Dublin to Australia by land!

juanace

Hi guys,

Were taking ferry's, buses and trains from dublin to singapore.

Looking for some advice on people who've done anything remotely similar!

Me and 2 mates are going: dublin - london - harwich - esjberg - copenhagen - stockholm - helsinki - talinn - riga - st. petersberg - moscow - ulanbator - bejing - hong kong - hanoi -saigon - phnum penh - bangkok - kuala lumpur singapore...perth.

We've planned the guts of it, mainly thanks to seat 61! Were taking are time and gonna take in as much as we can, not just these main cities (we will have about 10,000euro each).

Looking for advice from anyone whose done anything similar, especially:

The Trans mongolian train.
1. Is there any flexibility on visas, from mongolia to bejiing. We are hoping to stay in mongolia if we like it, but are afraid we must enter China when are visa says or not get in at all! Must we book it all in advance?
2. Whats the best / cheapest place to book the train, second class?
3. What are peoples experince of the journey and ulan bator?

Thailand
1. We will be coming over the border from Cambodia and from my research it looks like we can only get a 15 day visa (as opposes to a 30day visa when flying in). Are visa's easily extended for tourists?

General
1. Anyone done any of these legs before, especailly south asia, what experinces have you!

2. Were going in November, gettting transmongolian at end of november, so its gonna be cold!! Anyone ever done mongolia in december!??

3. Anyone ever got to Australia by any other means than flying?? This looks the hardest leg, we may just have to suck it up and buy a flight - going to perth initially, to work for a year around Australia/New Zealand!

You can see im excited considering im up at 2am researching the trip:D!!

Gonzales

This looks fantastic!!!

You could try to blag a ride from Singapore to Perth on a freighter or even beteer a private yaucht - no idea where to start though.

Do a search under Singapore Marina's to kick it off.

entering Singapore overland will get you a 15 day visa, however you may extend easily by getting the bus back to Malaysia & then back into Singapore - 3-4 hours round trip. Or you could go to Immigration & checkpoint authority in Singapore and que up, I'd take the bus.

maninasia

That will be a first...between two islands!

Gonzales

maninasia wrote: »

That will be a first...between two islands!

Yea, I know, they're linked by a causeway & a bridge- should have been clearer.

BTW Malaysia isn't an Island - Touche!

AngryHippie

Mate of mine got the Oz-bus last year, from London to Sydney. Filled a whole bloody passport with visas and stamps. But said it was the best trip he's ever done. Not sure about Mongolia et al. Theirs went through turkey Iran Iraq pakistan and down through SE Aisa. Definitely shouldn't be any hassle getting down through malaysia, that seemed to be the easy bit. Some of them did fly on the iran/iraq/pakistan legs though, something to do with security, apparently they were escorted by military convoy through a lot of it. Mental stuff, but you'll definitely need some baksheesh to get through it. Be prepared.

Gaz

Too be honest I dont think you will need much time in Mongolia, regardless of how much you like it. If your there in December it will be unbearably cold. I did 3 weeks there last summer as part of my overland Bangkok to Cape Town trip and its a fantastic country but in winter Ulan Bator is usually -25 and below, as far as I know the tour i went on to get out into the Gobi stops in November.

As for getting tickets, get them all in the train stations , I got from Beijing to Moscow for under 200. Make sure you learn the cyrillic alphabet , it really helps.

Thailand visas are one of the easist to extent. Some people are there years by simply doing a visa run over the border. Careful if your crossing at poipet, place is a kip and they will try to rip you off at every turn.

As for getting to Oz, there are ferrys from Singapore to Indonesia but then you will need to find a freighter to go the rest of the way, which will be very difficult and expensive , although a cruise ship from Asia to Australia is possible , expensive though.

Good Luck !

juanace

As for getting tickets, get them all in the train stations , I got from Beijing to Moscow for under 200. Make sure you learn the cyrillic alphabet , it really helps.

This is what we want to do Gaz but we need visas for Russia with dates of entry/exit, Mongolia the same, and china the same. Relying on getting tickets at the station would put our visa's in trouble. Unless you know a better way of sorting the visa's??

Thanks for the other advice guys, just one other thing. I know we could do a border run in Thailand but were probly going to be on the islands around day 15 of our visa. Canm you get it extended in bangkok before we go to the islands? Be a nightmare to get acorss the border and back from there. What happends if we miss our exit day on the visa??

Gaz

You get 30days for your Russian visa, so you are going to know when you will be there, then work out how long you think you will be spending there, ie: are you going all the way on to UB in one run or are you breaking it up with stops ? I never had a problem with tickets being sold out , most you will have to wait is maybe a day or two.

So you will be able to give the Mongolian embassy a fairly accurate date when applying for your visa. Once you make it to UB I really dont think you will be staying long, unfortunately its just too cold in winter and there will be very little , if anything, to do.

Im not sure what the current situation is for Chinese visas but when i was there last year it was a total nightmare due to the olympics , needed to prove all nights accomadation with bookings and had to have a flight ticket, despite the fact I was entering/exiting over land. But it may be back to normal now, it was , prior to the Olympics, a very easy visa to get and you had months to use it. Give the embassy a ring.

Oh and yes you can extend your tourist visa in Bangkok.

juanace

Thanks Gaz for that info.

Just thought if we had to wait a day or two for train tickets, we would miss the day were meant to exit Russia and get in trouble the KGB!! I suppose we could just say were staying for longer than we actually intend to and then leave early for UB, that might work - assuming mongolia and china are more easy going with visa's that the Russians!

Gaz

The Russian visa can be a bit of a pain alright but if you have all your paperwork in order you should be fine. I can recommend www.waytorussia.com for your visa support letter , think it cost me 25Eur or so.

Take the standard 30 days , you can leave anytime within those 30 days. Mongolia and China are much more relaxed with regard to extentions and stuff.

juanace

Just got my Australia visa sorted! Took me 10mins online and cost €107! Much cheaper than through any agency. Couldnt have been easier. Was appoved instantly without having any paperwork!!

Anyone have any info on insurance? We' need 3 months travel insurance for going around the world, then another 8-12months for Australia.

Whats the best option? Need medical cover obviously. Thanks a lot!!

SeekUp

Hey -- I read a book last year about a guy who went around the word sans airplane. Even if you've already got a lot of it down planning-wise, it might make some interesting reading!

It's 'Back in 6 Years' by Tony Robinson-Smith.

jackbhoy

juanace wrote: »

The Trans mongolian train.

2. Whats the best / cheapest place to book the train, second class?

Third class is about half the price, perfectly comfortable and a lot more interesting than 2nd. You'll get to share open plan carraige with 52 Russian/Mongolians as opposed to a couple of other tourists.

juanace wrote: »

3. What are peoples experince of the journey and ulan bator?

Its great! We are 6 months travelling now and nowhere has topped Mongolia yet. You'll probably get a little weary of trains/buses when get to SE Asia but its far richer experience than hopping from place to place on a plane.
UB is not a very pretty city and it'll be cold as hell in December but rest of country is amazing.

juanace wrote: »

1. Anyone done any of these legs before, especailly south asia, what experinces have you!

All the legs you list are relatively straightforward and well travelled so you should have no real problems. We didn't use those VIP buses you see in Thailand/Vietnam/Cambodia/Laos that much as local buses are at least half the price and better fun. The only VIP bus we used in Laos had its engine blow up 45 mins into 8 hour journey.

juanace wrote: »

2. Were going in November, gettting transmongolian at end of november, so its gonna be cold!! Anyone ever done mongolia in december!??

We were there in late November last year. As other poster mentioned some companies don't run tours in December. Try emailing goldengobi hostel in ub as they organise transport and tours and were very good to us. Be sure to bring proper cold weather gear as you will be sleeping in nomadic gers and when fire goes out at night temperatures drop well in minuses.

3. Anyone ever got to Australia by any other means than flying?? This looks the hardest leg, we may just have to suck it up and buy a flight - going to perth initially, to work for a year around Australia/New Zealand!

We couldn't find an affordable way to get from indonesia to australia by sea so we are flying. those cargo ships charge insane amounts to bring tourists.

EastWallGirl

I went overland in 2000, Athens - Hong -Kong

The rule with Visas for China was that you had to be in by the last day on your visa, but that could have changed by now. We did it ourselves and it was easy and yes you will save money.

If you are doing your own Russian Visa, ther was an Embassy in Edinburgh that was quicker then London, if that is where you have to send your paperwork.

If you do a time line and know the 'last date you can enter a country' and work back and forward from there.

Make sure you know where the train is going. We started in Eastern Europe and there were 2 trains to Lithuania, one went through Belarous so that was a day that was wasted, being sent back to Poland. Do allow for those kind of delays we left a couple of days up our sleeve.

We photocopied everything and had a copy in each backpack and a copy back in London with someone that could keep cool in a crisis, nothing happened but it does give peace of mind.

I loved the Russian Trains, and would do it again. Although I think I would pay extra for second class, I think third would be a lot of hard work in winter. You can go down to third class whenever you like and will see people in the dining car. It would be no harm to take some post noodles and a present for your provodnik.

I did it in summer (beautiful) but would love to do it in winter.

Have fun.

ro1798

we got a plane from singapore to perth with tiger airways for 100 euro each, pretty cheap got train from bangkok to singapore..

www.seat61.com

in siem reap now and are planning to get back to dublin by land over next few months.
3 flights only so far
dubllin bangkok
singapore to perth
brisbane to bangkok last flight we hope

juanace

BUMP!

Hi guys,

Just wondering if anyone had any advice on insurance fro 3months travelling a 1 year in Australia. Are they 2 separate insurances i need - i.e. 1. backpacker insurance, 2. Insurance when living in Australia for a year?

4 months to go, can't wait, goodbye crummy job, roll on freedom!

Caked Karen

totally random but i seen this - dont know if it would help or if ye plan on doing independant - www.oz-bus.com looks pretty sweet aswell!!!

class idea hope it works out!

Neamhshuntasach

Can you go from Indonesia to Australia by boat? I know you can ship cars and stuff over but don't think they allow passengers on them.

breadmonkey

Trip sounds awesome, best of luck juanace!

rendog122

check out:

http://crazyjourneyhummer.blogspot.com/

these guys did the exact same thing in reverse ...they drove a hummer from Sydney to Dublin!!!

You might be able to get in contact with them from there if you have any questions.