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Just a piece of advice to all would-be travellers to Tibet: If you want to experience the famous Qinghai-Lhasa train ride, take the train from Lhasa and out to Xining/Chengdu/Beijing, etc. I will advice all not to take the train into Lhasa as it's close to impossible to get any tickets on the hard/soft sleeper. Even if you were to pay the black market price, it's still extremely difficult to secure the sleeper tickets. |
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Hi, Can tickets be bought directly from the railway station or from some agency? I´ve already posted some inquiry to one other thread, but as this concerns more about my topic so here it is again. I´m planning to travel to Tibet by taking a flight to Xining, staying there one night and then take the train to Lhasa. Sometime in september / october |
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It was difficult way back in April to get tickets for sleepers from Chengdu to Lhasa. |
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This is confusing. I'm talking to friends in Beijing (local Chinese) who checked for me, and they say you can't buy tickets until 10 days ahead. What the heck is it? |
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Hi KennethToronto, All train tickets in China are only open for sale 10 days before the date of departure, except for the Hong Kong - Guangzhou train tickets. However, there are some routes that are so popular that they get snapped up before they go on sale to the public. I call these the black-market tickets. Essentially, the officials who work in the train stations buy them up themselves and sell it at a high price to travel agents and who will sell these at yet a higher price to travellers. Tickets from any cities in China INTO Lhasa are very, very popular. Personally I have approached at least 10 travel agents to get me the tickets but only 2 replied to say they can get it. One packaged it with a 10 day tour at a ridiculous price; the other quoted me RMB 1300 for a soft sleeper, Xining into Lhasa (the official price is only RMB 409). I went with the latter but guess what - I was told a couple of days ago that the sleeper tickets are ALL sold out, only hard seats left! I had no choice and went ahead to buy a hard seat ticket at RMB 726 (official price at RMB 226, so technically I paid RMB 500 for the booking fee). Tilanne, I will advise you to reverse your trip: Fly into Lhasa and take the train out. I hope this helps! |
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It sure is if it´s like that... Has anyone else faced same kind of problems? There is a peak season in China from August to October so this might make getting train tickets difficult. Or is it just that? If Ken´s example is the current situation in China it would make my trip a little bit longer than originally planned...;) |
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thanks, mutteringflipflap! (was replying to Ken while you posted your message;) |
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we too are trying to get to lhasa on the train. tried in bejing - impossible or too expensive and some people were asking for our permits which are still being processed. heading to xian and xining next to give it a go. will let you know of we are lucky. have been told there are trains from xining and lanzhou which originate in these cities - hence easier to get tickets. anyone heard anyting similar. thanks |
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Personal experience from a few days ago. The only seats that are easish to get are hard seats from beijing (47hour journey!!). Doesn't matter how much money you pay (we met a couple who had paid 3500RMB each fror soft sleepers months ago and still couldn't get any tickets - not even when they downgraded to hard sleepers at the same price. It also seems to be extremely hard to get seat tickets from Xining (even hard seats) and very difficult from Xian. Believe me, if you want a sleeper - you have to know someone VERY special at the moment - even if you find a travel agent who says he can get them - doesn't matter how much you pay he almost certainly can't - you will only find out the day of your journey! My advice if you have to go by train is Hard Seat from Beijing as soon as possible after the 10 days before you travel and then explorer other options. You can always refund the Beijing ticket (-20 %) if you do find something better. |
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If the option is flying one way and taking the train the other way fly to Lhasa and take the train out. Its easier to get tickets out of Lhasa and the scenery is better as you pass the Tibetan areas in daylight. |
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Agree with the others...getting sleeper tickets to Lhasa are very difficult. I have been trying to arrange tickets to Lhasa from Xining all summer for people with great difficulty. A lot of it has to do with the local mafia/black market. Somehow they are able to buy a large percentage of the tickets before they even go on sale. In Xining the tickets go on sale 10 days in advance. Even if you go to the train station 10 days in advance, hours before the ticket window opens there is a good chance the tickets will be sold out. A woman from Singapore emailed me a couple of weeks ago and told me her aunt (local Loanzhou person) was first in line at the ticket window in Lanzhou waiting to buy tickets for the train 10 days in advance and they were sold out. How can the tickets be all sold out when she was the first in line to buy tickets for the train leaving in 10 days?? Some travel agencies in Xining are able to get sleeper tickets, but the "service charge" is extremely high. It is usually between Y700 and Y1000 per ticket. Since getting any type of sleeper ticket is next to impossible to arrnage, I have quit trying to get them. It is a little easier to get a hard seat on the train from Xining to Lhasa, but the past week even these have been difficult to get. |
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Right now it seems possible to buy hard seat tickets from Beijing to Lhasa for 5 days in advance. It's not all that bad, after all. |
