I can say that
traveling to China is one of my bucket list. Somehow, I just admire its nature,
heritage, empires, culture, also its histories. At the end of 2018, one of my
traveling partners shouted in our WhatsApp group, there was a promo return
ticket to China. Always, cheap tickets teased me so well. Without thinking any
longer, we bought the return tickets for IDR
1,9 mio. Actually, there were IDR 1,4 mio, way cheaper. But
unfortunately, the cheapest ones were sold out.
Since traveling to China already
crossed my mind, I can’t get out of picturing it till I finally bought the
return tickets! BUT, the problem was, I
bought the ticket to (and from) Guangzhou! And, I just realized that Guangzhou
is FAR AWAY from any destination I pictured about. Really wanted to go to Beijing,
was already dreaming about going to Great Wall, otherwise, the distance itself was
about 2.133 km, 23 hours ride by train. Flight tickets were double expensive than our return ticket from Jakarta. So, how? In
this post, I wanna tell you that nothing is impossible...IF YOU ARE CRAZY ENOUGH.
Here is my itinerary (in recap) for going to my dream destinations from
Guangzhou.
Travel Itinerary
Day 1: Arrived at Guangzhou at 2 am. Took asleep and planned to stroll
around Guangzhou in the morning. Turned out, sleeping is all that we need!!
Just wake up at 11 pm, getting ready and went to Temple of Six Tree Banyan. Not
far from the temple, accidentally we were crossing the bazaar street, you can buy some stuff like Chinese
tea and their pretty ceramics.
 |
| Temple of Six Tree Banyan |
Day 2: Was planning to wake up at the earlier morning, like 5 or 5.30 am, to go to Guilin. But again, we were all tired and we slept till the 8!!! And guess what? We missed our train. Already booked it for the 8am ride, turned out we just woke up at the same time.
Therefore, we bought the tickets again and continued our journey to Guilin, to a small town called Yangshuo to be exact. We arrived at 3 pm at Yangshuo train station, continued to ride the bus, and arrived at 4pm at the central bus station of Yangshuo. We went to Yulong River straight away with our carrier bag on us. The operational of Yulong River will be closed in the near time, so we decided to rent Tuktuk from the station to the river.
Therefore, we bought the tickets again and continued our journey to Guilin, to a small town called Yangshuo to be exact. We arrived at 3 pm at Yangshuo train station, continued to ride the bus, and arrived at 4pm at the central bus station of Yangshuo. We went to Yulong River straight away with our carrier bag on us. The operational of Yulong River will be closed in the near time, so we decided to rent Tuktuk from the station to the river.
 |
| Yu Long River |
We went to the hostel after that, stayed at Yangshuo Sudder Street Guesthouse, strolled around the city with a bicycle, looking for the dinner.
 |
| No words to describe how happy we were to stroll around the city in the late night. |
Day 3: We woke up very early, to feel the ambiance of Yangshuo in the morning. Also, we need to check out any sooner because we wanted to move to another city. Yes, that’s why I call this trip as a “Genie itinerary”. We were just moving away from one city to another in the counting of hours!
 |
| Saying goodbye to Yangshuo with a heavy heart:( will come back to this place! |
We took a taxi from the hostel to Yangshuo Bus Station. After that, we continued the ride with another bus to go to Guilin Railway Station. From Guilin Railway station, we took the fast train we booked before, it was 3 hours ride heading to Changsa since the train will stop there and we will transit for two hours. From Changsa, we were moving to Beijing by train, slow train exactly. Spent 16 hours on the train, just to go to Beijing City!
Day 4: Finally
arrived in Beijing at 9 am! It was such a long journey, but because we are moving from one ride to another, we
didn’t feel that bored, only when 16 hours long on the train. Yas, 16 hours. On that day, we
planned to go to Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square, after checking in to the hotel. Btw, our hotel was in Wangfujing, it’s a good and very strategist area!
You can only by walk to get to the shopping center, whether it’s mall or bazaar,
and it was very near to Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square too. We're planning to get there at noon, BUT WE FELL ASLEEP AGAIN. It’s the third time we changed our itinerary just because we were sleeping. The conclusion was: we just simply were
tired...
To kill the time,
we went to Miniso (seriously!) near our hotel, bought some cute things. And we
strolled around Wangfujing main street, there were some people dancing in front
of the church following the music. And like the locals, we danced too!
Day 5: ANOTHER LONG JOURNEY AWAITED US. We wanted to go to The Great Wall of China, but from what side?
That was three option to get to the great wall, but the most authentic was in
Simatai Great Wall. Nonetheless, Simatai was the farthest one, located 120km from
the city. We took variances of public
transportation. The city bus, subway, transit to another subway, riding an express bus from the station, switching to another bus, and it took around 3-4 hours to get there. The entrance was in Gubei Water Town. And yea finally made it to Great Wall. From Simatai, we took the bus
straight away to go back to the city, and went to Donghuamen Night Market. When we were looking for bus halte to go back to the hotel, tuned out it’s just a walk away from
the main street we strolled around last night, and we walked our foot like a lot on that day.
 |
| Not regretting at all to visit Simatai, even though it was far and expensive enough for me |
Day 6: Went to Forbidden
City and Tiananmen Square, it was near the Donghuamen so we came back to the
bazaar again after that. Checked out the hotel and go to the train station AGAIN to go back
to Guangzhou.
 |
| Was a great empire. |
Day 7: Still on
the train.....
On the train..
Eat antimo
Sleep..
Sleep again
Eat
Repeat
Watching Netflix
Going to another
episodes, another film..
Editing photo
Talk to the
strangers
Laughing with the
locals
Struggling again
with language barrier
Ask it ask that
In the total, it was 23 hours of the ride! The longest ride I’ve ever been. Can you imagine how did it feel to get to a train for 23 hours nonstop?!?! In China?! Where the sanitation was quite dirty?!?! But you also have to take a pee, right?!?! Of course not forgetting to cleanse the face, at least? That’s how we felt for the long ride on our last day in China. And finally, we arrived at 5 pm on the next day. Straight away to Guangzhou Airport after going to HC Inn first to pick our luggage we left there, and go to Jia Mei hotel to meet our (supposed to be) teammate, we planned to go to Guilin together but they couldn’t make it due to the engine problem with their plane. It was our last day in China, our plane take-off to Malaysia at 2am. Time to say goodbye to China!
In the total, it was 23 hours of the ride! The longest ride I’ve ever been. Can you imagine how did it feel to get to a train for 23 hours nonstop?!?! In China?! Where the sanitation was quite dirty?!?! But you also have to take a pee, right?!?! Of course not forgetting to cleanse the face, at least? That’s how we felt for the long ride on our last day in China. And finally, we arrived at 5 pm on the next day. Straight away to Guangzhou Airport after going to HC Inn first to pick our luggage we left there, and go to Jia Mei hotel to meet our (supposed to be) teammate, we planned to go to Guilin together but they couldn’t make it due to the engine problem with their plane. It was our last day in China, our plane take-off to Malaysia at 2am. Time to say goodbye to China!
That’s a wrap about my itinerary! Gosh..writing about it and imagining it again already makes me tired, can’t believe WE DID IT! Thanks to my crazy traveling partner, for accompanying this crazy idea to explore China mainland right to the city of Beijing!
Budget
Disclaimer: it is based on my experience, I believe that my budget compared to another's will result in some differences. The budget below is described as if you are traveling with a buddy, of course because we shared a room for two and shared our cost for meals. I may forget about some expenses that were not recorded, but I can say that how much we spent on this trip is around this budget. Our biggest expense was in train transportation to connect us from one city to another, followed by hotel expense. So, to answer some's curiosity about how much I spent in China, here you go to the details!
DAY
|
Cost per
Person
|
Notes
|
DAY 1
|
||
Flight return
tickets Jakarta-Guangzhou
|
IDR1.900.000
|
|
Bus from
Airport to Station
|
CNY 24
|
|
Taxi from
Station to HC Inn
|
CNY 44
|
|
2 nights
stay at HC Inn
|
CNY 200
|
Family
room (Was planning for 4 person including me n 3 of myfriend)
|
2 pax Chicken
Wings McD
|
CNY 20
|
|
DAY 2
|
||
Fast Train
to Yangshuo
|
IDR
390.000
|
All the train tickets, we booked it previously via trip.com
|
Bus from
Yangshuo Railway Station to bus station
|
CNY 20
|
|
Rent
Tuktuk to Yulong River from Station and drive us to hotel
|
CNY 50
|
100 for 2
people
|
Rent the
Boat
|
CNY 80
|
160 per
boat, because there were 2 of us, so each will pay 80
|
Taking photos
while in the Boat
|
CNY 20
|
Each
person pay 20
|
Tip
|
CNY 7,5
|
We gave
15, the officer will ask us for tip and we can’t refuse
|
Hostel
|
CNY 40
|
Yangshuo
Sudder Street Guesthouse
|
Dinner
|
CNY 19
|
We pay 38
for two, that was sharing meal because the protion itself was so big
|
DAY 3
|
||
Rent car
from hostel to bus station
|
CNY 10
|
The actual
cost = 10x2
|
Bus from
Yangshuo to Guilin
|
CNY 17
|
|
Fast train
from Guilin to Changsa
|
CNY 261
|
|
Slow train
from Changsa to Beijing
|
CNY 200
|
|
DAY 4
|
||
2 nights
stay at Wangfujing Jade, Beijing
|
IDR
386.193
|
Traveloka
paylater promo. It should be IDR 700k-ish for one night. Lucky us to have iy
770k-ish for 2 nights.
|
DAY 5
|
||
Bus from
Beijing City (Dongzhimen Station)
|
CNY 17
|
Around
that price, kinda forget
|
Bus to
Gubei Water Town
|
CNY 25
|
|
Simatai
Great Wall and Gubei Water Town entrance + Cable car return ticket
|
CNY 288
|
|
Go back
to Beijing by direct bus
|
CNY 40
|
|
DAY 6
|
||
Entrance
to Tiananmen Square and Forbidden City
|
CNY Free
|
Not going
to the inside of the palace
|
Slow train
from Beijing to Guangzhou
|
CNY 192
|
|
Taxi to
Jiamei Hotel
|
CNY 6
|
Where my
friends stayed
|
Subway to
the airport
|
CNY 7
|
Spare at
least 2 hours long because of transitting one to another
|
CNY TOTAL
|
CNY 1.587
x IDR 2120
= IDR 3.364.440
|
|
IDR TOTAL
|
= 2.676.193
|
|
ALL TOTAL
|
= IDR 3.364.440
+ 2.676.193
= IDR 6.040.633
|
EXCLUDE CITY BUS AND
SUBWAY TOTAL COST, EATING KFC, AND SHOPPING
|
When in China, we took the city bus and subway as our
main transportation. Couldn’t
recap it all how much we spent on that, but for all every city bus we took, each of us only spent CNY
2 per ride to go everywhere. For subway (metro), it was costed from CNY 1 till CNY 7,
fares depended on the distance we will up to. Yes, it was that cheap to travel on public transportation!
We usually ate
oatmeal with another food we prepared from Indonesia. If we ate outside, we frequently ate
KFC like a lot. I couldn’t remember how much we bought it since it was the only
one we knew clearly and the taste is so-so... One pax of chicken breast was costed
around CNY 12 or around IDR 24k.
Couldn’t make it
clear how much it was costed for shopping, every single of us has our preferences
in claiming how much spending on shopping is considered as a tolerable cost.
I think that's all to sum up my itinerary and budget to explore China mainland, if there is any question, feel free to contact me here. Hope it helps, and thanks for reading!
Every good wish,
