Pre planning

Quite some time ago now Ron had decided he wanted to go on a Trans Siberian Rail journey and was researching which route to choose from the many Trans Siberian Rail tours that were on offer.  He had contacted Seniors Holiday Travel, who are based in Brisbane, for the information and hence came up to Brisbane to discuss it. Linda joined him on his visit to the travel agents and decided she wanted to join him on the trip. After many deliberations over which tour to go on and what time of the year we eventually narrowed down our choice of Sundowners Overland Trans Siberian Railway trips  to the Trans Mongolian Explorer 26 day Journey from 21 September to 16 October 2016 starting in Beijing and ending in St Petersburg.

All the details of the trip are at....
http://www.sundownersoverland.com/Admin/TravelDocs/Categorised/957140.pdf

Interest in this adventure grew from Ron originally taking this journey on his own to Linda becoming interested then Heidi and then last but not least Ron's friend Dianne. This means that our group make up for more than a quarter of the maximum size of the tour group.


Terracotta Warriors

Having finalised the Trans Siberian Tour, Ron, Linda and Heidi had an interest in visiting Xian to view the Terracotta Warriors, so we have added a few days to the beginning of the trip....

So now we fly to Singapore on Sat 17 September then on to Guangzhou on the 18th September

We stay in Xian in the Ramada Bell Tower Hotel

We go on a Full Day Private tour on the 19 Sep to the Terracotta Warriors, one of the most important archaeological discoveries of the 20^th century. The thousands of life size terracotta warriors and horses were only unearthed from 1974 after being buried for 2000 years

We go on a Xian City Half Day Private tour on the 20 Sep starting the tour in the grounds of the Big Goose Pagoda dating back to the 7^th century it was built to house the first Buddhist scriptures. Next head to the ancient City Walls which stretch 14 kilometers around the city. We have some time here to wander at our leisure to admire the views of the city. From here we continue to the fascinating Muslim Quarter one of the liveliest old quarters of any Chinese city, with its vibrant street markets and narrow cobbled lanes, and end our walk at the Great Mosque.

We then travel from Xian to Beijing on an overnight train to be there in time for the start of our Trans Siberian trip.