my husband and I are planning out first trip to china for summer 2004. He speaks decent japanese but no chinese (other than hello and thank you) ideally we would like to see cities, beautiful beaches, small towns and stay in nice hotels without spending a huge amount of $$$. Is this realistic? Where should we consider going? What is the best method of travel?

Hi

My wife and I went to China in March 2003 and we went to Beijing, Xi'an and Hong Kong. I have posted a long trip report with lots of pictures on my personal homepage <font color=blue>www.gardkarlsen.com</font>. Maybe you can find some useful information there Get in touch if you have any questions or comments.

regards
Gard
Stavanger, Norway

We visited China (on a tour) in June of 2001. We visited Shanghai - a beautiful city - very modern; Shaolin City(we were on a martial arts tour); Xi'an and Beijing. We did not see Hong Kong, but didn't feel we missed a lot because it is so far from what we felt was the &quot;real China&quot;.

Keep in mind that the summer can be very hot - making tours through the Forbidden City, Winter Palace, Summer Palace etc. very arduous. Take plenty of water to drink as you tour these sites.

Because China is so large, flying is the most expeditious, however we took the train from Louyang City to Xi'an and there was a tremendous amount of beautiful coutryside.

Don't Miss the Longmen Grotto's in Louyang, the Terracotta Warrior's in Xi'an; The Forbidden City and the Great Wall (if you want less commercial don't go to Badaling for the Great Wall)

It's a wonderful country - Enjoy!

I highly recommend using a tour company. I used Pacific Delight Tours and they were reasonable and excellent. Many tours use a variety of transport, use local guides, include cultural events, all of which makes for a more interesting and enjoyable exeperience.
Please consider a tour that includes a Yangtze River cruise. Also well worth it is a boat ride on the Grand Canal from Suzhou to Wuxi. There are of course the must sees such as the Great Wall, terra cotta warriors in Xian, Beijing Summer Palace and Forbidden City etc.
For sheer beauty I suggest Guilin and a day trip on the Li River, and Hangzhou with the surrounding tea plantions and West Lake.
I am not aware of good beaches in China and as for hotels I recommend using better hotels (4-5 star) as China is not like a western country .
Bon Voyage !

I second what Christo has said. Use a good tour group that offers 4-5 star hotels. You need someone to take care of the details for you in the local language/dialect.

BTW, the tour groups are able to obtain hotel rates at very good prices, so you should estimate about $150-$200 maximum per couple per day for hotel in the tour group rate. At that, the tour company has probably jacked up the price to twice or three times its own cost.

Try not to miss Hong Kong. China is very diverse and Hong Kong is now part of that diversity. Besides, it does have some beach areas.

However, for really great beaches, I would suggest another trip another time to SE Asia, especially to Thailand and Malaysia.

As helpful as everyone is on this site, I think you should first get a good guidebook (like a Fodors) and do some reading. China is vast in terms of geography and cultures, and you really need to decide what you are interested in. You can then post more specific questions on this site.

I think you should consider doing this on your own rather than doing an organized tour, but that is mainly because I don?t like tours. China is a little bit challenging, but emimently doable on your own. You will find English widely spoken in tourist areas/hotels. However, if your husband can read Japanese, this may be helpful because he will be able to read about 80% of the Chinese characters.

I would avoid the summer months as they are crowded and place like Beijing can be quite hot. Mid-September to late October is good, although be wary of the week of October 1, when many Chinese take several days to a week off. (National Day is October 1.) The spring months through early June are very nice as well. Winter is less crowded, but can be very cold in places like Beijing and Shanghai. Hong Kong is really lovely weather-wise from mid-November through early March.

Take a look at weatherbase.com and worldclimate.com for historical average temperatures and rainfall.

You will need a visa to enter China (don't need one if you are only going to Hong Kong). Assuming you are US citizens, contact the Visa Section of the Chinese Embassy:

2201 Wisconsin Ave., NW
Washington, DC 20007
(202/338-6688)
Internet: www.china-embassy.org

or nearest Consulate General: Chicago (312/803-0098), Houston (713/524-4311), Los Angeles (213/807-8018), New York (212/330-7409) or San Francisco (415/563-4857).

Hello,
We traveled to China with a tour 2 years ago. It was Grand Circle Tours. Personally, I felt more comfortable going to China for the first time with a tour. But it was very hectic. We were constantly on the go. I enjoyed all the places we visited. I recommend seeing Beijing (Forbidden City, Ming Tombs, Summer Palace and of course the Great Wall). The Great Wall is crowded at Badaling, although we went in the winter so it was not as crowded but it was cold. My daughter also saw the Great Wall in Simatai, which is not as crowded. Also go to Xian to see the Terra Cotta Warriors. The smaller cities of Hangzhou and Suzhou are beautiful. You must go to Guilin and take a Li River cruise...one of the highlights of our tour. We also loved Shanghai and Hong Kong. Each place was different from the other.
HOpe this info helps.

yes avoiding a tour would be perferred as we have traveled all over the world without much trouble without tours...

Ill check out the travel guides- thanks

Cicerone's reply was so like what I had planned to say that I actually had to re-read it to see if I had already responded and forgotten about it!

My family visited me (in Shanghai) this July, and it was SO hot and miserable that I vowed that I would never again allow family or friends to visit me in the summer months. I don't notice the heat so much living here, since I spend much of my day in air conditioned taxis, office, and home, but as a tourist, walking out in the oppressive heat all day long, it was just miserable. Do check the historical temp average Cicerone recommended - I prefer early fall to spring since there is less rain.

I also agree that you can pretty easily visit China without a tour. There are pros and cons to each method. The advantage of a tour is that someone else handles the hassles of transportation etc. for you, but the disadvantages are many (forced &quot;shopping&quot; excursions, following someone else's itinerary and timeline, higher prices for hotels that probably wouldn't be your first choice anyway, higher price overall, etc.).

You can certainly do it on your own without spending a huge amount of money, and you should be able to get in all the activities you want (except for beautiful beaches - I'd save that for another trip - China is not known for its beaches!).

Post back after you've had a chance to research some potential highlights &amp; the Fodorites will help you all the way! Best of luck!

If you are paying $150-200 per couple per night for a hotel in China, then you are being fleeced! Yes, I am talking 4 stars. Figure $100/night for a 4 star, maybe $130.

Avoid summer travel for the same reasons others have mentioned. Spring in BJ is DUST season, wild dust storms that hamper sightseeing. If you can't adjust your travel times, do make sure you have plenty of bottled water (check the bottle neck rings when buying from vendors to make sure they are sealed, not just refilled).

Beautiful beaches? not in China. Maybe Hainan, but most expats here head to Thailand or elsewhere for beaches.

we decided to go to shanghi in september then to cambodia after for about a week...

any suggestions?

Sounds like a GREAT plan to me! While unfortunately, I don't know the details, a friend of mine we actually bumped into in Angkor had just returned from the beaches in Cambodia, and he just RAVED about them. Said they were just as picturesque as Thai beaches, but without all the tourists and hawkers. Worth some investigation, since beaches were on your original list.

I agree that using a tour company is the best for your first visit to China. My long time neighbor is Chinese. The husband lives in Hong Kong and runs a large business in mainland China. The wife and children live in the States - its the Chinese way. Well, we asked for advice from them and he said that he would not let his own family tour mainland China without the aid of a guide because of the vast language difference. Even though &quot;Chinese&quot; is their first language, he said it would be impossible to make their way around because of the different dialects. We did notice this during our tour even with our Hong Kong born Chinese guide, she needed a local interpreter many times.

Also, China has not been open to tourists for very many years and there are only certain places (hotels, restaurants, etc.) where foriegn tourists are welcome. Unlike other countries where a foriegn tourist could wander into any hotel or restaurant, in China (as told by our neighbor) one would simply be ignored or turned away.

We were VERY happy to be with a caring tour company when we woke up on the morning of September 11th to the devastation in the US. Unsure of how or when we would be able to return to the State, our tour company (R. Crusoe &amp; Sons, Chicago) assured us that we would be cared for until such time as we could safely get home.

We took their &quot;Almost Last Chance Yangze River&quot; tour and thought it amazing. www.rcrusoe.com

I highly recommend this tour company for the destinations (whether you use the company or not) and for their extreme high level of service. As just one example; we were able to get into the actual pits with the terra cotta soldiers in Xian rather than just seeing them from the catwalks.

Odd as it may sound, the Chinese are the last people you should consult on travel in China. Mainlanders have rarely done much travelling, Hong Kongers in particular are mostly not much given to thinking positively about the mainland, all have a different world view and idea of what makes a good travel experience (you would probably hate to join a Chinese tour group), and there's a certain form of politeness which will sometimes paint a rosier picture than is warranted, and which will wish to see you come back with the best possible view of China by cocooning you from any reality. On the other hand, the prejudices of a person from one region may lead them to speak unfairly of another (or all others--even if they've never left their own).

Chinese have a much greater preference for travelling in groups than Westerners do, if they are going anywhere where they don't know people. There's a habit of regarding all environments outside their immediate experience and contacts as faintly (or less faintly) hostile, even if this is laughed at when pointed out, but it applies even if venturing outside their own town to another in their own province, and is merely the mirror of how they themselves treat outsiders (it's not much fun to be a mainlander visiting Hong Kong, either).

Most of the people of Hong Kong speak Cantonese and not Mandarin, as well as some English. British rule up to 1997 preserved this, whereas mainland China went on to school everyone in Mandarin after 1949, even if they spoke one of the other five Chinese languages, or a dialect thereof at home. If you imagine that you must have a common language with the people you travel amongst in order to travel independently (which, if true, would rule out travel in most of the world at all for most English speakers), then only speaking Cantonese is a disadvantage in most of China, especially if you want to understand and communicate complex information, as a tour guide would.

But imagine, your friend can read every sign he sees (with the odd hiccup), and he still thinks it's a problem. Would you find China forbidding for independent travel if every single sign were in English? There's a different picture of travel here than most of us would have.

China has been open to tourists for more then twenty years, which has been quite enough for it to build up a substantial tourist infrastructure, including many familiar brand name hotels, and cheap and comfortable lodgings across the country. I haven't been 'ignored or turned away' from any restaurant in China, from street noodle vendor via hole-in-the-wall to upmarket since the mid-80s. I get giggled at occasionally when away from main tour routes, but if anything I get better service than anyone else (although they are busy staring at me). Foreigners' money is just as welcome as anyone else's. The observations on facilities are wildly out of date.

Some people need tours, and some don't; some like them, and some don't. The point of these remarks is merely to avoid others who prefer independent travel being put off for the reasons given, and it says nothing about R Crusoe and Son, a company which regularly gets good reviews here.

But tens of thousands of people with not a word of Mandarin (including even some Hong Kongers) get themselves around China every year, using common sense, pointing, a pen and paper, and a phrase book or guide book with Chinese characters. Anyone who usually travels elsewhere independently at whatever level should certain not dismiss the idea of doing so in China, too.

The last Chinese resident overseas who offered me advice said I wouldn't be able to put up with the food. Good thing I already knew enough not to listen to him. Chinese food in China is in general far better than anything that can be had at home.

Peter N-H
http://members.axion.net/~pnh/China.html

TC,
Your neighbor's advice sounds terribly outdated and certainly doesn't describe China today. While I can see some semblance of reasoning to the comment regarding the differences in spoken language, this still doesn't take into account the fact that the written language is the same. It may be easier or preferable for some to travel with a group, but it's far from &quot;impossible&quot; to make your own way around China, even for non-Chinese speakers.

Peter, I stand corrected. You obviously know far more than I - or it seems than my neighbor. How is one to know? I trusted his advice and passed it on in good faith as a reliable source. Your points are well taken however.

I will say again, that we thoroughly enjoyed touring with R. Crusoe &amp; Sons and I would highly recommend them if one wished a tour group. We were extremely happy to be with a group during the post-911 crisis.

We are quite independent world travelers. This was only the second time I had used an organized tour, however it was most relaxing not to worry about translations, delays, lost luggage, schedules and the like in a language requiring great effort to deceipher even the simpliest of phrases. Less like hand-holding or controlling and more like pampering.

I feel the sights we saw and the itinerary was very well planned and executed.

Thank you again for your inside look at another aspect of Chinese culture. TC

I wouldn't recommend going with a tour group. It is not that difficult to travel on your own and you won't be forced to follow a little red flag and visit &quot;jade factories&quot;. You can make your own hotel bookings, rent a car, with driver from the hotel for the day--and bil it to your room-, use the concierge services to help set up the hutong tour in pedicab, buy train tickets, plane tickets (train tickets are only able to be bought within 4 days of departure anyway so your agent isn't getting them any faster than you could yourself.)

You can have your hotel write in Chinese the destinations and sites of where you want to go.

get yourself a good guide book and figure which sites you want to see in which Cities. Book your rooms on line, and save your cash for souvenir shopping.

For a firt visit, I'd start in BJ, see the Great wall at Mu Tian yu..take the cable car up, walk leisurely for 1 hour ands ride the tobaggan down. Don't souvenir shop till you are finished at the wall, so you don't have to carry your purchases around!

Walk through Tiananmen sq. Pay your respects to mao (line up at the east gate of the square after checking your bags directly across the street) Then, enter the Forbidden city. Get the English narration tape. Hint: you can rewind and fast forward, so only get one and you can share! Best $5 spent. beware the &quot;art student&quot; who wants to show you his show. If you want art head to the Museum or the sackler Gallery at beijing University. See Temple of heaven. Buy a kite and fly it loike the locals do. Relax. visit the Hong Qiao (pearl Market)across the street from there for the best selections of knock offs...clothing, designer purses, chinese bric a brac. , Pick up a Free &quot;that's Beijing&quot; English magazine from your hotel and get a complete listing of great restaurants in the city--most have english menus that are listed-- as well as acrobats, cinema (chinese movies w/ english subtitles every Fri and Sat). Your hotel can get you a taxi to anywhere and bring your hotels card to get you back. BJ taxis have meters and are reliable, despite their tiny size. Rent a bike from your hotel (or buy one for 130 Yuan!) and roam the streets....carefully. Have lunch at a lake side cafe in houhai...


There is also a that's for shanghai and guangzhou. Check their websites for now, though it won't be as detailed as the monthly magazine itself.
From BJ take an overnight train from the west station to Xi'an. Get a soft sleeper. (8 pm-10 am)Hotel can book this for you. Ignore the barrage of people touting stuff as you exit and head for a metered taxi. 5 Yuan will get you most places. Have a hotel car in Xian(around 300 yuan per day) take you to the Terracotta soldiers and back. Or negotiate 150-200 if you can with a generic taxi. BanPo Neolithic village is under renovations till Oct 2004.

Climb the city wall from its south gate and walk along and get a birds eye view of the city. Golf carts are also there and cheap if you are tired.

Walk the muslim quarter on your own, end it inte mosque. and stay for prayer call at 6PM. Watch the muslim market come alive after dusk and try some mutton on a skewer, persimmons, sugared candies or whatever catches your fancy. Buy a peasant painting in the markets there (10 Yuan for a small one, add increments of 5-10 yuan as you go up in size). Tiles are also cute souvenirs at 10 yuan each, or 20 for a &quot;double&quot;.

Spend the night at a hotel and fly onto Chong Qing where you board a Yangtze river cruise. Victoria is most popular among americans but I enjoyed east King. It really depends on what ship is going the day you want to leave. Sail to YiChang...stops and excursions are included in the price along the way as are meals. Disembark and fly onto Shanghai. You can head to hainan Island for some beach time and exit via HK, with 2-3 days there (but not a necessity) or fly to Shanghai, spend a few days, and take the new deluxe overnight train from Shanghai back to BJ to fly out.

I am currently in Bj and would be glad to help anyway I can. I leave next week for vacation _Chinese New year- and will be back in a month..won't be checking email much till Feb 12.

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