randic

Have purchased a rt ticket to hong kong for early October. Will have from approximately October 6-October 22 to tour mainland china. Trying to find the best deals on airfares and private tours in Bejing, Shanghai, and Xi'an. Any recommendations on order to visit each city, surrounding areas, trekking, etc. would be much appreciated.<BR>Thanks.

Andrea_expat

For the best deals for both airfare and private tours, you should wait until you get there. <BR><BR>Since you're starting in Hong Kong, I'd spend 1 - 2 days there, then fly to Shanghai, spend a couple of days there, then take the overnight train from Shanghai to Beijing (it's sort of a fun experience, slightly less expensive than air travel, saves a night in a hotel, and also saves precious daytime sightseeing time since you go to sleep in one city and wake up in another instead of spending two half-days in airports). <BR><BR>Spend a few days in Beijing, then fly to Xian for a couple of days. Depending on how rushed you want your trip to be, you could also include a few days in Guilin/Yangshou, visiting the countryside around this part of China.<BR><BR>There are a hundred different things you could inlude in your itinerary, but my overriding advice is NOT to book any airfare or tours until you get there. Seriously, I know from personal experience (I live in Shanghai and have planned trips for ourselves and family members trying both ways) that tours will cost you 4 times more (at least) if you book from overseas. <BR><BR>Best of luck!

randic

Andrea ,<BR><BR>Thanks for your input. Any other recommendations you can make would be very much appreciated. I have travelled extensively in Asia but never to China. I would love a combo of hiking, city, guide, country , etc. Trip itinerary is also flexible--only plan now is to start and end in Hong Kong. Thanks so much for your input.

jrosenb838

what about pre-booking the li river cruise,to avoid being shut out?

Patrick

I'm intrigued by the idea of the train from Shanghai to Bejing, but I'm not a fan of night time train travel, and not in a hurry to get there. What is the deal? How do I find cost and times for train travel in China?

PeterN_H

Only a limited number of trains in China can be booked with agents overseas, and in general this is financially a very bad idea indeed, and quite unnecessary anyway.<BR><BR>Shanghai to Beijing is easy as there are four overnight expresses leaving every evening, all taking 14 hours to arrive:<BR><BR>T14 at 1800<BR>T22 at 1808<BR>T104 at 1900<BR>T110 at 2000.<BR><BR>Upper berths cost less than lower berths. Hard sleepers are around Y327, and soft sleepers around Y499.<BR><BR>Peter N-H<BR>http://members.axion.net/~pnh/China.html

Patrick

Thanks, but are there daytime trains as well?? Is there a website for finding train timetables in China?

PeterN_H

There are no daytime trains on this route. The only Web sites with full Chinese timetables are in Mandarin--you need to have a Chinese-enabled computer as well as being able to read Chinese.<BR><BR>Chinese national timetable costs Y8 to buy in China, but for 15 times that much (US$15) you can purchase an English translation of it as a two-part .pdf download (or US$25 for a comb-bound edition sent surface, or more again for airmail). For further information, email:<BR><BR>[email protected]<BR><BR>The Mandarin timetable is very poorly organized (I don't have a single Chinese friend who can find his or her way around it--it takes a little persistence), but the English one is also completely re-organized into a usable format.<BR><BR>Peter N-H<BR>http://members.axion.net/~pnh/China.html

Patrick

I guess it is posts like this last one that makes it very difficult for me to decide to try to do China on my own instead of with an organized tour (thinking of OAT). I tend to be overly organized so it is difficult for me to thing of going there and not knowing when, how, or if I can get train or plane tickets from point to point, and then being told that the schedules are so confusing not even the locals can figure them out. Just how is it that I am supposed to be able to organize my own travel once I'm there? Do I find a travel agent who speaks English in a major hotel in my first city to book these for me? Or is that another guarantee that I'm going to be overpaying for everything?

PeterN_H

Those who feel more comfortable with tours should obviously take tours, and nothing wrong with that.<BR><BR>There's certainly no imposing your own mind-set on China, but taking a single train from Shanghai to Beijing isn't really much of a challenge to organize, and as I mentioned before, booking way in advance isn't usually necessary (or even possible). Clearly hundreds of thousands of journeys are made daily in China, and tens of thousands of people who can speak not a word of Mandarin manage independent journeys around China every year, so it can be done. It does require a little imagination and self-reliance, however.<BR><BR>Just because the national timetable is difficult to tackle doesn't mean that there aren't other methods of finding out about trains, and travel agents are certainly one (and the English timetable mentioned is another). They don't have to be able to speak English--in fact, in some ways it's better if they don't. <BR><BR>Any decent single-volume guide to China gives a general outline of transportation connections to nearby destinations and major cities further away, and provides the Chinese characters for most of them. This is your starting point.<BR><BR>The travel agent assumes you want to buy something to do with travel, so the basis of communication is already established. Any guide should give you the characters for train and plane, or a bit of mime does the same job. Pointing at a calender supplies the date, a pocket calculator shows the price and helps with bargaining for a lower one (for flights), and a pen and paper can do the rest. This can actually be quite fun.<BR><BR>If anyone asks for a commission for plane tickets just shop elsewhere. Any agent with a terminal on the system charges nothing, and many will even deliver tickets for free. Here you will also obtain discounts, often of 40% or more, which you won't get booking from overseas. For train tickets the commission is nothing at the station (which you can deal with yourself--simply get the English speaker at your hotel to write down what you want and then thrust it at the ticket seller). The commission is Y5 if you buy from one of the railway system's own agents (the locations of these are marked on most city maps), or Y20 if you buy through another agent. Of course, your hotel, or agents with offices in it, will sometimes try to charge you Y50 to Y100 per ticket. There are plenty of other places to go.<BR><BR>For some this is all just too much fuss and bother. For others it's partly what seeing &quot;real China&quot; is all about. For budget travellers it's a necessity. Most of us probably fall somewhere in between, but in 17 years of travel and residence in China I've lived with the fact that rail tickets mostly only go on sale four days in advance, and so have all the Chinese. It isn't really so very odd. Many if not most air tickets in China on routes like Shanghai to Beijing are sold on a walk-up basis. Isn't this fairly common in the US, too? I can't remember booking a domestic rail ticket in advance anywhere except sometimes a few days in advance in China, although I do it for cross-border trips. In most of China, for most of the year, four days in advance is the earliest train tickets go on sale anyway (a little earlier for phone or Internet bookings in some places).<BR><BR>That's just the way things are.

Patty

&quot;Many if not most air tickets in China on routes like Shanghai to Beijing are sold on a walk-up basis. Isn't this fairly common in the US, too?&quot;<BR> <BR>Absolutely not! Unless you want to pay the outrageous walk up fares that airlines charge (well, except for Southwest maybe). Only those that have no other choice, business travelers, those with family emergencies, buy same day tickets here. It's more common to purchase day of travel rail tickets, but even here it's usually better to purchase in advance for a discount.

PeterN_H

The question was whether it is common to do this in the US and the answer given appears to be, &quot;No! Yes it is!&quot; I think it's fairly well-known that all last-minute purchases except standbys are expensive in the West, but whether it is economically wise to buy last-minute wasn't a question that was raised. It was only suggested that it wasn't unheard of.<BR><BR>But either way that's not really to the point in discussing the China travel situation. In China, too, better prices for air tickets will be obtained by buying before heading for the airport, even if on the same day as the flight. Rail ticket prices are fixed, and whether bought a few days in advance or after boarding the train makes no difference.<BR><BR>Peter N-H<BR>http://members.axion.net/~pnh/China.html

Patty

&quot;No! Yes it is!&quot;<BR><BR>Huh??? Not sure how you misinterpreted my post, but to clarify... in no way did I mean to imply that it was unheard of, but to answer the question is it &quot;fairly common&quot;, the answer is no.<BR><BR>I've purchased same day air tickets in China but never in the U.S., and I do a lot more flying in the U.S. OK turning the topic back to China now...

sneezyam007

I'm leaving to Shanghai in 3 weeks. I'll need to purchase an air ticket from shanghai to beijing, could someone give me an idea how much it will cost for a one-way ticket? Given the suggestion to purchase it after I get there at local agency. <BR><BR>Also, is credit card widely accepted for purchase air ticket? And can u please suggest where/how is the best way to exchange currency in Shanghai &amp; Beijing? Thanks for any feedback.

PeterN_H

The air ticket price could be anything between around Y650 and Y1100, depending on how you buy, and how much you shop around. Probably you'll end up paying around US$100-120 or so if you can book a day or two ahead.Using a credit card is possible, but narrows your options of where to buy. Even buying direct from the airline for a flight from Shanghai at short notice I've been given a 10% discount &quot;for cash&quot;.<BR><BR>The rate for currency exchange is the same wherever you do it, so don't worry about rip-offs, poor rates at airport exchanges or in big hotels, etc. Change cash at the airport, or check with the Web site of your card issuer as to whether there's an ATM accepting your card at the airport (note there are two airports and you'll probably fly into one--Pudong--and fly out of the other--Hong Qiao). There's no problem using ATM machines in Shanghai and Beijing, but only selected ones, although there are enough of these for your needs. Plan ahead. Carry an emergency sum in cash in some big name hard currency (Euros, Sterling, US$) which can be exchanged at most branches of most banks, usually in the hotel where you are staying (but not other hotels), and at exchange counters in some department stores. US$ provide most flexibility. Crisp new notes not essential, but advisable (I had some turned down at the Zhuhai border the other day).<BR><BR>Peter N-H<BR>http://members.axion.net/~pnh/China.html

Patrick

OK, Peter now I'm really confused. I have never taken a tour and would far prefer to do my own travel in Asia as I've always done in Europe -- even though I speak no languages except English. But it is your posts that make me leary of doing so in China. For example above you state that there are other methods of finding out about trains, &quot;and travel agents are certainly one. . . They don't have to be able to speak English --and in fact in some ways it's better if they don't.&quot; Huh?? You're telling me that even though I speak no Chinese, I can go into a travel agent and intelligently discuss the options of train travel with someone who speaks no English?? I just don't get this. I'm a master at mime, but for the life of me I have no idea how to act out &quot;Xian&quot; (will he really understand my standing still as being a clay statue?) or &quot;get me to Beijing in a first class car on Thursday morning&quot;. If only I could hear things like, &quot;it's easy to find someone who will speak enough English to book your tickets&quot; I'd feel so much more at ease.<BR><BR>And then you mention, &quot;if anyone asks for a commission for plane tickets just shop elsewhere.&quot; If the agent speaks no English, then how in the world am I ever going to know that he is charging me a commission? I won't even be able to understand what the regular price should be unless I can find a website or other source that first gives me a pretty good idea. Once I walk into his shop and somehow communicate where I want to go and when, and he issues me a ticket, how am I to understand whether or not his price included a commission or was three times what it should have been? I really don't care to spend days in each city going from place to place &quot;shopping&quot;, something I don't enjoy doing anyway, least of all for my tickets to my next destination.<BR><BR>I'm really not trying to be difficult here, but just trying to understand how I can effectively purchase last minute train and/or plane tickets.

Cicerone

f you have travelled extensively in Asia, you can handle China on your own. For trains, just remember that distances in China are vast and train travel will eat into your schedule as much or more than flying.<BR><BR>Re your question on hiking, Hong Kong is a great place for hiking (surprisingly) and October is a perfect month for it. There are many well-marked trials on Hong Kong Island and in Kowloon/New Territories, including the famous MacLehose Trail and Wilson Trails which are 100 km and 50 km in length respectively, but are broken up into sections, many of which can be done in a few hours. Due to the mountaineous terrain, all the walks offer spectacular city, mountain and/or harbour views. You can get a trail map at the government book office in Pacific Place. One of the local bookstores in Hong Kong should have the trail map and other walking books. A helpful website run by an ex-pat hiking enthusiast in Hong Kong is hkcrystal.com/hiking (you can even join one of his hikes). My personal favourite walks on Hong Kong Island are:<BR>-Luggard Road - on the Peak, flat, one hour of great city and harbour views.<BR>-Bowen Road - Mid-Levels, flat, about 4 miles, great views of Central, Wan Chai,<BR> Happy Valley and Kowloon.<BR>-Mt Butler - challenging up and down hill from Park View (above Happy Valley)<BR> down to Repulse Bay or Stanley<BR>-Hong Kong Trail - challenging walk, can be done in stages, a popular one is to walk to Aberdeen.<BR><BR>As for your intra-China flight question, if you can tell me how to get the best prices when flying domestically in the US, you are a genius! (My favourite game to play when flying is to ask the person next to me what they paid for the same seat…my next favourite game is to ask the same question of people in the room next door in my hotel.) Now try to figure it out in China or any other country….All kidding aside, if you are not a local and don't speak the local language and are buying from a travel agent or some domestic airlines you will pay more. It probably won't be a lot more, but you will be the foreigner price. This is true in most countries in Asia -- you should try pricing flights in India. If you are not on a backpacker budget, my advice would be to shop around now and if the price seems not unreasonable to you, buy a multi-journey air ticket now before you leave, or possibly in Hong Kong. Or post the prices you have found here and let others comment. (Someone will always tell you that they can get it for less, usually Peter.) In my opinion, the time and hassle you will save by not having to buy a separate ticket for each leg of the journey will make up for any higher price you may pay for the overall ticket. Peter's prime concern seems to be saving money, but sometimes there are other considerations. I have read many of Peter's posts, and I don't think he intentionally is trying to be difficult, it just comes out that way. <BR><BR>If you are on a backpacker budget, go to the Lonely Planet website which has basic information as well as a chat board where you can read others' recent experiences and also post your same question. <BR>

PeterN_H

Travelling independently in China, at least in terms of communications, is little different from travelling anywhere else where you don't speak the language. If you walk into a ticket agency, it's assumed you want to buy a ticket, and the basis for communication is already established. Surely you haven't gone in to &quot;intelligently discuss the options of train travel&quot; but merely to get a ticket to travel to Beijing, say, on Friday. If you can say &quot;Beijing&quot;, write down the date, show the characters for &quot;soft sleeper&quot; (or whatever class) in Chinese from your phrase book or guide book, you're there. Or simply have the English speaker in your hotel write down what you want in Chinese. Some people will see this as all too much of a fuss, or just too difficult; some will see it as entirely routine and the way they travel everywhere; some will see it even as fun (although this will wear off). You have to make your own decision on difficulty, time to be spent, convenience, and cost. If it looks hard, perhaps it will be hard, and a tour would be best.<BR><BR>Here's a very rough hierarchy of the options for buying travel in China:<BR><BR>1. Take a tour. The most expensive, but the most convenient, although often with drawbacks often mentioned on this site.<BR><BR>2. Travel independently, but book your travel before you leave home. You have the security of knowing you'll get to be where you want to be and when, but for a high cost. Booking through Web sites is a good idea for China travel in terms of honesty or economy. Only a limited number of train routes have their tickets on sale through the Web, and with the exception of those trains starting from Hong Kong, which can be bought for the same price you'd pay in person from at least one Web site (although others charge 18-30% more), mark-ups are typically 40-70%. Train ticket prices are fixed in China (there is no foreigner pricing)--there are no discounts for advance purchase, and not even any discounted return tickets. The mark-up is all for the agency. Just how much that comes to will depend on how much you travel, and whether you regard it as a sum worth paying for peace of mind is up to you. Just how much is it will be apparent when you see the price printed on the ticket.<BR><BR>The model of air ticket pricing bears no relevance to anything in the US whatsoever, as the government has only just indicated that it plans to allow market-oriented pricing policies, and these are only just beginnning to creep in. For now they are mostly fixed according to distance, and a maximum discount of 40% is permitted. Effectively, the airlines, which even despite recent forced mergers and cut-backs on routes, have far too much capacity most of the time, discount almost every ticket they sell, and often find ways to cut more than 40%, despite the regulations. Usually the airlines themselves will not offer the discounts, but only through the agents. I've actually been sent across the road from an airline office to an agent before now and got a cut of 30% straight away. Crossing the road saved me about US$50. Whether that's a sum worth bothering about is for the individual to decide. Obviously for multiple flights it might quickly mount up to a few hundred dollars.<BR><BR>More...

PeterN_H

There is no foreigner pricing, but what is certain is that airline and agency Web sites selling to overseas tourists only publicize the full price tickets. In one case a bi-lingual site, as mentioned here before, offers lower prices on its Chinese pages than on its English ones. That part of the Chinese travel industry which caters to foreigners makes all its money from your unwillingness to do things for yourself.<BR><BR>3. Travel independently, but book as you go the easy way--from English-speaking agents in your four- or five-star hotel, or similar. Obviously this is convenient, and you may well feel the extra charges are worth it.<BR><BR>There will be extra charges because absolutely everything costs more in a hotel environment. But of course for buying rail tickets you can ask what the fee will be, and the difference between the fee charged by an agent away from your hotel, as opposed to the travel desk, business centre, or concierge within it may be as little as about US$4. (Incidentally, backpacker budget hotels are some of the worst places for overcharging on travel services.) This may be a significant percentage of the total cost of the ticket, but if your time is short, you may feel it worth paying.<BR><BR>On air tickets, either they will send someone out, in which case you have very little chance of getting the best air ticket price, plus you'll pay for the running around, or there's a proper agency within the building, with on-line terminals to the Chinese aviation system. No commission will be payable, but the agency is less likely to reveal the best price to you simply because of where they are--in the middle of a very expensive environment and targeting foreigners and Chinese businessmen to whom money is no particular object. I recently had this in Guangzhou where an agent discounted 10% (that's normal) but denied outright that there were any cheaper tickets. Even the dreaded CITS turned out to be much cheaper, at 30% off, and as an agency which has always been dedicated to separating as much money as possible from foreigners, that's pretty surprising.<BR><BR>Every town his a CITS, CTS, or CYTS, which will have an English speaker and be able to help you. But the reason they do have such a person is because it acts as a magnet for those who can be fleeced. Again, they are easier to deal with if you want to have a long discussion about train travel instead of just buying a ticket, but you'll pay. In one town which receives a lot of &quot;overseas Chinese&quot; visitors last year, the CITS thought it funny to ask me for Y100 to buy an air ticket which they would walk into an agency just down the road to buy for no commission at all, just as I (and, indeed, you--Chinese or no Chinese) could do for yourself. Needless to say, they also quoted full fare only. This is, in a sense, a leftover of foreigner pricing.<BR><BR>Whether all this matters is, again, up to you.<BR><BR>More...

PeterN_H

Finally (sorry)...<BR><BR>4. Travel independently, but go for the cheapness above all--the least convenient option (although it need not mean much more than a visit to the railway station, or a walk down the road from the hotel to another agent).<BR><BR>Tens of thousands of people do this every year. In my backpacking days I used to do it. Actually, you might still argue that I do--unless I'm very short of time I always go to the railway station myself, and unless the first agent I talk to for air tickets seems to be offering a decent discount up front, I usually put my head into another just to make sure that it really is high season on that route. I usually do this randomly when I spot an agent next to the temple or museum I'm visiting. I don't find it particularly inconvenient (but I would understand if someone else did). The difference between the backpacking days and now is that I speak Mandarin, which speeds things up a little bit if there's a hiccup (but also means lots of extra chatting which slows things down), but in the past simply a pen and paper was enough. Unlike the train timetables, the airline timetables are in roman type, and agents all know pinyin (Mandarin written in our alphabet) so communication isn't even a problem even if laryngitis has removed your voice.<BR><BR>Railway stations can indeed be a bit forbidding, but they are a great deal easier than they used to be. Computerisation means that in most stations all open windows can serve you, and in larger cities they are open 24 hours a day. I haven't waited more than 15 minutes to buy a ticket for some years now, but of course there can be stations and times of the year when it's all a desperate push and shove, and then even many hardened budget travellers resort to using an agent. Railway station staff are still impatient and unhelpful in general, but nevertheless, many backpackers have what they want written down in Chinese (by someone at their hotel--sometimes by other travellers who know enough Chinese) and thrust over the note. They get round the whole of China this way, sometimes over a period of several months. Of course, if you only have a few days, then you may well feel your time would be better spent elsewhere than in railway stations.<BR><BR>So, you make your own choices between cost and ease, and the quickly sketched list is also intended to let you know who has their hand in your pocket and why (and for how much) under different circumstances, in case this matters. How much you object to that is up to you. My intention is always to encourage those who worry about independent travel in China to do it for themselves, so I'm sorry if my posts have had the opposite effect. The idea (one often encouraged by travel agents) that China is some vast, inscrutable, alien land impossible to tackle by yourself is a myth. But again, that's no reason not to pay others to make arrangements for you if that pleases you.<BR><BR>Just be aware who you're paying for what.<BR><BR>Peter N-H<BR>http://members.axion.net/~pnh/China.html