Visa. I dropped off my passport and two portrait photos with Visa Hoa Kiều on Giảng Võ. On Facebook I found them by searching for Chinese visa and looking for the Visa Hoa Kiều profile picture. It cost 2.1 million đồng and took four working days.
- Cheap air tickets: 30000, multiple flights, transfers in Shanghai, Beijing or Guangzhou. I bought it from Juneyao Airlines, based in Shanghai, transit in Shanghai, quality like Vietnamairlines, price like VJ:D
For the flight home I picked a 13-hour Beijing layover so I could see the Forbidden City and Tiananmen. I needed to book admission in advance.
- Standard equipment: ~30000
+ 1 3-layer jacket, windproof, waterproof, warm: https://vn.shp.ee/yjTSq7d
+ 2 warm jackets (I used to have one) + 1 cotton jacket
+ 1 warm pants, bring a spare warm pants
+ Windbreaker: waterproof + warm-keeping
+ Wristbands, wool hat, scarf, socks, mask: buy a warm one.
+ 30 heat pads, 10 heat socks, enough for 9 days.
Snow boots. I only bought them when I got to the snowy mountain area. They were 180 yuan and really good. The lining was thick, so I needed a size or two up.
I looked things up in Facebook groups and on https://www.chinadiscovery.com/travel-guide.html. Trip in the Alipay app also had plenty of guides.
- Sim: I switched data zone on the Vietnamese sim to receive OTP free and buy another eSim. In TH, you can buy eSim in the Alipay app, quite convenient.
Schedule:
Day 1: Hanoi - Harbin: Scenery in Shanghai, layover tour about 4-6 hours, back to the airport, fly to Harbin, getting the room too late so nowhere to go
Day 2: Sophia Church + Central pedestrian street, there are some popular points to visit are the Ice World, the Songhua glacier
Day 3: Harbin - Yabuli: we got our room and we slept, we went to eat soup and we finished the day, we walked around the small village and we took some nice pictures.
Day four was skiing. My host offered to take me, but I’d already booked a guide and turned her down. When I got back to Vietnam I found out her price was only about half. If anyone wants her WeChat, ask me. She looked like one of those pretty Chinese actresses as a bonus.
Day 5: Join the snow mountain datu with the mountain tourist area (something dangerous), ticket price 540 yuan ~ 2000 yuan, car price 300 yuan
Thuy Lee found me a sleeping pod for 500 yuan. It was apparently a room reserved for tour guides. It was underground and had no phone signal. Without a cheaper place I probably wouldn’t have stayed in Snow Town.
On day six I wandered around Snow Town and took lots of photos. Luckily I found a room on Trip for 1.3 million đồng. The others were anywhere from 2 million to over 10 million. That gave me two nights there, and even the 35–40 million đồng tours only stayed one night :D
Day 7: Thanks to the hostess the day before to book a bus ticket back to Yabuli (85 yuan, with a Chinese passport only booked bus), then take the train to Harbin, that day I went to Yabuli west but the ticket was out so I took a bus to Yabuli south there is a trip at 5:25 pm. There is a bus from the snow village to Harbin for 120 yuan, it takes 6 hours so we took the bus + boat for about 4 hours.
Day 8: Book a room near the Sophia Church, walk out there eat and go to the market
We'll pick you up in the afternoon near the airport bus stop.
On day nine I flew back through Beijing and took four metro trains into the city centre for a walk and Sunday Mass. Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City were tricky to get into, so I’d look them up beforehand.
Fly to Hanoi at 2am, ride to your room at 3am, taxi at the airport 5k/day
Total: ~31tr (priced room because I'm always in room price for 2 people with 3 people) almost the same as the tour price but free: D
