Details of David's Trip and ItineraryFinding David Sneddon
Details of David's Trip and Itinerary
David planned all summer for his trip. George Bailey, David's roommate in Beijing, reports that David's planning was careful and meticulous as he mapped out different places to visit, timelines, sights to see, and things to do.
David finalized his travel plans only a few days before the two left Beijing. On August 2, 2004 David paid 730 RMB to purchase an airline ticket to fly from Kunming to Haikou, the main city on the island of Hainan in the South China Sea. On August 4, 2004 David paid 520 RMB to purchase a second airline ticket to fly from Guangzhou, the capital of Guangdong province, to Hefei, the capital of Anhui province. George says that one cannot purchase train tickets too far in advance, so he and David planned to buy these as they traveled.
Based upon information from George Bailey, Shange Petrini (a friend David met in Beijing), and persons who had sightings, this is David's planned itinerary:1
At 9:30 PM, David and George left Beijing.
They traveled by "hard sleeper" train to Guilin. Their trip lasted 27 hours.2
They were still traveling on the train to Guilin.
At 1:00 A.M, David and George arrived in Guilin.
At 5:30 A.M., they took a bus to Yangshuo. This is a 1 hour trip.
In Yangshuo, David and George rented bicycles and took a day trip south of Yangshuo. George took at least one photo of David. (See Appendix D: The Three Recent Photos of David Sneddon.) They spent the night in a hotel in Yangshuo.
David and George spent another day traveling on bicycles near Yangshou. This time they traveled south of Yangshuo and took a trip on a raft. (See photos in Appendix D: The Three Recent Photos of David Sneddon.) They spent another night in the hotel in Yangshuo.
This is the morning that David and George separated. David left the hotel room early, around 7:00 AM or 7:30 AM, and traveled by bus back to Guilin.
At 8:30 AM or 9:00 AM, David took a train to Kunming. This trip lasted approximately 24 hours.
Later in the day, George returned to Yangshuo, and traveled by train and bus to Zibo in Shangdong province, arriving on August 11, 2004. (George stayed in Zibo a few days with friends before returning to Beijing on August 16th and flying home a few days later.)
At about 9:00 AM, David arrived in Kunming.
Sometime during this day, he traveled by bus to Lijiang. This is a trip of 5 to 8 hours.
David spent the night in Lijiang.
At 9:32 AM, David sent his mother his last e-mail message, in which he says he intended to leave Lijiang "in about half an hour" and go to Tiger Leaping Gorge.3
Around 10:00 AM, David left Lijiang to travel to Qiaotou. This is a trip of about 2 ½ hours.
Around 12:30 PM, David arrived in Qiaotou. David dropped off his large backpack at Jane's guest house in Qiaotou that afternoon. He probably found a place to eat lunch.
Around 2:30 or 3:00 PM, David started hiking the trail in Tiger Leaping Gorge. If David averaged 4 to 5 kilometers per hour, this was a 5 to 7 hour hike.
Around 7:00 PM, David caught up with a group of hikers probably somewhere between the Yongsheng Village and the Bendiwan Village/Half Way guesthouse. He hiked with this group for about three hours. (For more information about this sighting, see "Details of Key Sightings".)
Around 10:00 PM, David and the group arrived at Tina's guesthouse, located at kilometer 20 outside of the gorge. They spent the night there.
Around 9:30 AM or 10:00 AM, David visited Sean's guesthouse, which is 2 kilometers past Tina's guesthouse.4
From Sean's guest house, we assume that David traveled north toward Haba.5 The trip from Sean's guesthouse to Haba is over two hours, traveling by car. We doubt that David hiked all the way from Sean's to Haba; most likely he walked several kilometers before he hitched a ride or paid someone to drive him further.
Around 4:00 PM, we assume that David arrived in Haba. (A shopkeeper in Haba reported a westerner matching David's description arriving in the late afternoon, around 4:00 PM.)
David would likely have spent the night of August 12, 2004 somewhere in Haba, Samba, or Baishui Terrace.
We assume that David traveled from Haba, Samba, or Baishui Terrace to Shangri-La. Traveling by bus, this is 4 ½ to 5 hour trip.6
We have evidence that David spent this day in Shangri-La. He considered taking a guided tour, but did not have enough money to do so. He ate at the Korean Café (Yak Bar).7
David spent that night at the Diqing Tibetan Area International guest house, which is a little over a block from the Korean Café.
In the morning as he left the Diqing Tibetan Area International guest house, David told Ms. Liu that he was traveling that same day to Lijiang.8
Around noon, David ate again at the Korean Café. He told Ms. Zhang, owner of the Korean Café, that he planned to leave Shangri-La in the afternoon.9
NOTE: The remainder of this itinerary explains what David planned to do. David never picked up his backpack in Qiaotou, so we know that he did not continue his trip past that point.
Between 1:00 PM and 3:00 PM, David planned to take a bus to Qiaotou. He would have picked up his large backpack from Jane's guest house in Qiaotou, and then taken the next bus to Lijiang. Because of the stopover in Qiaotou, David would have needed approximately six hours to travel from Shangri-La to Lijiang.10
David would have traveled most of this day from Lijiang to Kunming.
At 10:15 PM, he was scheduled to fly from Kunming to Haikou on the island of Hainan.
In the early morning, David would have arrived in Haikou.
We are not certain what David planned to do these days. We know that he planned to be in Guangzhou by Friday, August 20.
There are several ferries and boats that travel from Hainan Island to Hong Kong or to Guangzhou, just north of Macau and Hong Kong. Perhaps David intended to take a ferry from Hainan to Zhanjiang and continue via bus to Guangzhou. Allowing 24 hours for this journey, it seems that David would have plenty of time on the island of Hainan before leaving on the evening of August 18th or the morning of August 19th for Guangzhou.
David was scheduled to spend this day in Guangzhou with Shange Petrini, a friend that he met in Beijing. They planned to stay that night with one of Shange's friends.11
At 7:15 AM, David planned to fly from Guangzhou to Hefei, Anhui province.
Near Hefei is the beautiful and famed Yellow Mountain, perhaps China's most famous landscape attraction. George Bailey reports that David "had every intention of going to see the Yellow Mountain." 12
David had time to spend a day or two in Hefei. After his time in Hefei, he could have planned to take a train directly from Hefei to Beijing. Or, perhaps, he went from Hefei to Shanghai, and then to Beijing.
In Beijing, David would have picked up the luggage that he left with his friend Naoki before he and George left on their sight-seeing trip.
David planned to fly from Beijing to Seoul, South Korea.
That evening David should have met his brother Michael in Seoul, prior to their business meetings scheduled for Friday, August 27, 2004. At this point the family's suspicions were confirmed—their son and brother was missing in China.
On Saturday, August 28, 2004 David had planned to return to the United States.
David's unused airline tickets were found in his backpack that he had left in Qiaotou.
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1. All dates and times in this Appendix B are in the China time zone.
2. A "hard sleeper" is a train with sleeping in a compartment, but little privacy.
3. The date time stamp of the e-mail says August 10, 2004 at 7:32 PM Mountain time. This means that David sent this message on August 11, 2004 at 9:32 AM China time.
4. Two employees at Sean's guesthouse reported that David Sneddon stopped by around 9:30 AM to 10:00 AM, just after most of Sean's guests had left. It might make sense for David, after lots of travel in a few days, to relax and not leave Tina's until after 9:00 AM. See details in Section 2 of the report.
5. After exiting the Gorge, David had the choice of turning north or south. If David were to turn right and head south, he would cross the river via the "Old Ferry" near Heka, then return to Lijiang via bus, and retrace his previous bus trip north to Qioutou to fetch his backpack. If David were to turn left and head north, this would take him past the interesting villages of Haba, Samba, and Baishui Terrace before arriving in Shangri-La, a traditional Tibetan community. We decided that David most likely would prefer having a cultural experience in Shangri-La compared to returning directly to Lijiang, so we turned North during our search for David. This proved a correct choice as we found one sighting in Haba and six (6) sightings in Shangri-La.
6. In the morning there are several early buses into Shangri-La. Our bus left from Baishui Terrace at 8:30 AM and arrived 4 ½ hours later in Shangri-La.
7. For more information on sightings 4, 5, 6, 7 & 8, see Section 2.
8. For more information on sighting 7 see Section 2.
9. For more information on sighting 4 see Section 2.
10. We do not think that David took the bus to Qiaotou. But we really don't know. Possibly David disappeared in Qiaotou, but this seems highly unlikely because this small town has been a focus of police investigative work. We would think that someone would have seen something and would let authorities know. Either way, David never picked up his backpack in Qiaotou.
11. Shange says that the two talked this over in Beijing in general terms and that David told Shange that he would e-mail Shange later with specific details for the trip. Shange reported that as the 20th approached he still had not heard from David but assumed that perhaps David's had a change of plans.
12. M. Sneddon interview with G. Bailey on October 11, 2004.