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Sign up with Google Sign up with FacebookQ: Is travelling in China harder than in SEA?
Planning on travelling around China soon. I've just spent 2 months in South East Asia and a lot of people I met there said China is way harder. Do you agree? Or why do you think that its the case?
10 years 9 weeks ago in Transport & Travel - China
I would say that depends on where you are planning on going. As the Chinese like to say 'China is a big country' and there are big differences between traveling between cities and between small towns. Generally speaking I wouldn't say that it is more difficult than in South East Asia, but then again I never really did much traveling there myself anyway
If you are hopping from big city it big city, it's easy. The smaller cities and towns will drive you nuts. Wrong directional signs, Chinglish directions and worse, completely incorrect translations. You also need you know where the bus stations are. You can imagine it yourself. Unless you can speak a little Chinese, the going will be tough, having to deal with taxi drivers, ticket sellers and such. They only speak Chinese.
Only the language may be a problem for you.. otherwise means are excellent here..
Very little English is spoken, compared to South East Asia. As said here, the road signs are close to non existent, worse than it is in a South East Asia. If you can speak some words of Chinese (counting, basic questions) and already have experience of traveling in Asia, it's doable. I did it, with a bit of preparation before the trip. If you never traveled in Asia before, it might be a bit rough for a first time.
the easy way out is guided tours , but if you are going it alone you need to plan your trip well and have back up plans in place . this site can be helpful but can take time to get a responce to some questions. electronic translators can be only so helpful , try and target people in their 20s to ask questions as they more likely to speak some English. hope you have a good trip and please post some of your adventures here so we don't make the same mistakes