Shantou's long-distance bus station is in the north of town, at the southern end of Chaoshan Lu. Minibuses from Chaozhou drop off a couple of kilometres farther north on Chaoshan Lu, near the TV tower - buses #4 or #7 run down to the bus station. The train station is 10km away on the eastern side of the new city, connected to the bus station by buses #11 or #4. Shantou's plentiful taxis also prowl arrival points; watch out for pickpockets on local buses. The huge Bank of China is in the new city on Jinsha Dong Lu (foreign exchange Mon-Fri 9am-5pm) - bus #2 from Zhongshan Lu stops outside.

Shantou's cooking style is derived from Chaozhou's distinctive cuisine, and the city has a good reputation for seafood and rice-flour dumplings. Cheap stalls and canteens fill the old quarter's back lanes; make sure you eat at Piaoxiang Xiaocidian, a wonderful, inexpensive dumpling house serving local snacks and light meals from inside a former temple just north off the Shengping Lu roundabout (oyster omelettes are a speciality); and Hai Ba Wang, in an unmissable warehouse-sized building by the Huilan Bridge on Minzu Lu - their hotplate buffet 11am-2pm (¥35 per person) lets you loose to cook unlimited piles of fresh vegetables, meats, seafood and dumplings.

Moving on , the long-distance bus station has departures at least as far afield as Xiamen, Guangzhou and Meizhou; for Chaozhou minibuses (¥10), you'll have to head up Chaoshou Lu on bus #4 to the TV tower depot. Train tickets are best organized through your accommodation, rather than making the long haul out to the station.