Hong Kong to Mainland China

First of all getting out of Hong Kong is easy, just jump on the light blue line from Hung Hom to Lo Wu (end to end) and you’ll be at the boarder crossing for Mainland China. Here you will go through a crazy system of visa/passport checks, X-Ray machines and a tonne of things that seem completely unnecessary and chaotic… This is only the beginning.

Every sign is in English though so it is relatively easy to find your way through the building to the other side of Customs and there you go, you’re in China!

From here, follow the signs for Shenzhen Train Station and you’ll go up and down a few sets of stairs until you come across a row of ticket machines next to an X-Ray machine. Here, you buy your ticket from the machines, which are not in English at all… So I would recommend asking the Guard who overlooks this section, he was very helpful for us. You ideally need cash at this point as neither of our bank cards worked. There is a cash machine just opposite, in green. You also need to scan your passports here.

Once you’ve got the tickets (we payed 79.5CYN each, the prices vary depending on time of day etc), you’ll go through the X-Ray machine. They don’t like open bottles of water at all, or knives in your ‘hand luggage’ but in our backpacks it seemed to be fine. If they have a problem they’ll ask you to ‘Express it’… They’ll send you to a packaging company a few meters away, but we just moved the knife into the main backpacks and had no further problems.

At the station they don’t let anyone onto the platform until the train arrives so you’ll end up in the middle of a huge crowd of people, but it’s okay as everyone has an allocated seat so there’s no need to worry about getting a spot. You seat number is on the right hand side of your ticket, after the date and the time of the train, it will have the carriage number first then the seat number.

Then you have an 1-2hours to chill out on the super comfy, clean, modern train!

Now comes the complicated part…. Welcome to Guangzhou East. This may not be the station you want to get to the rest of China. You probably want Guangzhou Railway Station. We spent ended up having to spend money on a hotel for the night (or sleep in the main square) as we made this mistake and missed the trains we needed.

To get from one to the other, you need to get off your train at Guangzhou East and follow the signs for Long Distance Travel Tickets, check with the ladies there if you can get a Long Distance Ticket to where you want to go from this station, if not follow the signs for the Metro, head downstairs to the ticket machines. Here I would ask the Guards for help again, or alternatively the machines are quite easy to use. Just click on the station you want to go to (Guangzhou Railway Station) and you’ll pay around 4CYN for this. Head down to Line 1, get on any train as this station is the end of the line for Line 1, then on the 7th stop (Gongyuanglan) change to Line 2 and on the 3rd stop you’ll be at Guangzhou Rail Station. Now walk upstairs with Exit ‘D1’.

As you exit the Metro you’ll come into a huge square. I can not begin to explain how big and confusing this square looks. Guangzhou Railway Stations one of the main travel hubs of China, you can literally get anywhere you need from here… Which is why there are so many people, all the time, everywhere… but that’s why I’m here, so you don’t mess up the way we did;

Step 1: Walk through the first big tent you can see with X-Ray machines (slightly to the right of the Metro exit) and keep walking straight through the next one, on your left a 100meters of so later you’ll find a big open hall-type building that has signs for ‘Tickets’ etc in English, but once inside everything is in Chinese. Here It depends how busy it is, if there’s only a few people in the line then wait in any line and ask the ladies there which ticket booth you need, alternatively if the line is insanely long, ask a guard or just people in the lines.

Step 2: Once you’ve found your line - for us we were heading to Kunming so needed ticket booth number 16 - you will reach a lady who doesn’t speak good English, so make sure to know you are saying the place name correctly, or have it written in Pinyin or Chinese. For us we were getting an overnight train, we knew the train number and time, so ticket buying was quite easy. You pay with cash, but they have change if you dont have the exact amount. You will need your passport.

Step 3: Come out of this hall-type building with your tickets, walk forward to the main thoroughfare, turn right (back the way you came) then through the first big tent you come to, past the xRay machines, turn right out of this tent, walk through some silver barrier-type things. Look up at the huge screen, find your train number, and the platform (numbers are all in a recognisable format; ‘Z221’ for example for the train number, and ‘4’ for example for the platform). From here you turn left towards all the people, find the number of your platform on the white tents, join that line. Be prepared to be pushed about a bit. In September we were dripping with sweat by the time we reached the end of this line.

Step 4: Have you ticket and passport ready to be checked and stamped. Join any line going into the platform. Go through the X-Ray machines - they don’t like open bottles of water. Find the platform/waiting room for your train.

Step 5: You will not be allowed on the platform until the train has arrives - usually 20-30 minutes before the departure time. There will be a lot of people. But again, do not worry, you have an allocated seat/bed (for sleeper/overnight trains), so there is no rush here, just enjoy the chaos and feeling very much like a giant among everyone around you.

This whole process from Guangzhou East to getting on our train at Guangzhou Railway Station took around 3 and a half hours:

• 15 minutes to find your way in Guangzhou East

• 40 minutes on the tubes

• 20 minutes walk to the ticket office

• 1 hour in line for tickets

• 15 minute walk to big screen

• 5 minutes figuring out train/platform

• 30 minutes in line to get into station

• 10 minutes to get through X-Rays

• 15 minutes to find and get to platform

Leave plenty of time to do all of this as not much is in English and not many people can speak good enough English to help you.

Other

Starbucks Sandwich - 22

Starbucks Coffee - 34

4 large tomatoes - 13.40

Hotel by train station - 260 per night for two people

Dinner (three plain rice, one beef stir fry, one steamed vegetable, 4 beers) - 88

Lunch (one plain rice, one noodle soup) - 30

Over night train leaving at 7:42pm (16hrs) - 328 per person

Water 1.5L - 3

Pot noodle (at train satin) - 6

Wifi is generally a no-go, unless you have a Chinese number already. If you can get hold of Wifi it will be slow. Also things like Facebook, Instagram and Google are all banned.

Congratulations! You are on your way into mainland China!