In most places, if you want to book a trip, you have two options:
1) Find the flights at the cost and times you want via a myriad of airline aggregators, enter your credit card details, and voila, off you go.
2) Call the travel agent, have a conversation about your goals and vision for travel, and they send you an itinerary. Again, voila, off you go.
Traveling in China is never simple though.
You try to book the flights yourself, but the price increases several thousand USD if you decide to pay with a credit card. You try to use the travel agent, but they won't book the flight because you are 10 minutes short of the minimum connecting time. Also they won't answer any of your questions, and the itinerary they send will not start or end in the correct location.
Next time, I will book earlier. (I tell myself that every time.)
In the meantime, I am trying very hard to remember that this is all part of the adventure. Sure, I am probably going to be stuck in the Urumqi airport on the way home. I know my bags are not going to make the connecting flight to Kashgar. And most likely, I will be stuck paying a change fee when my flight from Beijing is delayed and those extra ten minutes would have been helpful.
But at long last, I confirmed seats , and the journey of 250kilometers begins with a double engine Boeing 757 across the great Mongolian plain...
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