Who needs planes?

It has never been easier to see the world - or to destroy it. You can now fly to Hong Kong for just £75, pumping out greenhouse gases all the way. But what if you want to travel more responsibly? Can you still go the distance if you stick to trains, boats and buses? And will it cost you a fortune? In green travel special, Guardian staff head for the Med, the Middle East and Asia to find out

Karin Andreasson makes the long trip to Thailand

I start my journey to Koh Chang island, Thailand, at London Waterloo. Stepping on to the Eurostar to Brussels, knowing that I am about to travel 8,000 miles overland, feels mind-blowingly epic. At Brussels, I connect to another high-speed service that gets me to Cologne later in the evening. I have a couple of hours to while away in Cologne HauptBahnhof before embarking on the 36-hour service to Moscow. It is not a bad place to be killing time; there is a cathedral outside and a food mall downstairs.

When I board the train to Moscow, a burly Russian conductor shows me to my three-berth couchette. This train feels alien, as if I am in another country already. In the early hours of the morning, a young German mother and her two small children join me in the couchette, and a couple of hours later we are woken by a thunderous banging on the door: Polish border control.

I have a mad scramble for my passport and a torch in my face before I once again try to sleep. It is stuffy with four of us in the couchette.

[Read on, and Part 2 here]