Shanghainese

Monica: Your luggage stays with you on the trains, there is no separate luggage storage area. I believe ekscrunchy (her detailed TR took 4-5 weeks to complete) paid for both beds in the 2-person compartment from Beijing to Shanghai so she slept alone, perhaps others can tell us if there are 2-person compartments in the Beijing to Xian trains and how much for the entire compartment? If it doesn't save you a lot of $$ and you can't get a good night's sleep, you might as well just fly.

rkkwan

Theft is not an issue here. I've read at least a dozen first hand stories here about tea-scams in China, but not one single theft story while riding the soft sleeper.

The "Z" trains have "deluxe soft sleeper" that sleeps two, and are about 50% more expensive than regular soft sleepers. But on the other routes you won't find them.

The real issues are people in your compartment that snores, have stinky feet or just have bad BO. Worry about those, not theft.

monicapileggi

Yes, I probably would rather fly if the price of a ticket is reasonable. Otherwise I'll deal with the stinky feet.

Monica

Shanghainese

EK did it because she didn't go to other cities in China and had a compartment load of goods bought in Beijing which she lugged onto the train to Shanghai, and shopped for more!

Just imagine sharing a compartment with snoring, stinky feet and BO (cigarettes smell too) possibly from a strange guy?!

monicapileggi

Hmmm, so what's the average cost of a flight from Beijing to Xian versus an overnight 2-person compartment train ride? I've alredy read about men spitting into their barf bags on planes. Which to choose! LOL!!!

Monica

thursdaysd

I've shared four-person compartments on a number of Chinese trains, both soft and hard sleeper, and while I did have a snoring problem in hard sleeper (from fellow-Caucasians, though!), I've slept well in soft sleeper. Of course, I have a very poor sense of smell, a great boon in Asia! I prefer the bottom bunks to the top, partly because I'm less athletic than I used to be, partly because I like the windows. If you have a bottom bunk your luggage is underneath you, in a box.

monicapileggi

Well, I read up on the Yungang Grottos, Hanging Monestary and Pingyao and think I'd like to see these places rather than going to Luoyang. Will probably delete the Yunan area off my itinerary. If I do this, should I stay in Datong (getting there from Xian)?

I'm going to buy a map this weekend!!!

Monica

PS: When I travel with someone, I usually end up sleeping with earplugs!

monicapileggi

10 October – depart D.C.

11 Oct – Arrive Beijing
12 - Beijing
13 - Beijing– day trip to the great wall
14- Beijing
15 – Beijing - Take the overnight train to Xian

16 Oct – arrive a.m. Xian
17 Oct – Terra cotta warriors and whatever Xian has to offer

18 Oct – Travel to Datong (via bus? Train?) from Xian
19 Oct – Yungang Grottos and Hanging Monestary
20 Oct – Pingyao

21 – Head to Shanghai
22 – Arrive Shanghai? Or can I get to Shanghai on the 21st?
23 – Shanghai – day trip to Tong Li and Suzhou

24 Fly to Guilin
25th – Guilin – day trip to Longsheng – late day head to Yangshuo
25 Yangshuo – Li river tour
26 Yangshuo – Maybe just a day of vegging out and soaking up the views. Bike ride?

27 Yangshou – cooking class? Other activities? Relax!
28 ?
29 ?
30 ?

31 – Fly a.m. to Hong Kong via Guilin
1 Nov – Hong Kong
2 - Hong Kong

3 – Fly home

One option is that I could add another day in Xian and Shanghai and fly home 1 day earlier, which fills the three blank days.

Monica

ekscrunchy

Monica about the train... Even though I did have my own comprtment, I suspect that the luggage issue would be the same even if you are sharing. I was nervous about leaving all my stuff (!!) in the compartment while I walked around. The attendent told me to just let her know when I was stepping out and she would lock the door; when I got back I would find her and she would unlock. Of course this works well assuming your roommate is honest! In the luxury cars there was no one wandering around and it appeared to be very safe to me...

I really liked the experience of the train, but I might have not had such fun had I been sharing with a snorer!

monicapileggi

ekscrunchy,

I know the Z train from Beijing to Xian has the 2-person sleeper compartment, so we'll splurge for that.

I'll have to see about the other train rides we'll be doing.

Monica

rkkwan

Datong is a lot closer to Beijing than Xian. You can take bus or day train from Beijing to get there. After you're finished with Shanxi province, then go to Xian. Problem is that there is only one slow train on that branch route, and I heard that soft sleeper berths are hard to get. You may want to fly on this route.

As for cost of flying vs the train, here are some examples. One-way Beijing to Shanghai is 499RMB for the lower berth regular soft sleeper. I don't have the price for deluxe soft sleeper (which is all lower berth), but it's about 50% higher, so about 750RMB.

Flying, full fare is 1130RMB + tax. But 60% off is pretty regular, so about 450-500RMB + tax. Same price as regular soft sleeper.

You save money on the hotel, and you save some time. But you're not going save much money taking the train.

thursdaysd

I think it would make more sense to do Datong between Beijing and Xi'an. There is a night train from Datong to Xi'an (according to the chinahighlights timetables), although it won't be as luxurious as the Beijing-Xi'an train.

I would give Xi'an another day - there's certainly enough to keep you occupied (search this board for previous posts on that). I would also consider going to Hangzhou from Shanghai. Or you could visit Putuoshan island - it's a little more difficult to get to, but definitely worth it (I wrote about my visit at www.wilhelmswords.com/rtw2004).

rkkwan

One can take that overnight train directly from Pingyao to Xian. But since that's a intermediate stop, it may be hard to get tickets for soft sleeper. One may want to backtrack a little to Taiyuan (capital of Shanxi) to get the train there, or fly from Taiyuan to Xian. There's at least one daily flight. Full fare is 660RMB, but discount fares exist, so about 500RMB one-way. 3-4 flights a day on Hainan and China Southern.

LadyOLeisure

Do try to add another day to Shanghai. It is such a unique city and the Shanghai Museum is something you do not want to miss.

Xian has a LOT to do, besides the Terracotta Warriors. This is a walled city, and the "old" city is where I would try to stay. You could walk all around the city on the wall in the daytime, and certainly do the night market, when the city is all lit up beautifully. In the daytime, we enjoyed knocking around the Art university area. "outside" the walled city, the wholesale district is fascinating. You'd probably want a guide to take you around and let you know what you are seeing (although watching someone with his bicycle cart piled to unbelievable heights with cartons of soft drinks don't need any kind of interpretation!)

I really didn't think much of Yangshou while we did enjoy Guilin, but perhaps your research and other input from here will lead you in the right direction.
If you could arrange the trip to Long Shen to include spending a night IN Long Ji, I think that would be incredible. If we'd not been on a tour, I would have stopped and done that without a second's thought. (They do have porters to take your luggage up the mountain path.)

tower

Monica....I have one word for you....

Fly.

But to digress, we flew from BJ to Xian, Xian to Guilin, Guilin to Shanghai. Clean, comfortable equipment, caring, friendly Flt. Attendants, Guilin and Xian had very new terminals.

Sty T.

thursdaysd

Monica - please make that one word train, not fly - at least for some of your trip. Not only is it more environmentally friendly (and China needs all the help it can get!), you get to see some of the countryside, and you may get to meet some locals. Flying may be easier, but I've found my train trips well worth any extra effort. And I'd much rather be on a train, where I can move around, than stuck in an airplane seat with the seatbelt sign on.

ekscrunchy

I certainly agree that you should take at least one long train trip...truly I had so much fun that I was sorry the trip was not longer..

maytraveller

I, too, support the idea of taking the train for at least one long journey in China.

We rode overnight trains twice (Beijing-Xi'an and Shanghai-Beijing) on our recent trip and enjoyed both of them. We had the deluxe soft sleeper Beijing-Xi'an and a regular soft sleeper Shanghai-Beijing. I thought the early morning scenery through Shaanxi province going into Xi'an quite interesting, we saw many inhabited caves from the train, and later visited one with our Xi'an guide.

Someone posted earlier that the deluxe soft sleeper was all lower berth; not true, Beijing-Xi'an the two person deluxe soft sleeper was one upper and one lower.

Many have posted that the food on long distance trains in China is mediocre: we didn't eat on the Beijing-Xi'an train, however, the 15 RMB dinner I had on the Shanghai-Beijing night train was much tastier than anything served on my Continental flights between Newark and Beijing.



Happy planning!

maytraveller

rkkwan

maytraveler - You didn't even like the ice-cream in the middle of the EWR-PEK flight? Or did they not serve you ice-cream?

Thanks for the correction about no upper berth in deluxe soft sleeper. I was thinking about the older version which are all lower berth. Sorry about that mis-information.

maytraveller

rkkwan:

well we were served ice cream but it had been deep-chilled (outside on the wing,perhaps?) and weaponized past edibility

maytraveller