Here is the cost of our recent trip from Ulan Bator Mongolia to Nanning southern China. This is my third expense report from this year’s big trip, it follows on from the Mongolian Trip Expense report which covered our costs of Trans-mongolian train into Mongolia from Irkutsk, plus Mongolian living expenses.

Xi’an Terracotta Matt

Note: these prices are the total for 2 people, doing this trip solo would be slightly cheaper.
The trains were Ulan Bator to Beijing, Beijing to Xi’an, Xi’an to Chongqing, Chongqing to Nanning.

China Trip Expenses

• Visas £176
• Trains £481
• Accommodation £165
• Tours £130 (Great wall and Terracotta warriors)
• Food and other £105

Total £1057
Per person £528.5
Cost per day (per person) £44.04

As you can see the trains were our biggest expenses, we had a bullet train from Beijing to Xi’an and the rest were sleeper trains totalling 3 nights worth of accommodation.
We bought most of our train tickets online, which resulted in us paying agency fees of around $15 per ticket, it would have been cheaper to buy them at the station, however we’d have risked the trains being fully booked due to school holidays.

Fact: Almost all Chinese food we had was very hot/spicy, however all the food served on the two separate day tours was the same horrible oily sweet garbage you get from English Chinese takeaway.

Chongqing at night