SandraT

I am arriving in Hong Kong on 12/20 and hope to travel to Beijing on 12/23 via Dragon Air Tours. Is there a way I can book this from the US or do I have to wait until I get to HK? Does anyone foresee problems with booking so close to the departure time, i.e. do you think availability will be OK?

Nancy

Dear Sandra:<BR><BR>I believe Dragon Air Holidays is part of Dragon Air, a Hong-Kong based airline. I think they would be happy to have you sign up now for the tour. Their local Hong Kong phone are fax numbers are below, I would suggest you give them a call and book the tour over the phone with your credit card<BR><BR> tel: 852-3193-3338<BR> fax: 852-3193-3339<BR><BR>Please note that Hong Kong is 13 hours ahead of EST. You can also try their website: Dragonair.com. I don't know anything about the tour end of the company, but the airline is very reputable and is my preferred carrier when traveling in China.<BR><BR>Hope this is helpful.<BR>

Ryan

I booked my tickets on Dragon Air through Cathay Pacific. I believe that Cathay either owns some portion of DA or has a partnership with them.<BR><BR>You can probably call the Cathay number in the U.S. for information.

SandraT

Thanks Nancy, this is good information. I will call Dragon Air tonight. <BR><BR>One more question. We plan on flying to Xi'an first and then taking the train to Beijing and flying out of Beijing to Hong Kong. Obviously, we have to trust that we can get train tickets from Xi'an to Beijing. Do you think this will be a problem or is there generally good availability this time of the year?<BR><BR>Thanks for your help!

Nancy

<BR>I don't think you will have a problem if you waited to buy tickets when you get to Xian. However, you might ask Dragon Tours if they can purchase tickets for you ahead of time or can give you a contact travel agent in Hong Kong from which you can purchase tickets. You also may be able to purchase them on your own through a travel agent in Hong Kong. The website mentioned below would also let you purchase them over the net, however, I don't know anything about this company and would think other options might be more secure. Finally, your hotel in Xian may be able to purchase them for you as well.<BR><BR>From the website for train schedules which I have used before (redflag.info) it seems that there are several trains from Xian-Beijing; however they are all night trains, so you may not see as much of the countryside as you would on a day trip. There are a few that depart between 9 - 11 pm and arrive around Noon the next day, this would give you several daylight hours. You should check this schedule with a travel agent, as the website indicates that it may not be current.<BR><BR>There have been other threads on this site about trains in China. You might want to run a search. Hope this is helpful.<BR>

Peter N-H

I think I answered SandraT's train query already under another thread, giving the exact schedule for trains beginning from Xi'an and going to Beijing from the latest issue of the Chinese National Railway Timetable--not always accurate, but a more reliable source than any Web site.<BR><BR>It is very unlikely that there would be any difficulty buying railway tickets at that time of year. I'm travelling around China by train myself at the moment and have bought all my tickets without the slightest difficulty, not even once bothering to use an agent. But there are certainly plenty of agents who will get the tickets for you in Xi'an if you simply don't want to give up the time to do it yourself. Y20 per ticket should be the maximum booking fee (although the five star hotels may ask much more). Add that to the prices I quoted in the other post and compare that with what agencies overseas and Web sites want to charge you for doing what you can easily do for yourself. This is very low season for China travel (and if you could see the weather you'd know why).<BR><BR>Hong Kong agencies won't be able to help, I suspect. Only a very few have access to Chinese rail tickets, and then (CTS, for instance) they only sell them for trains leaving HK, Shenzhen, and Guangzhou, and only on selected routes. Xi'an to Beijing they almost certainly won't be able to help with.<BR><BR>Peter N-H<BR>http://members.axion.net/~pnh/China.html