Traveling Trans-Siberian Railway Alone

“People think being alone makes you lonely, but I don’t think that’s true. Being surrounded by the wrong people is the loneliest thing in the world.”

– Kim Culbertson –

“To make the right choices in life, you have to get in touch with your soul. To do this, you need to experience solitude, which most people are afraid of, because in the silence you hear the truth and know the solutions.”

– Deepak Chopra –

“I find it wholesome to be alone the greater part of the time. To be in company, even with the best, is soon wearisome and dissipating. I love to be alone. I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude.”

– Henry David Thoreau –

“Cherish your solitude. Take trains by yourself to places you have never been. Sleep out alone under the stars. Learn how to drive a stick shift. Go so far away that you stop being afraid of not coming back. Say no when you don’t want to do something. Say yes if your instincts are strong, even if everyone around you disagrees. Decide whether you want to be liked or admired. Decide if fitting in is more important than finding out what you’re doing here. Believe in kissing.”

– Eve Ensler –

“Guard well your spare moments. They are like uncut diamonds. Discard them and their value will never be known. Improve them and they will become the brightest gems in a useful life.”

– Ralph Waldo Emerson –

First thing first, actually it was never my intention to travel Trans-Siberian Railway alone. Actually I did talk about it with some of my close friends and have been posting links about Trans-Siberian Railway topics quite a lot on my facebook timeline. A lot of my friends wanted to do it also but the real problem is that, I can never find a person that have the flexibility to travel with me at any time, when I’m free, they are not and when they are ready,I’m not. Things like that keeps going on and on.

I’ve been dreaming about doing this trip for more than ten years, I still remember and actually I did keep an old article from a newspaper back then about a single Malaysian women who have done it from Helsinki Finland all the way to Beijing via Trans-Siberian Railway alone and she spend less than RM10K or less than USD3K for the whole journey. Before that I thought we need at less RM15K to do the journey, so with that article and with a beautiful pictures that she shared on the newspaper, makes me wanted to try it but at that time, I can only dream about it.

I don’t want to write long about pros and cons of traveling solo Trans-Siberian Railway because there are hundreds thousand of them already if you care to search it with Google, but what I really miss the most is that I did not get a good picture of myself because I don’t have a friends to take a better picture of me, yes I can asked help from a stranger but normally the photograph that you will get is quite terrible , it is just so and so unless the strangers himself is a photographer also, to be honest I did not get a nice photograph of myself in this long journey.

Other than that, it is quite difficult to plan a Trans-Siberian journey with friends especially if they are far away from you, I mean someone that you can’t have a discussion in person not through social media. There is a lot of planning involved, to get an Invitation Letter, to apply for Russian Visa, Chinese Visa and also to buy a Train Ticket online as soon as possible and not to forget to book the hostel and hostel in advance.

If we need to have a discussion about all of that with four to five person, there might be some problem, there will be some disagreement and all those things will take time to negotiate and it is not fair to do all of the homework alone, since I’m not a travel agency, it is quite hard for me to find a person who can share the trouble planning this journey and it is no wonder why quite a lot of people prefer to travel solo for this trip.

It took me more than a year to plan the itinerary, like most people I’m busy also and in 2014 is among the busiest year for me, it start with MH370 tragedy, since then, I’ve less time for myself but still I try to get few hours normally pass midnight to plan my journey and I get the courage to try Trans-Siberian alone after I got back from Ukraine. Ukraine is former USSR and it really feels like I’m in Russia even though I’ve never been there, they also use Cyrillic for communication.

While I was in Kiev I did try to take a walk alone when I’ve free time wandering around, using their subway and that little experience is what makes me wanted to try the Trans-Siberian Railway. In fact there is a train from Kiev all the way to Moscow but at that time, it is not a good time to even think about it, the whole world seems to blame Russia for MH17 tragedy and the tension between Ukraine and Russia is quite intense at that time especially around Donestk where the MH17 was believed to be shot down by Pro-Russian Rebels.

In fact when I took a taxi from Kuala Lumpur City Centre to Russian Embassy at Jalan Ampang to apply for a visa, the taxi driver asked me “Don’t you afraid to visit Russia”? And I just answered it with a wry smile. If only the taxi driver knew that I spend almost two week in Ukraine covering the MH17 tragedy, but I just kept mum about that, and after five days when I took my passport with Russian Visa attached, I took another taxi to KLCC, and this time the taxi driver told me that he had been to Russia before, he is retired businessman and drive taxi just for “fun”. He told me to be extra careful when in Saint Petersburg, take extra precaution when took the subway, watch for the pick-pocket.

Nobody knew about my whereabout, not even my close friend, I travel the Trans-Siberian Railway off-radar, I only keep up to date about my itinerary, my whereabout with  my close family only, none of my friends have any idea where I’m going and I did not post any facebook  status  while I’m on the Trans-Siberian journey, I just write facebook comments just like I was somewhere here in Malaysia, when in fact I’m a thousand kilometer away from my family.

I would like to end my short article here with a great quote from Henry David Thoreau that will sum it all :

“The man who goes alone can start today; but he who travels with another must wait till that other is ready.”

– Henry David Thoreau –