kjp

Over the past few weeks I've been going around to several travel agents around the place. Talking about flights, etc. for my China trip. I went to all of them in Chermside, and one in The Valley (where all the camping stores are). I didn't like all but one of the ones in Chermside (the bad ones were either significantly more expensive, or told me they couldn't book the flights I wanted - nice work). The one in the valley (attached to Silk Road), was the cheapest in terms of flights, and the agent seemed to know her stuff.

So, this morning I went in there, to confirm a couple of things (in comparison to the good agent in Chermside). Ended up booking my international flights, and booked (and paid for) my internal flight.

I have to be in Beijing on Monday, September 19th. I've booked a flight that leaves very late (11:50 pm) Friday night, stop over for a couple of hours in Kuala Lumpar, then arrive in Beijing a bit after 3pm on Saturday afternoon. This will give me an extra day (Sunday) of exploring places (as opposed to leaving on Saturday). Coming back to Australia I leave Kunming a bit after 5pm on Saturday 29th October, staying overnight in KL (apparently the airline pays, nice), then getting into Brisbane 7:20 pm on Sunday night. Monday is a RDO for me, so I'll use that to rest / sort out my stuff. These flights are booked, but not paid for yet (there's no risk of loosing the seats, but I may be able to get a better deal if it's paid for later).

My internal flight is booked and paid for (you can't book now, pay later, for some reason). It was a bit of a toss up between going from Kashgar to either Chengdu or Kunming, but ended up Chengdu in the end. It had better connections, slightly cheaper, and it would be cool to get to Sichuan (although it may mean that getting to Gaungxi may be a bit harder... ). One potential (but unlikely) problem is the fact that China Southern (who the flight is booked with) is in receivership. Apparently this is not too uncommon in the airline industry, but I have to book / pay - as they are the only airline that goes on that route....

Anyhow, some progress on my trip planning (at last...) has been made.

On the southern grape vine, apparently some of the camping / travel stores are havnig members discount days / sales coming up. I was looking a bit around at stuff, but it was all too much of a pain, so I ditched the idea of knowing what I wanted to get. If possible I'll try and get there next weekend. No (well, not much) (travelling) clothes yet.