David | 2025-06-09 | CHN Train G79
On 09 June 2025, I did it — with family. I clocked in my 500’000th kilometre on the national railway network in Mainland China, onboard Train G79 from Zhengzhou East to Hong Kong West Kowloon.
This was quite an experience. In my travel logs, this train checked all the boxes — it was the world’s fastest (350 km/h for much of the journey) and a cross-border service. So my logs got a “1” each for the cinnamon record (fastest train) and the blue record (for cross-border trips).
We had originally thought of settling down in Thailand, and actually left some of our things behind in Chiang Mai. Some of Jr’s favourite toys were still waiting for him in Thailand. So Tracy was actually able to cross the border into Hong Kong using a “normal” Chinese passport — but only upon presentation of onward travel evidence. I remember back in 1992, in a similar transit, I was held at the airport for over an hour — because my dad failed to prepare everything. Me being a different nationality to him, we did everything the Swiss way, and soon were moving across the border — maybe 5 minutes maximum per checkpoint.
Hong Kong West Kowloon station’s Arrivals level has everything within reach — Tracy could get forex from Chinese Yuan Renminbi into Hong Kong Dollars with ease, and the taxi queues were delightfully short. We’ll be checking how tomorrow works — I’m personally looking forward to The Peak Tram, using Swiss technology, right before we renew Jr’s travel docs back to Mainland China. It’s, of course, hot in Hong Kong, but almost not as hot as Zhengzhou, Central China…
We’ll leave the miles to dry out, so to speak, a little bit, after having done quite a bit of travel the past week — one of these days, our total family mileage would be close to three quarters of a million kilometres, and maybe then we’ll have something special for you all!…
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