Trails on Rails on TrailsOnRails

Bruxelles

Wed, 17 Jul 2019 17:29:37 +0000

The train ride from Berlin to Bruxelles was really hard, so I won’t recommend it to anybody going the same way.

Journey continued

Wed, 17 Jul 2019 16:53:09 +0000

After the end of the journey in Ho Chi Minh City, I finally got back to work. The impressons of the last 6 months helped me to see some things in daily life differently.

Night train to Hue

Wed, 12 Dec 2018 16:53:33 +0000

The train I went down from Hanoi to Hue had the splendid name Reunification Express 3. I checked in early enough in Hanoi, that I could take some nice pictures.

Hanoi

Tue, 11 Dec 2018 13:18:15 +0000

After I picked up an infection my days in Hanoi were not so funny. Most time lying in bed with fever. I even went to doctor to check whether I got Malaria from mosquito bites in Laos. The doc found…

Sapa

Tue, 11 Dec 2018 11:14:03 +0000

Sapa itself is not worth visiting it is a dirty and very touristy city in the North of Vietnam.

Dien Bien Phu

Sun, 09 Dec 2018 01:56:46 +0000

Dien Bien Phu is very famous for the battle between the French and the Vietnamese, which ended the French reign over Vietnam in 1954.

Travelling on Nam Ou river

Sat, 08 Dec 2018 15:01:12 +0000

In the morning I went to small pier in Nong Khiaw and bought a ticket to Muang Khua, which is another small town in the north of Lao. From there it should be easy to get a bus to Dien Bien Phu in…

Nong Khiaw

Thu, 06 Dec 2018 02:12:23 +0000

From Luang Prabang I went up by public bus to Nong Khiaw. I was lucky to get the bus because it departed 30 minutes ahead of schedule and was quite full.

Hiking to Tad Sae Waterfall

Sun, 02 Dec 2018 02:27:11 +0000

I hiked with Laos Adventure Tours to the waterfall and did a kayaking back to Luang Prabang.

Luang Prabang

Sun, 02 Dec 2018 02:00:52 +0000

Luang Prabang is a wonderful town and charmed me with it’s beauty and relaxed lifestyle.

Nightbus from Kunming to Luang Prabang

Fri, 30 Nov 2018 17:24:32 +0000

From Guilin I went 6 hours by train to Kunming, the capital of Yunnan province. It was just a transfer stop, because I headed directly to the south bus station and was happy to get a ticket on the…

Hiking Li River (漓江)

Fri, 23 Nov 2018 11:10:14 +0000

**Attention: The old hiking route from Yang di to Xingping is closed or at least not supported any more. You cannot do the first section of this path because there are no ferries going through the…

Guilin

Wed, 21 Nov 2018 10:59:40 +0000

I had bad luck with the weather - it was raining nearly all day long except the day I did the hike along the Li River.

Guangzhou

Wed, 21 Nov 2018 05:16:00 +0000

Going by train from Xiamen to Guilin I had to change train and stations in Guangzhou. So I had there about 4 hours to spare. Therefore I went to Shamian island and the old city centre.

Xiamen

Wed, 21 Nov 2018 04:30:06 +0000

Hiking Huangshan (黃山) mountains

Wed, 14 Nov 2018 03:59:56 +0000

Huangshan is famous for its mountain with cloud structures. During the days I was there I had only cloudy sky - never seen the sun and a lot of rain.

Wuzhen ... or Internet what???

Tue, 13 Nov 2018 14:34:58 +0000

On Friday the 9th of November I went to Wuzhen, because it is a famous water town. So I took the train to Tongxiang. At the station there the first thing which was really awkward was that they…

Hangzhou

Tue, 13 Nov 2018 12:16:04 +0000

Hangzhou once praised by the poets in ancient times to be one of the most magnificient places on earth has developed in a modern mediocre Chinese city. The flair and glamour of the old times has…

Maglev Shanghai

Sat, 10 Nov 2018 02:10:55 +0000

I went on a round trip with the magnetic levitation train from Shanghai Longyang Road to Pudong Airport and back.

Suzhou

Tue, 06 Nov 2018 16:22:03 +0000

Suzhou is a town in the west of Shanghai. It is famous for its small waterways and gardens.

Shanghai

Tue, 06 Nov 2018 15:16:22 +0000

I had a bit a hatd start in Shanghai and had to switch the hostel, because at the other one it was really messy and owner not really showing up.

Hiking the Sky-Mountains

Tue, 06 Nov 2018 04:55:12 +0000

After one more sleeper train from Chengdu to Yichang and a crowded train I arrived in Zhangjiajie town. It was 18:30 and still dark, so I had contacted my hotel near the Yangjiajie entry of the park…

Pandas in Chengdu

Sun, 04 Nov 2018 02:26:31 +0000

After two nights on sleeper trains I arrived in Chengdu. I had to catch another sleeoer traib that night, so I left my luggage at the storafe at Chengdu East Station and headed directly to the Panda…

Lhasa and Yamdrok Lake

Wed, 31 Oct 2018 16:48:38 +0000

I arrived in Lhasa on the 21st in the evening. And the first impression when driving in taxi to the hotel was the Potala Palace properly light up in the night. It looked so amazing.

Tibet Train to Lhasa

Fri, 26 Oct 2018 09:22:02 +0000

I went from Xi’an to Lhasa and in Xining I had to change to the Tibet Train.

Longman Buddha Caves

Fri, 26 Oct 2018 08:46:24 +0000

Near the city Luoyang at the shores of the Li river there are the famous Buddha caves.

Hiking Mount Hua Shan

Tue, 23 Oct 2018 15:25:17 +0000

At the hostel in Xi’an I got the tip tjat hiking Mount Hua Shan is really beautiful. First I made some plans how I can get there and buy the tickets with my very limited Chinese language skills ;-)

Xi'an

Tue, 23 Oct 2018 01:18:45 +0000

I lived in a hostel by the city wall in Xi’an. It was a perfect location in the centre and I could reach subway in a few minutes. The staff of the hostel was really nice, when I arrived they invited…

Pingyao - Living in a Museum

Sat, 20 Oct 2018 02:55:07 +0000

Pingyao is not so popular in Europe, but it is one of few cities in China which has an old city centre dating back to Ming Dynasty. The centre is circumvented by an ancient city wall too.

Eating 烤鸭 in 北京

Fri, 19 Oct 2018 15:11:38 +0000

On my last night in Beijing we got to the Quanjude restaurant for eating kǎoyā - roasted duck, in western world also known by Beijing Duck.

The Great Wall

Fri, 19 Oct 2018 14:32:11 +0000

Wei and I decided to meet again in Beijing to hike the Great Wall together. We selected a part where we had not to much tourists, but which is beautiful because of the lake near the wall.

Beijing

Fri, 19 Oct 2018 10:48:08 +0000

Beijing was quite a surprise to me, because I heard really bad things about air quality and pollution there. But I stayed there for one week and hat clear sunny weather - no smog. The cars in the…

Shenyang

Sat, 13 Oct 2018 03:08:00 +0000

Shenyang is a modern city, but in the centre there is the old forbidden city of emperor’s times.

Harbin

Mon, 08 Oct 2018 16:21:38 +0000

Harbin was a nice start for China. Even more that Wei, the Taiwanese woman who I met at the border, helped me to get comfortable with Chinese customs and the language. Harbin is a nice town with a…

Leaving Russia

Tue, 02 Oct 2018 13:44:53 +0000

It showed up that leaving Russia was not so easy. The bus I wanted to take was not going on Sundays. So on the 30th I went with a night train to the tow Ussurirsk, because I found out that there are…

At the other End of Transiberian Railway

Sat, 29 Sep 2018 15:48:42 +0000

Finally after three days on train from Irkutsk I have reached Vladivostok.

Steampower along Circum-Baikal

Tue, 25 Sep 2018 00:14:15 +0000

Circum-Baikal is an old part of the Trans-Siberian railway. It was once famous for the nice path along the Baikal lake and lots of tunnels.

Irkutsk

Mon, 24 Sep 2018 16:34:18 +0000

Irkutsk is my favourite city in Siberia, it has some flair with a mixture of old and new buildings, nice Squares, nice paths along the riverbank.

Novosobirsk

Sun, 23 Sep 2018 16:25:42 +0000

Novosibirsk is the capital of Siberia an has some representative buildings like the opera. During the time I was there, there have been a lot of construction sites, so walking in the city centre was…

Omsk

Sun, 23 Sep 2018 15:25:59 +0000

If the cities are not that big I usually decide to hike to the hotel. Just to see the city and get more of the people who live here. Well Omsk with 10 km to the hotel was really a hard hike with a…

Ekaterinburg

Sun, 23 Sep 2018 14:40:38 +0000

Ekaterinburg is a modern city with some skyscrapers and a nice lake in the city center. There are only a few old buildings, which are nowadays mostly museums.

Kazan

Sun, 16 Sep 2018 13:41:44 +0000

Nishni Nowgorod

Tue, 11 Sep 2018 14:18:50 +0000

Moscow

Tue, 11 Sep 2018 13:46:13 +0000

Спокойной ночи Кйев - доброе вечер Москва

Tue, 11 Sep 2018 13:17:58 +0000

From Kiev I took a night train to Moscow. It was coming from Chisinau. In Kiev it departed 3am in the morning and reached Moscow at 4pm. I selected the train, so that I could be sure, that when we…

Chernobyl

Sun, 09 Sep 2018 09:28:59 +0000

I think everyone who grew up in the mid 80ies remembers the Chernobyl disaster. All this insecurity, lack of knowledge and nowadays we know it was only the sacrifice of more than half a million…

Kiew

Sat, 08 Sep 2018 10:29:46 +0000

2018-08-26 to 2018-08-31

Lwiw

Sat, 08 Sep 2018 09:51:35 +0000

I was lucky and came into town on 24th of August, which is the independence day of the Ukraine. So the whole town was vibrant and moving. They had several stages in the city centre where bands…

Auschwitz

Thu, 06 Sep 2018 08:34:03 +0000

Sometimes it is hard to find words. I tought I was well-prepared because I had in school good teatchers and lessons about the Holocaust and Nazi regime.

Cracovia

Tue, 04 Sep 2018 09:07:46 +0000

Cracovia is wonderful vivid city, but very touristic. My favourite part of the city is Kazimierz. It is near the castle the quater where formerly mostly jews lived. There are still Synagogues there.…

Break in Berlin

Tue, 04 Sep 2018 07:14:50 +0000

Stayed in Berlin for few days at my friend Corinna’s place, because I subleased my flat till end of January.

Vilnius and Trakia

Tue, 04 Sep 2018 06:43:21 +0000

Rainy Day in Riga

Tue, 28 Aug 2018 16:52:04 +0000

On saturday I had rainy weather in Riga. So I got to the railway museum.

Dry Swamp

Mon, 27 Aug 2018 20:40:22 +0000

On friday I had the next orienteering competition.

Short visit in Talinn

Sat, 25 Aug 2018 09:05:28 +0000

After two day with orienteering competitions, I had one day free. So I decided to go for a short visit to Talinn. So I took the bus at 6 in the morning and drove up 4 hours to Talinn. Slept most of…

Sigulda and the Mud

Thu, 23 Aug 2018 07:53:06 +0000

Got up early that day at 5:30 to take the train to Sigulda. 3 kilometres outside of Sigulda was the next Orienteering event.

Orienteering in the Ethnographic Open Air Museum

Tue, 21 Aug 2018 21:22:36 +0000

The next orienteering event within the Latvia-O-Week was a forest sprint in the Ethnographic Open Air Museum. So I took a public bus to the museum.

Indoor Orienteering in National Library of Latvia

Wed, 15 Aug 2018 19:23:23 +0000

The National Library of Latvia is an impressive building, just opposite to the old town on the other shore of Daugava river.

WOC Sprint Finals in Old Town Riga

Wed, 15 Aug 2018 19:00:57 +0000

After I had participated in my first competition at Kronvalda Park in Riga, I went to the World Orienteering Championship Sprint Finals on the main square in old town in Riga. There was start and…

Orienteering

Wed, 15 Aug 2018 18:24:11 +0000

Besides the kind reader of this blog now might know that I am a train nerd. My second most beloved hobby is orienteering.

Riga

Mon, 13 Aug 2018 16:17:49 +0000

When I first came to Riga with all its buildings of 19th century, it reminded a bit of down town Vienna. Then I encountered this old wood-made houses in between the other buildings which gives the…

Traveling to Riga

Sat, 11 Aug 2018 08:15:52 +0000

In the morning got up at 5am. Did not get a lot of sleep that night, because it was really hot in the room. And the other guy came back drunk at 2:30 and snoring all night long. So I was happy to…

First Stop: Warsawa

Fri, 10 Aug 2018 21:24:50 +0000

So the first stop on the tour was Warsaw. When I got on the Eurocity train in Berlin I was really exhausted, the heat, carrying the big bag. Bit the nice thong was that I had the first hour of the…

Leaving Berlin

Tue, 07 Aug 2018 19:34:03 +0000

A 6 months journey should be well-prepared. A lot of things must be organized.

Confessions of a Train Nerd

Wed, 01 Aug 2018 22:14:18 +0000

I love to go with the old smokey ones as well as the new high-speed ones.

About

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000