Retirees travel from England to Hong Kong using only public transport

MOST of us just want to get to where we are going as quickly as possible. Not this pair.

A couple found the most unusual way to get from England to Hong Kong. Picture: SWNS

A RETIRED couple took the trip-of-a-lifetime to visit their son in Hong Kong for his birthday — by travelling all the way from England using nothing but public transport.

Phil, 69, and Emma Whiting, 61, spent three weeks on board 16 different trains, travelling through Europe, across Russia, into Mongolia and eventually into China, The Sun reports.

Their 19,000 kilometres of travels also took them on buses, taxis, ferry boats, horses, a cable car and even a fair amount of trekking on foot.

Along the way, the couple strolled through Chinese rice terraces watching the harvest, attended a Russian Orthodox mass, and even dined with Mongolians in a traditional yurt.

The couple, from Oxfordshire, England, then spent five weeks travelling 7200 kilometres across China before ending up in Hong Kong, describing the trip as an “extraordinary experience”.

Phil and Emma Whiting travelled by public transport from the UK to Hong Kong.

“We have both long been interested in issues to do with recent history and international politics,” Mr Whiting, an artist, said.

“My wife Emma took early retirement four years ago from her job as a social worker, and we have often planned a big journey like this.

“Our son, Oliver, is teaching in Hong Kong, and he invited us to celebrate his 30th birthday on November 6 with him.

“We decided it was important to us that actually travelled to get there, and that we stopped off in various places.”

Their eight-week trip took them to Berlin, Moscow, Suzdal, Irkutsk, Lake Baikal, Ulan Bator, Beijing, Xi’an, Shanghai, Guilin, Huangshan, Yangshuo, Xiamen then onto Hong Kong.

They set off from England’s Oxford station on Monday, September 18 and caught the Eurostar in order to travel across Europe, stopping off in Berlin and Belarus.

Phil Whiting said the experience was ‘extraordinary’. Picture: SWNS

The couple then arrived in Moscow and boarded the Trans-Siberian Railway for three nights and four days to travel across Russia into Mongolia.

Mr Whiting said, despite it sounding like a long time to be aboard public transport, he and his wife were never bored.

“It seems like you could get bored easily, but you just don’t,” he said. “You’re travelling through endless landscapes of Russian history.

“There were also lots of other travellers on the train doing similar journeys to us, of all different nationalities, so after a couple of days you gel as a community.”

The Whitings then spent a couple of days trekking through the Golden Triangle in South-East Asia, staying in yurts and even horseriding in Mongolia.

And Mr Whiting said that their eventual arrival in China was the highlight of the trip for him.

“China was a place that really, really impressed me,” he said.

Trains were the main form of transport they took, but they also travelled on buses, ferry boats, horses, in cabs and they even took a cable car. Picture: SWNS

“Everything is bigger and better there than everywhere else. There’s 3000 to 4000 years of history, of engineering projects. It’s mind-blowing.”

Mr Whiting added he and his wife were particularly taken by the efficiency of all the public transport they took.

“We were never late once, in eight weeks of travel. It was just superb,” he said.

To capture their expedition Mr Whiting, a fellow of the UK’s Royal Society of Arts, sketched some of their most treasured memories, from a Russian Orthodox Mass to the Hong Kong races.

He will now choose the best of his sketches for larger paintings, which he will work on in his Oxford studio.

And he said he and Mrs Whiting are already planning their next adventure — but would like to keep it more low-key, in either Snowdonia, Wales, or the Western Highlands of Scotland.

This article originally appeared on The Sun and was reproduced with permission.

Originally published as Retirees travel from England to Hong Kong using only public transport