Planes, Trains and Sleeper Buses

(APOLOGIES IN ADVANCE FOR THE TERRIBLE PICTURE QUALITY)

I have mentioned before how nothing is ever as easy as it should be in China, but this is even more true when travelling. The combination of the language barrier and an over-crowded transport system makes getting anywhere a task that can often be overwhelming. Travelling in a big group really highlights how well some, and how badly others, can deal with the difficulties of Chinese travel. The volume of luggage a person has seems to be the major defining factor in determining how stressful a person is going to find travel. When I was travelling around China, I managed to pack well for making my life as easy as possible. My bag may have been pretty heavy to carry on my back, and it may have been annoying hanging a second backpack off my front, but travelling with my luggage was pretty easy. When luggage space is limited my bags fit easily into smallish spaces, and when the station is a maze of steps I could get up and down them with relatively little trouble; it's these little things that make travelling in China slightly less stressful. Others in our travelling group didn't have the same luxury. I remember how one girl was travelling with a massive suitcase, and every journey was a stressful nightmare of tantrums and frustrated Chinese passengers. If you visit China and plan on taking any kind of train of bus, I would definitely recommend packing light and ideally in a bag you can lift and squish along the way.
For all the struggles of Chinese travel, taking public transport is the best way to interact with locals and experience a little bit of real Chinese living. Sure, an air conditioned coach is much nicer but that's not how the regular people are going to be travelling!
For any trip to China you are probably going to be moving around, whether this is just taking the Beijing to Shanghai bullet train or something more complicated, my experience of travel is varied and I definitely learnt a lot from those early days backpacking around to 2 years later.

Trains
One of the easiest and most fun ways to travel around China is by train. The rail network in China is extensive and when you're travelling large distances on a budget it is a cheap way to get around. Plus a long-distance train in China is a real experience. Generally speaking trains can be split into two types, the high-speed modern trains with a more limited network, and your standard trains that wind into every corner of mainland China. These standard trains are the cheapest and, in my opinion, the most fun. So I'll focus on them.

PRO TIP ONE: Talk the Talk
My first piece of advice would be to learn a bit of Chinese, otherwise life is going to be very hard. English isn't very widely spoken in China, and outside of Shanghai and Berlin there isn't going to be a huge amount of English signage. For me, the biggest shock to the system was seeing a board of train destinations only in Chinese characters! You don't need to be fluent in Chinese, but just being able to recognise the characters for where you're headed will make life a whole lot easier. Knowing a bit of Chinese will also make buying tickets a lot easier, the panic on a ticket sellers face when a foreigner approached their window is pretty funny, but the relief when you can ask for a ticket in Chinese is even better. At the most basic level, all you really need to know is numbers and where you're going. The ticket seller will then usually turn their screen around so you can look at train times. I won't lie, it still won't be easy but it's a start! The problem is that you can't buy tickets off the Chinese train site using a foreign card, if possible I would advise getting your hotel to book tickets for you, or befriend some Chinese people who are happy to help!

Trains generally have four travel classes: hard seat, soft seat, hard sleeper and soft sleeper. Think of the "hard" classes as your standard, and "soft" as first class.
Hard seat trains are as basic as trains get, the seat are (unsurprisingly) hard and non-assigned. This means you have to get on the train as quickly as possible to get decent seats and make sure there is space for your luggage. Because you are literally side by side with locals it's a lot of fun and a great way to meet local people. Don't be surprised to get offered beer and shots of baijiu by curious locals! These are the cheapest tickets so you'll have a lot of people travelling from the countryside, who might have never met a foreigner before. I spent a lot of time in hard seat carriages for long, long journeys because we couldn't work out how to book anything else. The longest we did was meant to be a 26 hour journey, but with delays it turned into a 32 hour journey from hell. Try getting any sleep on a cramped and hard seat, with the lights on the entire time. A definite low point was getting inside my rucksack cover and crawling under a table.
Soft seat is a step up from this, a little bit more comfortable, a little bit more spacious. Still not great for a long long journey.
If you are going on an overnight train journey (and most journeys are overnight) then definitely try to get a sleeper ticket. They do sell out fairly quickly, especially over the holiday period, so book a few days in advance at least. This is where we went wrong at the beginning, trying to book a sleeper same day or night before just doesn't work.
Hard sleeper carriages are made up of rows and rows of three berth bunk beds, while the lights are on everyone hangs around chatting on the bottom bunk and then as the night goes on climbs up into their own beds before the lights go off at around 10PM. Hard sleeping is also a great way to meet local people and there is generally a lot of drinking but, the great thing is that when lights go out everyone actually sleeps. The beds are basic, but comfy, and once you get used to the swaying and stop start of the train it's fairly easy to get a decent nights rest. These cabins only have a couple electricity ports along the carriage and there is always someone using them, get a portable charger and avoid the hassle.
Soft sleepers are really really nice. Private four bed cabins with closing and lockable doors. The beds are a lot more spacious and have charging ports, personal lights, and little wall pockets for your personal belongings. These cabins sell out fast but they are the most comfortable way to travel. The only thing is that you're not really going to meet any local people, and if you do they probably won't be that chatty!

PRO TIP TWO: Know Your Bunks
Sleeper trains have different levels for the bunks and getting the right one can be make or break for the journey. On the bottom bunk you can sit up comfortably, but everyone is getting to sit on your bed until lights out. The middle bunk is fairly easy to get into and less claustrophobic than the very top. The top bunk is the most private, but can be a pain to get into, plus the air con is likely to be blowing on you all night - bring a jumper! Luckily the Chinese characters for the different bunks are easy to recognise and will help when getting your tickets.
Bottom bunk (下 xià)the little line points down to the bottom, middle bunk (中 zhòng)the line goes through the middle, top bunk (上 shàng) the little line is on top of the long line.

Overall trains are great, you'll always have a decent dining cart, one time there was a disco bar, and they're definitely an experience. Take snacks (instant noodles are a favourite), bring a portable phone charger and enjoy the ride! Word to the wise, toilets are going to be squat style and they get pretty nasty over the long journeys, suck it up and bear it - it's all part of the experience after all!

Buses
Buses aren't really too surprising, they're pretty much the same as buses I've taken anywhere else in the world. The main thing for city buses is to find out what the bus stop you want is in Chinese characters, find it on the bus stop and count how many stops you have to go. There is no English on the bus stops or buses so if you don't count it's pretty hard to judge where to get off!
Long distance buses are slightly different. You have either regular coach-like buses, these are generally for shorter journeys. Then you have the sleeper buses for those longer journeys. The bus is often cheaper than train (but takes a lot longer), or it may be the only direct route option. The only time we had to take a long distance bus was when visiting the Fujian Tulous. The sleeper bus that we took was made up of bunks wedged into the bus and not a lot else, and it was very cramped to say the least. My bottom bunk was very claustrophobic, and it didn't help that I was much too tall for the bed! The other problem was that every time the bus stopped I would slide forward and almost out of my bunk! As far as I can remember there was a bathroom on the bus, but it was pretty grim and best avoided in the confined spaces.
For little trips the buses are fine, but I would say where possible forgo the bus and take a train!

Planes
The easiest and most obvious way to travel the long distances in China is to fly. It's definitely quickest, but also the most expensive - keep in mind that this is comparative though, flying in China is actually pretty cheap!
Unsurprisingly, airports and flights in China are pretty much the same as anywhere else in the world, the one thing to note is that the English is often going to be severely limited - but that's not going to impact your journey too much by air.