Hanno's blog

The well-known way of getting from Europe to China overland is the transsiberian railway. However, I noted that the route through Kazakhstan I took is the quickest way to get to China by train and bus. I thought I'd write that up:

• Take train EC 43 from Berlin Hauptbahnhof (09:37 on Monday, Berlin time) to Warsaw Wschodnia, change to train D 10SZ (15:28). If you - like me - feel that the time to switch trains is a bit risky in case of delaqys, you can take the earlier Beriln-Warsaw-train EC 41 (06:37 until 12:08). There's also a direct Berlin-Moscow-train D 50472 (Berlin 04:28, Moskwa Belorusskaja 10:33), but it's often sold out early.
• Spend some time in Moscow and then take the Metro Line 5 (Circular Line) to Komsol'skaya (Metro of Kazasky railway station)
• Take train 090У from Moscow Kazansky (18:48 on Tuesday, Moscow time) to Petropavl/Petropavlovsk in Kazakhstan (09:46 on Thursday, Astana/Almaty time). Note that this only works every second Tuesday - you may choose other days where this train goes, but then other options may not work.
• Take train 152T from Petropavl (13:48 on Thursday, Astana/Almaty time) to Almaty (22:28 on Friday, Astana/Almaty time).
• Take bus number 100 to Sayran bus station and hope that they'll sell you a ticket late in the evening for the bus next morning. Find a place to sleep (but not very long).
• Take bus from Astana Sayran bus station (07:00 on Friday, Astana/Almaty time) to Yining (approx. 21:00 on Friday, Beijing time). You're in China.

With the transsiberian, you can leave Berlin on Monday (same options as above until Moscow) and take the D4ZJ direct train from Moscow to Beijing. You will enter China in Erlian on the next Monday at 00:47. So this makes almost 7 days vs. about 4 and a half days.

I wouldn't recommend anyone doing that. Better spend some time on the way and see some places in Russia or Kazakhstan. Also it should be noted that one obvious reason for being faster is that you'll enter China at a place much further in the west. And getting to the main part of china (the western part is much less inhabited than the eastern part and all big cities are in the east) can be somewhat troublesome. Still, I thought it might be of interest to document the fastest overland way from Europe to China.

I always assumed the starting point Berlin, obviously because I live there, adapting that to other starting places should be trivial. For example you can usually easily (and for a comparatively cheap price) reach Berlin by Eurolines bus in a day from other major european cities like Paris or London.

If you've been reading my blog back in 2011, you'll remember that I did a two-month-long trip on the transsiberian railway through Russia, Mongolia and China. Ever since the idea was in my head that I wanted to do something alike again.

So today I am starting a new journey to Asia, again mostly by train. Slightly modified from last time, as I don't need to see all the places again I've already been. I started today at 6 am in Berlin and I'm currently in Warsaw, Poland (where the 19th world climate conference is just starting, but that's purely a coincidence). I'll only spend a couple of hours in Warsaw and then will continue my trip to Moscow. From there, I'll head on to Kazakhstan and later to China. If everything works out as intended, I'll hopefully spend parts of the winter in warm and sunny areas.

I make no promises, but I'll try to keep my blog updated with pictures and events happening on my trip.

Technical note: All entries related to this trip will be marked with the tag asia2013. All entries related to my previous trip to asia can be found under the tag trip2011. Pictures will be collected here.