Hong Kong and Beijing
 

ok.. i know this is soooo preliminary...but we're off to Hong Kong and Beijing (3 full days in each) in March.

just a few starter questions.
Can someone give Hotel recommendations in each place, and must do's in each place.

in Beijing, Can u name any reputable guides or tour operators ?

thanks

just search konglin here,you can find lots of comments.

You'll get answers for specific questions. For general stuff, there are guidebooks and there is a lot of information on fodors.com (not the forums). And you can also try to search for threads on the forums.

For hotels, you need to tell budget.

You won't get responses without such general inquiries - other than say:

Beijing - Forbidden City, Temple of Heaven, Great Wall

Hong Kong - The Star Ferry, The Peak

Violet is a Beijing guide who works with Konglin, and this is self-promoting spam. Surely spammers should be avoided?

In general guides in Beijing are highly untrustworthy on several fronts, as a little search of the postings on this forum will tell you. Effectively there are no 'reputable' guides or operators, although there are a lot of people who are very sweet as they overcharge you and lead you into shopping rip-offs. Beijing is a city you can easily get round by yourself, and Hong Kong even more so, although it does have reliable guides. Look at the Hong Kong Tourism Board's website for further information.

Peter N-H

thanks for your replies.
in Beijing, which hotels are best located, for a short visit. Should we stay close to tienanmen?

how is the marriott? hotel Beijing? any recommendations for other 5star places?

With respect to Marriott hotels in Beijing, the closest to Wangfujing pedestrian street is the Courtyard - not 5 star (or 4). I stayed at the new Marriott City Wall for a week in November. I would not recommend it. The JW is supposedly quite nice, however you have other 5 star hotels which are closer to where you want to be. Most often recommended is Peninsula.

In Hong Kong I stayed at the JW Marriott and loved it. Great location and beautiful executive lounge.

With respect to tour guides, the suggestion above to search for Konglin comes from his girlfriend. The driver/guide I used last November was Alvin. His email is alvinbenton@hotmail(add the dot in here)com You will find reviews on his services on the tripadvisor board.

I liked the Peninsula Beijing very much--good location not too far from the Forbidden City and within a few blocks of Wanfujing.


I used Konglin as a guide in 2007. While I do not condone spamming, he and Violet are both certainly reputable persons and I found them both to be very pleasant companions. I wrote about my time with them in this report:

http://www.fodors.com/forums/threads...p;tid=34984181

Do 'reputable persons' spam repeatedly, or recommend their boyfriends/colleagues without revealing the connection? Is this honest?

Just further on that, a quick speed read through some of the Beijing commentary supports the point already made that Beijing can easily be got round independently, and there is no need for a guide. I'm not sure why one was taken to the Great Wall.

You were taken to a restaurant supposedly out of the way, but mysteriously with an English sign, where you paid a very high price for a meal if it was truly a local restaurant. The guide almost certainly got a kick-back.

Then you were taken on a massively over-priced hutong tour in a fake rickshaw (think kick-back again, and this, of course can easily and better be done on foot), and advised to tip in a society in which only foreign tourists who know no better are conned into tipping.

I realise no one wants to hear this kind of thing after the event, and I'm sorry about that, but that's just how it is in Beijing, and other readers need to be warned. This is clearly (as they all are) a guide to be avoided.

Peter N-H

You can see a list of Beijing hotels on http://www.chinatravel.com/beijing/hotel/index.htm. They have detail information about the hotels.

Only two postings from the above poster, made within minutes of each other, both directing readers to rip-off Chinese booking sites that should certainly not be regarded as authorities either on hotels or tickets, or indeed honest.

In short this is spam, and further evidence of the dishonesty that dominates the Chinese travel industry.

Hey, where got my replies yesterday? Fofor's Webmaster deleted my message?

Are you going to have children with you?

My favorite (5*>)Beijing hotel is The Kerry Centre, but I have a preference for Shangri-La hotels rather than the Peninsula or the Oriental chains.

http://www.shangri-la.com/en/propert...ng/kerrycentre

Easy metro stop and good to get away from all the tourist action around Wanfujing.

The Beijing Shangri-La hotel is bit too far away, so I'm recommending the Kerry Centre.

If you get sick (which I fervently hope you will not) there's a great Western style medical clinic right downstairs in the "mall" area.

Great restaurants too in the World Trade Center next door.

Not to be missed in Hong Kong is Noho & Soho between Central and Sheung Wan - cosy cafes, restaurants, street markets, old stores, galleries and lovely boutiques.

And at the Hong Kong Architecture Centre there (address: 8 Peel Street), you'll find my travelogue from Tibet, Dialogues Tibetan Dialogues Han http://www.amazon.com/Dialogues-Tibe.../dp/9889799936.

Peter: The restaurant that I was taken to by KongLin on the day I visited the Great Wall was by not a tourist restaurant; I mentioned that there is NO English signage out front. I did see many restaurants en route to Mutianyu (closer to the site) that were obviously dedicated to group tourists; this was not one of them.

Perhaps KongLin did get some kind of kickback, I did not consider that until now. At less than $20US, the lunch for two seemed reasonable to me at the time.



I agree that the hutong tour was a bit of a scam. I would guess that one could certainly wander through a hutong area (perhaps one that is off the tourist track) alone.

Peter, short of hiring a guide, how would you suggest that a tourist interact with local English speakers apart from hotel staff?

I do consider your posts to be helpful. And if I am fortunate enough to return to China early next year, I hope to ask you many questions!

Thank you.

Well, how did that blue devil's face appear after the 5 star?

Seems there are bugs still and not being able to edit really causes some interesting things to happen.