Travel

...the romance and sense of adventure is undeniable...

So says Time Out's Great Train Journeys of the World about 5000 mile journey on the trans-siberian railway. This is a journey I took this year. We left home by bus, then first class train to London, where we had a champagne (not very ethical I'm sure!) in the longest champagne bar in the world. We boarded Eurostar that lunchtime, and arrived in Brussels in the afternoon. A short train ride later and we were in Cologne for dinner and the rest of the evening.



Later on day 1 we boarded our first sleeper, bound for Warsaw





Day 2 we arrived in Warsaw, and had lunch and some chill out time there, before boarding our second sleeper train to Moscow, through Belarus. So, 48 hours of travelling time and 1924 miles later and we were in Moscow for 3 days.



Then we started the third day of travel. Yaroslavsky station in Moscow saw the start of, arguably, the greatest train journey in the world (and said to be the longest, except we went trans-mongolian, which is slightly shorter. At 21.35 Moscow time we boarded Train number 4 bound for Beijing.

















The train travelled through western Russia and into Siberia, and then into the steppe land of Mongolia. You go to bed one night and wake up the next to the rolling green hills, desolate except for the occasional ger





Then gradually the scenery shifts as you enter and traverse the Gobi Desert



We were even lucky enough to see wild camels. I had pretty much given up hope, and then there they were!



The sunsets on the Mongolian plains





Later that same night we arrive in China to a fanfare! Literally. The bogies then need to be changed, which is a lengthy process. We then have a quick shop in the station shop, which is possibly the most exciting thing I had ever done in my life before that moment. Words cannot describe how excited I was to be in China. Then I somehow managed to sleep, and woke up to China proper. People in conical straw hats line the edges of the railing, digging and planting and tending to things



Later that same day we arrived in Beijing station. So 6 days and 4735 miles later and we are at our destination of Beijing (this so far makes 8 days of travelling and 6659 miles totally)





After 3 days in Beijing the journey begins again with an overnight train to Shanghai





10 hours and 914 miles later and we are in Shanghai (total so far 8.5 days and 7573 miles)





The next day we left China on a ferry found bound for Kobe, Japan





So, 2 days and 1093 miles later and we were in the land of the rising sun. So far we have spent 10.5 days travelling and 8666 miles have been traversed. What an adventure!




From Kobe we travelled to Kyoto, and then after a couple of days in Kyoto we travelled by Shinkansen (bullet train) to Tokyo







On the last day we took a private railway line up to the lakes of Fuji. Unfortunately Fuji was surrounded in low lying cloud that day, so despite climbing some metres upwards, on foot, not cable car, we could really only see the foothills of Fuji, and the space in the sky where the summit would be




It's hard to be precise, but I think we travelled about 1636 miles within Japan on trains





So about 10.5 total days of travelling time, plus odd couples of hours here and there, and just over 10000 miles travelled, by train, bus, underground train, boat, ferry, monorail, coach, minibus, rickshaw and pink swan shaped peddle boat! And that gets you half way round the world!

Unfortunately we didn't have time to make the same journey home again, so we had to fly. But I am committed to eradicating flying from here on in!

Of course this does still have a carbon impact, but it is lower than by flying, and happening at ground level, and is not compounded by some of the additional gases in aviation pollution.

A petty problem

We are currently a no-pet family, although I am hoping we will be getting cats, rescue cats, 2 of them, after Christmas. That was until my husband read an article in the Guardian saying that some pets are worse for the environment than an SUV. My first instinct was to be outraged. I want a cat, how can a cat be worse for the environment than an SUV? (To be fair, cats aren't it's medium and large dogs which are, according to the article). Then having gotten over my outrage I decided to think rationally - if cats really are that bad for the environment then maybe I shouldn't get two, or even one. It's no good only listening to the green info I want to hear.

I arranged my thoughts into some sort of order and then read the Leo Hickman (who I do really like, I subscribe to his blog, but must have missed this post, I have his books on my amazon wish list too!) article. So, the article is quoting research from Time to Eat the Dog by Robert and Brenda Vale which finds that a cat requires 0.15 global hectares to keep it fed, the equivalent of driving a VW golf for 10000 miles a year, plus the energy required to make the car in the first place. So my two cats is almost at the energy cost of buying a 4.6 litre Toyota Landcruiser and driving it for 10000 miles a year (0.41 global hectares). Luckily I don't drive a Toyota Landcruiser as well then!

My next thoughts all concern the fact that I would be getting a rescue cat, so that cat is already having that footprint regardless of whether I own it or not. So actually so long as I promote responsible pet owning and only get a rescue cat I should probably get the cats so as to reduce the load on the shelters. Plus if it is going to be having the footprint anyway someone might as well get the joy from it, which I would.

My next thoughts all concern all the positives about having a pet. For instance, the joy and love that I myself would get. Then there is the positive personal and social impact that pets have on children (which I don't have yet, but would like to, although of course they have a far larger footprint than a cat, no joke). The article also explained some additional benefits - people with pets have greater immunity and visit the doctor less, 21% less when they are elderly, how many global hectares does that account for one wonders. Plus the mental health benefits that pets bring.

I would also think I might be less likely to go out if I had a pet thereby reducing my consumption and waste in shops, pubs, restaurants and cinemas. Of course I don't drive a car at all, very often. We have a small car between us which neither of us drive very often. I walk to work and get the bus and train further afield, despite the additional time, money and stress costs that this can often entail. I take all my compostable waste to work, I bring home any recyclable waste from work. That's right - I carry bags of waste to and from work despite the fact I walk, often in the rain - because it is the right thing to do. I don't eat any animals (that themselves have an eco footprint), I try to minimise my plastic consumption, I try not to fly. I pay extra to have 100% renewable electricity from Good Energy. We try not to have the heating on, and didn't turn it on at all until December this year (except one freakishly cold day in November).

I don't think that doing that means I can do anything I like, indeed I hate to hear people say, "I can do this ungreen thing because I recycle most of my stuff at home". But actually, surely I have reduced my footprint by that of a cat, so I am still on a positive even if I do have a cat? Plus the fact that my children will be more socially adaptable and I will use the NHS less later in life, and I will go out less. Maybe all these things add up to a cat having less of a footprint than it would seem?

I do think we should consider the ecological footprint of activities we partake in and lifestyle choices we make, but I don't think that means we have to not do anything which carries a number, which everything does. It's a case of weighing up pros and cons, and making thoughtful choices. How many global hectares does going to a pub every friday and saturday take? How many global hectares for out of date food which has been thrown away (I eat yoghurts 2 months out of date), how many global hectares to buy a newspaper every day? How many to have a cup of tea every day?

I appreciate the article for giving me the chance to consider the impact of having a pet (which I already had from a vegetarian standpoint, but i think this post has maybe been going on for long enough!) and I have added the book to my wish list, but I have weighed it all up and will still be getting my cat in the new year :)

(do you know I didn't even discuss the indoor cat/outdoor cat arguments, maybe I will do that when I have the cat)

I use a lot of public transport and every so often I get a bit knarked with it all. The other day I wanted to come home from Derby to Nottingham, a distance of merely 18 miles, less than half an hour by car. I went to a gig, and would have happily got the train home, except for the fact that the last "train" left at 9 something or other, and the last "train and bus replacement service" also left not only before the gig ended (10.30 on a sunday), but would have taken an hour to get home. It also would have cost me a fiver on the train, plus either a 20 minute walk and then £1.50 on the bus on my own in the middle of the night, or £6 in a taxi, which aren't very environmentally friendly. I actually only live a mile and a half out of the city centre.

A while ago we car shared to get to Leeds, and the petrol worked out at about £5 each, unfortunately the car broke down just as we were leaving to come home, and the AA tow guy could only take 2 people in the truck, so 2 of us needed to get the train home. The walk up fee for a single home was £31 each. £62 therefore for both of us, 12 times the cost of the petrol, and a longer, colder journey, well not longer and colder than the journey in the broken down car, but you know! What motivation is there to take public transport?

Today I was on the bus with some canadian people who had clearly just moved here. "How do we know what stop we are at, Dad?" the kids kept asking. They mused on how they would know, would the driver announce it? Would it stop at each stop like a train? Where was the screen to tell them where they were? "Should I explain it to them?" I wondered. Eventually they concluded that they were OK cause they remembered where they were.

It throws open the question though of how do you know when to get off a bus if you don't actually know the route or the area that you are travelling in? If I get a bus to somewhere I don't know I like to have a map with me to assist me with knowing when to get off, and also where the hell I am should i get off in the wrong place! But it isn't always practical or possible to have a map with you. Do all buses in canada have screens telling you where you are? Trains have those screens, plus they pretty much stop at each of the possible stops and there are huge boards on the platform which tell you where you are. Trams have screens telling you where you are and what the next stop is. Of course you can ask the bus driver to tell you when you get there, but they don't always remember.

And then, today after thinking all this, I got on a bus to come home, and there it was, a screen, with all the info you would need about the route, the destination and the next stop. Maybe this is the future of buses?

I hope so, whatever we can do to make buses seem more appealing the better IMO!

None of this of course solves the problem of when you turn up early for a bus and the bus must have been even earlier or didn't exist and then the next one is late, which happened to me twice today. I can see how all but the most keen of public transporters would be put off.