Singapore to London Overland in 75 Days!!

coolhead

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London D4: 12/8/18

This is the highlight of my modern trip and in some ways, you can call it the highlight of my fan life. I have always been a fan of Liverpool since I was 15 years old.
I woke up around 5.30a.m, having slept only 4 hours and getting ready for my trip to Anfield stadium. Hit the walkways of central Barking around 6a.m and it was almost deserted. Peaceful sight from the usual bustle of people from all walks of life.
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I reached the station around 7.30a.m with lots of time to spare as my train was only due to arrive at 8.15a.m. Upon the announcement for embarkation, suddenly everyone swarm in droves to the platform and only after boarding did I knew the reason; there was no space for seating onboard the train.
Here you can see droves of people going to platform. How many visible Liverpool fans do you see here?
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The train was overloaded and the train driver admitted this circumstance. The train was late by 20mins as a result and I only reached Liverpool station with 2 hours to spare before match starts. This was how crowded it was. I speculated some people did not buy train tickets there.
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Reaching the station, I could immediately hear fans singing "You'll Never Walk Alone", Liverpool's club anthem. Such is the emotional response of Liverpool fans before reaching the stadium.
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The first sight that greeted me when I stepped out of the railway station.
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It was a 40mins walk to The Sandon, the birthplace of Liverpool FC. Here I collected my matchday hospitality ticket and made my way to the buffet meal.
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Buffet was average but who buys the hospitality ticket for buffet. We eat to cheer for Liverpool.
This is the crowd of Liverpool matchday hospitality ticket holders having a meal.
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I had boiled chicken with tomato-like sauce, brocoli, long beans, potatoes and carrot. I claimed my complimentary voucher for a glass of Carlsberg.
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coolhead

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London D4: 12/8/18

Then I had chocolate cake for dessert.
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A picture of my hospitality ticket.
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While walking to the stadium, I had to pass through the crowd of Liverpool fans at the Sandon pub with image of the pub here. I know the head shot was less than appealing.
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The exterior of the Sandon pub.
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It was predicted that it will be raining today. But the skies was only partly cloudy, a sign of good things to come?
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Showcasing part of Anfield stadium.
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This is the alleyway where beverages are bought within the stadium.
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existential_reality

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Woah nice,

I did this before but from London to SG, the route has hardly changed at all despite it being about 10 years ago. Safe travels mate

So this is my much awaited trip from Singapore to London. Been planning since Feb this year and spent at least an hour a day from early Feb till end of May to do the planning and packing for this 75days voyage. I started my trip on the 1st June 2018 and expected to end on mid Aug 2018, hence 75 days.

I will be sharing my itinerary and some tips for those of you who are interested in attempting such a trip and as well as some guidelines from my experience in planning such a trip. I will be writing and updating along the day as my schedule allows.

General Planning Guideline
When it comes to planning such a long trip, you will need to decide which are your biggest constraints: Time? Money? Safety? Physical mobility? For me, my desired outcome of this trip is to travel overland without worrying about having to finish in 1 month or 2 months, but to plan so that I can cover reasonably most of the attractions at each stopover and spend more time in more exotic places. At the same time, I intend to keep within a budget of S$6000 excluding shopping. S$6000 includes accommodation at hostels/low-end hotels, food, entertainment, flight and inter-city and intra-city travel, tours along the way.

Since budget is my criteria, I need to plan and buy tickets in advance to enjoy cost savings and deals. Train tickets and usually best bought early and you need to keep track of which railways release their tickets so you can buy them as early as possible. This is especially so during summer months when tourist traveling the trans siberian trip are the highest. Once you have in mind a high level plan of the countries that you are travelling to, next you map out the cities you intend to travel and the connecting rails or buses between these cities. This is the most tedious part of the planning as some connecting rails and buses only operate certain days in a week and you need to tweak your itinerary around it. Once you accomplished mapping out the countries with the cities and connecting transportation, you have done 50% of the research. A helpful point here is to google out the recommended number of days to spend in each city/place and from there, you have a consensus how much time to spend there.

The next 20% comes in the accommodation. Personally, I use booking.com as it has a large enough database of hotels and hostels with reviews that I do not need a second reference to compare. Based on my needs, I need the following for my hostels/hotels: free wifi/ laundry services/ non-smoking/air-conditioned, close to next departure checkpoint/ review scores of 7 and above. Once I have narrowed down the comparison and gone through guest reviews, I pick the accommodation that I am fated with.

The next 10% comes in the attractions. Always leave this to the last as this is the least important. Based on your schedule, see what you can do along the way and fit and tweak with your schedule as you deem fit. But be aware that should you choose to tweak your schedule based on your attractions, you may need to amend your entire schedule all the way.

The next 10% comes in using a map mobile application to "Star" all the important transport checkpoints, accommodations and attractions so that you do not need to be distressed on your next destination and how lost you are. Personally, I use google maps as it has a vast host of information and reviews about the places you are putting a star to.

The last 10% comes in booking all the necessary accommodations, transport tickets, tours, travel insurance, flight booking. For a trip of 75 days long, I have found it cheaper to book annual insurance as compared to a single trip package.

Sim cards
I got all my sim cards for the duration of this trip from qoo10, it is a good website for deals and with the exception of Mongolia, I am able to cover all the destinations. For the 12 countries I covered and based on my data spending patterns, that amounts to SGD100 worth of sim card data bought.

Accommodation
Based on my needs, I need the following for my hostels/hotels: free wifi/ laundry services/ non-smoking/ close to next departure checkpoint/ review scores of 7 and above. Based on my research, it is cheaper to book dormitory beds in hostels in Asia and Russia. In Central and Western Europe, it may make more economical sense to book low-end hotel instead of dorm beds especially if you are travelling in pairs or more.

Countries travelling to:
Malaysia 3 days
Thailand 3 days
Laos 3 days
Vietnam 3 days
China 10days
Mongolia 8 days
Russia 24 days
Lithuania 4 days
Poland 3 days
Germany 6 days
Belgium 2 days
UK 7 days


References and resources:
-Google Trips App for planning your attractions itinerary
-Tripadvisor forums for knowing the latest trends in travelling and attractions in that country, as well as common scams/experiences to be aware of. A well-informed tourist is a safe tourist.
-Google sheets for planning and listing itineraries, great for group sharing. A reference of my trip planning is found here:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1CDAkla3hH4_n9vPmiJk2QCFG7MGSeeE9Wx-7d562TqI/edit?usp=drivesdk
-https://www.seat61.com/ seat61 is the encyclopedia of all train/bus trips that you want to take. If train trips is all you want to take, you only need reference to this site.
-https://www.booking.com
-To provide greater clarity on my trip expenses, I have decided to share the cost of expenditure that I incurred within the trip. Note that the categories of expenditure are generally broken down to food, intra-day short distance travel, accommodation additions, miscellaneous. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1FrrjJCMXz9UCBCSXtQsU5b9ju-2jwHPu1jlVovjDnDw/edit?usp=sharing

Thread Content:
Post #13 : Penang Day 1 - 1/6/18
Post #22, 23 : Penang Day 2 - 2/6/18
Post #24- 25 : Penang Day 3 - 3/6/18
Post #28,29: Bangkok Day 1 - 4/6/18
Post #30: Bangkok Day 2 - 5/6/18
Post #31: Bangkok D3 - 6/6/18
Post #32,33 : Vientiane Day 1 - 07/06/18
Post #34,35: Vientiane Day 2 - 08/06/18
Post #36: Vientiane Day 3 - 09/06/18
Post #37: Hanoi Day 1 - 10/6/18
 

coolhead

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London D4: 12/8/18

Players were having their warm-up when I was at my seat with 30mins to spare. Stadium was only 1/3 full.
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A panorama of the stadium.
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Here comes the opening ceremony of the 1st fixture of 2018/19, with the Anfield anthem sung.


Can you spot Juagen Klopp? Apologies for the grainy picture but this was zoomed in.
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Liverpool in defense.
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Liverpool attempting a corner kick.
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Liverpool attempting a free kick.
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coolhead

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London D4: 12/8/18

After the match, I headed back to the Sandon for refreshments of sandwiches, tea and coffee. It seems that most ticket holders came back indeed.
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I finished it all with a cake as dessert.
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I headed back to Anfield stadium after refreshments to purchase my Liverpool merchandise. In the end, I bought a Liverpool jersey and the mandatory scarf. All for £82 (S$148).
This is Anfield stadium basking in glory after the convincing 4-0 demolition of West Ham.
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I walked back to the railway, another 45mins walk. On the way, I took a picture of Liverpool city.
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This is Liverpool railway station and the train that brings me back to London.
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coolhead

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London D5: 13/8/18

For breakfast, I headed to the same Indian restaurant as my first day in London. This time, I ordered mutton murtabak. Unfortunately, I found the dough to be too thick and uneven spread of chili. It was quite disappointing but the mutton murtabak at Geylang Avenue 1 in Singapore is just a few days away.
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After I was done, I headed to the Imperial War Museum, which is a free entry for public.
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Outside the museum stands 2 15-inch naval guns.
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Within the museum, there were made-to-scale models of the V1 buzzbomb as well as the Supermarine Spitfire.
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Some of the pictures taken within the museum and these are during the WWI era:
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coolhead

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London D5: 13/8/18

These are WWII era models:
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The bullet-ridden fuselage of the Japanese Zero fighter.
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The famous Rolls Royce engine used by the Spitfires.
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Special mention is made about this exhibit as this was the British flag that flew over Singapore when the Japanese surrendered.
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coolhead

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London D5: 13/8/18

For dinner, I had fish and chips again at Masters Superfish. I ordered an 8oz prime cod fish and chips. There was complimentary bread, pickles and shrimps as well as chilli sauce and pickles.
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This cod was better than what I had at Poppie's Fish and Chips, however the chips were only average.
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I ended the day utilising the drinks voucher in my hotel for Strongbow apple cider, which I found to taste better than beer and more to my liking.
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coolhead

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London D6: 14/8/18

Today, I head to Bicester Village for the compulsory outlet shopping. For breakfast, I already bought it the night before at Tesco and had bangers and mash.
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I reached Bicester Village after a train trip of 45mins at about 10.30a.m with about 7hours before my trip back to London.
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I was so lucky at Polo Ralph Lauren(PRL) to get an early bird of 20% on top of the existing discounts in place. After all discounts, bought 4 shirts from PRL for S$140. It's really shopping paradise here as I got 2 Michael Kors women's wallets for S$200, 6 Underarmour sports tops for S$110.
Got a Ralph Polo Lauren child's dress for 80sgd, yes this is more on the expensive side but when you are getting for someone you like, sometimes you can overlook the cost.
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Then, it was time to head back to London.
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Alighting from Marylebone station, I went to a nearby pub called Sir John Balcombe and had my last fish and chips in UK. The interior of the pub I went to.
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I will say this almost combines the best of the last 2 fish and chips I had. Tasty fries and good ole cod. Cheap ole good cod before heading back to Singapore. Oh, this plate cost S$20.
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coolhead

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London-Singapore: 15/8/18

This marks the last of my overland trip. I will say this is a once-in-a-lifetime trip and did not regret doing this before my 30th birthday. In some ways, it was good bonding time with my dad, getting to know our differences and what was seemingly so similar in our personalities on the surface, we have quite different personalities.
Being able to keep the budget of the trip to within 6-7k sgd while not sacrificing the essence of an overseas trip and experiencing the highlights is an achievement that comes with advance planning and contingency plans in place.

While now back in Singapore, I do not have the need to play computer games anymore as a result of the trip, which made me realised there are better things to do in life to make oneself feel better and enriched.

Through this trip, I also managed to gain insights of first hand experience of life in the European countries I have been to, the misconceptions I had of people in Russia and how the sublte nuances of cultures vary as you move from 1 country to another. This is probably the best investment I have made in my life since entering university.

Thanks for reading through this trip journey. I do hope you find it a pleasure to read and do let me know if you have any questions.

*Post originally written on 17/8/18*
 

70niner

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Good job on an epic journey!

Just curious, are you a some sort of a VIP member for Hotel Ibis? What are the perks like?
What is the application process?
 

coolhead

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Good job on an epic journey!

Just curious, are you a some sort of a VIP member for Hotel Ibis? What are the perks like?
What is the application process?

I am currently a silver leclub accorhotels member. Under the accorhotels brands are Sofitel, Novotel, Mercure and ibis. There are also other brands but these are the more well known ones. Being a silver member means that regardless of what hotel brand you go to, you will be given silver benefits (sometimes hotels may give you better than silver benefits but this is at the hotel's discretion) as long as that hotel participates under the leclub accorhotels scheme.

Accorhotels also acquired the Fairmont, swissotel and raffled hotel early this year and if I am not wrong, the 3 brands are already mostly integrated into the accorhotels benefits and branding already.
There are 4 tiers: classic, silver, gold, platinum.
Classic is free and anyone can be a classic member. The benefits are complimentary checkout subject to availability, welcome drink and priority check in.
This link lets you know the benefits.
https://www.accorhotels.com/leclub/cards-status-benefits/index.en.shtml

There is also another gold membership only for ibis hotels that cannot be used elsewhere but I cannot advise on that as I have not applied for it nor search for it before.

If you want to fast track to silver status, it is possible but you need to pay for annual membership as a silver ACCORPLUS member which confers dining benefits and other perks such as 1 or 2 free nights.
 

coolhead

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Woah nice,

I did this before but from London to SG, the route has hardly changed at all despite it being about 10 years ago. Safe travels mate

Nice to hear that. It's an amazingly exotic route yet safe, affordable and mostly comfortable.
 

ralliart_ray

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My aspiration! I hope to do a similar one soon!

Plan for your next trip!!!!!!!!!! :s13::zonia:
 

coolhead

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My aspiration! I hope to do a similar one soon!

Plan for your next trip!!!!!!!!!! :s13::zonia:

Not much thoughts for trips for me haha. This is the 1st time I felt really recharged. Though I kinda have enough funds for my house end next year, it never hurts to have more buffer in case.

All the best and I do hope you go for it, you will not regret it.
 

wj1984

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living vivacious through your trip report! great one! cant have one like this till both my kids grow up! meantime got to settle with reading similar trip reports!
 

coolhead

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living vivacious through your trip report! great one! cant have one like this till both my kids grow up! meantime got to settle with reading similar trip reports!

Who knows maybe you can travel with your son/daughter :)

Alternatively, you may want to plan a shorter one covering just the whole of the trans-siberian route or perhaps using the train across a few cities in China, that is more doable.
 

wj1984

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Who knows maybe you can travel with your son/daughter :)

Alternatively, you may want to plan a shorter one covering just the whole of the trans-siberian route or perhaps using the train across a few cities in China, that is more doable.


I would have (since my wife from china but already naturalized like for years) but as of now is just short 2-3 days hop around the world...


Just did cape town in 2 days!
 
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