China Travel Forum

[talkan]

I want to travle the following route during november/december.
Helsinki-St Petersburg-Moscow-Almaty-Urumqi-Beijing-Hong
Kong-Shanghai-Japan
can u tell me your experienc on these places?
thanks

[yagmur]

I've travelled this route a few times in both directions, though not for a
couple of years now.
In the "old days" it used to be much easier (from a visa point of view) -
you could get a single CIS visa (e.g. Kazakhstan), and, provided you were a bit careful, you could dodge around Russia, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan
without much hassle because of the lack of "internal" border controls.
However, as I understand it now, the "one-visa-fits-all" arrangement is no
longer in place, so you can't get away with going light on visas. You'd need
a proper Russian and Kazakh transit visa.
Generally speaking, you can get tickets out of Moscow on the same day;
however, the number of trains running on many routes in Russia/CIS has
fallen greatly in the past 5 years or so - many trains which used to run
daily now run only two or three times per week. You'd definitely be well
advised to check current timetables in advance of travel on
http://parovoz.com/spravka/timetables-e.html or similar site.
Last I heard, the Almaty-Urumqi train only ran once a week; the bus is more frequent (usually 3 or 4 times a week), takes about the same time, and costs $50, or $40 if you can make an "arrangement" with the driver. It's usually fairly empty, so you get space to stretch out. I've never taken the train on this section of the route.
I'm sure there are agencies in Europe which will book this route for you in
advance (at least as far as Almaty), but, so long as you can get your visas
sorted out, you gain a lot of flexibility by making arrangements as you go.
You'd also be likely to save a lot of money. If you buy the ticket from the
station, Moscow-Almaty wasn't any more than US$80 for "platzkartny"
(second-class sleeper) when I last went that way.
Urumqi - Beijing: if you're prepared to go by "hard seat" you can get a
ticket for "same day". Travelling hard seat from Urumqi to Beijing is a good way of finding a new state of consciousness which you were probably not aware of before. If you want a sleeper ticket, you are likely to need to
wait a few days. Off the top of my head, the seat ticket to Beijing would
probably be US$30, maybe a bit more or less. Sleeper would be double that at least. Make sure you get on the fast train to Beijing - I think it's number 69 or 70. It takes two and a half days, as I recall - other trains were definitely slower.
China visas are easy to get and I suggest you pick it up in advance rather
than faffing around in Almaty for one, where it is likely to be more
difficult to procure.
In Urumqi, head out of the station and look down the hill to a big
roundabout full of flowers. The large tower block on the opposite side of
the roundabout has some dorm rooms where a bed costs around 35 yuan -US$4.50 or so. I don't remember the name of the hotel but you can't miss
it - at least you couldn't miss it two years ago.
Do email me if you have any more questions - remove "NOSPAMPLEASE" from my email address.... yagmur6@sina.com

[Licsa]

Were planning to do the same trip from Shanghai to Helsinki when we come back from our three moth trip. I cannot help you but I would be also very interested about all information.
Coming from Shanghai is nice because the Russian consulate there (at the
mouth of Suzhou creek, over the bridge from the north end of the Bund) is
quite helpful, issues transit visas fairly readily, and rarely has any sort
of queue. You can buy Beijing-Moscow (via Haerbin / Siberia) train tickets
from CITS in Shanghai, but the person who actually handles those tickets
only seems to show up on alternate tuesdays (or something). It's possible
that they can help with tickets to Almaty, but don't count on it...
have fun