The funny thing about being back in Moscow six months after I got there the first time, is that it seemed so much closer to home this time around. It looked more familiar and less exotic than when I had been travelling outbound. It was soothing, because it meant that the difficult journey back was coming to an end. And the closer to home I got, the more certain I became that I would make it all the way without having to take an airplane. But how certain could I ever really be? Even in Europe, I was in for an unexpected surprise.
An unpleasant surprise in Kiev
“I’m sorry, that train is fully booked.” That simple sentence, pronounced by the clerk at the ticket office in the Kiev train station, was the last thing I was hoping to hear that morning. It was still very early as I had just arrived on the sleeper train coming from Moscow, having spent a nice time with the entertaining Ukrainian women who shared the compartment with me.
I had just asked to buy a ticket for the train to Warsaw. Back in Astana, I had booked all of my trains from Moscow to Brussels, except for this one train. The sleeper train from Kiev to Warsaw required paper tickets, but there was not enough time to have them sent to me. However, according to the booking helpdesk, I should have no problem buying a ticket at the train station since it would be unlikely that the train was full.
“What about the same train tomorrow?” I asked, trying to steady myself. If I caught the next train, I would have to reschedule my trains to Berlin and to Brussels as well, but I would worry about that later.
That simple sentence, pronounced by the clerk at the ticket office in the Kiev train station, was the last thing I was hoping to hear that morning.
“Fully booked as well,” was the hope-shattering response. I did not really know what to say. Asking about the next train after that was of no use, since I would not make it back home in time if I took that one. Were both trains really full, I wanted to ask the woman, can you not find one single place left on any of them? But all she could say was what she already had just told me: both trains were fully booked. I muttered something and walked away from the office window. I went and stood somewhere facing a huge pillar and I just started to cry. Had I really come all the way to Kiev only to be stopped in my plans here? My tears were definitely of no help and so I wiped them off and immediately started looking for a solution. There happened to be an internet café in the station and so I took a spot at one of the computers there. Half an hour later, I had booked an Ecolines bus that would leave Kiev in the late afternoon and arrive in Warsaw with just a little bit of time to spare in order to catch my next train there.
Getting to Warsaw by bus
Sitting on a comfortable bus with WiFi, all I had to do was try to sleep a bit, have my passport checked at the Polish border (no visa needed!) and hope that I would arrive in Warsaw on time. I kept checking my clock but luckily, the bus did not seem to be getting delayed. When I got off in Warsaw, I had to figure out how to get to the train station. Taking a local train, I got there largely in time to catch the train to Berlin. No time for sightseeing, but since I had done that at the beginning of my trip when it was summer, I did not mind. I could almost smell home at this point.
The last trains
Six hours was all it took to ride from Warsaw to Berlin. After all the trains I had taken, this felt like such a short trip. Europe seemed so tiny all of a sudden! There was not even a border control going into Germany (thank you Schengen zone). I spent the night at the same hostel where I had stayed on the very first night of my trip. A really strange experience. In my purse was the precious train ticket that would take me to Brussels the next day.
December 30th. Berlin to Brussels required a stopover in Frankfurt. From there, I took the train that would make me succeed at this huge challenge of getting back to Belgium without taking a single airplane. I just kept looking at the landscapes as the train was dashing forward. When I saw hilly landscapes, dotted with houses, it started looking oddly familiar. And then, there it was, the typical Belgian place name signs at the train stations we rode through. I teared up – I was in Belgium. I had made it.
It was in a haze that I changed trains again in Brussels North, where I took the train that I used to take every single day: the one to Antwerp. My mind seemed to be full and empty at the same time. I looked at the landscapes that I knew all too well and in only half an hour, I had reached my destination. It felt like I had only just entered the country and already, I had crossed half of it just like that.
I stepped out of the station and just stood there, proud beyond words. I actually did it. I had gone from Belgium to Southeast Asia and back without flying.
How it started:
Leaving Europe on a train
More about overland travel:
From Moscow to Beijing: life on the Transsiberian train
A tough path to Hanoi, my home away from home
From Thailand to China: the unlikely overland route through Laos
From Belgium to Albania without flying
Morgane's Travel Tales 
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