Thailand to India (via China/Tibet)

bass_relief

hi all,

this is my first post on this wonderfully helpfull message board.
I am in thailand at the moment and would like to get to northern india. would anyone be able to recommend a cheap airline ticket?

I have been told that bangladesh airlines is cheap, but cant find out where to purchase their tickets online. The thai airline price for bngkok kolkata.

another option i was considering was entering india through china i.e go from lao or thailand to kunming to lijiang to chendu to tibet then lhasa to kathmandu and finally kathmandu to india.

any help or advice would be appreciated

TulsaisntFar

I'll be flying from Bangkok to calcutta in june and the price roundtrip is about 300 dollars through Jet Ariways which is an Indian airlines. I dont think that price is very cheap, i think its normal. Try to find i cheaper fare.

Anders

Any travel agent on Khao San road should be able to get you a ticket on whatever happens to be the cheapest at the moment.

cosmo

I am also in Thailand as I write and purchased a ticket O/W to Mumbai for $241US($120 cheaper than the next best price found) on Malaysian Airlines. I used kayak.com to find it, a very useful site...

See ya there
cosmo

bass_relief

thanks for the help people. I think im going to be going to tibet thru china, then go into nepal and then into india. its quite an ambitious plan, but i hope it will be all good.

how much do you guys think it would cost to go from lhasa to kathmandu ?

steven_ber

I hope you've researched this route, I did a couple of years ago and was amazed at how difficult and expensive this route would be.

It depends on the route you take though, I researched it before the train to Lhassa started running, so I was looking at thousands of kms of mountain roads, with virtually no transport options.

If you want to go the train route (long way round) I have all the details (somewhere), but it's still a long journey from Lhassa to Kathmandu, and I think it may be expensive, I hope others have found a cheap way to do it.

Do you still need to be in a group of 4 to enter Tibet?

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bass_relief

im thinkink of getting the train from chengdu to lhasa...i have been doing some research, but there is a lot of contradictory info about the permits on the www. some say its easy to get others say its not so easy??

steven_ber

I've no idea about permits, hopefully someone else can advise.

The train journeys are long, and the train timetables difficult to work out, I'll have a look and reply in the morning.

I'll assume your going through Laos and up to Kunming to join the China rail network.

bass_relief

exactly right steve, ive been looking at the china rail network website and it seems the services exist but i wonder how easy it is to get tickets ?

i will be extremely grateful if you could you point me in the direction of your research.

i have spoken to a few people who have come out of china and they seem to think that the language barrier is the biggest obstacle in the way of getiing things done but they say all the infrastructure exists...

looks like there will be a lot of hand gesturing and drawing....

steven_ber

This research has been difficult, that's not a complaint, I've enjoyed it and wanted to know the info myself.

I don't know what website you're using for your train research, but I used the website of China Highlights, I think they’re a travel company.

I first studied the English train timetable I have, a very comprehensive timetable from October 2002 (more details later), then I had a look at his December 2006 update amendments (wow, confusing), then checked these amended times with the following train search website and they seemed very accurate (though I only checked about 20 trains).

http://www.chinahighlights.com/china-trains/index.htm#

(The site doesn't tell you if the trains are daily or not, most of the trains to Lhasa run every 2nd day, though there are 3 trains a day for the sector you’ll be using, just some will be more useful than others, I have the info regarding what day the trains run, let me know if you need it)

There is a 'Search Trains between two major Stations' function, and a 'Search Trains between two of all Stations' function.

WARNING, I've read that China railways are making big changes to their timetables in 2007, I've no idea how these changes will affect trains or when they’ll take place.

The direct/easiest route to Lhasa is Kunming to Chengdu (4 trains daily, 18-19 hours), then Chengdu to Lhasa (every 2nd day, 48 hours)

Total time = 66-67 hours, total distance = 4500 kms

The line from Kunming travels north and meets with the mainline at Baoji* with the main line to Lhasa, many other trains to Lhasa use this line, it is the line from Beijing/Shanghai and calls at Xian a few hours before Baoji then continues through Lanzhou and on to Lhasa.

*Not all Lhasa bound trains call at Baoji. (you must use 'Search Trains between two of all Stations' to find trains that call at Baoji.

There are so many things to see in this part of the world that you should consider taking a couple of weeks to complete the Kunming-Lhasa route, look for trains from Chengdu to Xian, or Kunming-Chongqing and Chongqing-Xian, also the whole area west of Kunming.

The 'Nelles' Southern China, and Central China maps are good, with loads of tourist attractions marked on them, also look for the 'Gizi' Tibet map, again, a good map. Maybe you’ll find them on Ko San Road)

Is there a China tourism office in Bangkok? (I got loads of free maps and guides from the one in London, and when I say loads, I mean about 60-70 and packed with info)

Train tickets in China can only be booked 5 days in advance, so unless you are willing to take a chance, you may be better to use an agent to book your tickets.

I have a reservation form for booking trains, all is printed in both English and Chinese, making booking a little bit easier, let me know if you'd find it useful and I'll do a link to it so you can print a few of them.



I strongly suggest you get the views of others on the Thorn Tree forum (china branch) or other forums, I've also heard that language can be a big problem, and I've seen suggestions to get a business card from every hotel as it will have the address in Chinese on it.

I've not had time to checked the Man In Seat 61 website, but strongly suggest you take the time, his info is normally very useful.

For those interested in the Chinese Railway Timetable, see Duncan Peattie's website below.

http://www.chinatt.org/

A useful China rail map can be found at http://www.johomaps.com/as/china/chinarail.html

Oops, the girlfriend back and I havn't tidied up, here we go...

kailash35

Yes you do need permit to take the train to Lhasa.

2 options:
* buying the permit + traintickets from agency or guesthouse
* buying only the permit and find some Chinese person to buy your ticket.

If you want to buy the trainticket by yourself, you will have to show your permit.

I took the train last January, boarding in Xining.
Once ticket bought, nobody asked me to see the permit .

Some other people , recently had to show their permit once they were inside the train.

Steven is right : language can be a problem.

Chengdu guesthouses can help you to get the permit. (I can give a few names if you don't know any)

T22/3 train - Chengdu 18:18 day 1 ; Lhasa at 18:28 day 3, every 2 days

T222/3 - Chongqing at 19:20 day 1 ; Lhasa at 18:28 day 3, every 2 days

I don't have any information about where to get the permit in Chongqing.

steven_ber

From the Man In Seat 61 website....

1,700 Yuan: -

Rs9700
US$220
£112
Aus$227
Euros 167

Seems reasonable for a soft sleeper and the Tibet pass.

kailash, what class did you use and what was the cost?

What was the overall journey like?

Depart and arrive on time?

(I'd love to do this journey one day)

kailash35

I plan to write a post about this train travel but after coming back from India and include some pictures

I have a Tibetan friend in Xining who bought the ticket for me.

I was planning to travel soft sleeper but changed my mind for a hard sleeper : I paid 523 yuans for lower berth.
And honestly for me it was more then enough : 5 stars.

I travelled whithout permit and was lucky : nobody asked me anything.

I went first to a travel agency.
Their price was 200 yuans for the permit and 1000 yuans for a hard sleeper ticket.
At that time, I already knew the real price (523) so I asked them their price for the permit and only the permit. They quoted me 400 yuans because they could not get any commission on the train ticket.

We left Xining at 16.49 and reached Lhasa the next day at 18.28. We left Xining, like 10 minutes late and reached Lhasa on time (in fact before time and they stopped us in the middle of nowhere).
Iwwas very surprised to see that on the major part of the way, there is only single track lane (not sure of the word!)
One stop in Golmud round 3am and one in Naqchu (at 1pm) .
The train stops a long time (more then 30 minutes) at Cuo Na Hu to let people enjoy the view of a wide lake (frozen in January).

kailash35

2 things I really dislike : music!!

Thanks God, they switch it off at 9pm and on again round 8 am.
We heard the same songs 3,4 times.


.... and temperature.

22°C . We were all dressed with winter clothes (that night, we had -16°C and -5°C daytime) but it seems I was the only one to complain.

monkgonemad

best place for tickets on khao sarn are mini toour (in the red "brick" building w/ khmer face on ksr) and ibs (in causeway next to blue/white near marco polo gh).

always check the airlines first for basic price FIRST, sometimes ksr is MORE expensive than list price of airlines!

add taxes

india is no bargain as only three airline ply this route bkk-del (northern india).

im flying into bkk sometime between april8-may8 and then on to most liklely delhi and then up north till october.

ive always wanted to do: thailand-river trip via lao-southern china-tibetan plateau-nepal (or paki kkh) and then india. are you serious about this and can you depart thailand early june? i speak some thai/lao, no chinese.


STEVEN: what made the trip expensive...curious. could you have traveled more slowly and saved money? as american i will need to be out of china in 30 days regardless.