Raxaul
Has both meter guage and broad gauge network. It is a major town but not the focal point of the local services.
Gorakhpur is the most influential major center.
Raxaul lies to the east along one of the paths north of the Ganges converging again at Katihar
about a dozen Meter gauge trains run each way between Narkatiagani and Darbhanga.
Other routes from Gorakhupur – Narkatiagani & around Samastipur have either been converted or are being converted to broad guage.
Its important as the meter gauge trains on the Narkatiagani to Darbhanga cover 192km in 8hours, about 25km/h
where as the fewer broad gauge trains from Narkatiagani to Samastipur cover 210km in 4.5hours
next stop Calcutta
There are 2 ways that I can see to make the trip. You can take the direct daily Mithila Express,
take the 0600 meter gauge to Darbhanga (a1330) then at 1445 the Mithilanchal Express
take a train to Muzaffarpur Junction then on the Bagh Express to Howrath Junction.
There are a couple of other routes too, after checking it appears that the Bagh express has much better availability than the Mithila. eg: sleeper class still has availablility for tomorrows dep, the Mithila has a Wait List for all classes for the next 8 days.
This is likely due to the tourist factor and border crossings. It also keeps much better time, at least over the last month.
alternative to nathula
assuming by the time i take the trip, nathu la is still closed to foreign touists, there is one alternative.
Lasha – Kathmandu – India
There are four border crossings open to tourists. The Sunauli-Bhairawa border crossing is the closest to Varanasi, the Raxaul-Birganj crossing to Patna, Kolkata, and Siliguri-Kakarbhitta is to Darjeeling. The Banbassa-Mahendrenagar border crossing in the extreme west of Nepal, is the closest to Delhi.
The crossing between Nepal and Tibet via Kodari is open to independent travelers entering Nepal, but only to organised groups entering Tibet. Wikitravel, Nepal
Birganj
- Birganj is the best border crossing from the point of view of accessibility.
- The others to the west ae contrary to the intended path
- The east roads skirt Everest
Janakpurd
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janakpurdham
Site of nepals last railway. Also one of the fastest growing centers. Should offer a more interesting alternative to Biranji
Crossing
There are only a few crossngs open to visitors. This will mean I will have to re-evaluate a couple of countries…
China, Nepal, Vietnam, India, Butan
Hopefully there is some good data online, foreign affairs?
Nathu La – Gangtok
Gangtok is the capital of east Sikkim
Xigaze – Nathu La
Only a couple of blogs about getting in to India this way
- http://praveenkm2.blogspot.com/2009/05/day-60-may-7-nathu-la-saga.html
- http://404phylenotfound.blogspot.com/2009/03/trip-to-north-east-part-ii.html
Still have no idea if you can get through. Chinese and Indian tourists regularly go right up to the border crossing. It seems advanced notification to the local military might go a long way to slipping through during trading hours?
Lhasa
Seems a bit or a tourist mecca and probably tourist trap, both foreign and chinese tourists flock there
The face of Lhasa appears Chinese due to this and policies of migration
at about 110 yuan per night its still cheap, there are plenty of 5 stars too.
The web has lots of advice and opinions, very little helpful or positive
Contrary to alot of posts on Tibet, actual travel blogs report free and open travel all over Tibet
Buses
Getting out
Lhasa to Katmandu, seems like the busiest unseald highway in the world, tour busses leave daily, regular busses as well, jeeps, bicycles, probably some horses too.
There is a bus to the southern part of Xigaze, 38 yuan
Lanzhou – Lhasa, The Tibetan Plain
Probably the biggest railway engineering project this century, so far anway.
青藏铁路
As usual the best summary in wikipedia:
http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%9D%92%E8%97%8F%E9%93%81%E8%B7%AF
See this forum for the best pictures http://bbs.hasea.com/forum-76-1.html
See this blog for even more: http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/indexlist_1263753325_6.html
Tickets are reportedly hard to get and even hard seats can be vastly inflated by scalpers, or tourist operators.
Starts at 900 yuan
As a backup there as still buses
- 2216km 380 Yuan, 3 days
Again the Kunming alternative shows up
Lanzhou
This is the main junction with the Tibetan railway.
Depending on the political climate this is also the biggest fork in the road for the trip.
I want to go south to Tibet and on to India via the Nathu La Pass.
You average lonelyplanet tells me that this is strictly forbidden however there are plenty of travelogues of people making their way through the pass, particularly locals returning to India or even a couple of cyclists.
Read some more hysterical blog entries and people will tell you that the chinese army will arrest you and deport you if you even glance sideways at them. I think the army has better things to do thou, Tibet isnt the most glamourous of assignments.
If Tibet is closed then I can travel on from here to Urumqi then Khazakstan.
another lesslikely route would be the more interesting bus through to Pakistan.
Hangzhou west
There are plenty of routes out of Shanghai.
Hangzhou is on the route of the shanghai-hong kong trains. This doesnt mean thats the only destination. Choosing hangzhou means you can perform a loop back from Shanghai to Nanjing which was crossed overnight on the way from Jinan.
From I need to reach Lhasa, there is a direct 3day train that runs from Shanghai. but from Hangzhou I want to get overnight somewhere, most probably Zhengzhou at about 1000km.
- Hangzhou to Nanjing ~4hours, 10 trains/day
this leaves me with over 20 trains to Zhengzhou, like
or straight from Hangzhou there are 5 trains that make a roundabout way to Zhengzhou. Most notably…
Alternately I could go south west and revisit Wuhan (4 trains from Hangzhou)
Another alternative to accelerate things is to take K466/K467 via the south west back routes to Xi’an. 21 hours
From Zhengzhou the next overnight distance is Lanzhou at 1100km.
There are dozens of trains but many at odd hours, 3 make reasonable trips, eg
- K226/227 d1630,a0630
- Alternately more trains can get you to Xian, sleep in Xian, then another half day to Lanzhou.
Lanzhou is the begining of the line to Lhasa.
- 6 trains a day and 2200km and 27 hours further on .
China Ministry of Railways divides its stations into subdivisions by the number passengers they handle. You generally want to start your trips from either Principle stations or 1st level stops.
Although it would be interesting, due to the scale of the Chinese railways and the fact that I dont know Chinese I want to avoid starting or ending at a station lower than second level.
Its a very regulated approach to growth I think.
Timetable Graph
Trying to get something upo an running with google graph API.
it doesn’t support time data
Formula to convert hours/minutes into hours only
=hour(A1)+((100/60)*minute(A1)/100)
You could then fake the axises
Hangzhou
Like beijin to Tianjin, Shanghai – Hangzhou are a big urban line linked by multiple trin lines, highways and even air routes.
The plans for the extension of the maglev are unfortunately no more, at 400km/h and costing a penny or two it was either local objections or price that eventually killed it. At 400km/h it woiuld have been about 20 mins away, as oppsoed to 1.5hrs on the D train (CRH).
See
- Wikitravel on Hangzhou
yendys-nodnol 