China Travel Forum

[Victor]

We need to know about trains from Beijing to Urumqi. We want to stop off at various places on the way and do small tours. How easy is it to get the train from each place to carry on the journey to Urumqi? Can you organise the whole thing from Beijing, or do you just buy a ticket at each stop? How frequent are the trains. Our basic itinerary would be: Beijing - Lanzhou - Liuyuan - Turpan - Urumqi.

[Bradrord]

If you have known China a little better, I believe the self travel would be a great experience. And it would not be very difficult to buy the train ticket. But do remember if it is the peak season for the transportation, such as the busy period (every end of August and June, and the beginning of Sep and July which is the time for student to leave and back to university) and the golden week holiday (the 7-day holiday of the May Day and the National Day), the ticket is so hard to buy and book. So avoid the period.We really want to know whether it is possible to buy tickets easily at each of these stops, as foriegners. We appreciate that students may be travelling during that time, but it's more the problem of not speaking mandarin that worries us. Our problem is that we need to know all this before we start, since we have a timetable to keep to, in order to catch a plane from Urumqi to Chengdu