Travel Forum

I am contemplating a train trip from Beijing to Moscow this coming fall.
Has anyone taken this trip , if so did you use a travel agent and if so who?
Any suggestions regarding this trip would be appreciated.
Thanks

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We did altogether 6 times (three round-trips) and never used a travel agent.
Now, how to do it is a bit tricky because there are four routes.

1) Beijing-Harbin-Vladivosok-Moscow
2) Beijing-Harbin-Zabaikalsk-Moscow
3) Beijing-ZaminUud-UB-Moscow (few citizens like Americans don't need Mongol visa, others need)
4) Beijing-Urumqi-Alma Ata-Moscow (you need Kazakh visa)

How to proceed and what is the best is a question. As paradox as it is, it is always:

a) cheaper to go from Moscow than from Beijing
b) buy the tickets in Slovakia or Serbia, not Russia or China
c) the more people go together, the better
d) round-trips by train are less, than double.

The three offices in the world where the tickets are the best:

- Wasteels office in Bratislava (other Slovakrail offices are good, too - but this has a special advantage)
- Wasteels office in Beograd (other Zeleznice Srbije offices are not good, this Wasteels is very competent!)
- TSI in Moscow or:
- possibly, the Russian railway office in Berlin.

It is relatively straight to deal with these folks and you pay either nothing as booking fee (= Wasteels, Slovakrail, ZS) or a very moderate fee (Russian Railway, TSI = ca. 3 Euro)

In China the booking is way more expensive (extra fees to unauthorized agents) and Chinese have no authority to issue CITY-STAR tickets for the Russian part - precisely what Slovaks and Serbs do.

These CST tickets cost a joke (186 Euro round-trip from Belgrade to Chinese border, 172 Euro from Bratislava) - but as said, Chinese don't sell these. Typically, people buy a CST ticket and an additional one from the border to Beijing.

Germans know CST too - and there is even a CST ticket via Kazakhstan (Slovaks and Serbs don't offer Kazakh CST tickets) - but these cost more from Germany.

Since CITY-STAR is always a round-trip, you can go one or the other or both directions. From Beijing it's OKAY, just you need to have someone in Russia/Slovakia/Serbia send you a CITY-STAR ticket to USA.

An other - very interesting - way is if you fly from Seattle to Ha Noi and buy the (non-CITY-STAR) tickets from Ha Noi to Moscow.

They do sell these and you will travel through good part of China "at will". More details here:

http://www.vr.com.vn/english/index.html

In any case, it's a good idea to get at least the base tickets (pink part in VN, RU, white in SK, SRB) OUTSIDE of China; besides, dealing with DSVN/ZS/Slovakrail/RZD is easier...

The biggest problem: none of these are sold "on-line". It's a good(?) old practice to sell at the counters.
But than these are much cheaper than from "agencies".