dear sir/madam, i have three questions, 1.

Question

Dear sir/madam, I have three questions, 1. I am planning to travel from Hanoi, Nanning, Kunming, Chengdu, Xian finally arriving at Beijing. I am under the impression that I should not have to much of a problem buying the tickets at the train station in Hanoi. The problem is that we do not have a fixed itinerary and booking in advance is therefore not an option. Could you give me an indication of the cost (US$) and time to travel the distance. 2. I would like to take a detour from Chengdu to Wuhan/Yichang to travel via Yangtze River through three Gorges, is it possible to take the train for the detour? Could you give me an indication of costs? 3. Lastly I am planning on traveling via the Trans-Siberia from Beijing, Ulaanbaatar, Irkutsk, Moscow, St Petersburg. Once again as fixing dates are not possible I cannot book in advance. Will I be able to purchase the tickets at the train station. Could you give me an indication of what the costs would be? Our travel dates are between May and June 2009. Thank you for taking the time to provide answers to my many questions. I look forward to hearing from you. Regards, Pieter

Mr.Del · Answer

You should be sure to book the train in Hanoi at least a few days ahead of time to make sure you get what you want. Also there are not very many trains to China (I think 2 a day) You will be able to travel between just about any city by train, and there are always buses and sleeper buses. Booking trains ahead in China is nearly impossible. Its better that you are flexible. Most likely you will want to buy the ticket you need the day before or two days before or in some cases on the day of. Its usually not that big of a deal. Tickest usually average between $25-$50 depending on class. The train just from Beijing to Ulaanbatar is about $100, maybe a little bit more now. I'm not sure how much past UB, I haven't gone that far by train. Keep in mind how big China is and that most places are at least 12hours away by train (the trains go slowly here). For example, if you look on a map its a 9hr train from Beijing to Qingdao (6 fast train: more expensive) I think Chengdu to Beijing is 36-38hrs. Hope this helps. Happy travels.

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