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Travel in China
Posted by Mike in Travel
If you are in China already, it is likely that you will be interested in doing some travel in China. However, you need to know a bit about Chinese travel before you get stuck paying outrageous fees to a travel agent.
Travel in China: Hotels or Flights
If you are looking to book a plane ticket or hotel in China, do what my Chinese friends to — use CTrip. First, go to CTrip.com and click on the English option — don’t worry, you won’t be charged more for not knowing Chinese. Working CTrip is fairly simple, however there are a few nuances you should know.
- Hotels don’t always require a deposit. Therefore, you can, at times, book a hotel room and get away with not showing up. Other times, you may be asked to use a credit card just to make sure you do show up (usually during peak days).
- You will receive a text message with the location of the hotel you booked. Make sure you store this to show the taxi driver once you reach your destination city.
- Plane tickets are generally mailed to you. Make sure you have a way of picking them up before your flight.
Travel in China: Trains
Traveling by train is a bit trickier, especially if you don’t know Chinese. I’m afraid I haven’t mastered the train purchases like I have the hotel and flight purchases, since, buying train tickets hasn’t proven to be user-friendly for foreigners. Ways of purchasing train tickets in China include:
- Purchasing directly from a train station less than 7 days before your trip
- Purchasing from a Chinese travel agent shop in your city (I believe it is a 5 RMB fee)
- Purchasing from an online travel agent for a large fee (usually 25%+)
- Having a Chinese friend calling your phone company to see if they can book a ticket for you
To be honest, I would love to hear the options that some of you present regarding travel in China using a train. I’m sure that there is an easy way for foreigners, but I, admittedly, don’t know the answer. If you do, please leave a comment below.
A few things to know about travel in China using a train:
- Train tickets are broken out into different types of tickets — soft sleepers, hard sleepers, hard seats, soft seats and standing. Most of the soft sleepers and hard sleepers are sold out nearly instantly due to scalpers buying the tickets and selling for a quick profit. If you are doing a trip like Shanghai to Beijing, you will want a sleeper because the trip is overnight. If you can’t get a sleeper, just MAKE SURE YOU AREN’T STUCK STANDING! Buy tickets as early as possible (waiting in line before ticket agents open is a good idea).
- If you travel by train, make sure you are waiting for the train at least 10 minutes early. I’ve been on trains that have taken off a few minutes before scheduled time. I assume they don’t have the technology to check that everyone checked in already. Either way, be safe by showing up early.
- If you are on a long train ride, it is likely that you will have people standing right next to your seat. You will also likely have people sitting in your seat once you get up to use the bathroom. Just politely remind them that the seat is yours once you return.
- Yes, there are people who have standing tickets for 36 hour train rides…
Travel in China: Bus
When I first arrived in Shanghai a few years ago, I went to the Shanghai Train Station the day of my desired trip and found out that train tickets were all sold out. However, someone at the train station helped me purchase bus tickets that day (I was going to Nanjing). It was a relief to know that there were other options besides the train. Bus travel isn’t as fast, but it leads to a good backup plan when you need to book travel in China late. Plus, you will always have a seat.
Travel in China Conclusion
Traveling in China isn’t as easy as traveling in the USA, but, with the use of Ctrip, you can take care of hotels and flights easily and cheaply. This post is more of an opening to allow you to add your feedback in the comments section than it is a full guide. I am still a bit raw to the domestic travel in China scene, so hopefully you can help me and the readers out when it comes to tips on traveling by bus or train.
If you are using google chrome, or have a handy translator, you might be able to use either
http://www.qunar.com or http://www.kuxun.cn (use the translator function in Chrome) especially for searching flight tickets, they are both noticably cheaper than ctrip.
Ctrip functions as an agency though and you can book everything through them, where qunar and kuxun are more like search engines like momondo.com but they get the job done, for me at least. I have been living in China for 8 months and I use those to get around :)
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Mike Reply:
March 16th, 2011 at 11:00 am
Thanks for the suggestions! If so, you might be saving me a lot of money. I’ll look to book through these sites this weekend with a Chinese friend of mine. I’m interested to see if it is all as user friendly as CTrip.
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