China Travel Forum

[Curt]

My wife and I and our 4 kids (aged 8 down to 7 months) are travelling through Southern China for 3.5 weeks in April). THe Chinese part of our trip is essentially a commute between Hong Kong and Hanoi, but we will be sightseeing as we go. We will be spending some time in Nanning on our way to Hanoi and coming back via Kunming and (hopefully) Yangshuo.
I have a few questions for anyone who can help:
1. What are the sleeper buses like? Would they be ok for a family?
2. It seems hard to book cheap domestic flights from Australia, but the guide books say its easy to do so once in China. Our only issue is we don't have a great deal of time - we are quite specific on the dates we want. What is teh seat availability like for Chinese domestic flights?
3. Has anyone caught the direct bus from Hong Kong to Nanning? How long did it take? Was it a sleeper bus?

[Tony Hu]

the overnight bus in china is quite clean. but with kids, overnight train is better. there're toilets and polices on it.
April is not peak travelling season in china. so it would be easy to book local air tickets. there're numberous travel agencys everywhere.
i'm from HK. but i've never heard of any direct bus from HK to Nanning. They are quite far away from each other. you've better take a direct bus from HK(near prince edward subway station) to Shenzhen train station or Shenzhen airport, then take a train or a plane to Nanning.