Short notice trip on Trans-Siberian to Beijing

I'm a fairly inexperienced traveller. I'm planning a trip at rather short notice and I want to make sure it's all possible before I start to commit to anything. Ideally, I would like to travel on the cheaper side of what is possible.

I want to travel from Moscow to Beijing via Ulaan Bataar, beginning around about the end of April. I'm a British passport holder.

I plan to:

• Get a Russian visa via RealRussia.co.uk or WayToRussia.net before I leave
• Get a Chinese visa in London at the embassy/consulate (I forget) by queueing before I leave
• Get a Mongolian visa in Irkutsk

I don't mind booking rail tickets in advance via agencies, but I don't want to go on a tour. I'd like to stop in Irkutsk/Lake Baikal for a few days and Ulaan Bataar for a couple of days. My dates are entirely flexible until I book anything.

I speak no Russian at all and won't have time to learn anything more than absolute basics.

Is there anything in my plan that might not be possible? Can one book train tickets at this short notice? The Ulaan Bataar - Beijing train seems maybe problematic. Is there another way to get between the two? Is it possible to book tickets for this route in advance?

Thanks in advance, and I promise I've been looking through the threads a lot for information.

There are lots of problems with your plan.

There is only one local train per day from Irkutsk to UB with one car that crosses the border and 2 express trains per week with two cars that cross the border. There is a good chance that the tickets for travel in May are already sold out. You can check on the rzd.ru website. Use google to translate or something like translate.ru.

Getting tickets for the UB to Beijing piece will be difficult. Try Selena Travel, Passport travel, Legend Travel and Ocean Travel. All have offices in UB. From Beijing I often recommend Richard Tian of Ocean Travel, whose email is oceantravelcn@yahoo.com.cn or richards@public3.bta.net.cn. Reportedly this company opened a UB office last summer.

You must learn to ready the cyrillic alphabet. It should not take much time. There are links to some resources on my website.

Read the New RU Train sticky for some information. If you want companies to book the train tickets try realrussia.co.uk or Svezhy Veter A Russian tour company, although not specializing in travel on the trans siberian, this site has lots of useful information about travel in Russia plus their service and prices are reasonable.

Ruth

Thankyou - this is what I was trying to find out. I see that I can fly from Irkutsk to Beijing instead if necessary. Is it that booking train tickets from Moscow to Irkutsk is easier and they probably won't be sold out?

I will learn the Cyrillic alphabet and as much basic Russian as I can. For some reason, I can make none of the translating websites work, and the English part of www.rzd.ru doesn't seem to be working either, but I will persist. Thanks again.

If you want to travel from Moscow to Irkutsk without stopping then you will have problems on short notice. If you are willing to stop along the way, see something and make connections, then you will have no problems getting to Irkutsk.

You don't need to fly from Irkutsk to Beijing if you want to stop in Mongolia. If tickets for the train across the border are sold you there are a number of options. One is to take the train to the border, cross the border independently and then take the local train from the other side of the border. Because the stop at the border is so long this is usually done without problems.

Also you can take a train from Irkutsk to Ulan Ude and if the train is booked, you can take a bus from UU to Ulan Bator. There is information on the bus here on the TT, try searching.

Then from UB you can take the local train to the border, cross the border and take another local train to Beijing. This takes an extra day but is also cheaper and is a daily option where as the train across the border is NOT daily, only once or twice a week.

Not sure why translate.ru isn't working for you. Are you using the English version of the website that translates entire pages?

Ruth

Spasiba. I cannot type Russian... I have got Helmut Uttenthaler to book me tickets ('Utti'), and so I am harasho until Irkutsk, from where I'll try to get the bus from UU.

One question, though - I'm second class and everything I've read says there are 36 berths per carriage. My berth is number 37... I've seen a picture of the ticket. It is train no. 2 Rossiya, on 15.05. Would you happen to know what's going on? I'm just interested, really. You have wasted plenty of time answering my questions, so no need if you're busy.

If you are traveling kupé then there is no berth 37 perhaps the number refers to something else.

Scan the ticket and email it to me and I'll take a look.

Ruth