About the trip

The train trip was completed in the summer of 2010. The journey started in Hong Kong and ended in Largs, Ayrshire on the west coast of Scotland. The journey took 15 days, and took myself and Robert, my 11 year old son, across China, Mongolia, Russia, and across Europe, via Belarus, to the UK.

We travelled on 8 trains and numerous metros, including the hong kong to beijing express, the trans mongolian service from Beijing to Moscow, moscova express to Berlin, the Perseus from Berlin to Paris, the Eurostar from Paris to London, and the Caledonian sleeper from London to Glasgow.

The journey time was as fast and direct as possible as we were aiming to arrive on a specific day in Scotland to meet up with the rest of our family. That said, train connections meant we could enjoy three nights in Beijing, two nights in Moscow and have full days in Berlin and Paris.

We travelled light, one rucksack each, though had carrier bags of locally acquired provisions on the Beijing-Moscow leg. We took quite a lot of books and reading material, but mainly relied on technology, including a new iPad, for entertainment and audio and visual distractions. A DVD of Lost series 6 came in handy on the Moscow-Berlin leg.

One mistake we made was in not obtaining local currency in advance, this was a nuisance on the hong kong to Beijing leg (no hk dollars and no Chinese rmb) and on the Beijing Moscow leg, the lack of roubles meant we got a poor exchange rate when buying food in us dollars.

The other nuisance was self-inflicted, I refused to pay expensive roaming charges on my mobile, so this blog was intermittently posted when we got wifi access, normally via Starbucks. This means the Blog entries is some instances are not in order, and are without photos. Now the trip is completed I will be tidying up the order, adding some photos, and also providing some more details that may be of use to other fathers planning a similar trip with their son.

The blog has been made in part on my iPhone and part on iPad.