China Travel Forum

[Weir]

I am flying from Seoul to Beijing on March 1st. My question is
how long do you think it would take via train/buses to get into Vietnam from Beijing? Im not planning on going direct, i want to wonder around china a little. but i was curious if anyone knew the amount of time it would take?

Ultimately what i'm doing is taking 30 days (not enough, i know) and starting in Beijing and trying to head all the way down into vietnam, then into laos, Cambodia, then to thailand, then fly back to seoul on or near the 30th of may. I wish i had more time but right now my job doesnt allow me to have more than 30 days vacation used during a year.

[Guest]

The direct train takes about 40 hours. If you're stopping along the way you could take anything up to 2 months or more! I wouldn't know how much time YOU would like to spend on that.

[Aliya]

As for crossing into Vietnam overland, I've not done it, but know that Nanning in Guangxi province (technically not a province) is the main jumping off point to Vietnam. You can arrange Vietnam visas from there (confirm this first), as well as for Laos and Cambodia too I think (again, confirm).

If you've not been to any of these places before, I'd do this:
3/4 days in BJ - great wall + other attractions
2 days at Huangshan (Yellow Mountain) in Anhui province (if you like nature and climbing China's most famous mountain

1/2 days in Nanjing - near Huangshan and a great place to learn about modern Chinese history, i.e. museums and memorials, and a very nice city to

1/2 days in Shanghai (if you really must) - it's China's showcase city, nice to see the Bund (colonial river area), and some other "old parts", but to be honest you could consider cutting it out since ou already live in a big Asian city. (better alternative: Hangzhou, which is near Shanghai and famous for it's West Lake. Do one or the other city, but not both

2/3 days in Guilin/Yangshuo - Yangshuo is backpacker area and more commercial than I like, but the karst scenary and Li river are very nice and it is a relaxing place.
1/3 days in Nanning - only 1 day if you don't need to process any visas. Not a whole lot to do there, but do go to one of the outdoor poultry/fish/vegetable markets - you'll see all the exotic stuff, for better or worse, that southern China is famous for.
The above schedule is ambitious and tiring. It's about 2 weeks in China, which is the maxium you should spend if you really want to visit the other places too.