Noorain Mydin’s 50th birthday passed without special marks, so he decided to do something memorable for his 60th birthday. He had always been curious about the Trans-Siberian Railway, but thought, “How about I make it really exciting and get a train from London to Kuala Lumpur?” he says. “I’m such a chicken, or I was at the time. I used to be very lonely when I traveled alone. But in August 2016, she embarked on a seven-week journey with two suitcases – containing a laptop to write about the trip and several packets of instant ramen noodles – for comfort and economy.
Up until this point, he had had a varied life. He had been a journalist in Malaysia but moved to the UK in the 80s, where he had a difficult, short-lived marriage. He worked as a council spokesman, at Harrods bakery and as an administrator at a hospital. “Then I started getting degrees,” he says. He studied law but did not become a lawyer, instead working in the law department of University College London.
After the death of her sister, with whom she was close, she realized it was time to return to her original dream of writing and journalism. So he became a freelancer and planned to write about his trip.
“Everything had to be arranged with military precision,” he says. “If you miss one train, that’s it. The cost would be a problem – I had almost no money. He left London and spent three nights in European cities – Brussels, Berlin and Warsaw – before arriving in Moscow. “It was three in the afternoon and the railway station was deserted. ,” he says. “The loneliness you feel in the pit of your stomach… I was like, what am I doing here?”
But then he made a four-day journey on the Trans-Siberian train from Moscow to Irkutsk, where he made many friends. “The puppet master and pediatrician were on the first leg. And a Russian dancer who planned to settle in Thailand or Vietnam. Then they all quietly disbanded and I was left with a grumpy Russian woman who hated foreigners – I think skin color may have been a factor.
He spent a few days at Lake Baikal, one of the world’s largest lakes in southern Siberia. “When I first arrived it was cold and raining and the lake was murky and muddy. The next morning the sun came out and everything was blue and it was like wow, paradise. That was the best part for me.” He also enjoyed staying at the camp near the Mongolian capital of Ulaanbaatar, where the retired doctor who ran it piled blankets over him as he lay in bed in his yurt.
His lowest point came in Beijing when he was invited to tea by a young man who claimed to be a business student and wanted to improve his English, but was presented with a £120 bill. He finally gave her what he had, which was about £10.
He is, he says with a smile, “a little naive. I trust people, and I gave people my business card with my address on it. It seemed like everyone I met was a potential friend.
But only once did he consider abandoning his trip. He was in Shanghai during Eid celebrations and “I imagined my cousin cooking delicious food in Malaysia. I was desperate to end the trip but then I said no, my mission is complete.
Mydin traveled further through Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand and finally arrived in Malaysia at the end of September, where interest in his trip had grown. He appeared on television there to talk about his journey (and later wrote a book about it).
The whole experience gave him a big confidence boost. “After I finished it, I felt like I could do anything,” she says. He overcame his fear of loneliness. “Now I hate traveling with anyone, I have to travel alone. I know I’m happy in my own company.”
But unlike a railway journey from point A to B, human progress isn’t so simple – soon after, Mydini found her self-doubt creeping back. He knows what he has to do. Now he plans to go to Turkey by rail.
Tell us: Has your life taken a new direction since turning 60?
