In The Beginning.....
Trip Start
Sep 25, 2008
1
29
Trip End
Apr 01, 2009
Scaynes Hill, West Sussex/Culford, Suffolk,
United Kingdom
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
The idea was pretty simple really, we wanted to go travelling, Sarah had been in love with Nepal since going there on her 2 gap years (to my none) and not long after we started going out she promised to take me there some time.
So having dismissed the idea of a full years travelling as being frankly irresponsible, we settled for 6 months in Asia. We sat down around March time with maps, and pens, and books and figured out a route from China down to Southern India, crossing over to Singapore then up through South East Asia, and then catching some dirt cheap flights back from Hong Kong on Oasis Airways.
Oasis went bust in April, thankfully before we'd got round to booking any flights with them, but it was the first of a ridiculous string of events to have cocked up our plans, and we hadn't even left yet!
We're both of the opinion that flying's boring. It's quick, I'll give you that, but when you've got 6 blank months in your diary what's a few hundred miles an hour difference in your average speed? So the trans-mongolian from Moscow to China it was to be, it's cheaper than a flight, you get your accommodation thrown in AND you get to see the thousands of miles of the planet you would have otherwise passed by watching Oceans' 37 and eating using plastic cutlery.
And, if we were going to get the train from Moscow there's no point cheating and getting a flight there, so we may as well start the trip on the Eurostar.
Up until a couple of weeks ago, it had just been a series of unfortunate events that hadn't really affected us (Oasis going bust, the riots in Tibet that meant we had to abandon that part of the trip, Chinese visa rules getting really strict, bombs in India, bombs in Sri Lanka, political unrest in Thailand....) But then I sit down to lunch and see the news; the channel tunnel's on fire, fan-bloody-tastic!
You see, Sarah's been booked on the Eurostar a total of 4 times, only 1 of which has passed without incident. A few years ago some snow on the French side had ironically prevented her getting to the Alps to go skiing. 2 years ago we re-attempted getting to the Alps by train, a chemical factory set fire in Wandsworth stopped any trains going past. It was only by luck that I happened to ask precisely the right person who managed to get us on a bus down to Ashford whilst 400-odd other people got told to go home.
So I don't really know why I was surprised that the channel tunnel got burnt, in a way it was inevitable!
By last Sunday it was looking hopeful that some kind of train service would be running by the time we were due to leave, but I did hear on the news that there had been a plane crash in Russia. Another good reason to get the train, or so I thought...
Monday morning I opened the Metro and, I'm not sorry to admit, I laughed at a picture of a plane crash. I'll explain- it wasn't through lack of respect, it's terrible that 140 people lost their lives, but the picture showed a crumpled mess of electrical lines, beneath which was a train track!!! And sure enough, reading the story confirmed that the plane had crashed onto the exact rail line we were due to be rolling over in two weeks' time.
Now I'm pretty sure I'm right in saying that the chances of a plane crashing onto a railway line are slim, but for some reason it just didn't suprise me. Luckily, as it is the single most important transport link the Russians have, the railway was back up and running within 48 hours.
So, even if we do manage to get a seat on the Eurostar on Thursday, I'm not really sure if we should accept it. Is someone just telling us we should forget it? 'Stay in England, you'll be safe there!' I don't know, but with all this happening before we even get to St Pancras, surely nothing else can go wrong, can it?
