amyb

Friends and I are planning to return to China possibly fall 2013. I think the default arrival city is Beijing and we'd stay a day or two there since we arrive too late into the day to travel onward. Previously we traveled Beijing-Xian-Chengdu-Shanghai and other than Chengdu have no desire to repeat that itinerary as nice as it was.

We then plan to spend 4-5 days around Chengdu, but are a bit lost over what next. There seems to be SO much to see in China, but not necessarily convenient to get to from Chengdu (a couple hours direct, non-stop flight, probably). We're interested in a river cruise, but have heard that Three Gorges Dam has rendered that area not as nice as before and also super crowded. Possibly Guilin and a Lijiang cruise?

Personally I'd rather not return to Shanghai again and am interested in returning home from Hong Kong, but that seems like it might be a bit too far from Chengdu, unless we went somewhere mid-way to Hong Kong for our "river" experience.

If anyone has experience with this sort of itinerary or recommendations for a nice river experience that is logistically do-able from Chengdu, I'd appreciate it! Thanks in advance!

thursdaysd

From Chengdu I would (and did) go south to Kunming. You can then do the touristy thing and go north to Dali and Lijiang and maybe Tiger Leaping Gorge, and/or get off the beaten track and go south. (See http://www.wilhelmswords.com/rtw2004/index.html - Kunming: looping South).

amyb

Thank you, thursdaysd, I'll look into Kunming. We hadn't thought of that. Your blog is pretty helpful too!

rkkwan

You still need to fly out of a major gateway anyways. Instead of revisiting Beijing or Shanghai, it's totally reasonable to fly out of Hong Kong if you've never been there. As long as you're okay with accommodations cost.

thursdaysd

And from Kunming you could take the train to Nanning, also a less visited (at least by non-Chinese) place, and then go on to HK. Or maybe visit Hainan island.

tansmets

From Chengdu you can get a direct flight to Jiuzhaigou. It is really spectacular if you like natural scenery. Very very few westerners even know of this place - also the fall is the best time to go - fall foliage! just avoid Golden week (first week of october).

ggreen

I was also going to suggest Jiuzhaigou. It's like the Rocky Mountains National Park of China, but with manicured trails, pre-determined best viewing spots, and cell phone service throughout. The turquoise lakes there and at Huanglong are stunning. I flew from Jiuzhaigou to Xi'an on my way back to Beijing; I'm sure you could do similar to Hong Kong.

However, if you decide to go south to Kunming, Jiuzhaigou is in the opposite direction!

If you're heading south - or as a day-trip from Chengdu - you might want to stop to see the Dafo buddha at Leshan, and also visit Emei Shan. We hired a driver and combined visiting the pandas and Leshan, but I didn't make it to Emei Shan and wished I had... the Dafo buddha is impressive, and the reason he came into being is great, it's so pragmatic.

amyb

Wow, this is great! Thank you. I'd not heard of Jiuzhaigou, I will look into it! Also going to look into Hainan Island as well.

ggreen

Juizhaigou is one of the largest national parks in China; I'd never heard of it until I was in-country! I don't have any of my photos from there online - but one of mine of Huanglong is in this 2010 Fodor's contest:
http://www.fodors.com/contest/china/
(With apologies for the self promotion!)

The photos by other Fodorites there might give you some good ideas, too!

At Juizhaigou, the pools are a deeper turquoise than in my Huanglong photo, with the "bones" of calcified tree trunks eerily clear in the depths. When the park was designated, it encircled some preexisting Tibetan villages. They've now become rather touristy, but real people still live there if you get away from the stalls of trinkets at the entrances...

amyb

That photo is incredible, ggreen. It reminds me in a way of that movie "spring summer fall winter", which had similar incredible scenery.

tansmets

I can send my Jiuzhaigou photos as well, they are online somewhere. There are actual real tibetans living in the park and the area of Sichuan is considered Tibet by the Tibetan people (like parts of Qinghai). As we drove around we saw plenty of Tibetans. We went in late September last year and were unlucky with the weather, but the place was still beautiful. Allow one full day for a trip from Jiuzhaigou to Huanglong and two days at Jiuzhaigou.
It's China though - so be prepared for pushing and shoving to get onto the bus that takes you around the park.
We are based in HKG and you can fly Air China through either Chengdu or Chongqing back to HK.