A new beginning after 60 years: "I was a real chicken - until I spent seven weeks traveling alone"
Nooraini Mydin's 50th birthday passed without much success, so she was determined to do something memorable for her 60th birthday. She had always been curious to know more about the Trans-Siberian Railway, but thought "what if I made it really exciting and took the train from London to Kuala Lumpur?" she says. “I'm such a chicken, or I was then. Before, I felt very lonely when I traveled alone. But in August 2016, she set off with two suitcases – containing her laptop, to write about the trip, and several packets of instant ramen noodles, for comfort and economy – for the seven-week trip.
She had had a varied life until then. She had been a journalist in Malaysia, but moved to the UK in the 1980s, where she had a difficult and short-lived marriage. She worked as a municipal press officer, in the bakery at Harrods and in hospital administration. “Then I started getting degrees,” she says. She studied law, but did not become a barrister, instead working in the law department at University College London.
This was after her sister's death , to which she was closed, that she realized it was time to return to her original dream of writing and journalism. So she started freelancing and planned to write about her trip.
"Everything had to be organized with military precision," she says. “If you miss a train, that's it. Cost would be an issue – I had practically no money. She left London and spent three nights in cities across Europe - in Brussels, Berlin and Warsaw - before arriving in Moscow. “It was three o'clock in the afternoon and the station was deserted,” she said. "The loneliness you feel in the pit of your stomach...I thought, what am I doing here?"
But then she did the four-day trip from Moscow to Irkutsk on the Trans-Siberian Railway, where she made many friends. “At the first stage, there was a doll maker and a pediatrician. And a Russian dancer, who planned to settle in Thailand or Vietnam. Then slowly they all left and I ended up with a grumpy Russian woman who hated foreigners - I think skin color might have been a factor. " data-spacefinder-role="showcase" data-spacefinder-type="model.dotcomrendering.pageElements.ImageBlockElement" class="dcr-5h0uf4">
Nooraini Mydin's 50th birthday passed without much success, so she was determined to do something memorable for her 60th birthday. She had always been curious to know more about the Trans-Siberian Railway, but thought "what if I made it really exciting and took the train from London to Kuala Lumpur?" she says. “I'm such a chicken, or I was then. Before, I felt very lonely when I traveled alone. But in August 2016, she set off with two suitcases – containing her laptop, to write about the trip, and several packets of instant ramen noodles, for comfort and economy – for the seven-week trip.
She had had a varied life until then. She had been a journalist in Malaysia, but moved to the UK in the 1980s, where she had a difficult and short-lived marriage. She worked as a municipal press officer, in the bakery at Harrods and in hospital administration. “Then I started getting degrees,” she says. She studied law, but did not become a barrister, instead working in the law department at University College London.
This was after her sister's death , to which she was closed, that she realized it was time to return to her original dream of writing and journalism. So she started freelancing and planned to write about her trip.
"Everything had to be organized with military precision," she says. “If you miss a train, that's it. Cost would be an issue – I had practically no money. She left London and spent three nights in cities across Europe - in Brussels, Berlin and Warsaw - before arriving in Moscow. “It was three o'clock in the afternoon and the station was deserted,” she said. "The loneliness you feel in the pit of your stomach...I thought, what am I doing here?"
But then she did the four-day trip from Moscow to Irkutsk on the Trans-Siberian Railway, where she made many friends. “At the first stage, there was a doll maker and a pediatrician. And a Russian dancer, who planned to settle in Thailand or Vietnam. Then slowly they all left and I ended up with a grumpy Russian woman who hated foreigners - I think skin color might have been a factor. " data-spacefinder-role="showcase" data-spacefinder-type="model.dotcomrendering.pageElements.ImageBlockElement" class="dcr-5h0uf4">
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