During the Summer of 2018, I spent two months exploring China and cities along the Trans-Siberian Railway with two best friends from university. A trio of Edinburgh students, we tried to see and experience as much as our whistle-stop schedule would allow, and threw ourselves into trains, taxis, and at one point even an unmarked car (there was a good reason for this, I promise).

The posts come in two flavours – places we visited, and 5 Things, the format of which I hope is fairly self-evident:

On this page:

Our Route

Inception

We found ourselves living together during the 2017 Fringe festival – the other two in jobs, and me living off my student loan while mentally processing a relatively stressful first year of University (by comparison to the other three years, first was definitely worst).

What started as a throwaway remark one evening ended as a (relatively) concrete plan to devote our following Summer break to this journey. I forget the details, but Evie has described it to me before as something along the lines of:

Kirsten: It would be so cool to take the Trans-Siberian railway some day
Me:      Oh my god yes, I've always wanted to do that!
Kirsten: Imagine if we did it next Summer
Me:      We should do that!
Kirsten: Haha yeah
Me:      No seriously, we should do that.
Kirsten: 👀👀👀
Evie:    Sure, I'm in

Over the course of the year, we put our plan-of-a-moment into meticulous action. I sat down with my 2015 Lonely Planet China guide, never used before because I couldn’t fit it in my suitcase for Project Trust (see here – the other half of my blog), and started looking up places to go.

Among other areas within China, I was keen to revisit Xinjiang, having lived in one of its North-Western cities, Karamay, while I was volunteering as an English teacher. I knew that the region was hurting from my residence there in 2015/16, where copious checkpoints and gunfight-ready policemen were the norm, and it was not unheard of to see a tank on a street corner (in Ürümqi, more than Karamay).

Despite having lived there, I did not realise (prior to our visit) the extent to which this was a surface-level evaluation; certainly I was not aware (although some reports already existed) of the camps and disappearances which are now, I think, fairly common knowledge in the West. There was relatively little attention on the region – China had yet to formally acknowledge what was happening – and my expectation was that I would find a heavily-armed police presence, neurotically monitored transport system, but a citizen body who were conscientiously lawful yet individually vibrant, welcoming, and generally able to go about their daily lives.

I don’t wish to sugar coat it; the personal and systemic racism experienced by Uyghurs was always blatant and unashamed. But my comprehension and awareness of its expression was so far removed from *literal concentration camps* at this point, that it still seemed perfectly reasonable to want to revisit. To do so – indeed, to visit China at all – did not strike me as an endorsement of this system, just as living in the UK did not mean I supported Brexit. I think my mind has changed since then.

Inept-ion

Our route took us through three countries requiring tourist visas: China, Mongolia, and Russia, in that order – but tackled in reverse (in order of perceived difficulty). Russia was first, with a consulate in Edinburgh itself. We jogged into the visa centre about ten minutes before close, much to the chagrin of the employees, who took our details and biometrics so quickly I was almost surprised that they didn’t hand us back our passports there and then.

Next came Mongolia, during the Easter break in April. A holiday in Venice was cancelled at the 11th hour (literally) due to illness, so I took the opportunity to pop into the Mongolian embassy in London. They only took cash, and I left wondering at the fact that I had just swapped my passport and £40 for the stub of a raffle ticket with the date scribbled onto it. I returned a day before the given date (at the end of my break and on my way to Edinburgh), in the hope that it might be finished early. No such luck – I had not reached the date on my raffle stub. I suspect it had nothing to do with whether or not my passport was ready. Fortunately Royal Mail did not let me down (thank you Mum for going back to get it!).

Last (/first) came China, also with a consulate in Edinburgh. It’ll be easy, we reasoned, Tom’s been before and didn’t have any trouble. Oh boy. We walked to the centre, found our floor, and confidently marched up to the clerk at the front desk. Tourist visas, please.

“Do you have an appointment?”

Shit. The first available slot was mere days before we left – bearing in mind that the turnaround was advertised as two weeks. Hearts sinking back home, we decided to risk a postal application. We filled out our forms together, trying to make sure every detail was perfect and ticking every extra payment box for expedition. There was no room for error. Three days later, a courier delivered our passports, complete with unlimited-entry, 90-day visas – we only needed 35! As I write (in 2020), the damn thing has only just expired.

Day One

Exams finally sat (results yet to be released), we tottered into a surprisingly warm Edinburgh dawn to meet at Waverley for the airport bus. From here we enjoyed an uneventful flight to Helsinki, followed by a comparatively luxurious second leg, long-haul to Guangzhou in the South of China.

I documented the ensuing journey with two types of blog post – posts by places, and the occasional 5 Things posts. I’ve linked the first of each below, but otherwise you might enjoy browsing their individual category pages (at the top of this page).

–TJC