Travel information China
- China money, budget and exchange rates : The Chinese currency is the Yuan. Exchange rate : 1$ = 826.42 Y en 1 = 812.78 Y in 2002, Mongolian or Russian money can not be exchanged in Beijing as far as I could find. In the bigger cities (except the non touristy places such as Gu yang, Kaili of Liuzhou) you can take out money from a cash machine with a VISA or Cirrus card. Travelers Cheque's give a better rate than cash but be careful that they don't put on extra commission. It is very difficult to get Dollar for your Travelers Cheque's or with your card in a bank, only Chinese Yuan. During a long trip you are best off filling up your back up stash of Dollar in one of the neighbouring countries. When you buy a visa you often have to pay in Dollar and the local money is not accepted. - cost for for budget hotels and restaurants in China : food is very cheap in China (10 tot 15 Yuan), transport with Chinese public transport and entrance tickets to tourist sites are relatively expensive. Budget hotel accommodation in China is usually part of a big Hotel complex with also more luxurious rooms. Don't let yourself be frightened by the star hotel reception normally they have cheap dorm rooms also.
- Language problems in China : actually traveling in China is easier than what you might think, also if you don't know the Chinese language. Ask someone that you meet who can speak english to write down the signs for "bus station", "train station", "how much is this? " en "where can I find a cheap hotel? ". With that you can already get far. In the bus or train station it's better if you have the Chinese sigh ns for the place you want to go to (can be found in most travel guides to China) since the intonation in Chinese is so particular that to be able to pronounce the name correct you have to be very good at Chinese or very lucky. In the hotels the Chinese often speak a little bit of english. Belgium is "Bieliesheu" in Chinese. In many big cities you will meet Chinese students that want to learn English and therefore invite tourists to a " English Corner", a conversation evening. This is an ideal moment to meet young Chinese people and find out a bit about their lifestyles etc.
- internet cafes in China : Annoyingly enough blocks the Chinese government still the web sites of BBC, CNN, alta vista, geocities and angel fire. My web site was during my travels in China hosted by Angel fire and thus not operable. Also almost everything from Yahoo (search engine, briefcase, ...) is not possible to open in China, only www.yahoomail.com is possible so if you use an Yahoo email address you will be able to read and send mails. The cheapest internet cafes you will find in the student quarters, where the price often is about 1.5 Yuan for one hour internet time. In the budget hotels it often costs 10 Yuan for one hour of internetting.
- Travel in China in full trains : in the high season the hard sleepers (2nd class, the beds are not so hard as the name indicates) are often sold out; the ticket officer in the station will then offer you a soft sleeper (1st class ticket) but this ticket is almost as expensive as a flight ticket. The solution is, buy a hard seat instead and convince the ticket officer that you will have no problem with sitting all night in a wagon full of Chinese farmers. When the train is about half an hour on the way you ask the conductor if you can upgrade your ticket to a hard sleeper. Out of experience I can really recommend this since every time that I was told in the station that the sleeper tickets were sold out there were in fact lots of empty beds on the train. It must have something to do with the very complex chinese reservation administration that wants to keep beds unoccupied. Upgrading is very common on Chinese trains, sometimes there is even a special till for this in one of the wagons.
- Chinese visa : a 90 day visa for China is very easy to get in Mongolia (see suggestion) and Hong Kong. In Belgium you can easily get a Chinese visa for a month or 40 days, for a longer period it is sometimes necessary to insist, surely if you want the maximum time visa of 3 months. Don't forget that if you cross the border from China into Hong Kong your single entry Visa expires and you will have to buy a new if you want to return to China, or if you know that you will want to do such a visit to Hong kong and then return to china you can buy a double entry Visa. A visit to Hong Kong could also be a way of prolonging your chinese visit by buying another Visa once the first one is about to expire. More information about Chinese visa and traveling in China you can find in my visa preparation part .
- Travel with your own car through China: Any
private vehicle driven in China requires the completion of plenty of paperwork
(including detailed itinerary) - one set for each province that you plan to drive
through. You are also required to have a guide and service company looking after
you everywhere you go. Even Kashgar to Lhasa via Tibet is do-able by private
vehicle, there are reports of travellers travelling from Tibet to Kashgar via
Qinghai (rather than Ali). Keep in mind that it takes at least a month to get
all the permissions sorted out. It's not something you can do on a shoestring,
either.
