Ian

I am started very, very preliminary research for our 2nd trip to China. The first was a rush affair in February 1997 for a wedding. So we covered Beijing, and the Wall & Xi’an & a very non-touristic Handan. This time around, we have set our sights further south. Enter/exit via Hong Kong. Since big cities are increasingly annoying to us, we would probably just stay 2 nights (one full day for the greatest hits) & move on.

Yongshuo: A nice stay, maybe 3 nights in a rural boutique like Yangsuo Tea Cozy.
Longsheng: A leisurely stop or a night for the morning photo opps?
Possibly 2 – 3 nights at Dong Village Hotel or similar.
After the long drive maybe Leishan for 2 nights?
Zhenyuan and/or Fenghuang as night(s) worthy or photo stops only?
Zhangjiajie for 2 -3 nights.
Then the fastest route home.

(The complete reverse would be just as easy or better?)

For transportation we would use planes, high-speed trains & automobiles. Maybe private drivers at times where it works. We don’t travel rough & we are well above the hostel level & willing to pay a reasonable premium but if I can self-book it all???

Questions:

When? Our window is February – August so the fall season is out. May or June would be ideal but we would not like a soggy or cruelly hot trip.

Any other suggestions - especially re places & hotels - are welcomed.

Ian

Ian

An edit feature would be nice as well . . .

Ian

shelemm

FYI:

The Hunan Govenrment website is easily the best provincial Chinese website. Surprisingly informative, as in 'are we still in China?'. Their E-Map is tres cool.

http://www.enghunan.gov.cn/Tourism/

Aside from Fenghuang, there appears to be at least nine other ancient or folk towns in the region that have been preserved. Also there are the nanshan grasslands and rapeseed fields near Shaoyang.

I would consider asking a guide service about Yangshuo and activities/places onward. I know some people combine their Longshen excursion with visiting ethinc minority villages in southern Guizhou province from Guilin. In general for Yangshuo, you can make as much of the arrangements yourself as you like and use a guide service only for what is needed. I did not go to Yangshuo, but a woman from there helped with planning a different trip, and it was a great service:

http://www.yangshuo-travel-guide.com/index.html

I made arrangements with Jessi Lu, but I am not sure she is still there.

If I could go anytime, it would be in Spring for the rice terraces and flowers, probably March.

Ian

Perfect. Thanks, shelemm. Exactly the kind of info I was fishing for. I figured that we would probably have to use a guide/driver for much of it to ease the travel pain.

Ian

Mylene

Planning to go to zhangjiajie and Fenghuang this fall. I have contacted an agent Dragon Holiday with an email to suire. Please visit the website cn-zhangjiajie.com. They are helpful and professional. I have asked them to arrange a one week package. I have already visited other parts of China, but not Hunan province.

Ian

Mylene

Thanks for that, I had already run across that site at http://english.zhangjiajie.gov.cn/. It seems that they have grabbed a large number of web addresses.

Another is http://www.explorezhangjiajie.com/. Again, it is run by an agency.

And for private guides: http://www.synotrip.com/.

Ian

temppeternh

It's probably long past time that someone pointed out that contacting Chinese travel services with English pages via the Web is the very last thing anyone should do who wishes to make honest travel arrangements for an honest price. Nor, similarly, should anyone wishing to pay a fair price and get what they pay for, be booking Chinese hotels through their own websites. 'Private' guides typically have their hands very deeply in your pocket, and in addition to being mostly unlicensed and thus illegal (over 80% of those in Beijing, for instance) will cause just about everything you do to be considerably more expensive than it needs to be.

Ian

What is your solution?

Ian

temppeternh

Travel independently. Book as you go. China works best this way.

Bargain room rates way down at the counter, and inspect the room to make sure it's up to scratch before you pay. Book transport as you go, and be flexible--stay longer in somewhere you like, leave places you dislike earlier than planned, and alter your route to travel with people you meet and like, or in response to news of particular pleasures you hadn't previously considered.

Chinese New Year is Feb 19 in 2015, around which there can be a month of travel disruption, so travel in March and April. Avoid the first week in May, and consider that summers in the south, unless you head for high ground are very hot and humid.

If you really must book accommodation ahead (and some people just must, although in China it really isn't advisable) then use soi-disant discount sites such as ctrip and elong (except for mainstream international names, or 'jingji' hotels), although note that these intermittently have problems with taking foreign cards, and, where payment isn't in advance, with actually providing the rooms booked. However, rates displayed, while presented as amazing discounts, are the rates you can obtain for yourself or beat at the counter. But booking both puts you at risk of getting a room that only distantly represents what you expected (descriptions of hotels are often highly fanciful, and photographs show rooms at the time of opening ten years ago and without renovation since), and removes flexibility.

There's no shortage of rooms, especially in March and April when the Chinese aren't travelling, in any of the high-traffic and touristy destinations you mention, and many more establishments than can be found on-line.

Ian

Plain & simple, I won't travel with roll of the dice hotels. I don't want to waste any 'out' time dragging suitcases from place to place, without the language skills to make it work anyway. I do agree that the local websites are good for info gathering & possibly little else.

From previous Fodor's posts, I had already found ctrip & our previous trip had been partially booked (by a local) through cits in Beijing so they were both on my list for driver quotes. Thanks for the elong suggestion btw. Local guides I will use gingerly, only where needed. I have already seen enough silk factories, Cloisonné factories, terracotta factories and jade factories . . .

Ian

thursdaysd

You do not need language skills. I will, alas, never speak Mandarin (I am tone deaf) and I managed fine with a phrase book and a pen and paper. Point to "I want a single (or double) room". The clerk will write down the rate, you counter, they counter....

If there is more than one of you, as seems to be the case, you are even better off than I was. Park one person with the luggage while the other checks out hotels, which are usually all in the roughly the same place in any case. Consider it part of the experience rather than a nuisance.

temppeternh

> I won't travel with roll of the dice hotels.

Fair enough. Your choice. And you could have stopped there although the description is a little unfairly negative.

> I don't want to waste any 'out' time dragging suitcases from place to place, without the language skills to make it work anyway.

Again, just not wanting to find your hotels as you go is sufficient, and this is really writing into your premises that which you wish to find in your conclusions. It's only necessary to identify in advance (if you wish) a hotel that you think will probably suit, and make sure it's in an area with a number of hotels--they're usually in clusters. Chances are you stay at your first choice but only when you've confirmed the rooms are actually clean, look like the pictures, and everything works. Chances also are there's a much newer and better hotel right next door with rooms half the price and no on-line presence. You can also consider leaving the suitcases in the taxi until you've confirmed you want to stay, and have yourself driven to the next hotel if you don't. Charges for stationary taxis are minimal, and time consumed not necessarily much. But the chances of finding a better hotel for a reasonable price are significantly increased.

This is only pointed out for the benefit of others.

> I do agree that the local websites are good for info gathering & possibly little else.

I think the point was being made that the info, the reason you go there in the first place, is (to put it generously) unreliable. As unreliable as local guides, in fact.

Shanghainese

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQcRZfG7yNQ

kja

Actually, my experience was that the "role of the dice" comes with pre-booking. ;-) I did what temppeternh recommended -- identified a cluster of hotels in advance, showed up at my first choice, asked to see a room (generally using thursdaysd's strategy of pointing to a phrase book), and then bargained for an acceptable rate. Worked quite well for me. If that is not the way you want to proceed, fine -- it's clearly your call. I just wanted to note that it is not as complicated or burdensome as you seem to suggest.

Happy travels!