Scourge of the Trail: P2

Previously on The Scourge (link to part 1)

Part II: When the Planning of the Doing of it Takes Longer than the Doing of the Doing of it.

These days, you can’t just wander out your door with a copy of Wainright, jump on the 18:05 to St. Bees, throw a shilling at the guard and go hiking. The world got all complicated and micro-managed. Trains in the UK are extortionate – the result of a clever ploy to get UK citizens to buy more cars and engage in more road rage. To avoid these costs, the savvier traveller uses a new-fangled gizmo called the Internet. The Internet, also known as the web, the net, or, amongst particularly cool individuals, the interweb, is pumped into everyone’s houses through pipes and allows people to operate on a newly unrestrained level. Protest, shopping, bullying and, most enthusiastically, sex, have all gone online and not even the fact that the governments of the world are watching us can stop us behaving like absolutely disgusting morons. Take me, for example, with thirteen windows open, including National Rail, the Trainline and six different Megabus windows. Disgusting.

Once upon a time, the Trainline.com was cheaper than a normal ticket. Now, it’s the same. Am I wrong? Once, you could get a Megatrain ticket for £1. Now it’s £15 at the cheapest unless you want to alight at a station which is underwater or in a volcano. When you’re nostalgic for good train prices which were available only one year ago you know the world has become too rapid and too boring, but there I was, fond memories of £1 rides in my head, cursing at the screen.

The number of websites which profess to offer cheap train tickets are now more numerous than the number of straggly beards in East London. Megatrain tickets only go to certain destinations, and you have to get off at that destination. You also need to get the specific train, at the specific time. Hence, if you have the time and the will, you can plan a complex, labyrinthian journey across the country, making smart connections at tiny prices until you get to the end of your rainbow. But only on specific trains. Each successful journey would depend on the reliability of the previous ones, and that’s a lot of faith to have in British transport. Do you really have what it takes to withstand that kind of pressure for a whole day? With my anxiety the way it is, with the 13 windows on the computer screen jostling for attention, I knew I couldn’t do it.

So, I bought two tickets, one for Dave and one for myself, from London to St. Bees, and two more tickets, one for Dave and one for myself, from Robin Hood’s Bay to London two weeks later. The return tickets presumed that both of us would still be alive for the return journey. I considered reading the terms and conditions to see if I could get a refund on Dave’s ticket if I were to murder him in his sleep, but terms and conditions are impenetrable, as you know, so I figured I’d just worry about that if and when the situation arises.

The date of the return ticket was of paramount importance because the following day I would be taking a train to Brussels en route to Japan. These tickets I had planned, with equal frustration, with the aid of seat61.com, an excellent if geeky website dedicated to all things train. If you want to know if there is a working soap dispenser in the toilet in car E on the eastbound 15:45 train from Paris to Strasbourg, Seat61 can tell you.

Needless to say, taking trains across land to China takes you through a number of countries. As an EU citizen, travelling through Europe is blissfully easy. But after that, you have Belarus, Russia, Mongolia and China to deal with. Already working in China, I was sorted for entry there; Mongolia doesn’t require visas which is lovely, and neither does Japan if you’re British, which is also splendid; but Belarus and Russia were another story. To get these visas I had to send my passport to each embassy, and get them returned to me. This is usually not a problem, but then again, usually I’m not walking across the north of England like a ragged, hungry hobo.

“Get it sent to my house,” said my mum, “and I’ll send it on to you.” Good old mum. But, hang on, that won’t work. I’ve got to get my first train the day after the walk ends. It’ll never arrive in time! “Get it sent to my house,” said Dave “and it’ll be waiting for us when we get back.” Good old Dave. That’s a man with a plan. Dave lives in London, less than four miles (and three hours by public transport) from St. Pancras, gateway to Europe.

I dropped my passport off at the Belarussian embassy, having already secured the Russian visa. “Send it to Dave’s,” I waved. It all seemed so easy. Too easy. It was, and all too late when I realised.

Take me to part III