Almaty to Hong Kong

This is a big stretch of journey and whichever way we decide upon we have to go from Almaty in Kazakhstan to Urumqi in China. Our onward journey is then a matter of choice. We have, of course, taken the longest route with a detour to Tibet. I have given us 35 days to do this, but it may well take a little longer. The train to Tibet cuts across the route from Urumqi to Beijing and although we will eventually have to go to Beijing we can get off the train at Lanzhou and catch the train south west to Lhasa in Tibet. This train is the highest train in the world, it is modern, full and expensive and it also provides each seat with oxygen! The return journey will take us back to Beijing where we will have to catch a train to the coast and then ferry to South Korea, ferry to Japan and back to Shanghai and onward to Hong Kong. In Japan we hope to meet up with and stay with a friend of ours called Alice who lives near Kobe in the south of Japan.