| Is that true? | |
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| Aug 6, 2005 10:13 |   |
 | Someone told me.Train in China is awful. Time table is nothing.Finding ticket is so hard.I was so confused.I'm making a dicision. Should I go there? |
| Aug 6, 2005 10:34 | #1 |
| Let me tell you what I know about train in China: They keep time table strictly, except for the extremely bad weather, at least better than flights, flights are seldom punctual; The tickets are very hard to get, especially during the peak seasons, such like Labour Day holidays, National day holidays, Spring Festivals, students summer vacations, etc. There are a kind of underground career in China, called "train tickets monger", they hold the tickets and sell in a much higher price. The toilets in most trains are horrible, stinks, no toilet paper, no water to washing. Bad air, the compartment with fixed widows which assigned about 100 people sometimes crowd in over 250 people, you can imagine the air in the train compartment. The soft sleeper compartments are limitedly better. Hope it helps. Good luck! Rita |
| Aug 6, 2005 10:56 | #2 |
| I agree with you,purchase ticket is very hard,but you may buy it via agent ahead of schedule and it very expediently. Kent666. |
| Aug 6, 2005 16:58 | #3 |
| I don't agree with Rita, espcial the comments about toilets. Situations are different in different cities. Maybe in some places toilets are in bad condition, but it is much better in big cities, such as shanghai, bejing and hangzhou. Conditions of compartments are determined to the tickets you buy. If you have a hard-seat ticket, the compartment maybe crowd, but with a soft-seat ticket, it is more comfortable. It's really clean and capacious. |
| Aug 6, 2005 17:37 | #4 |
| Hi there! I must say I ony had best experiences with the Chinese train system. To get train tickest never was a problem to me and my Chinese is close to not existing at all;-) Well, in Xian it was a little bit tricky because the tickets I needed where sold outside the trainstation on teh left side in a little office I did not find it with the first try - but that already was the most difficult situation on all my trips... Of course there are some routes which are more uncomfortable, but it is because of the size of this country. If you want to get from Madrid to Rome by train it would be a nightmare. So you should split up difficult tracks in to several stops - there are always intersting places inbetween. To make you trip more interesting you could mix some different means of tranportation. Ferries are a good choice for some places, busses are quite boring. For Tibet you should take the plane to get there. What is your travel plan???? Oh, one thing: Chinese think of entering planes, trains, busses...as a kind of sport where you have to be the first person inside and later outside. So if you are not used to it, it looks like a big fight. Let them rush inside first and things are very relaxed for you. Even old women can get really strong with their elbows when it comes to entering a train;-) They really have a high potential for rugby or US football;-) |
| Aug 6, 2005 17:58 | #5 |
| Oh,Hard Seat is much better than the name my suggests. I just had some experiences that there were tickets sold without seat. So the gangway was totally crowded and I had to climb over people who were sitting in the way for nearly 14h...but I guess those people got the tickets for a very cheap price. Toilets really are bad. But you dont live in toilets, so just use them what they are made for. It always depends on what you want. You can choose soft sleeper which is more comfortable... For some special toilets in cities like Beijing, Shanghai - which I guess are the more modern cities in China - take a look at my pics;-) |
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