When someone would have told me one year ago: next year you go to China I would call them crazy. China was very low on my list to visit, until this great errorfare came up: only 150 euro roundtrip to Shanghai! I blinked my eyes and seconds later I booked it and the errorfare was confirmed. It consisted of a round-trip ticket with the Dutch airline KLM, starting in Basel, Switzerland via Amsterdam and Xiamen to Shanghai and same route back. For me this meant I would “accidentally” miss my last flight to Basel and get out in Amsterdam.

Sidenote: this story takes places in January 2019.

Preparations
It wasn’t until a few days after booking that I found out that this wouldn’t be an easy trip.. I had told some friends about the errorfare I booked and someone told me at that moment: you do realize a visa for China is very expensive, do you? Well.. I didn’t. Turns out the visa for my 6 day stay would be more expensive than the ENTIRE round-trip ticket. As the bargain traveler I am, I wasn’t planning to pay this. So, I looked for a way to avoid these visa costs while still using my errorfare AND even visiting China. And I found it! Of course! How? The Chinese authorities offer something which is a “transit visa”, this allows you to connect via China to other places in the world. This option is only available in a few Chinese cities tho. But luckly most Chinese cities which have a connection with Europe are on this list. If you stay and connect in the same city you can get up to 144hrs time to visit. Because my ticket had a connection within China I could only use 24hrs of visa free time, so I had to leave within 24 hours after I landed in Xiamen.

The transit visa rule I found and used.

Next step: find another country to go. As I am not very familiar with Asia yet I booted up Google Maps & Google Flights and browsed for a new destination, with a few requirements:
1) Not too far away, as I only had 6 days in total.
2) Warm enough (it was January).
3) Must count as a “third” country according to China.
The shortlist included Tokio, Kuala Lumpur and Taiwan. Tokio was too cold and Kuala Lumpur too far, hence I decided to go for Taiwan. Prices were, with 150 euro RT, about the same as I paid for the entire errorfare. Actually quite expensive. So I looked for alternatives and found out that I could use my frequent flier miles for this route against a favorable rate. With United Airlines miles to get there and with KLM miles to fly back to Shanghai.

The start: Basel, Switzerland
The actual trip started on Tuesday evening when I flew from Amsterdam to Basel with the 8.30pm flight, arriving in Basel at 10pm, where I had 8 hours as the flight back to Amsterdam (the first flight of my trip to China) left at 6am the next morning. I decided to fly KLM (booked with miles, one-way) as it was winter and I didn’t want potential winter weather to cancel my flight to Switzerland, causing me to miss my first flight and thus cancelling the entire itinerary. The KLM flight I took was the last flight of the day, and the flight back was with the same airplane the next morning, hence guaranteeing me that if potential winter weather would affect this flight it would also affect my itinerary to China and I could rebook for free. Despite my flight being on time I was very happy I chose this option as one day before Schiphol experienced stormy weather cancelling 100 flights.

Basel skyline by night

8 hours in Basel.. Switzerland is really expensive so I was in doubt whether or not to book a hostel for the night. I decided to book the cheapest hostel, for 30 euro, instead of walking around all night as it can get really cold in January. Basel airport is only a 15min bus ride from the city center, so I was checked into my hostel quickly after landing. After dropping my bag I decided to walk around. I did a nighttime walk for around 3 hours until 2am, with a stop in a bar to warm up. The city really amazed me, it’s beautiful! After the walk I went back to the hostel and slept for another 3,5hr before leaving to the airport. As I still had Flying Blue Gold status during this trip I could use the airport lounges for free, thus I had a nice breakfast and coffee in the lounge before the flight back to Amsterdam (with the same plane I arrived the night before). I slept the entire flight and we arrived in Amsterdam around 8am. My flight to China wasn’t until 1pm, so I decided to check out the brand new KLM Crown Lounge. This lounge is very nice and I found a nice spot to work for a bit, took a shower, had a great lunch and tried to get a free upgrade to Business Class. Unfortunately the upgrade didn’t succeed, but I would encourage you to always try it, especially when you travel alone. I already managed to get upgrades or better seats several times. Showered and with a full stomach I proceeded to the gate to board my 12 hour flight to Xiamen. I managed to get a nice window seat without anyone sitting next to me, so I had a really comfy sleep and arrived quite rested in China the next morning at 6am.

Being productive while waiting for my flight

China border control
In Xiamen I had to clear border control, get my 24hr transit visa and hurry up to make my next flight to Shanghai. Border control asked me a few questions and proof of documents that I would leave China again within 24hrs. I printed out everything (as gmail etc. don’t work in China) which was very helpful. When the border control officer saw I was going to Taiwan he said: you go to Taiwan, that’s China not a third country! I stayed calm and showed him some prints with the transit visa picture as well as a list that included Taiwan as a third country. He phoned his supervisor and eventually gave me the transit visa and I was in! I had to hurry up as my flight to Shanghai was already boarding. Lucky for me the lounge was next to the gate so I could quickly grab some snacks and water to take with me on board before the 2,5hr flight to Shanghai. The flight was quiet and I had an entire row for myself, so I watched some series and slept a bit. In Shanghai I arrived at 10am and I would leave at 9pm, giving me ample of time to explore this technologically advanced mega-city.

Shanghai adventure
The adventure already started at the airport where I quickly found out things work very different here. First of all, I wasn’t able to access my apps (like FB, whatsapp, google etc.) so I downloaded a VPN. The next hurdle: I wasn’t able to buy a metro ticket with my foreign card, they only accepted Ali Pay or cash. In China almost everyone uses AliPay, hence there are not so many ATM’s anymore. It took me 10min to find an ATM, just to find out that all my cards (bank, debit, credit) were declined. So I tried to set up an AliPay account, but this only works with a Chinese phone number, so at that moment I started to panic a bit as I didn’t have any cash (EUR or USD) on me either. I sat down to rethink. Nobody at the info desk spoke English, but there was a English map. Aaand: it showed another ATM! I found it and tried this ATM and it actually gave me the local currency, Yuans! I was now able to survive the day, and finally head to the city center! I had all my stuff in my backpack (hand luggage size) so I could easily explore the city. But this learned me one thing: always take a bit of cash, just in case. Even if you have 3 cards or travel to a hyper modern country..

My first views of Shanghai

As I flew into the smaller airport close to the city it was only a 30-min metro ride to get downtown. Here I found out it was rainy and smoggy and I could barely see the skyscrapers around me. I decided to walk around the central park, walk via the main shopping street, called Nanjing road, where I tried “the best dumplings in town” and milk tea. I loved the dumplings but damn, milk tea I found gross! I would definitely not recommend it. After this lunch I walked to The Bunt, which is the embankment from where the iconic Shanghai Skyline can be seen.. normally. Unfortunately today it was very fogy/smoggy and I couldn’t even see halfway the buildings on the other side of the water.

Tunnel of light and milk tea.

Skyscraper challenge
People who know me a bit better know I absolutely love rooftops and skyscrapers and that I try to go up in random buildings whenever I am travelling. So, despite this weather I still wanted to do this crazy thing: go inside one of the tall buildings in Shanghai and see how far I could get without being send back. There are a few options to get to the other side of the water, but I opted for the most crazy one: the tunnel of light, which is basically a 1km long metroline in a tube under the water where crazy 3D lights are being displayed along the 5min journey. I would recommend it to try it out, it’s quite funny! When I arrived at the other side I was amazed by the amount of tall buildings, I stopped at a starbucks for a coffee and internet in order to find out which skyscraper I would visit. My first try was a office building across the street, unfortunately I quickly found out this wouldn’t work without an access card. But I saw a sign in the central lobby: “Grand Hyat straight” so I followed the arrows to the lobby elevator. Here I took a elevator to the 88th floor, when I looked out of the window I didn’t see anything but just fog/clouds. So I decided to go back to the “sky lobby” at the 40th floor and sat down in the cafe next to the window. I got offered a menu and saw a coffee was $14, so I decided to just enjoy the views (still foggy but I was able to see something) and try a building across the street.

Some of the tallest skyscrapers I (tried to) visit.

This next building was the Ritz Carlton Hotel where I came across a empty restaurant at the 53th floor, I looked around, seeing a lot of fog and decided to go down again. I still had a bit of time left before heading back to the airport, so I decided to check out a temple, dragons and old houses in the Old Shanghai neigborhood.

View from Halfway The Grand Hyat (from the top it was just fog) and the dragon houses.

Fastest train in the world
Around 6pm (7hrs after I arrived in Shanghai) I decided to go to the airport for my next flight. This flight left from the far away, bigger airport, called Pudong. There are a few ways to get to the airport which is 40km away, for example a 1hr metro ride, a long taxi ride or a maglev train. Of course I opted for this insanely fast train. The train ride, with a speed of 430 km/h, took just 7 minutes (!) to get to the airport. As this flight was with EVA Air, which I booked with United Airlines miles, I couldn’t use the KLM lounges so I had to eat something in the airport food court. It didn’t help that nobody spoke English (and my Mandarin isn’t perfect) so I ended up eating a Shanghai Style soup with seaweed and other unidentified items inside. It wasn’t a big success. Lucky me I got a very tasteful Asian dish on board the flight to Taiwan.

The insanely fast bullet train.

Closing Words
My conclusion about China: it didn’t exceed my expectations. I am still not a big fan of China, but it was for sure very interesting to see and experience the city for a bit! The trip will continue in Taiwan, I will make a separate trip report about exploring the highlights of Taiwan in a few days.

Want to learn more about errorfares and get some essential travel tips? Check out the travel my way section! Here I also write about sustainability related to cheap flying and errorfares.