Itinerary Question
 

I will be traveling in Asia for 17-20 days in May. I am trying to narrow down the itinerary and decide which cities to leave out. The idea is to get a mix of city, rural, and beach packed into the trip. Any suggestions would be very helpful. (I know the most obvious would be to save Thailand for another trip but I'm not sure if i want to do that).

Shanghai (required for flight)
Lhasa
Xi'an
Hong Kong
Bejing
Lhasa
Phuket
Bangkok

You have seven places listed. Lhasa is listed twice, perhaps reflecting how much you want to visit Lhasa.

Start by deciding what the most important things are that you want to do/see/experience. That will help you deecide what to cut.

Asia is slower travel than, say, Europe. The distances are much greater, and the cultures are differnt enough that you need to spend more time to get the flavor of a place. My rule of thumb is to stay a minimum of three to four nights each place. Also, my rule of thumb is that you lose a day each time you change locations. (While there are some changes of location that are pretty quick and easy, say, Bangkok to Phuket, I consider anything I actually get to do on a change of locations day to be a bonus.)

If you actually have 20 nights on the ground in Asia, I'd chose not more than 4 or 5 places, Some places (such as Lhasa) take much longer to get to than others.

Frankly, it would make the most sense to choose either China or Thailand. You'll cut down on travel time and you'll get to focus on one culture.

Khasa was beautiful, though the temples started getting a little boring after awhile.

We disliked our guide, so we were a little mean to her in the following way...

The guide was a Chinese government guide and had suggested we not buy anything in the market as it's all fake and shady things. She suggested we go to a shop she can attest to the quality and fair pricing.

Well we do as she suggests and lo and behold...exactly the same products at nearly double the price.

The ONLY redeeming thing about the guide is the terrific haircut I got at a salon she recommended.

The hotel was not the hotel we were ed to believe we'd get, etc..

Anyways...

on day 3 we went on a hillside temple tour (the guide tried to dissuade us from going as it was on a hill and we'd get much too tired walking up the hillside, but we wanted to go anyways.)

When we got there, we walked quickly up the hillside, getting quite aways ahead of her. We were at the lower temple almost 15 minutes before the guide caught up with us, breathing heavily. We then said that we were ready to continue and off we went, with the young Chinese guide huffing along and us breathing normally.

I know..it was mean, but she deserved it on soo many levels!

Anywho...try to get confirmation of hotels in Lhasa AND get a Tibetan guide if at all possible!

Mark-

PS sorry for the long post tat probably is of no interest to anyone! :)

As far as some of the other areas...
My favorite city in China was Xian. The Old City is beautiful...the huge, imposing walls...and the Moslem Quarter had some of the best shopping of our entire trip (China, Tibet and Mongolia) back in 1999. It may have changed over the years, but it was wonderful then, even with the air pollution.

While I enjoyed the Terracotta Warriors, I really enjoyed Xian itself as much or more.

If I get a chance to visit Xian again, I plan to stay at least 4 days as there are some beautiful temples in the mountains, but they are nearly 1/2 day drive away.

Mark-

if it were me, i would do shanghai, beijing and xian...maybe squeeze in Hk, but that would be pushing it, imo...each of those destination could consume your entire time quite honestly except xian...you might consider droping xian and having more time in HK which is a fabulous place...

Thanks for the advice, we've decided to cut the itinerary to shanghai, xian, lhasa, HK. Does anyone know the easiest way to fly between Lhasa and Hong Kong? Should I book this leg ahead of time?

It's too bad you won't see BJ, I'd agree with the above and give Xi'an a miss. But if you're dying to see the TC warriors, so be it. I think you have to fly to Lhasa via Chengdu and you'll need to organize permits for Tibet -- you can't just go on your own. The Chinese govt makes you go on a "group tour" (which can be just you) with a guide. Also, you may want to start in HK and then move on to mainland China because of visas -- i'm not sure if you can leave mainland to HK and then come back w/o a dual-entry visa and that could get costly. If you're doing a Thai beach, I'd rec doing all your China travels first and then relaxing at the end at a beach.

I should add that the first week of May is a holiday week in China (around May 1st -- labor day). This can make bookings and domestic China travel expensive. If you're goint to be here that week, make sure you have all your flights+hotels pre-booked. Best, Sara