I have always dreaded the day I am to visit China, I am a avid traveler and has been to many places, but China seems to be placed last on my travel list. My family, friends and acquaintances seems to enjoy it enough, some have even made it their annual travel itinerary. China is huge and it has many attractions to offer. I heard and read many travel stories and saw many pictures of how beautiful China is, how grand, how developed and was told that there were many types of food available from the many provinces that China has to offer, but still, I was skeptical.
Reluctantly, I had to take the opportunity recently as some members of my family who are in Shanghai are relocating back home for good, and if I do not go now, I will regret it. Furthermore, cost of traveling in China is bound to increase with inflation sky rocketing, fuel prices increasing and with the Olympics in the horizon, it will definitely cost more in the near future. The availability of a budget airline plying the route to Hangzhou, China was also a factor in making up my mind to have a go and face the consequences!
This is my first time going to China and I am going alone, independently and on a budget. Visa was not a problem as long as you have an air-ticket booked and paid for. I booked my budget air ticket on-line and my travel itinerary was Kuala Lumpur-Hangzhou, Shanghai, Nanjing, Shanghai and back to Hangzhou for a flight back home to Kuala Lumpur. Mandarin is a foreign language to me, and I know English is not widely spoken, sign-ages in English is almost non existent, I was traveling alone independently and I was really apprehensive. My family said, "why don't you just take a taxi from Hangzhou to Shanghai, at least we know you will arrive safely!" Well I would liked that but it will cost me a bomb! So I decided to be cost conscious and take China's D bullet train for all my internal travel in China.
The internet has quite a huge resource on traveling by train and China has many types, the K fast train, the Y express train, in summary the "alphabet" and the non "alphabet" train. Of all the trains, the non "alphabet" trains are the slowest as they stop at every station, whilst the D bullet train is the fastest. Prices are according to type, time and class of train. There are tourist booths available for English speaking tourist, so it was rather easy getting the train ticket, if not, you could always get the hostel or hotel to book it for you.
Hangzhou is a good place to start your travel plans in China, as it is one of the main transportation hubs in China and it is centrally located. From Hangzhou, you could practically get on to any available transport and to any destination in China. Fortunately, Hangzhou is also one of the most beautiful places for tourist, as such it is not a such a bad place to commence your travel in China. However, remember the language barrier, so before you travel, get your complete itinerary translated and written in Chinese.
As China has so many attractions, you would have to plan before hand where you would like to go and how to get there. I had a thick file of information printed out and got all the accommodation, airport, train and metro stations translated into Mandarin, and as I traveled I just need to point out my destination. Luckily, China's population is web savvy and a lot of travel information was extracted from the web and if you know Chinese, I am sure more resources are available. You could book cheap youth hostels, hotels, trains and air tickets on-line. Taxis are mostly metered and the metro or subways have English signages and announcements. Just be punctual as you may have to waste time looking for the train, bus or metro stations and the stations are huge with many entrances with never ending staircases.
I was lucky as I met Chinese travelers who were going my way and they spoke some English, so they helped me buy tickets, took me to the bus and train stations and were generally very helpful. Do not buy the stories that you read on the internet of Chinese students wanting to practice their English, being helpful to foreigners speaking English as not even one student was found when I needed them. However, I did see some in Shanghai offering their assistance to Caucasian looking foreigners and tourist. This was why I was reluctant to visit China and I was disappointed because I am also an English speaking foreigner, but I look Chinese!