London to Calcutta by Bus (2022)

CCGMthrowaway 1 day ago 18 commentsRead Article on amusingplanet.com

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lmm•about 4 hours ago

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.

merelysounds•about 2 hours ago

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

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

6Az4Mj4D•about 4 hours ago

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 :)

Markoff•23 minutes ago

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

kleiba2•about 3 hours ago

Pure adventure!

> The journey took fifty days...

...so not for the working folks.

tobi_bsf•about 4 hours ago

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

inglor_cz•16 minutes ago

Everyone enjoys their life in a different way. I'd be absolutely miserable traveling 50 days by a bus.

alephnerd•about 4 hours ago

> people taking those buses enjoyed life more than most do today

Benefits of being rich.

A £150 round trip ticket in 1957 is the equivalent of £4,600 today, and in an era when average wages were around £400 per year [0].

Taking months off to bum around the hippy trail in the 1960s spending almost half of the average person's salary would have put you in the upper middle class to say the least. Alternatively, imagine spending £15,000 on a multi-month trip in 2026 like going to Antarctica, ascending an ultra, participating in the Dakar Rally, or racing the Iditarod.

Plenty of Brits in the era (especially the lower middle class and upwardly mobile) would have decided to spend that money on a ticket to move to Australia, Canada, New Zealand, or America instead.

[0] - https://fred.stlouisfed.org/data/AWEPPUKQ

physicsguy•about 2 hours ago

Especially when it was £20 to move the whole family (kids were free) to Australia. My great uncle and aunt did just that, after national service he was in business working for Walls ice cream. Took himself and two kids off in early 60s, were in a a Nissen hut for a few weeks til he found a job over there.

lmm•about 4 hours ago

Citation needed. Perhaps they took the buses because everyday life was so much more boring then.

altmanaltman•about 3 hours ago

Why do you think so?

voidUpdate•about 2 hours ago

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

modo_mario•about 2 hours ago

I'm sure I'd class the journey by bus because the reference to the necessary and proportionally tiny boat or eurotunnel crossing would be seen as obvious, unnecessary and annoying.

croisillon•18 minutes ago

- did you come by plane?

- not at all! i went by foot, took a bus, went by foot, took a train, went by foot, took an elevator, went by foot, took the plane, went by foot, took a taxi, and then by foot

- al..right

lostlogin•about 2 hours ago

Can you stay in the bus when it’s on the ferry?

martheen•about 1 hour ago

For crossing the Channel, definitely not. A very special exception can be made with prior arrangement for those with disabilities that made entering & leaving their vehicle too cumbersome, but they aren't going to ride this kind of bus.

przemub•about 1 hour ago

No, but you can when the bus is on the train in the tunnel.

argsnd•about 2 hours ago

The ferries would be brief enough though. Probably less than 100 out of the total 10,000 miles.