-What to expect in the first class compartment of Trans-Manchurian...
Hi! This is my first time writing a blog. If there’s any information I miss, please let me know or feel free to ask questions!
“ There were a few things we didn’t expect. First, there was no shower, which is different from the first class compartments of K-3 train (Trans-Mongolian). However, the shared bathroom were always very clean...”
In this post about Trans-Manchurian, I will talk mainly about what to prepare and difficulties you might face along the way.
Let’s start! I went on this trip with another friend from South America. We chose to go on a #Trans-Manchurian as we hadn’t heard much about this route and couldn’t find many reviews about it so we were curious. We chose to go all the way from Beijing to Moscow. This route takes longer than Trans-Mongolian route so it might be good for people who want to have a long nice train experience. We surely did!
First, we searched on the internet for where and how to purchase the tickets and we found quite a few agencies. We were considering between two agencies: Travel China Guide and China Highlights. We called both of them and the one we ended up choosing seemed to know more and could answer most of our questions, which was China highlight. We chose the first class seats and it was about 12,800 Yuan for the two of us. We only booked 2 weeks in advance as we traveled in Winter, which was not a high season. We met no #backpackers or travelers, only Russian locals and Chinese people when we were still in China.
After paying, the tickets were sent to us within a week via SF Express (They can ship to your hotel or anywhere you stay at in Mainland, China). Both of us got only one ticket with both of our passport numbers on...
We took K-19 train in Beijing, China at 11PM on Saturday (January 13th, 2018), which was different from K-3 (Trans-Mongolian) that left every Wednesday. K-19 was a Russian train and the lady in our compartment could speak English only a bit. We got inside the train and felt so relaxed.
Everything was CLEAN and comfy! The lady actually cleaned everything by herself almost all day every day. Our beds were as soft as they could be (A lot softer than the beds in the hostel we stayed in Beijing). And most of the time, in our coach, only two compartments were filled and one of them was ours.
On our way to the canteen coach, we walked past second class coaches and they also looked nice and clean. Each second class compartment had 4 beds inside. The compartment seemed to have the same size as the first class and all beds also looked the same as ours.
Almost everything was perfect. There were a few things we didn’t expect. First, there was no shower, which is different from the first class compartments of K-3 train (Trans-Mongolian). However, the shared bathroom were always very clean and we managed to shower with BOWLS! Second, the TV in the compartment didn’t have anything to watch or maybe, it just didn’t work. The most annoying thing would be that there was NO SINGLE SOCKET in our compartment. Luckily, we brought an extension cord, which we actually bought in China.
The international travel adapter is a MUST, if most of your devices’ plugs are not for the socket in the picture below! (Most of my devices’ plugs have 3 legs). We could not find any adapter in Beijing. I am pretty sure they have it somewhere but we already asked around in many shopping malls but failed. You can purchase one from AMAZON via the link or from other online shops. (If, before traveling, you stay in China for long, I suggest you ask the hostel staff to get it from Taobao!) We prepared only 2 big power banks and a small one for our iPhones and iPad and were so worried about what to do once we ran out of energy.
Luckily, once we passed the border, we were allowed to get out of the train for about 5 hours and they had a small travel adapter for sale at the shop in the train station. The price was okay but sorry, I really don’t remember how much it was….I’ll talk more about the border in Part 4.
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