Pre-trip: Train and Flight Ticket Booking

Train Ticket

In China, you could only book the train 20 days prior to your departure date. We wanted to take the train on 9 Sep, so we had to book our train tickets first and foremost before it was sold out.

On 22 Aug, we booked our train tickets for Xining - Lhasa with the help from Jeff's friend from this website (in Chinese).

Train No. T165
Type: Hard-sleeper (middle bed)
Price: 497 RMB
Route: Xining - Lhasa
Departure: 9 Sep @ 8:15 PM
Arrival: 10 Sep @ 8:15 PM

You will get a reservation code in SMS (ex: E123456789). To get the train ticket, you will need to go to the ticket service booth at the post office (or could be any train ticket agency center). Tell them the reservation code and pay the fee (usually 5-10 RMB). Don't forget to bring your passport. You could also go to the ticket booth at the train station. I guess you won't need to pay the fee in that case (not sure).

The couple booked the ticket with the travel agency. Their train T22 would leave Chengdu at 8:55 PM and arrive in Lhasa on 10 Sep at 4:40 PM. They got soft-sleeper for 1,300 RMB per person.

The guide and driver would be picking us up from the train station and take us to the hotel (which we didn't book yet).


Flight Ticket

Jeff and I were planning to arrive in Xining on Friday evening (6 Sep), but I couldn't find any reasonable flight ticket. In fact I found one from Shanghai to Xining, but I didn't book it soon enough. It was around 700 RMB and arrived on Friday evening like we planned. But only a few days later, the flight was all sold out T__T. I was really mad (at myself). In the end I had to book the flight from Hangzhou instead from Qunar website.

Flight No. 3U8821
Airline: Sichuan Airlines
Price: 1,049 RMB
Date: 6-Sep-2013
Route: Hangzhou - Xining (via Chongqing)
Departure: Xiaoshan Airport  8:20 AM
Arrival: Caojiabao Airport 1:35 PM

I decided to leave Hangzhou in the morning and arrive in Xining in the afternoon coz it would probably take me 2 hours getting the luggage, taking the bus to downtown Xining and heading to the hotel. I didn't want to arrive so late in the evening as I wanted to start slowly on the first day and get enough rest on the first night so that we could start early on the following morning (fresh start for the journey oh yeah!).

Jeff's flight would arrive in Xining around 9 PM. By the time he arrived at the hotel, it would be quite late already, but he said he was fine with lack of sleep, no problem.

For flight out from Lhasa on 24 Sep, we would decide again after we arrive in Lhasa. There seemed to be plenty of flights and the prices weren't much different.

We didn't book our return flight yet. Jeff was worried about the permit whether or not we would get it. He wanted to make sure that we got the permit first before booking the return ticket. We wanted to overland to Sichuan and probably fly from Chengdu (would be my third time going there). We would fly back on 6 Oct, so we had to hurry with the booking, otherwise the price would be more and more expensive.