On our way to and from Phuket Thailand a couple years ago, we had scheduled 16 hour layovers through our airline, China Southern. A few airlines do this, where a stop over in their home country, allots for some version of free accommodation, and China also has a 24 hour stay permit. Be sure to check the rules, because like all things international, things can change. This was my first time through China, and was such an awesome first exposure to the country. In 16 hours, we were able to shower from our long international flight, visit Canton Tower, and get some Dim Sum before heading out. The airline helped us through getting the 24 hour stay permit, shuttled us to the hotel, and hooked up with a metro card (although we took a taxi from our hotel to Canton Tower which I don’t know if I can recommend doing because I’m still shocked in retrospect we made it work). Both times we were in a small group of other travelers doing the same thing and there’s a designated area where you’re walked through the process.
A couple tips if it’s your first visit to China. One, it’s really hard to get around without any grasp of Chinese, even in the area of the city exposed to a ton of international visitors like Canton Tower Guangzhou. We actually ended up picking up some Mandarin before we headed back to the city. Our experience both during these layovers, and the week we spent in Guangzhou a year later, is about half the people speak Cantonese and half the people speak Mandarin which is also challenging. It’s not impossible, but I think you brace yourself for this, and you find it to be not as bad, is better than going in it not expecting this at all. The google translate camera is halfway decent at handling receipts.
Tip One: It’s really hard to get around without any grasp of Chinese
Two, don’t expect to be able to pay for things without having yuan on you. China is almost a cashless society, and they primarily use QR codes scanned by Ali Pay and We Chat Pay apps (which are difficult to make work without a Chinese bank account), and Visa and Mastercard are rarely accepted. It’s actually remarkable and really cool but we were totally screwed our first layover because we didn’t pull out any money at the airport. We went to an ATM walking distance from the hotel, and one, there was no “English” button, and two, the ATM didn’t support any of the systems on our card at all anyway.
We were in town the following year for a huge international fair and had better luck with Visa and Mastercard at the hotels and convention centers because of the timing of the visit, but outside of that, you’re using Chinese Yuan. Because most everyone else is cashless, you might be needing exact change. Counterfeit cash is also a problem we’ve heard even though we haven’t personally encountered that problem yet, so even if you receive change, that could be a problem. All this to say, pull out adequate cash at the airport based on what you think you’ll spend, and maybe buy a thing or two to get change in smaller bills. You also don’t want to pull out too much because exchanging it back is pretty much not worth it.
Tip Two: don’t expect to be able to pay for things without having Yuan on you
You can also try using the app Didi, which is the rideshare of China, and to be honest, a better option to bargaining with a taxi driver verbally. That app’s not great and it doesn’t always work. My husband and I both had droids at the time and it wouldn’t load on mine. Like most Chinese apps, adding payment to it can be difficult. Cards in Chinese are last name first, coupled with the different characters, and you’ll quickly find that things work half the time.
When we came back to Guangzhou the following year, DiDi worked most of the time but when our airplane landed at 2am, we waited two hours for a driver that was “5 minutes away” to pick us up and ended up having to just hire a random driver at the airport, who knows how legitimate. There’s a possibility the ride share drivers banded together to make this happen, and were not the only people who’ve had this experience, but before we got the driver that we did, we bargained him down to about 25% over the Didi price which is not horrendous gouge in that circumstances. We originally got quoted over double. As with all travel situations, know the approximate fare ahead of time.
Guangzhou is a very special place and I’ve enjoyed all my trips to this awesome city. Honestly, after traveling to Guangzhou, between both the barriers of language and paying for things, a lot of other places seem less intimidating to travel to. Also, if you attempt to learn Chinese, you’ll have plenty of opportunity to work on it practically, which is awesome. I hope these tips help!
