China Travel Forum

[Jrry]

Hi,
My wife and I are coming to China from late March and plan to travel by train and stay in the following cities:
Beijing ->Tianjin ->Datong ->Hohhot ->Taiyuan ->Xian ->Luoyang/Shaolinsi ->Nanjing ->Shanghai
with a couple of extra days thrown in for travel etc. it will be for a total of 3 1/2 weeks.
Our main concern is that we have seen people saying that getting seats on trains can take up to a couple of days to organise. Is this true? some of the cities we are visiting we are just passing through and only want to stop for a day to break up the train trip, would this be a problem (being only 1 day)?
Is it realistic that if we can't get a hard seater we will always be able to get a soft sleeper (if it means we can stick to our schedule we don't mind paying the extra yuan)?
We also read that suitcases are not recommended for train travel. Is this true or is it ok?
Is there much theft on the trains?
Thanks very much
Jrry

[kamal]

To visit the cities you've mentioned, 3 1/2 weeks is enough.

For the train travel, I do not suggest you to take the hard seat, coz the hard seat carriages are always crowded and many thefts there, thus not so safe for you. Hard or soft sleeper tickets will be much easier to get. Late March is not a tourism peak season, so if you do not want to book all the tickets beforehand, it's ok. Just book it at the reception of the hotel when you arrive a city.

Notice that do not leave any valuable or important things in your suitcase. Though lost luggage never happened to me, no one can assure this will never happen.

The last point: check if there any conferences or other activities in each city during your visiting period, so that you can be aware of the situations of hotel and tickets booking.