v) TRAIN TICKETS
If you get a chance to visit China, I would recommend you to try the intercity train at least once. Try to take a route that can overnight. I really love the experience and don’t mind to have it again. The views were really breath-taking, seeing the countryside of China. The locals were also very friendly, and shamed we cannot speak Chinese, or else I bet it would be more enjoyable got the chance to blend with locals.
As a big country like China, there are many cities and located quite far from one another. Therefore, besides flight, train is the most preferable mode of transportation. It’s cheap, convenient, safe, punctual and perfect for the budget traveller. You might be impressed that it was smooth as well. I could easily bring the hot water from the dispenser to my compartment along the aisle without drop. Whether it’s a high-speed train or a 24-hour overnight train it could cater everyone’s requirement and needs.
How to Choose China Train Ticket Types? Just for your info, Chinese train numbers usually start with a letter, which indicates the category of train. The better the category of train, the faster it is likely to be, and the more modern & comfortable the carriages are likely to be. Slightly higher fares are charged for the better train categories.
G, D and C considered as High Speed Trains.
G Trains - the Fastest Trains in China with Speed of Over 300 kph. The trains only stop at a few major stations along the way, and the ticket price is the highest among the trains. There are no sleeper cars on G trains.
D trains - Cheaper than G-Trains. D trains are the second fastest and are designed with a speed of over 200 kph . This type of train is mainly used on the popular rail lines connecting major cities. Some overnight D trains have soft sleeper class.
C trains - Connecting Neighbouring Cities. C trains are only run between a few neighbouring cities, like Beijing–Tianjin, Changchun–Jilin, Guangzhou–Zhuhai/Shenzhen, and Guiyang–Kaiyang. Journeys are short and sleeping cars are not provided.
There are 4seats available for High Speed Trains which is 2nd class (five seats in a row) 1st class (has four seats), while VIP class and business class have three seats in a row.
Ordinary trains
Z trains - Non-stop express trains or only stop at large stations with speed up to 160 kph.
T trains - Trains with a T in the train number are the next best category for Ordinary trains. Speed up to 140kph.
K trains – fast trains with speed up to 120 kph (the slowest among all type). As the time taken is longer.
Two seats are available for Ordinary trains which is hard seat and soft seat.
Since the journey usually takes longer than high speed train, sleepers are available for this Ordinary train. There are a Hard Sleeper (compartment usually comprises six berths arranged in three levels on the two sides) and Soft Sleeper where the compartment consists of two upper and two lower berths. The berths are wider than the hard sleepers. More importantly, each compartment has a door. The fare is about 50% higher than the hard sleeper.
There are also Deluxe Soft Sleepers with two bunks on one side of the compartment, and a leisure area with a sofa and an independent western style toilet. The fare is about twice that of a Soft Sleeper. They are only available on some long-distance trips between major cities. Some overnight D trains also have luxury soft sleepers.
Ok, enough with details on Train. If you want to know more, you can visit https://www.chinahighlights.com/china-trains for more info.
Now the next question is how to book. As I mentioned that train is the most highly demand and major transport to move intercity, thus it’s quite risky to walk-in and buy. Early booking is required. Tickets go on sale at the train station about 3-4 weeks before the departure date, so if you live in China and a have a lot of time on your hands, this can work for you. But how to book in advanced if you’re not local?
In my opinion, the best way to book train tickets in China is through China Highlights. (Link as given above). Their site is easy to use, and they only put a fee of a few dollars on each ticket which is a huge bargain compared to most other booking websites and hotel travel agencies. The entire booking process is in English, and their website is great for checking the train timetables. They’ll also tell you the train’s time duration, how many seats are left, and the prices by seating option. China Highlights also has a ticket delivery service where they will bring the tickets to your hotel, saving you a ton of time and energy trying to pick up tickets at a train station where no one speaks English.
Another benefits by booking online through this website is, you can book earlier even the tickets’ sale is not started yet. Basically you just need to key in your departure location, destination and date and it will come up with list of all trains available on that day, based on time and type of train with price. So next step is just choose your preferred train and make payment via paypal.
So obviously for this trip, I booked ticket using China Highlights website. As per our Itinerary, there were 2 trips/routes we needed to book.
i) BEIJING to XIAN
ii) XIAN to CHENGDU
So we made booking as per below details:
Total payment is USD120/person.
Once payment done, we received confirmation received payment email from them. As I mentioned before, even we booked the tickets earlier, they hold our booking first and purchased it once released around 28-30 days before the departure date based on our request but depends on availability. They cannot guaranteed that we would get the seats as we wanted but they tried their best. This clause specified clearly in their email.
Luckily in our case, we got the tickets that met our preferences for both trips! That’s why I really recommended you to book through Chinese Highlight. Once ticket bought, they emailed us again and attached the online ticket’s copy for our reference. As requested, the physical/paper tickets were delivered to our appointed hotel, which was JADE HOSTEL, Beijing.
Remember, The paper ticket MUST be shown for boarding, so remember to have this paper ticket and keep it wisely! We at first didn’t quite convinced to let these train tickets delivered to our Hotel. What if it didn’t reached us before our departure to Xian? And definitely would affect the whole journey as that also means we cannot go to Chengdu afterwards. To buy another tickets if that happened, look at the price…. we certainly can’t affords for another ticket :P There is another option to collect the tickets at Railway Station, however from what I read it was quite hassle as most staff at the station cannot speak English. So we just proceeded with decision to deliver the ticket at our Hotel and prayed that everything would be OK. And alhamdulillah, it was OK. We were quite excited when the hotel staff handed us the parcel which contained those tickets as early as we checked in which means they already received it earlier before our departure!! Like so much relief…!!!!
This is sample how the tickets look like and how to Read A Train Ticket
Please note: Passengers who hold red-coloured tickets shall go through the manual ticket check and blue-coloured ones to the automatic ticket check.
So we settled this part. We continue to next preparation in next post ok :D
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