Eclipse Tour 2009

We are about to leave in some 4 hours. Everyone has packed (I suppose) except me, but that is ok.
My best friend gave me link about riots in Urumqi today and I decided that maybe someone wants to know what we are planning to visit in each city.
As well as - it doesn’t seem so obvious but the map in 1st page, when you click on it, contains all the train stations where it stops as well as times when the train will be in that station.
Here is another link to that map: The MAP.

We will be visiting 7 (or 8 ) cities (click for the objects that we might be visiting):
Moscow (Russia)
Almaty (Kazakhstan)
Urumqi (China) - yes, we plan to visit the places where riots take place, but don’t worry, we will think twice.
Xi’an (China)
Beijing (China)
Shanghai (China)
Hangzhou (China) - no map yet
Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia) - Anders will visit this on his own after being a bit more time in China.

So, follow us on twitter, look into map at right side (below Twitter block), and you should know where are we right in that moment.

The dates when we have to buy our train tickets come closer and closer (it’s 25th or 26th of May), so it’s the last time to decide which train we will take.

There were 3 main options:
Riga-Moscow-Almaty-Urumqi-Shanghai
Riga-Moscow-Ulaanbaatar-Beijing-Shanghai
Riga-Moscow-Chita-Beijing-Shanghai

1st option.
We have to be in Shanghai on 21st of July at latest. Train from Urumqi to Shanghai goes daily and takes 3 days (departs evening, arrives midday). -> We have to be in Urumqi on 19th at latest, which is Sunday. Train from Almaty to Urumqi goes 2 days a week and arrives either on Monday or on Wednesday. Monday, 20th is too late for us, so 15th, Wednesday would be fine. In this case we have to depart from Almaty on 13th of July (evening).
Train from Moscow to Almaty goes every 2nd day. In order for us to be in Almaty on 13th, we have to take train which departs from Moscow on 9th July evening. So, departing from Riga on 8th evening, which means 2 not 1 extra days of vacation (not sure whether possible for all of us).
Looking from start - if we are in Urumqi on 15th, we can go to Xian with train 1086 (Urumqi - Jinan) and be there on 17th, visit Terracotta Army (takes 3h + getting to/from = 5h) and see city. Then leave in the evening to either Shanghai or Beijing.

Shanghai first
This means, we are in Shanghai on 18th round 2pm and can spend there 4,5 days till evening of 22nd. Then go to Beijing, arrive there 23rd before noon and spend there 3 days before departing home on 26th.

Beijing first
This means, we are in Beijing on 18th round 10am and can spend there 3days, 2 nights till evening of 20th. Then go to Shanghai, arrive there 21st before noon and spend there 4,5days before departing home on 25th night.

In short:
Riga-Moscow(Rizskaja)(004р) - daily, 18:10-12:16, 17:06h (departs 1st day, arrives 2nd)
Moscow(Pavlieckaja)-Almaty(007ц) - every 2nd, 22:50-07:14, 78:24h (departs 1st day, arrives 5th)
Almaty-Urumqi(014ц) - Mon,Sat, 23:58-08:58, 31:00h (departs 1st day, arrives 3rd)
Urumqi-Shanghai(T54) - daily, 17:20-14:31, 45:11h (departs 1st day, arrives 3rd)
Urumqi-Xian(to Jinan,1086), 21:48-07:29, 33:41h (departs 1st day, arrives 3rd)

Sites:
http://www.seat61.com/SilkRoute.htm
http://www.rzd.ru/
http://www.chinatravelguide.com/ctgwiki/Special:CNTrainSearch?method=1
http://www.tielu.org (+ google translate automatic language detection)
http://wikitravel.org/en/Xi’an
http://gochina.about.com/od/whattosee/p/TC_Army.htm

I’m not used to write in English, so maybe there will be lots of mistakes here. Though I think that I should write this one in some international language, because the information of such tours are interesting to those who plan to do something similar. Last time we thought that the writing will be easier in Latvian and we will translate afterwards. But you can surely guess how it turned out. No post was translated as we had no time or were too lazy. So, let’s start in English from the beginning.

This blog will be about me and my friends who are going to watch the Total Solar Eclipse of 2009 in Shanghai. We will go there by train starting in Riga, Latvia, which is the city where we live, work or study. And by plane back. The Eclipse takes place in 22nd of July, 2009 and will be visible from India, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh China and Japan isles. The wikipage is here and the NASA official page is here. There are lots of maps in the latter.

Yet there are 3 possible routes - through Mongolia, through Kazakhstan and through China around Mongolia. We are not sure of timetables for Almaty-China train Zhibek Zholy as there are unclear information in websites, so I have asked some people from couchsurfing.com to find out it at Almaty railway station. They haven’t responded with timetables yet though.

Meanwhile we are trying to spare money as the journey is not so cheap and we are not millionaires also. Actually it would be much cheaper to go by plane both directions. But - what’s the fun flying by plane. I mean, we will do it when we will be 80.

That’s for now. I hope to give details in later posts.