Mr. & Mrs. Vandebilt + kids

Brynn has already described our journies from city to city but I like to put in my two cents as well.

Traveling by train in China is an experience in itself. The adventure begins when you try to buy your first ticket and I imagine it will follow us to our final stop.

You can only book tickets from the stations on the line you plan to travel. That means that you can usually only buy a ticket for the next stop when you arrive in the town you plan to leave from. The tickets go on sale 10 days in advance of departure and the seats get snatched up quickly (especially the most desirable ones). You are at a disadvantage from the start and it means that you need to be prepared to take alternate routes and detours.

There are so many people traveling on the trains. I expected lots of people but my poor little imagination failed miserably on this one. We traveled by train frequently in South Korea and the trains were rarely full. In China the cars are stacked to the rafters with people and luggage. So far we have not encountered any livestock but at this point I’m ready for anything.  ***Update: Within 12 hours of writing this post I saw a chicken in the next train station.  The chicken was tied around his feet and wings with mesh so he couldn’t escape.  The man with the chicken put it down right in front of us while he went to the toilet.  The chicken also relieved himself just not in the toilet…***

There are several classes of trains and several seating (or standing) options. You can tell what class you are riding by the letter prededing the number of your train. Our first train ride was a ‘D’ class train. That was nice. The next train did not have a letter. That was not so nice. To boil it down if it has a letter you’re fine if it doesn’t – be prepared to meet your lower threshold of transportation tolerance. You’ll be fine but unless you are a sucker for punishment I doubt you’ll go out of your way to do it again.

I am not saying that traveling by train is a bad idea or an impossibilty. Overall we are enjoying traveling by train. The scenery is always varied and so are the passengers. I think the train experience is giving us a much greater appreciation for the landscape and the people than we would have gotten by flying.