A foreigner wanting to buy a train ticket in China, who cannot speak or read Chinese, will find it very frustrating. It is hard, very hard. The common experience is, you take your chance to queue at one of the long lines, and when you finally get to the front, you are told it is wrong line, or “mei you mei you” (not available).
The tip is, you go to the five-star hotels, if any, and try your luck. In these luxury hotels, they usually have ticketing service and the staff can speak English. You can get your train or bus tickets for a handling fee of 5-20rmb.
You can also try four-star hotels where ticketing service can be available.
You don’t need to be a guest of the hotel to use the service.
1 comment so far ↓
Just wanna share my experience in train ticket: If you can, avoid the travel agents in universities. Sometimes the handling charge can be unbelievably high. A classmate of mine got her ticket to Tianjin via the agent in school. The ticket alone cost around RMB 70, but the handling charge alone was RMB 50. We got the same ticket from another agent with handling charge of only RMB 5 per ticket.
Leave a Comment