With My Feet on the Ground

By Kate Thomas

Orson Welles once said that there are only two emotions on a plane: boredom and terror. He was wrong. Ten hours into a 22-hour flight to Australia, I was feeling a third: frustration. According to BA’s electronic flight plan, we had just left Thai airspace and were flying directly over Cambodia. I looked out over the wing. The sky was heavy with clouds, broken only by tiny shafts of gold and green. I thought of what I was missing – 36,000 feet below was Cambodia, shingled with Buddhist stupas and pagodas. I wanted to see the land I was flying over. I wanted to get out.

Months later, clambering down from the roof of a truck, I saw it. Clearing a path through lianas and kaffir lime leaves, I threw my backpack to the ground and looked up at Ta Prohm temple. I had thrown out my return air ticket with my Australian work visa, and was going home overland. My route so far had led me across the Indian Ocean in a container ship, through the rainforest of Malaysia and along the eastern coast of Thailand. If this trip were a bad inflight movie, a road sign would appear now. Sydney 7,040km it might say; London 17,069km. "The long way home", it would be called.

Boredom, terror, frustration: three great reasons to travel overland. And now there is the guilt of flying to contend with, too. A flight from London to Sydney releases 10.8 tons of CO2 into the atmosphere. Not only is surface travel exhilarating, it’s a perfect way to lighten your carbon footprint.

It is with this in mind that Oz Bus has launched a groundbreaking new service, ferrying backpackers between London and Sydney largely overland. "Every year thousands of young travellers set off to Australia seeking the thrill of adventure," founder Mark Creasey says. "The trouble is most just end up doing the same old thing while the closest they come to adventure is watching the airport baggage carousel. I wanted to create a service that not only delivers them to their destination, but also allows them to visit and experience the amazing world they would otherwise be flying over."

On its inaugural journey this September, Oz Bus will follow in the footsteps of Maureen and Tony Wheeler, Lonely Planet’s founders, who travelled across Europe and Asia to Australia in 1972 (see box overleaf). Passengers will travel the old silk route, pausing in Iran, Pakistan, India and even get a chance to see Mount Everest base camp. While they will rely on a fleet of second-hand buses, I used container ships, trains, boats, bicycles, buses, the odd taxi, a horse and my thumb. I don’t know how many trains I took. That’s the thing about slow travel – nobody’s counting.

Plenty of wannabe overland travellers stumble at the first hurdle. There are two ways to travel between Sydney and Singapore: by air or by sea. I booked a berth on a German container ship using www.freightertravel.co.nz, based in New Zealand. Gone are the days when you could talk your way on to a cargo ship in return for a little light cleaning; a bunk on the Baltrum Trader will set you back around AU$3,000 ([pound]1,200). She sails every month or two – there is no fixed schedule – between Brisbane and Singapore, via Sydney, Melbourne, Christmas Island and Indonesia. The trip takes around three weeks. Alternatively, crewing websites regularly advertise for cooks, cleaners and crew to work on yachts between Dar win and Indonesia; www.sailindonesia.net and www.dwnsail.com.au are two of the best.

The crew of container vessels inhabit a strange twilight world, seeing land only once every month or so, trading stories of pirates, whales and mermaid sightings. Be prepared for wild storms as you traverse the Great Australian Bight, and to travel in pitch darkness through the straits of Malacca – piracy is a very real threat.

Travelling onwards from Singapore to Malaysia and Thailand is straightforward. A second-class rail ticket from Singapore to Bangkok costs around [pound]30. Check www.seat61.com for detailed prices and timetables. You can stop off in Kuala Lumpur or visit some of the Thai islands along the way. From Bangkok you can continue north to Laos, or travel onward to Cambodia. Many travellers fly in and out of Siem Reap’s Angkor international airport, barely touching down before they leave again. But you can reach Siem Reap, the rapidly growing Cambodian town close to Angkor Wat temple complex, in a day from Bangkok.

Buses depart from Bangkok’s sprawling northern bus station every half-hour and charge around 300 baht ([pound]4.60) for the four- hour trip to Aranyaprathet for the Cambodian border. Once there, you can obtain a visa ($20/[pound]10) on the spot, before crossing into the rather seedy border town of Poipet on the Cambodian side, where you can hire a Toyota Camry for around $40 ([pound]20) to take you to Siem Reap and the magnificent Angkor Wat complex.

From there I headed to Phnom Penh, the Cambodian capital and then caught the daily local bus to Vietnam and Ho Chi Minh City. It’s an eight-hour ride through expanses of scrub and brushland, dotted with tall silver palms waving in the hot breeze. Having crossed the border on foot and changed to a new bus at the frontier town of Moc Bai, I fell asleep and woke up to the meaty, nutty smell of Pho. Morning, Vietnam.

For the journey from Ho Chi Minh City to Hanoi I opted for the train. The early morning Hanoi express is a spectacular train ride through scrub and jungle, past deep valleys and idyllic turquoise bays. As the train climbs into the mountains, you might spot monkeys giggling in waterfalls, rice farmers resting in hammocks or a pair of eyes peering up at you from beneath a conical hat.

The line links Hanoi and the coastal towns of Hue, Danang and Nha Trang with Ho Chi Minh City. The 1,726km journey takes three days, but you can stop off along the way. Hoi An is a fabulous port of call for its fabric markets and tailor-made clothing. Although it has no station, it’s just 30km by bus or taxi from the white beaches of Danang.

There is now a snazzy twice-weekly express train service between Hanoi and Beijing. A Vietnamese metre-gauge train runs to the back door of China, Dong Dang, where you pass through customs before joining a connecting train with four-berth soft class sleepers and restaurant car for the final run to Beijing. The fare is around [pound]70.

The Chinese have a saying about their country, which goes something along the lines of "not only seas and mountains, but people-seas and people-mountains". Booking train travel in China is notoriously difficult due to the vast numbers of Chinese travelling. National holidays excluded, it is still relatively easy to get around if you are prepared to queue, brace the crowds, digest plenty of noodles and learn key Mandarin phrases.

My trip took me up through high mountain passes and staggered rice plantations to the terracotta army in Xi’an and the panda research base in Chengdu, before returning to Beijing to join the longest railway line in the world.

High in the Central Asian plateau, Mongolia is like nowhere else on earth. Much of this wild, windswept land hasn’t changed in centuries. The Trans-Mongolian railway line, which stretches for more than 8,000km, skirts the Great Wall of China before it begins its descent into Mongolia and the Gobi desert.

For days, I tasted nothing but sand. But watching the busy Chinese landscape give way to a sea of endless sand dotted with gers and fat snow-capped mountains is one of the most spectacular sights on earth.

Hard sleepers start at [pound]65 for the two-day trip. Specialist travel agencies such as www.waytorussia.net can organise tickets and visas, while independent sites like www.trans-siberia.com and overland bible www.seat61.com give good advice.

Although trains run regularly from Ulan Baatar to Ulan Ude and on to Irkutsk in Siberia, I chose to travel by "road" – horse and truck, that is. From a battered Soviet van – a throwback from the early Sixties, when communism was in full swing in Mongolia – I watched robed huntsmen canter bareback across the open steppe. As the van stumbled across the plains, negotiating vertiginous passes buttered with prayer flags, the sun sank deep into the volcanic mountains and the blue sky blushed. It was cold, minus 28C. We pulled over to allow a herd of wild ponies to pass in front of us, kicking up a dust storm, as the radio played an old Tom Waits track: "Got a handful of lightning, a hat full of rain… come with me, together, we can take the long way home."

One day, Lake Baikal – the biggest freshwater lake in the world and Irkutsk’s centrepiece – will be an ocean that divides Europe and Asia. Its waters are so clear and so deep that those skating on its icy surface in winter might wonder if they are traversing a giant glass ceiling. Visibility extends to 200 metres, even when frozen.

From Irkutsk, trains leave most days for Moscow. Check the railway timetable carefully; Russia subscribes to 11 different time zones but railway clocks run to Moscow time. Inside the train, it is much the same. Probably the closest you’ll ever get, for three nights at least, to living in a world without time. Even if, from your bunk, it feels like you have a hell of a lot of it on your hands.

If anything can convince you that Russia is coming out of the cold, it’s arriving here from Asia. In comparison with its neighbour, Mongolia, Russia has a distinctly Western feel. Comfortable, cheap and fast trains ply the route between the capital and Riga, depositing you in the Latvian city in time for lunch. For the final run, Latvian company Ecolines offers a bus service between Riga and London, as does National Express. The Ecolines trip takes 72 hours and costs [pound]55.

Two days later, having passed through the Balkan states and crossed the Channel by ferry, I "land" at London Victoria bus station, where, other than the battered backpack at my feet, there is nothing to distinguish me from someone who has just got off the number 73 bus.

Fast travel may be convenient, I think, standing at the bus stop, but as Tom Waits sang, I’d trade it all tomorrow for the highway instead.

TRAVELLER’S GUIDE

GETTING THERE

Oz Bus (020-8641 1443; www.oz-bus.com) will operate a 12-week overland bus service between London and Sydney.

The first trip departs on 16 September with the next planned for 13 January 2008, and will take in 20 countries, with prices starting at [pound]3,750 per person one way.

The price includes the services of tour leaders, overland travel, ferry tickets, camping and hotel costs, all meals when camping and travelling, and entry fees to national parks when on group visits. Vehicles carry up to 36 passengers.

MORE INFORMATION

Visas are not included in the cost. For information about which countries require visas, contact the Foreign Office (0845 850 2829; www.fco.gov.uk).

(c) 2007 Independent, The; London (UK). Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.