moondog

+1. I can often walk faster than them.

HansGolden

I have a 12 hour layover in PEK. 5a-5p. Any suggestions for something in addition to the Great Wall? Also, would you suggest arranging for private car or just using taxi?

desi

Would recommend hiring someone like Simon (see BJ taxi forum).
He has clean car, speaks fluent english and makes intelligent friendly conversations during the trip, helps you buy the tickets and even come up in gandola to the wall to take your pix and advice you where and how much to walk along the wall. Even lends you his spare phone with his phone programmed for contacting him while on GW (and absolutely no mention of stopping at any shops)

Depending on the day of the week, you might be able to do something more but doing GW alone in non-hurried manner with reliable driver is something I would do during 12 hour layover (try to be back at airport 3 hours before flight so that you do have some buffer)

trueblu

Your problem is the early arrival. Nowhere to 'visit' will be open until around 08:00 or 09:00, so essentially, unless you want a drive by tour or watch the flag raising at Tian'an'men, you will only have time to explore one area of the city or GW. Unless your Chinese is decent, I wouldn't try negotiating a taxi to the GW from the airport but book a private car in advance.

tb

Dieuwer

The Forbidden City is not worth it. You will be walking from one square to the other and stare into empty rooms and halls.

moondog

It's worth it if you follow it up with Beihai Park and a beer near the Drum Tower (I've done the drill ~50 times).

Dieuwer

I did that too, but would prefer to still skip the Forbidden City.

YEGcg

Hi! I'm looking for guidance or help from someone with recent PEK layover experience. We have a 9.25 hr layover (arriving from SIN on CA). Does this timeline look reasonable? Would a taxi to/from be consistently faster than Airport Express? Thanks, in advance, for any assistance!

06:20 Arrive at PEK T3 (on a Wednesday)
07:30 Clear Customs/Immigration (which is faster, TWOV or Visa line? We have multiple entry visas)
07:30 - 09:00 Airport Express, transfer at Dongzhimen to Line 2, alight at Qianmen Station
09:00 - 09:30 Walk from Qianmen Station, past Mausoleum, and get to ticket booths for Forbidden City
09:30 - 10:00 Time to buy tickets to Forbidden City and/or clear security (is there really security?)
10:00 - 12:00 Walk south to north in FC
12:00 - 12:30 Find our way from north end of FC to Dongzhimen/Airport Express (hail a taxi?)
12:30 - 13:30 Airport Express to T3
15:35 Flight to CPH

I worked in the public transit option, to/from PEK, since it sounds more reliably faster than a taxi. However, it eats into our limited time on the ground. Thoughts?

jiejie

As long as your layover isn't on a Monday (FC is closed then), it's doable more or less along the time frame that you have outlined. You can probably push your return back to PEK T3 to 14:00 if you will already have your boarding passes and your checked bags have previously tagged through to CPH. To your questions:
1) TWOV vs Visa: you'll have to follow whatever status you claimed when you originally checked in at SIN. The airline will enter your status (visa, exempt, TWOV, etc) into the passenger manifest database when you check in, and you'll need to continue to the relevant queue when you arrive at PEK since that will be in Chinese Immigration's database of arrivals. Since you have visas, I'd use the visa queues. While they might be long, there are also more of them. If the single TWOV queue gets buggered up with passengers with issues, you could end up waiting longer.
2) I should think that you will arrive at the FC ticket booths before 10:00. Look for the "Passport" Window and of course, make sure that each person buying a ticket has their passport. And yes, there is security at the FC. You'll go through metal detector and bags will be x-rayed and possibly hand searched. Sizeable carry-ons like rollaboards should be left at the airport Left Luggage counter before you head into town; don't bring them to the FC, but smallish daypacks should be fine.
3) With limited time, you'll have to speed-visit the FC and keep an eye on the clock. You'll probably end up with 2.5 hours inside. Upon exiting the north side, you'll need to walk a bit, as taxis can't hang out anywhere close to the exit location. Plus, they are hard to get on the street in that area. I'd start walking east, and if you have trouble hailing a cab, eventually you'll end up at the Dongsi subway stop where you can get back to Dongzhimen and the Airport Express.

889

I'd certainly use the visas. Sometimes unfortunate things do happen, and if you miss that outbound connecting flight you'll only have to deal with the airline, not immigration as well.

qpr

Are the ticket booths still in service?
I thought they closed them and you have to buy tickets online in advance.
There should be one ticket booth open as far as I know but no guarantee to get tickets as they limited it for the day.

jiejie

They closed most of them and moved to an online advance booking system. However, because that system is not yet workable for foreign non-resident visitors without Chinese bank accounts, they maintain a ticket booth for foreigners to use, called "Passport." The FC apparently keeps a number of tickets available per day for walk-up foreign purchasers. There should be no problem in winter with walk-up availability; other foreigners visiting in busier months (like October) since this system was implemented, have not reported any sell-outs preventing them from gaining entry.

CDKing

Forbidden City Ticket booth was still there when i went last month. After you go through security check and then go in entrance under the Chairman Mao painting. I continued to the roped off area to the distant right side and showed my passport to get in line to buy my ticket (just follow the westerners ) After that i went through the entrance (follow the crowds) there was another optional booth to right to rent the electronic English guide (hangs around neck and had earphones type thing)

When I got to Passport control(?), I only saw the one line up area that said Foreigners. I didn't see any separate TWOV marked lane so i just followed the western crowd. did i miss it? Maybe its not running at all times? I'm all for shorter lines.

LHR/MEL/Europe FF

Agree.

Given the recent report of TWOV being denied at PEK because the transit wasn't over 8 hours, there is potential uncertainty as to the exact minimum time needed... and that could change (could be 12 hours next week).

Visas will get around that issue.

YEGcg

Thank you, all! (And, another thanks to Jiejie )

Just to re-cap: Is the consensus that the public transit option generally takes the same amount of time for the time of day and day of week as a taxi, but is more reliable? I've basically budgeted 90 minutes each way for public transit -- which eats up 3 of our precious 9 hours. If a taxi would give us another hour downtown and be as reliable to get us to/from PEK, then we'd opt for that (despite the additional cost).