Tickets

“They’re here!”, shrieked Karen excitedly as she eagerly tore open the silver package that she had just signed for. Even before the postman had reached the end of our garden path we were thumbing through the contents – a complete set of train tickets that would enable us to travel from Moscow to Beijing on the Trans-Mongolian Express.

As we had come to expect from Real Russia, everything was in order – everything was as discussed. They had even enclosed a summary of our itinerary in English, which as all of the tickets were printed in either Cyrillic or Mandarin characters, was particularly useful to us! It read:

Moscow - Yekaterinburg, train no 44.
Leaving on 29.01 at 0035, arriving on 30.01 at 1135. Running time is 33 hours. 2nd class without services - £86.00 per ticket.

Yekaterinburg - Irkutsk, train no 64.
Leaving on 31.01 at 1434, arriving on 02.02 at 2237. Running time is 53 hours. 2nd class - £116.00 per ticket.

Irkutsk – Ulan Bator, train no 4.
Leaving on 07.02 at 0513, arriving on 08.02 at 0730. Running time is 13 hours. 1st class - £175.00 per ticket.

Ulan Bator –Beijing, train no 4.
Leaving on 15.02 at 0805, arriving on 16.02 at 1404. Running time 26 hours. 1st class - £210.00 per ticket.

Sorted. Now, with that taken care of we could turn our attention back to the event of the day. After all it was New Year’s Eve and we had a party at Steve and Clair’s to prepare for. Many of our friends from the village would be there and between us we were all contributing to the evening’s festivities. Amongst other things, Karen and I were preparing “Russian Salad” which seemed quite appropriate given our plans for 2009.

Now, where did I put that party wig and false beard?

Inoculations

“The best form of prevention against rabies is make sure you don’t get bitten by a dog”, said Doctor McIntyre, without the faintest hint of a smile and without lifting her gaze from the array of medical text books on her desk. Fantastic. I love the NHS: Pragmatic, common sense advice!

We had travelled the short distance to our General Practitioner’s surgery in the neighbouring village of Ashwell to find out what inoculations we would need to safeguard us during our forthcoming adventure. The list was a long one, but fortunately for both Karen and me, previous holiday destinations had meant that we were already quite well protected against the major risks.

Doctor McIntyre reviewed our Vaccines Record Card, “Hepatitis A – you’re OK there; Typhoid – OK; Tuberculosis – that’s fine; Diphtheria, - you have that; Cholera – up to date; Tetanus – David, you’re OK but Karen will need a booster”

Karen rolled up the sleeve on her right arm whilst the Doctor carefully analysed the contents of her medicine cabinet for the appropriate vaccine. Karen flinched as the doctor purposefully administered the inoculation. “That hurt more than the Belarusian Visa!”, Karen joked as the doctor applied a sticking plaster to her upper arm.

By this stage Doctor McIntyre seemed quite exited as she eagerly thumbed through the pages of her reference books, “It says here”, she continued, “That you may also want to consider additional vaccination against Hepatitis B, Japanese Encephalitis and Tick-borne Encephalitis. But that will be very expensive for you and if I were you I’d take the risk”. Excellent, I thought – that’ll help with the budget. (By the way does anybody know what Tick-borne Encephalitis actually does to you? Oh well, never mind!)

“Malaria prevention – that’s something you do need. Let’s see – you’ll be at risk from China onwards. Start the course 7 days before you get into an infected area, one-a-day whilst you’re there and then 28 days after you return. So all in all, I’ll prescribe you each with 105 days supply. That should cover you nicely”

All things considered – not a bad result then. Mind you, as Karen and I made the short journey home, I couldn’t help thinking that I would be spending a third of next year popping malaria tablets. Nice.