Traveling to Hangzhou from Shantou for a nice holiday? What are the various transport options available?
- Walk – May take 2 months?
- Car/bus – Heard is 2 days
- Train – First, you need to travel to Xiamen by car for 4 hours and take a 8 hours train ride to Hangzhou. This is your only option until the speed train start service from Shantou to Xiamen sometime in 2010
My only sensible option due to limited holiday time is to the catch a plane from Shantou to Hangzhou. Going by air will be the most costly as compared to the rest of the options above but hey, you reach Hangzhou in less than 2 hours by air
Shantou domestic airport is just beside their international airport. For domestic flight, you usually only need to be at the airport 1 hour in advance. However, I normally try to be earlier so I can choose a seat that I prefer. There are some self-service kiosk which you can perform your own check-in.
Once you clear the customs, you can do some last minute shopping.
Taking the FOC bus to the plane. Wonder which plane below is to Hangzhou…
Found that is the smaller plane behind! Second look, both planes look tiny!
Boarding the (old)plane.
Looks like a dungeon to me, super narrow passage way. This is one of the smallest plane I ever sat in. Even the luggage compartment can’t fit my backpack.
Surprised that I was served food during the flight. A simple hot dog bread and a bottle of mineral water. Fill my empty stomach during the flight.
Overall, the flight was fine. So no worries when you take the China domestic airline 
