I promised at least one update!
The trip was fundamentally train based. However, the data shows that we took 180 total journeys from July 6 to October 5. Taxi rides actually had the highest tally, beating out train and metro for the top spot. Runners-up included buses and hired cars that didn't belong to a taxi service. Out of the 180 legs of the journey, fully 150 were taken by both of us at the same time. I took slightly more solo journeys than Auberon did, and he does claim to have done more walking than me.
So what was the transit like in all those corners of the world? Here's a quick breakdown by country and region:
Vietnam: Sleeper trains are affordable and very comfortable. We read enough horror stories about nightmarish long-haul bus rides to put us off from any long bus trips there. Taxi prices varied quite a bit in the cities, and the motorbike drivers charged a similar range of prices.
China: Sleeper trains are not great, as the beds are open to the corridor. The tickets also sell out fast. But life in a hard seat carriage can be an adventure on its own, with incredibly sociable people all around. Just don't expect any personal space. City metros vary in quality but are up-and-coming in many cities, and the one in Chengdu was particularly easy to navigate.
Taxis are very cheap and easy to come by, especially in larger cities. Very few drivers speak any English. Most Chinese people use a ride sharing app called Didi, so you might be able to save some money and frustration by having someone order a car for you. Buses are also very cheap, though maybe the least user-friendly. Even with some Chinese knowledge, the schedules are convoluted and hard to understand. The city buses are also usually quite crowded.
Mongolia: We took very few taxi rides in Ulanbaatar. There is an informal ride-sharing economy there, and many drivers are willing to take you to your destination for a fee. The train infrastructure is not very expansive in Mongolia, so to get to the national parks a hired car is an expensive yet comfortable option.
Russia: The intercity trains on the Trans-Siberian Railway were excellent. I've written before about the wonderful train experience to be found in Russia. In the cities we visited, taxis and metros covered all that we needed. The Moscow Metro doesn't have the polish of newer metro systems, but it takes you to every part of the city.
Eastern and Central Europe (Latvia, Lithuania, Poland): Latvia's train infrastructure is sublime. It's all very new, it all runs on time, and it's all very cheap. Because of the places we visited, we actually didn't board a single train in Lithuania. The intercity buses in that area of Europe are all cheap, but the booking websites lure you with outrageous deals and then never deliver. In general, booking at the bus station itself is the best strategy if possible. Train stations in smaller Polish cities have been made redundant by machines operated by the conductor, so don't despair if you arrive in a city by bus and find the station boarded up.
Western Europe (Germany, Denmark): Transit in general in these countries is far more expensive than anywhere else we visited. The German train network is extremely dense and it is possible to get to almost any large town by train. Special thanks to the Berlin metro map as a masterpiece of metro maps. The smaller town where we stayed near Hamburg did require a bus, but the bus was comfortable and the schedule easy to follow.
In Copenhagen the metro was also painless to use and went way out to the outskirts where our hostel was located. In my solo travel around Denmark I took a few intercity trains and found them to be just as nice as the ones in Germany: fast, quiet, and comfortable.
We purchased the Germany/Poland Eurail pass, and that decision involved a great deal of calculating and estimating to make sure we were getting a good deal. German trains are very expensive compared to other places, so if you're planning a German trip with a lot of stops then you may wish to check out a rail pass. But for a comparatively short trip like we had, the savings were fairly small - maybe 50-100 euros in total. I first used a Eurail pass in 2012, and on that trip the conductors were pretty lax about checking the pass for validity. That had completely changed by this trip - there was no possibility of sneaking an extra day on the schedule.
For those travelers who prefer to speak English when traveling instead of dedicating months and months to learning the local language, you will find transit in big cities doable and transit in small cities a little frustrating. The workers at the Vietnamese and Mongolian train stations all spoke English, while in China and Russia there was usually a single line for English assistance. Poland was the only other country after that without ubiquitous English, and even then it was readily available. Even in China, the most monolingual country on the trip, there was still English signage in the train stations.
I hope this information can be useful for anyone considering an overland trip, wherever in Eurasia it may be!
