Whistlestop Tour

Hey,

Myself and a few friends are planning a trip for next summer. We are thinking of taking the Trans-Siberian railway form Moscow to Beijing, and this stage of the trip appears to be fairly simple. However, once we get to Beijing, we are hoping to travel south to Thailand, via Laos and possibly Vietnam, and hitting Bangkok and one or two islands. Ideally, we would like to travel overland (mainly to keep costs down). We only have about a month or so in the summer and don't know a great deal about the region, especially China (including the language!). I was wondering if anyone could provide a rough sort of itinerary that we could follow, perhaps with one or two places of interest in China to break up the trip. I would also be grateful if anyone could give me an insight into the logistics of traveling in this area- will we be able to travel by bus/ train with limited language ability?

Many thanks in advance for any help. Reply to this

I got the train from Hanoi Vietnam to Bejing which took 46 hours, they do reverse service too which goes through and stops at Guilin. Hanoi is for me the best place in Vietnam as I found it was full of culture compared to the rest of the country, again personal choice, but also its no effort to see Ha Long Bay and stay on a junk for a couple of days then go trekking another couple of days in Northern Vietnam in Sapa all this is organised from Hanoi, so you would really feel youve done something in Vietnam. China is huge, but there are many over night trains to every destination and they can be OK comfortable. I went from Beijing through to Shanghai all by train and saw great travel hot spots along the way.

The fact you want to cover China, Loas, Vietnam and Thailand in just one month over land, I agree with greek gal you need to plan this carefully, its the travelling between places that takes the most time. Please look at my blogs for places of interest along this similiar route, it took most of this year to do properly. From Hanoi and Loas there are plenty of options to travel to Bangkok, and there are alot of budget flights, if you find yourself pushed for time. We found travelling from January through to September we some how got all the good weather. Reply to this

G'day Andy,
My wife & I did similar in June this year - China, Laos & Thailand over 4 weeks. If your month includes the Trans-Siberian you do not have enough time. We scaled down our itinerary bc of vastness of China - were not keen on 4x 20hr+ train trips. We went to Beijing, Pingyao, Shanghai and Yangshuo spending 3-5 nights at each place. See Blog for things done & tips. As we were time poor we flew a lot of legs; we found it was cheaper to book internal flights on the ground. Also saw long distance buses kitted out with triple bunks if you looking for cheap but we did not use any.
LP made it easy as it has the Mandarin for destinations throughout the book and you’d show people where you were trying to get to. Beijing West train station has an english counter to book tickets, definitely go sleeper class & non smoking. We were the only westerners in our hard sleeper carriage (take food) - the conductor told us when to get off. Highly recommend the day tour we took to the great wall (Jinshanling and Simatai -see blog), and Yangshuo for a few nights.
Laos is a mongrel to get to from China. We had booked from KunMing to Luang Prabang then Laos Airways collapsed. A Bus does same route but takes 26hrs? maybe. Options to fly via Hanoi & BKK. We used a Bangkok Air airpass; Guilin-BKK-KohSamui then BKK-LuangPrabang rtn. Have to have 3 flights, pre-booked and costs US$100 per leg – cheap for international flights at time. There are trains BKK to Vientiane and China to Vietnam. We had to cut VangViang & Vientiane from Itinerary bc time; 5 nights in Luang Prabang wasn’t enough, highly recommend.
From Bangkok a bus & ferry service connects Koh Samui, Koh Phangan & Koh Tao, very easy to get around, winged accom.
Have a heap of tips & recommendations if your interested. Reply to this

I don't know if it is the cheapest but this Chinese site (also in English) is what my good English friend who lives in Xa'ian uses all the time, they provide etickets or you can collect at the airport. They also have good prices for hotels too. elong.net

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Hi Fifi

I remember using this airline from Shanghai to Denpasser (Bali) it was through an agent and the one way flight cost $190.00....I have just tried looking in their international destinations and can now not find Bali! Wouldn't hurt to go into a travel agent in Beijing and ask if they can find it. Its a new airline and the flight we took could have been a special trial destination offer?? But no harm in enquiring here too.
Shanghai Airlines

Remember in Vietnam they have the hop on hop off sleeper buses that start from Hanoi and go round the coast to Ho Chi Mihn. I think it cost about $32 in total, always pay that extra £10 and get the sleeper bus as alot of the time we saw stranded travellers who bought the sit down bus (that the rock hard seats did not recline) and were told it had been cancelled and had to pay an extra $10 for each additional bus trip on the sleeper. The sleepers always turned up, they also broke down alot too, gove yourselves plenty of time, as if you have a connecting flight to catch as you may or may not get there in time. Reply to this