Getting Around By Bus
Jan 10th, 2006 under Discover Nanjing
Getting around by bus in Nanjing really isn’t too difficult.
To get you started, we’ll describe a method that will give you on a Nanjing bus in no time! What you need to do (in two steps):
1) Get the map of Nanjing city - which sells on the street for about 4-5rmb.
The map alone will not show you how to get around. However, on it you will see the names of roads, and knowing what road joins to what road is crucial to getting around. Before you proceed to step two, you need to figure out where you are (what road), and decide where it is (what road) you want to go.
2) Next, go to the nearest bus stop. You’ll see the following board with a list of bus numbers:
No, this is a coincidence - there isn’t usually a uniformed policeman standing by the board! Anyway, the top of the board tells you the name of the stop. In this case, it’s 汉中门 [han4zhong1men2]. Below that are rows of information, each row being information on a certain bus number. Let’s zoom in for a closer look:
Let’s take bus number 18 as an example. On the left side of the row is the bus number. Then, from left to right are written all the stops that the bus in question passes by. The bus stop names are written vertically down, in Chinese. You’ll see a yellow triangle indicating the bus stop you’re at. In the case of bus number 18, a yellow triangle appears above the words 汉中门 [han4zhong1men2]. On the right side of the row is the name of the next stop.
So if you know where your destination is, you just need to scan (in Chinese) the rows for that particular road/location name. Of course it won’t be easy the first time, but with practice, it really isn’t that daunting.
If you’re ready to check it out, one last reminder: 1rmb for the normal bus; 2rmb for the better one (with aircon). Remember your coins! Also, if you want a discount on public transport, you can purchase what they call a monthly ticket 月票 [yue4piao4] at Huaxia Bank 华夏银行 [hua2xia4yin2hang2] as well as inside subway stations. These monthly tickets are actually cards that give you a 20% discount on bus fares. They also work for subway use. How you use it is you swipe it once upon boarding the bus.
I don’t recommend this (as sometimes the driver will check) but there are a few ways (practiced by locals and foreigners) of riding the bus for free or at a discount.
The most common way (used by many Chinese) gets you on the bus for half price. Many video-game arcades issue gaming tokens which at a glance resembles a 1 yuan coin but are only worth 5 mao (i.e. if you buy 10 yuan of tokens you’ll get 20 tokens) so many people use leftover tokens to pay for buses - drop two tokens into the farebox and unless the driver looks closely at the coins he thinks everything is legit, even though you’ve effectively paid 1 yuan.
A second way is to use Hong Kong dollars - ok the exchange rate will only save you about 4 mao but it’s an effective way of getting rid of leftover change.
The third way (only works for foreigners and it’s a real gamble) is to get on and claim you have no change and try to pay with a big note (a 50 or 100) - it will go two ways, either the driver will tell you to get off the bus or he will be scared of getting into an arguement in a language he doesn’t understand so he’ll just tell you to get on, giving you a free ride.
But no laowai is cheapskate enough to want to avoid paying a 2 kuai bus fare so don’t bother.
[...] can get there by bus this way: go to the nearest bus stop and figure out which bus to take. Or you can wave down the [...]