China by train: In Paul Theroux’s footsteps
So there I was carelessly and joyously preparing my next wilderness trip and this time I chose North America, the US to be precise. Or better Alaska. I had routes, places to visit, like mining villages, national parks, beautiful bays, etcetera. And then I noticed a little sentence on the socials which said: This year dutch (…. and some other nationalities….) travellers do not need to apply for a visa to travel to China 😳😲🥳. A visa application for China is what kept me from returning after my previous almost disasterous application in 2019.
Not having to do that triggered me to abandon … for now… my Alaskan travel plans and choose for another China adventure (my favorite country, did I mention that).
China: Just its size is perplexing. It has more similarities to a mini world than to just one single country. I have not been travelling to any other country yet that is so diverse in its culture, language and landscapes. It spans several climate zones, it contains numerous mountain chains, 2 large deserts and an abundance of rivers in steep valleys or ravines as well as vast, fertile plains.
I had unfinished business in China. In 2019, The Wandelgek travelled by railway from Moscow to Beijing, followed by a few days of solo travel in Great Beijing. The plan had been to travel on deeper into China, but due to the festivities around the 70 year existence of the People’s Republic of China, this was not feasible. Everyone in China has a one week vacation and this means fully booked hotels, crowded trains and crowded sites. The Wandelgek decided to stop his solo travel in Beijing, but this had worked rather well and he decided to return someday to finish his plans for further solo travels through China.
No visa required
Now it’s 2024 and The Wandelgek discovered that it was possible for dutch citizens to travel into China without a visa (provided the stay in China has a maximum of 15 days) this year (which is quite exceptional and probably only available for a short timespan (when I planned this railroad journey, the arrangement was from the 14th of march until the 30th of november 2024, but now this arrangement is extended until the 31th of december 2025)). The Chinese government wants to stimulate travel this way, because the Covid19 outbreak had dropped the number of travellers significantly.
Now how to travel?
Well in China that choice was easy. As a real railway buff, The Wandelgek obviously preferred that above inland flights:
Railway travel
Years ago The Wandelgek had read this travel book about train travels in China by Paul Theroux and a small seed was planted. Now he has decided to do some solo train travels in China and thus finish the abandoned plans he had had in 2019 as well.
The Wandelgek planned to go for a new railway adventure after his previous railway travels in China in 2004. China is such a vast land and it does have quite a good railway network, so train travel is an excellent choice. Paul Theroux had been travelling by boat and train from London to Moscow and from there with the Trans Siberian and Trans Mongolian Express
The Wandelgek 1st visited China in 1999 (the provine of Xizang, the old Tibetan heartland) to be precise. He did not travel by train yet, but in 2004 when he returned, visiting Xinjiang, he did. Now there were already some international connections, but the national railway system was really tiny in the west for such a large land. After 2008 there was an explosive growth of the bullet train network in the east which is quite remarkable and a great achievement. It also made this train journey of over 3.000 km within 15 days possible. In 2008 this could not be done. The densely populated east of China profited most of this expansion…
Some of his previous railway travels in China included:
This blogpost describes the Chinese part of a 40 hour train journey that started in Almaty in Kazakhstan and ended in Urumqi in the Chinese province of Xinjiang.
This blogpost is about a 21 hour journey by train that started at the railway station of Turpan/Turufan (Turpanshan) and ended at Kashgar/Kashi. The journey was through the Tien Shan/Heavenly Mountains and past the Taklaman desert’s northern edge.
4. De Taklamakan: 21 urige treinreis van Turpanshan naar Kashgar/Kashi
and in 2019:
This blogpost describes the Chinese part of an almost 33 hour journey on the Trans Mongolian Express (through the provinces of Inner Mongolia, Shanxi, Hebei and Beijing) that started in Ulaanbaatar and ended in Beijing.
New adventures
The new plans would involve travelling into a part of China that he had never been before, but which had been very high on his bucketlist for many, many years.
Now The Wandelgek probably has written before about that he thinks that of all the countries in the world that he visited, he thinks China is the most beautiful one, because of its immense diversity in landscapes, the very best cuisine in the world due to its brilliant use of spices and herbs and a very interesting history also in its relations with Europe (think of the eras of the Roman Empire and of the Silkroad). Because of that and because China is the 3rd largest country in the world (after Russia and Canada), The Wandelgek is now gonna travel a 4th time through this magnificent country and it will be in a part of China he never visited before. New grounds.
Why solo travel?
What’s also new is that, for the 2nd time outside of Europe, it will be solo travel. In Europe much of his travels were solo, but outside of Europe almost none. He tasted a bit of solo travel after he ended his Trans Siberian/Mongolian Express journey in Great Beijing and had a couple of days in Beijing to spend on solo travel. His positive experiences with local public transport and with the local Chinese people (who were always very helpfull, despite the obvious language problems that had to be solved), on all his China journeys, made him think of the feasibility of solo travel by train. Apart from train travel really being cheap in China, the Chinese railway network in East China is quite dense and there are modern high speed train trajectories too. Here’s a map of the Chinese railway network:
His previous travels had taken him into the provinces of Tibet (Xizang) in 1999, Xinjiang in 2004 (both in West China) and through Inner Mongolia, Shanxi and Hebei into Beijing in 2019 (all four of them in the north of East China). As you can see, the railway network north of Beijing and in China’s western provinces is really thin. And even there The Wandelgek succeeded in travelling by train, so why not in the dense railway network in the east? Solo travel means having more freedom of choice in what to visit. The Wandelgek did plan the main destinations of which a few were very long on his bucketlist, but some others had been like places of interest but not specificly places he thought he would ever visit. These solo travels however provided him with opportunities to visit them anyway. This blogpost has Paul Theroux in its title, but these travels also are about Zhang Yimou (my favorite Chinese film director ever) and….. wait for it….. Marco Polo ❤️
Why China … again?
The landscapes he travelled through were as versatile as travelling through 5 to 10 different countries. There was the Tibetan high plain and of course the Himalayan mountain range, there were the Tien Shan Mountains and the Pamir range with their clear blue mountain lakes, there were the Taklamakan and the Gobi deserts and on a more cultural historical level there were many old towns, some ruined like the ones on the silkroad and those on the Tibetan plain, others inhabited but high in the mountains and of course the many monasteries and beautiful palaces like the Potala, Norbulingka or the Summer Palace. Very impressive from a historic point of view, but even more from an architectural point of view was without doubt the Great Wall.
Itineraries
I’m travelling almost all by train. No inland flights this time, but some local transport by car, cable car and by boat.
This is what my travel plan looks like in nutshell (local travels are not included):
The planned railway travel itineraries are:
- 🚄Shanghai – Huangshan City (Tunxi)
- 🚄Huangshan City (Tunxi) – Changsha
- 🚄Changsha – Zhangjijajie
- 🚄Zhangjiajie – Guilin
- 🚄Guilin – Guangzhou
1. 🚄Shanghai – Huangshan City (Tunxi)
2. 🚄Huangshan City (Tunxi) – Changsha
3. 🚄Changsha – Zhangjiajie
4. 🚄Zhangjiajie – Guilin
5. 🚄Guilin – Guangzhou
His next travels would include Central, South West and South China (partly closer to the border and more similar in landscape with beautiful Vietnam which he visited in 2008).
The Wandelgek is not going to write more about what exactly he’s going to visit yet. For that you’ll need to follow the upcoming blogposts, but it is going to be a spectacular journey into Chinese nature and culture as well.
Trailing Zhang Yimou, Paul Theroux and of course Marco Polo 😍, this 4th journey into China and tge 1st through China’s heartland will finally bring me where I craved going for sooooo many years.
Enjoy following this new shoestring of adventures on this blogsite!
For more railway travel blogs see: