journey where they belong to, you'll find for instance "The Trans-Mongolia Train Experience", at the transsib-parts, or "View from Victoria Peak" at the page about Hong Kong.
• At the very bottom of each page (this page as well) you'll find a general menu. This is the same throughout the site. The travellinks mentionned here are general about Asia. You'll find the area-specific links at the "books and links" option of the corresponding page.

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