Vladivostok Getting there & around

Getting there & away

Land

Bus

The bus station (323 378; ul Russkaya), 3km north of the centre, sends many buses around the Primorsky Territory. You can catch a bus every 30 or 40 minutes to Nakhodka (R180, four hours) or three times daily to Khabarovsk (R665, 15 hours). Some southbound destinations may be off-limits to foreigners without a permit.

Train

At the time of writing, the No 1 service, the Rossiya, leaves the train station (491 005) for Moscow (R9100, 6½ days) on even-numbered days, passing through Irkutsk (R6300, 73 hours). A cheaper service, also on even-numbered days, is the No 239 - it's R6300 for a Moscow kupe ticket. On odd-numbered days No 7 Sibir to Novosibirsk (R5150, four days) is a cheaper option for Irkutsk (R4200).

Other trains include the daily No 5 Okean overnight to Khabarovsk (R1500, 13 hours), the daily No 351 via Khabarovsk and Komsomolsk-na-Amure (on the BAM) to Vanino (R1700, 41 hours), where you can get a ferry service to Sakhalin Island. The No 53 service to Kharkiv, Ukraine - going on odd-numbered days - has a (possibly deserved) less-than-stellar reputation for comfort and cleanliness.

Leaving (local time) at 2am on Tuesday and Friday, the No 185 connects Vladivostok with Harbin, China (R1500, about 30 hours) in the Heilongjiang province of northern China, from where there are daily connections to Beijing. There are many delays and border checks. The train crosses the border at the Chinese town of Suifenhe and also stops at Mudanjiang.

Tickets for long-distance trains are sold in the office beside the main platform. If there are long queues here you can buy tickets at the Service Centre(210 404; 8am-6.45pm), at the southern end of the building, for a whopping commission of R104, plus R48 if you need information first. Travel agents will also get tickets for you for similar fees.

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Boat

The Biznes Intur Servis(497 391; www.bisintour.com; 3rd fl, Morskoy Vokzal, Okeansky pr 1; 10am-6pm Mon-Fri) sells tickets for the fairly regular ferries (it claims to offer them every Monday and Saturday, but check first) between Vladivostok and the Japanese port of Fushiki from late February to early January. The often rough trip takes 42 hours and the ship is rarely full. Four categories of berths range from US$228 to US$888 one way (meals included) - minus student discounts.

Dong Chun Ferry Company (494 060; www.dongchunferry.co.kr, not in English; 2nd fl, Morskoy Vokzal, Okeansky pr 1; 10am-5.30pm Mon-Fri, 7am-9am Sat) sells tickets for weekly ferry service to Sokcho, Korea (US$168 to US$312 one way, 24 hours), generally leaving at 10.30am Saturday. In Sokcho, you can catch a bus to Seoul (W15, 000, three hours) every couple of hours. 'It's not such a great boat, ' an agent warned us. 'It's Chinese.'

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Air

Direct flights go to Moscow (R16, 700, nine hours, twice daily); flights via Novosibirsk are cheaper (R12, 300). Other domestic service includes Khabarovsk (R2500, 1¼ hours, daily), Irkutsk (R6000, four hours, six weekly), Magadan (R5000, three hours, two weekly), Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky (from R7000, four hours, three weekly), Yakutsk (R8500, two weekly) and Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk (R4900 to R6500, 1¾ hours, daily).

Vladivostok Air offers fligths to Harbin (R5900, two weekly) and to \Tianjin (R7300, one weekly), China. There are less frequent flights to Dailin.

For Japan, Vladivostok Air flies to Niigata (R10, 500, two weekly), Toyama (R12, 700, two weekly) and once weekly in August to Tokyo (R6900) and twice weekly in summer to Osaka (R15, 000).

Both Vladivostok and Korean Air fly dir- ect six times weekly to Seoul (R11, 000) or Pusan (R11, 000).

Primorskoye Aeroagentsvo(407 707; www.airagency.ru; ul Posetskaya 17; 8am-7pm) is a reliable chain for tickets with offices around much of the Russian Far East. Vladivostok Air (205 133; ul Svetlanskaya 22; 9am-7pm) is in a convenient location for the main carrier serving Vladivostok.

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