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London to Calcutta by Bus (2022)

72 pointsby CGMthrowawaylast Tuesday at 10:52 PM26 commentsview on HN

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lmmtoday at 5:31 AM

Needs (2022), in particular for this part:

> Now more than forty years later, an India-based travel operator Adventures Overland announced a bus service from New Delhi to London and back, covering 20,000 km and travelling through 18 countries in 70 days. The service was supposed to start in 2021, but got delayed, probably due to the Covid pandemic. The first bus is expected to leave in April next year.

I wondered what route they were planning, because Iran is still pretty unwelcoming to Brits (funny how overthrowing their government will do that to you), and turns out the plan was to head East through Burma and then Northwest through China and eventually Russia. Obviously there are a couple of problems with that now.

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merelysoundstoday at 7:05 AM

This bus route has its own Wikipedia page, well deserved too:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London%E2%80%93Calcutta_bus_se...

6Az4Mj4Dtoday at 5:34 AM

Thank you for sharing. It seems bus is enjoying fully.

Really good tires, battery and passenger butts to endure such a long journey in the bus :)

Markofftoday at 8:44 AM

this is more up-to-date experience - overland from Portugal through Turkey, Iran, Pakistan to India and to China

https://www.thelongestwayhome.com/resources/overland/my-over...

I wanted to do central europe to India overland ~20 years ago, even got Iranian visa, but Pakistani embassy was doing me problems, so in the end just flew from Turkey to India

getting from Prague/Bratislava to Istanbul is like 1 transfer in Sofia (still works in 2026, there is Flixbus from Bratislava to Sofia for like 50EUR for 17 hours ride)

similar with trans-siberian railway, back in the days you hopped on train from Budapest to Moscow, switched for trans-siberian/manchuarian railway and you could be with 1 transfer from Budapest in Vladivostok/Beijing

kleiba2today at 6:37 AM

Pure adventure!

> The journey took fifty days...

...so not for the working folks.

tobi_bsftoday at 5:29 AM

Back then, people taking those buses enjoyed life more than most do today.

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voidUpdatetoday at 7:09 AM

How did the bus drive from England to mainland Europe? I'm not sure I'd class the journey as "by bus" if it also includes ferries

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