China holidays

China's new high-speed train from Hong Kong to Guangzhou

   China will be the world’s top tourist destination by 2030, by which
   time a vast network of high-speed rail services will link the country.
   We take the first bullet train out of Hong Kong

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   Information boards in the station claimed that the Vibrant Express is
   the latest of 5,000 high-speed trains that operate daily across China,
   part of the country’s record-breaking multi-billion-dollar expansion of
   high-speed rail.

   Awestruck, and making unfavourable comparisons with the UK’s doddering
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   The two women I shared my table with told me, between bites of chicken
   feet, that they were heading home to Beijing by high-speed train.

   “Why not fly?” I asked.
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   setting off on cross-border trains bound for 44 mainland stations,
   including Shanghai, Kunming and Guilin. For a taste of China’s
   high-speed revolution, and for an easy bite of an mega-city of which I
   knew little, Guangzhou seemed ideal. A journey there has now been cut
   in half, to 48 minutes, making it an easy side trip from Hong Kong
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   phones, disembarked, one collective army of luggage-bearers, and headed
   up a broad staircase. Below, rows of platforms and identical snow white
   high-speed trains stretched as far as the eye could see. As the doors
   closed on the Vibrant Express, a team of men set to work, scrubbing the
   sides of the train by hand. The crowd tapered towards a colossal,
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   China without foreign assistance.

   Today, China’s has around 25,000km of high-speed railway lines, 66% of
   the world’s total. Despite setbacks with corruption and safety issues,
   the biggest rail expansion the world has ever seen continues to set
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   nine-day tour of Hong Kong and the south of China from £1,895pp,
   including return flights from London with Cathay Pacific, private
   transfers, B&B accommodation, and high-speed train travel between Hong
   Kong, Guangzhou and Yangshuo