Will be spending more time than planned in Beijing before moving to other cities within China. Can someone recommend any day trips using trains out of Beijing? Would it be easy to just go to the station and buy tickets or should purchases be made well in advance?
Reply to this What about Tianjin? Half an hour ride if you take the trains starting with letter "C". Better to purchase the tickets one day in advance.
Reply to this Thanks, Mao. Been reading up on Datong, but I think it would be torture to visit as a day trip out of Beijing. Any idea how much train fare is for Beijing-Datong-Beijing?
Reply to this Trains are an interesting issue in China. Supposedly, you can only buy tickets from the city of origin - so if you are purchasing a train ticket on a long train route, you can purhcase the ticket to the destination, but you need to get to the destination to purhcase the return tickets. Also, there is a limit to have far in advance you can purchase the tickets - it is something like 14 or 28 days.
I believe there are some agents that can obtain tickets for all places - you pay a bit more - but it is worth it if you really want to get on a specific train!
Reply to this thanks for the info, shane. And thank you too, mao.
Reply to this you'd better go to Datong, it's near Beijing, about 6 hour train to Beijing. Anciently
Datong was the capital city of two non-Han Chinese dynasties. Many ancient sites are located in the area.
Yungang Grottoes is lcated at the southern foot of Wuzhou Mountain some 16 kilometers west of Datong City, Reply to this 1 account deleted. 1 URL blacklisted. No spamming on these forums.
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