You can go to the police station and inquire which place issues licenses. You will need to take a test and pay a few small fees. Since Xi'an has banned motos, you might not be able to get a C1E license, ask if it'd possible, and settle on a C1 if you have to, better than no license at all.

Tibet, forget about it, you're a foreigner and not allowed to travel alone without a government guide (expensive). If you value your residence visa, don't get caught in Tibet without proper papers and a guide.

Cheers!
ChinaV

P.S. mychinamoto.com has a lot info.

Agree, I don't think you would make it past the first check point.

However, you can still see Tibet on a bike: after the annexation the govt. chopped off some bits around the edges and incorporated them into the neighbouring provinces. If you go to the areas of Sichuan & Yunnan adjoining "TAR" you will see Tibetan culture and architecture, without having to enter "TAR". Check out my web pages Tibet 4 & 5.

__________________
Cheers,
Peter.

Europe to NZ 2006-10

You can organize a local Chinese drivers license - temporary permission to ride foreign motorcycles in Yinning. Motoexplorers organize this on the China Moto expeditions. You also need to have a raft of paperwork including clearance from ministry level in Beijing, entry permits for each Province, permission from Police & tourism authorities, army clearance, customs agents for entry & exit formalities (at each border crossing) as well as all hotel bookings, plus the Chinese driving license. If you wanted to get all formalities pre-cleared for you to ride across China, Motoexplorers would usually recommend starting to do this process about 5-6 months before arrival date - you could join in with a small group of riders also doing all of these formalities - saves money having to pay for all the guides, permits, vehicle etc alone, get Motoexplorers to do all the paperwork and organising; http://www.motoexplorers.co.uk then you can ride on your own, at your own pace each day across china. Usually permissions are granted for 30 days to explore China. You have to nominate an exit port, somewhere like a sea-freight port near Beijing, or better still exit by land crossing the border to Laos - nicer routes and easier formalities for border paperwork. Then a nice ride through Laos to Thailand and from Bangkok you can ride freely or freight your bike anywhere in the World.

.

.
Do you work for motoexplorers?

Very much sounds like it.


vette

Recently in the last few months, I was planning to get my motorbike license in China. I have been living here for the past three years and I am also married to a local lady. This process started out very uninformatively, making several trips to my local DMV for paper after paper, and the local DMV not fully explaining ALL the infomation needed. After I would say about three months I gathered all the necessary paperwork for my local DMV to get me into the test room.

Papers included are: visa with more than 3 months valid price of visa's ranges in China, copy of passport/visa that was copied at the DMV no cost, photos also done at the DMV 10 yuan, medical check 8 yuan also done at the DMV, a fully translated copy of my passport main page that has my photo "offically stamped" 60 yuan, a copy of my residence permit free from you locally resigtered police station and finally the paper work from the DMV to approve you for your aplication to take the test 130 yuan.

Getting all this completed and taking time away from my daily life was a wait off my shoulders. BUT once I got into the DMV and was called up to the computer testing room I was asked IF i was taking the test in Chinese OR did I want it in English. Of course my Chinese is not that technical enough to read and respond to a full Chinese test and I was glad I had a very good friend with me to explain that I needed the test in English. After about 45 minutes of waiting I got an erie gut feeling that something was very wrong and I was going to be unable to take such test. Sure enough the testing "officer" told my friend there is NO English test in all of China (this made me laugh because I had my laptop and phone on me with the trasnlated test on PDF format from 2012). So I decided to show the test to the "officers" with my friend and just ask, why? This got me no further then hitting myself in the head with a hammer. Frustrated as ever, and I'm sure you can understand I headed right back to the DMV and just about hit the roof. Did i mention on the first three times in those last few months I asked if they had the English version of the test, AND I was assured the test was there. My friend and myself made a huge ruckus in the DMV on testing day so pretty much hundreds of people saw. The managing "officer" of the DMV made a few phone calls and then said "I'm sorry but there is not test in China". Yet again I presented him with the test I had on my phone and he told me I need to take the test in Chinese if I want the license. He told me line after line about blah blah blah I didn't really care because I knew he was full of it.

So I have been surfing around as many website deaing with the English test or pretty much anything to do with China and motorcycles, and all I want to know is when will this test be available? I have come to find out it's already in place in Shanghai, BUT no-were else? I find this extremely pathetic and unorganized because all I want to do is buy a motorbike and drive it LEGALLY! and trust me its not that hard to just buy one and drive 80% of the motorbikes in my city are unplated, and thats including all the foreigners I know.

So please if anyone can shed some light on this subject it would be greatly appreciated!

This thread is a little old,

but I did all the same as you mentioned.

I did my test in English.

3 Dec. 2012

Full car, and big bikes

Class C1D

vette