How long does it take to get to terra cotta from beijing?

Question

what mode of transportation is available? how much? would it take up a whole day back and forth?

Answer 1

I assume you are talking about going to see the terra cotta warriors in Xi'an (西安）

There are two ways to get there from Beijing, train and plane. Plane will take you an hour (not including airport time) and will probably cost around 1000 rmb.

The train from Beijing to Xi'an takes about 9 hours. It is usually an overnight train and you can decide what seat to take. There are hard seats (very uncomfortable and very crowded) soft seats, hard sleeper and soft sleeper. Both types of the seats can make sitting on a train that long very unbearable, the hard sleeper is bearable but watch your stuff. the soft sleeper is the nicest but probably unneccessary for this short a trip. Hard sleepers to Xi'an start at 350 rmb.

The way I did this was take a sleeper to Xi'an stay there for a day and a half (during which I was actually able to see a lot) and then return on a flight from Xi'an to Beijing. The only thing is that during the weekends its insanely crowded.

In any case the train and plane are the best way to go there, it depends on whether you want to spend the extra money to fly. I actually followed the itinerary of the Chinese culture club even though I did not go on a tour with them.

I've provided the link, it's a good resource.

http://www.chinaculturecenter.org/tours/...