I am traveling to China via Hong Kong and am planning to travel to Beijing via train and I was wondering if anybody could comment on train travel in China. Is it easy to book a ticket, are tickets expensive, and are there any interesting places to stop between Hong Kong and Beijing since I will be in China for a month and would rather not take the 30 hour train ride strait through.
Train Travel in China
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Long distance train travel is relatively inexpensive in China, and pretty comfortable as long as you use 1st class sleepers, called "Soft sleepers".
From Hong Kong to Beijing, there's a direct express train every other day that leave at 3pm and arrives 3:18pm the next day, just over 24 hours for the whole trip. Soft sleeper is about US$90/person. It's air-conditioned, with 4 berths in each room. There's also a "de luxe soft sleeper" on this train, with just 2 in a room. I think it's about US$150/person.
The train stops in only the largest cities enroute - Guangzhou, Changsa, Wuchang, & Zhengzhou. Wuchang (part of the Wuhan metropolitan) is about halfway, and there's stuff to be seen there, but the train gets there at 3:40am. I'd just stay on and get to Beijing quickly.
If you decide to stop at various points enroute, that's fine. There are extremely frequent trains on the main Hong Kong-Beijing route. Faster ones make fewer stops, and slower ones make more stops.
You can buy the ticket at China Travel Service in Hong Kong. They have several branches there - including Central, Wanchai and Mongkok.