back from 33 days Japan/China
 

our trip of 33 days started from Victoria B.C. Canada, Nov 3 -Dec. 5.
This is our first independent trip to Asia, although we have been on our own in Europe and South America.
Cities visited were
Kyoto/Beijing/Datong/Taiyuan/Pingyao/Xian/HongKong/Yangshou/Guilin/Nanjing/Shanghai
Kunming and Lijiang were cancelled due to heavy fog in the area, our flight to Kunming was delayed for over six hours in Xian and weather report was calling for heavy fog for the Lijiang area to continue, We made our decision to cancel Lijiang/Kunming all together and flew to Zhenzhen and onto HongKong instead to avoid more weather related problem.

The rest of the trip went as exactly according to plan, all because of excellent advice from this board and good guide books, we had no hotel reservation except Kyoto and HongKong (we phoned ahead), we were able to negotiate as we go and receiving 30 to 60% discount of posted rack rate, the lowest we paid was in Guilin for a nice three star hotel with view of LiRiver for 208RMB. No problem with train tickets and although we were only getting 10-30% off flights, elong site was showing higher percentage discounts before we left home.
Four of us were on this trip and we all had our personal best in sites and cities, some highlights we all agreed on were the Hanging Temples in Datong, the ancient city of Pingyao, the light show in Yangshuo, the drum and bell tower from our hotel window of Bell tower hotel in Xian at night, our bike trip around moon hill in yangshuo, symphony of light in HongKong habour.
Our whole trip costs $7000 per couple not including flights from Canada. Mid-range hotel and restautant.
We enjoyed our trip very much, our thanks go to this board and posters that we have learnt so much from.
Our special thanks to (not in order)hawaiiantraveller/mochi/mrwhnffl/kimjapan for your help in Kyoto.
rkkwan/thursdaysd/shanghainese/tower/baaj/mcv/ekscrunchy/peterNH/gard
and other whom we might have missed.

Sam.

Hi Sam - so glad you had a good trip, but a shame you had to miss Lijiang. Next time, right?

Thanks for reporting back. Will you be doing a more detailed report? I'd like to know how the transport worked for the Datong - Xi'an section.

Sam: Delighted that you had 33 days of great time, and thank you for reporting back before getting over jet lag.

I've been to Datong and Taiyuan (not my favorite), would be interested in your impressions of Pingyao.

thursdaysd,Shanghainese

Lijiang, believe me, it was not an easy decision to make, given the circumstances, was a good decision, will certainly try to visit again.

In Datong we stayed near the train station and took a cab aross town to the bus station onto Taiyuan, still only cost 15 RMB. Bus from Datong to Taiyuan, nice clean bus, no smoking allowed which was a concern, costs 88 rmb p.p. which took two and half hour. Basically barren and not much to see on the way, still a nice ride.
We daytripped Pingyao because we didn't want a long bus/train ride after a six hour train ride Beijing/Datong already and you can only fly to Xian from Taiyuan.
Shanghainese is right that there isn't much to see in Taiyuan for sites except the Museum. But, we did liked it, people are nice, food was cheap and very good. The hotel we stayed was nice but the bed was so hard that we were thinking of going to another for our second night, the hotel manager put a thick comforter under our sheets to make it softer which worked fine. Unbelivable what people will do for you if you ask. We did find people in the north nicer and most of them refuse our tip which service staff in the south now expects.

After seeing Pingyao, we wish we had stayed the night, Pingyao is a movie set, and we can imagine how wonderful it would be at night. And the town itself is a lot bigger than we had envisioned. Our taxi driver from Taiyuan talked us into renting one of those converted golf carts to get around (from his friend, we think). Although it is easier on the feet, it did take a lot away from seeing the town itself.
We had lunch, did find the food not nearly as well prepared as Taiyuan and twice the money. Saw a few guest house and would not think they would be as comfortable as hotel in Taiyuan.
If time allowed, would have make sence to go from Datong to (with or without stop in Taiyuan) Pingyao and over night, then move on to Kaifang/Louyang, and onto Xian.
We also stopped at Qiao Jia Dayuan, a wealthy family of five or six generations that was built from Tofu, it was half way between Taiyuan and Pingyao and was worth it to stop.

thursdaysd and shanghainese,

didn't mean to run off so soon, I hope i have answer your questions, I am not good at reports, even back in my school days, my post was meant to thank you guys for all your help. We couldn't have and probably would have not done it on our own without your encouragement. I will, of course answer any question the best I can.

On my last post, want to clarify "movie set" of Pingyao as real and not staged, very nicely restored and we were seeing restoration in progress.

Sam.

ttt

Excellent report. I am really glad you liked Shanxi Province. My parents visited two years ago, and it's one region that's very interesting, not as touristy yet. Good to visit before it gets run over by local tourists like many other places in China.

Thanks for the info, Sam. Not sure when I'll get back to north China - not this year, for sure.

how do you find this thread, I can only find it in clicking my name, did not see it on the China/Japan board?

rkkwan,

I think it must be a lot busier in the summer, when we went there were hardly anyone around in Datong and Pingyao, even Taiyuan was not so busy as the capital of Shanxi.

We were warned how chaotic train/bus stations are, we found all stations are fine including Nanjiang's. Train stations are bigger, newer and people are less hurried than bus stations, and more organized. Will ride more bus and train next time.

Thank you for all your help, Bob.

Sam.

Sam - if you select the Asia board on the left of the screen this post will show up. It doesn't show up if you pick China or Japan on the topics search, which suggests that you didn't pick topics when you put up your first post.

thursdaysd,

thanks, I thought I did pick Asia-China..........

Search function on all the Fodors forums are very buggy. Hit or miss. You can do everything right and a post still won't come up.

Thank you, Sam, it's nice to know Qiaojiadayuan is worth a stop to visit.