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Posted March 18th, 2008 - 3:36 pm by 
from Paris, France (Permalink)
from Paris, France (Permalink)I finally made it, but I took anther road : Beijing to Nepal.
Hitching in china is possible and not difficult if you know how to do it.
Best is around the highways/expressways. Moving the thumb is useless, the best is to act as when you absolutely want to stop a taxi in the city, it work even better with a smile.
Some cars are rented for long distance trips, they will stop for you for sure and ask you for money. All the foreigners who had this experience thought that chinese people wanted to charge them for a lift...
On the highway/expressway better to hitch cars, it's easy tog et a lift from them and they usually go far and fast. When there is no hitghway/expressway the trucks are the best solution, but incredibly slow.
Chinese people are great, usually they won't let you pay for nothing, and help you in anyway they can (let you use their phone, call some friends of them who speak english, drop you at the place you need to...).
In Tibet it is forbidden to hitch in any way from china mainland to lhasa, but not from lhasa to Nepal. usually it's quite hard, but people made it very recently. the lone problem is the accomodation and the checkpoints. most of the hotels refuse foreigners without a permit (you won't get a permit for hitching there). around 15 checkpoints on the way. some first a last one are better to be walked around, the others are not a problem at all (check lonely planet forum, very precise infos about that).
Hitching in china is possible and not difficult if you know how to do it.
Best is around the highways/expressways. Moving the thumb is useless, the best is to act as when you absolutely want to stop a taxi in the city, it work even better with a smile.
Some cars are rented for long distance trips, they will stop for you for sure and ask you for money. All the foreigners who had this experience thought that chinese people wanted to charge them for a lift...
On the highway/expressway better to hitch cars, it's easy tog et a lift from them and they usually go far and fast. When there is no hitghway/expressway the trucks are the best solution, but incredibly slow.
Chinese people are great, usually they won't let you pay for nothing, and help you in anyway they can (let you use their phone, call some friends of them who speak english, drop you at the place you need to...).
In Tibet it is forbidden to hitch in any way from china mainland to lhasa, but not from lhasa to Nepal. usually it's quite hard, but people made it very recently. the lone problem is the accomodation and the checkpoints. most of the hotels refuse foreigners without a permit (you won't get a permit for hitching there). around 15 checkpoints on the way. some first a last one are better to be walked around, the others are not a problem at all (check lonely planet forum, very precise infos about that).