Itinerary around China

After comment the cities where we have been in China, we are going to put it on the map. Because it´s very difficult for people to situate Kunming in a China map, for example, hehe!.

The itinerary that we chose includes fligths, buses and trains. In order to learn more about China transportation we will comment our opinions.

TRAINS: In our view the best transport in quality/price relation is the hard sleeper nigth train. It is only a bit more expensive than bus, but faster and much more confortable (there isn´t a road with a lot of holes). Soft sleeper train is too luxury from our point of view if you travel as backpacker (and maybe very expensive) but many times is the only way to travel because chinese people travel a lot and all the seats are sold out. In the trip Beijing - Shanghai, a waiter came to our compartment to serve us the breakfast. In many web pages about China, people say that they don´t like hard sleeper, but in our opinion it´s marvellous, also you can see incredible landscapes.

BUS: It´s the hell!! (ok, it´s not the hell, but almost a small hell). But it´s an incredible oportunity to introduce in the authentic China world: people who don´t wash their feet, shouting, laughting... and stops each six hours to go to the toilet or eat in the real rural China towns. We recommend live this experience minimun once. In the bus you don´t have a seat, it´s a kind of bed, and you can lay to see the landscape. However we don´t recommend the "common-place" at the back of the bus, where 5 person sleep in a small place. It´s better the front places. A big problem is the road, with a lot of holes and crazy drivers...very interesting.

PLANE: China fligths are more or less the same than in other countries. The seat is small but the trip is short. It is fast, but it is expensive.





TRIPS DURATION AND PRICES:

Shanghai - Hong Kong: Plane. 150 euros. 2 hours
Hong Kong - Guangzhou: Train. 30 euros. 2 hours
Guangzhou - Yangshuo: Bus. 22 euros (Bougth in CITS, the real price was 9 euros). 20 hours?
Yangshuo - Guilin: MicroBus. 1 euro. 1 hours
Guilin - Nanning: Bus. 16 euros. 9 hours.
Nanning - Kunming: Bus. 20 euros. 26 hours.
Kunming - Dali: Bus. 6 hours. 10 euros. If you arrive to your destination before the time, you can sleep in the bus for two or three hours.
Kunming - Chengdu: Train. Hard sleeper. 20 euros. 16 hours.
Chengdu - Lhasa: Plane. 100 euros. 2 hours
Lhasa - Pekin: Plane. 250 euros. 5 hours.
Pekin - Shanghai: Train. Soft sleeper. 50 euros. 20 hours.
Shanghai - Hangzhou: Bus. 10 euros. 2 hours.