Commuting in Southern China ; not so easy from my recent experience

The MRT Card for Guangzhou 

        The world is easy to maneuvre as a solo traveller ? Well, not exactly. My recent trip to Guangzhou and Dongguan is testament of this. I am fortunate to be able to speak passable Mandarin, thanks to the rigid training I had in school as well as usage of the language in business. My recent trip to Dong Guan, was a revisit to China, particularly the use of the mass prime movers such as high speed trains and the underground in big cities such as Guangzhou.

       The plan was to meet with some associates in DongGuan, South China. As that particular week (last week of April) coincided with the Canton Fair, many flights from Singapore to Hong Kong or Shenzhen were fully to capacity, I had to book a flight to Guangzhou which was some 2 hours plus by car to Dongguan. Rather than inconvenience my manufacturer to pick me up which would entail at least 5 hours to and fro, I agreed to (firstly) upon disembarking from the aeroplane to make my way to the subway (the term Mass Rapid Transit is used in Singapore) and head towards the station Guangzhou East where there is a link to the high speed trains either eastwards to Shenzhen or westwards to Dongguan, Chengdu, Chongqing or Changsha .

        The first part of the by- foot trip was easy. Upon disembarking, I made it to the terminal station at the basement of the airport. Then, I had to buy tickets from the automated ticketing machines which were primarily in Chinese. I had my first bout of confusion, as Guangzhou East station was finally located on the ticketing machine, but the damn machine did not accept 50 yuan notes ! Only small 5 yuan and 10 yuan notes. So, I had to get out of the queue, go the the 7 - 11 convenience store, and change my 50 yuan notes.

       I then decided to skip the queue altogether, and bought a stored value card (or so I thought) for 50 yuan (S$ 10 dollars equivalent). I made my way then to the platforms only to be turned away at the turnstiles. The reason ? My stored value card of 50 yuan had no money topped up inside ! The 50 yuan was just a deposit ! So I made my way to the same 7 -11 convenience store to top up another 50 yuan (S$ 10). Again I had to muddle my way in my broken Mandarin !

      Upon reaching the platforms, it was pretty easy to make the way to Guangzhou East station. It was 12 stops away from airport, and as can be seen by the free map, the words were printed in tiny Chinese and English ! Definately very difficult for people like me approaching early old age with long sightedness !! 

       When I finally reached the Guangzhou East station, again I had to ask people exactly where the tickets were being sold for the trains going to Dongguan. I was fortunate there was a kind lady cleaner who escorted me to exactly the counter which sold those tickets (there are many ticketing machines and counters to all parts of China) and this part was really tricky. The trains heading to Dongguan were plentiful and there were trains departing every 15 minutes (Dongguan is along the way to many other cities east of Guangzhou)

      Getting to the right platform was also something of a challenge, again my Mandarin helped me tremendously. So, for an English only speaking person to travel around alone in China would be a major challenge even today.  

     Therefore the challenges to overcome upon arriving at Guangzhou airport ;

a) locate the MRT station at B2

b) Buy tickets or Stored value cards from either the ticketing machine (ensure you have 
    small 5 or 10 yuan notes) or the 7-11 ; Stops are written mainly in Chinese

c) Upon reaching Guangzhou East station, make your way to the High Speed railway 
    network above ground

d) Purchase the tickets from the obscure ticketing office - Chinese reading and writing 
    is a must. 

e) Get onto the right platform at the right time. 

     So, I finally hopped on the 2 :35 pm train to Chanping which is a suburb of Dongguan.I finally reached my destination at 3: 15 pm after having touched down and cleared customs by 12.30 pm. 

     It took me all of 2 hours 45 minutes. If I had the future know how of the use of the Card and  the location of where to purchase the all the tickets and board accordingly, I would be able to shorten the time to easily 1 hour 45 minutes or less.