First in a three-part series which sees Joanna Lumley travel the 6,400-mile route from Hong Kong to Moscow. Joanna begins her train journey in Hong Kong, which she last visited when she was four. She has not been to Moscow since 1966, when she was there as a model at the height of the Cold War. In the first episode, she sets off from The Peak above Victoria Harbour, before jumping on the Mass Transit Railway to Shenzhen, where she catches the bullet train to Beijing. She discovers that more Rolls-Royces are sold in China's capital than anywhere else in the world, visits a bizarre restaurant dedicated to Chairman Mao and encounters an old lady who knew the favourite concubine of Emperor Puyi, the last emperor of China. She then joins the Trans-Siberian, stopping off in Datong and visiting a wild stretch of the Great Wall. From there she travels by overnight train to Mongolia, where she passes through the Gobi Desert and visits a local shaman.