China: Transportation

June 2014 (by Pat)    Itinerary Link

TRANSPORTATION

During our 5 day trek from Chongqing to Xi’an we used several different modes of transportation. Here they are.

Train – Trains in China are cheap, crowded, uncomfortable and, usually, late. We took three different train trips of 2+ hours each. The total cost for the six tickets was about $27. Most of the time we were in three across bench seats facing three other people in three across bench seats. The aisles were full of standees and luggage. We were lucky to have reserved seats.

Inter Urban Bus – These are large busses, with luggage compartments underneath. They operate out of depots and you buy a ticket at a counter. They run on expressways and are generally comfortable.

Inter Town Bus – I’m not sure what to call these things, but they were the dominant form of transportation on the roads we were traveling. They are minibuses, sitting 10 to 15 people. There’s no luggage compartment underneath and no marked starting and stopping location. There’s a driver and a money collector who collects the fare on the road. They run on rural roads and passengers get on and off anywhere along the road.

We were traveling on mountain roads and the most unnerving thing about these buses was the driver’s willingness to pass on blind curves as long as he tooted his horn once to tell any potential oncoming traffic to get out of his way. I’m surprised I didn’t see wrecks of these things scattered along the roads.

Taxi – Cab drivers tend to be very honest, sometimes to a fault. All the cabs are metered and, in the big cities, the meter is always used. In some of the smaller towns, where the initial flag drop can be as low as 3Y, the meters are not used, but a price is announced up front. For instance, in the town outside Zhangjiajie National Park, it was understood that any cab ride was 10Y. The drivers always said this up front and I had no problem with it.

I was surprised to see that in some towns the meter registered fractions of a yuan. In one instance, the meter read 18.3. I handed the driver 19Y and exited the cab. He called YK back and handed her a 1Y note. He wasn’t going to let us overpay. In another instance, in Xi’an, the meter read 13 and I handed the driver 15. He went through his wad of bills and could find no 1Y notes, so he gave me back 5Y.

City Buses – Generally the fare for a city bus is 1Y. This is cheap enough that you can get on a bus going in the right direction and, if it turns, get off and get on another one. This tactic proved helpful on several occasions.