Hi, maytraveller. Back in April I posted about Chen Lu. You replied that you were going there when you were in Xian. I was wondering if you went?

Les

Hi iamles:

We ended up adding a day in Chengdu and subtracting a day in Xi'an on our itinerary, whiched caused us to forego Chen Lu to spend a day around the city. Sorry I can't help in your planning, we had a quote from our guide to carry us out to Chen Lu, but if we had gone I would have used public transportation.

Hope you have a great trip.

maytraveller

Thanks, maytraveller, for replying. Actually, I've cut our time in Xian down to 1 day.

How was your trip? I leave for China October 9th. I still haven't decided on the hotel. We'll spend the morning at The Warriors,and then hit the highlights in the afternoon. Any tips on Xian? Restaurants, what you enjoyed the most in town, etc?

Thanks again.
Les

iamles: A question for you -- how long are you going? What is your itinerary? Just curious.

Hi Les:

Our trip was great. I'm glad we chose to do our trip independently.

We enjoyed Xi'an, although it was the most polluted of the cities we visited. We arrived on a Monday morning via the Beijing sleeper train, and left on Wednesday morning on a flight to Chengdu.

We spent Monday with a guide, visiting the Terracotta warriors in the morning, having a late lunch, then a Daoist temple just outside the city walls to the East. Also after lunch we stopped at an inhabited cave with our guide and spent some time visiting with the owner and seeing his dwelling. This was interesting because we had seen dozens of inhabited caves in the countryside from the train early Monday morning before pulling onto Xi'an.

On Monday evening we went to the Tang Dynasty show and had dinner at the theatre. The show was very well done, I thought the dinner was adequate though not memorable. If I went again, I would see the show only.

Tuesday we spent in Xi'an on our own. We got around by taxi (cheap) and city buses (dirt cheap) just fine. We spent the AM around the Drum tower and the Bell tower in the city center, the markets around the Bell tower and Mosque area are interesting and worthwhile.

For lunch on Tuesday we split a plate of dumplings from DeFaChang and a yangrou paomo from the next door restaurant whose name I have forgotten.

After lunch we went to a shopping street just inside the walls at the south gate, then we hiked up onto the walls and rented a tandem bike for about an hour. Find time in your itinerary to do this if you can.

We then took a taxi to the Shanxi museum, we spent a little over an hour there, about 1/2 was closed for renovations, but still many interesting historical and artistic artifacts.

We returned to our hotel and after resting we taxied back to DeFaChang restaurant to try one of their dumpling banquets, I think we had the one for 100 yuan/pp which gave us our fill of dumplings for about 3 days.

After dinner, we took a taxi down to the Great Wild Goose pagoda to see the water fountain show, it started at 9PM and was great fun, many many local families out enjoying the water show, the music and the pleasant evening.

I forgot to say that our hotel was the Sofitel on Renmin square, it worked out fine with us, although I have seen some negative reviews here recently. This hotel occupies two separated wings about 100 yards from each other in the square. We were in the west wing, the east would have been better as it had most of the common facilities like a swimming pool and it appeared to have the most experienced and helpful staff. This hotel is inside the city walls(strongly recommend that you choose one inside the walls) and was about a 5 min taxi or bus ride or 20 min walk from the Bell tower.

maytraveller, was the inhabited cave in Xian dug into the rock or yellow earth?

Hi Shanghainese:

I'm not a geologist but I guess the cave we visited, as well as the ones we saw from the train, were dug into yellowish limestone outcroppings.

Happy travels!

maytraveller

Thanks, that's caves dug into layers upon layers of compact yellow earth to be used as dwellings. I heard the next step is to house tourists in them.

Hi Shanghainese and Maytraveller,

I've been off for a few days, which is why I haven't responded.

Thanks for your rundown on Xian, Maytraveller.

Shanghainese, I think that I've got my itinerary worked out. I leave Oct 9th for 21 days, starting in Beijing. Oct 13th we'll take the sleeper train to Xian for 1 night. Then we fly to Hangzhou for 2 nights. We'll take the train to Shanghai for 5 nights, which I know sounds like a lot, but I want to take a day trip or 2 from there. After Shanghai we'll go to Yangshuo for 3 nights followed by a day trip to Longshen and the rice terraces and a night in Guilin before going to Hong Kong. What are your plans?

Les

Les - I'm spending at least 10 days in Shanghai around late Oct early Nov with a few day and/or overnight trips scattered inbetween. Aside from visiting family/relatives, I'll be attending a re-union of which the highlight is a banquet on Nov 3 with other activities (a music recital, watertown trip, etc.) before or after.

When are you arriving in Shanghai?

Hi Shanghainese,

I'll be arriving in Shanghai on October 17th, departing on October 22nd.

I want to go to a watertown for a day trip. I think that Xitang looks good. Have you ever been there?

By the way, this is my first trip to China.

Les

Les -- Sorry I'll miss you in Shanghai, won't be arriving before 10/22. I haven't been to Xitang, DD went there with her cousin, did 3 watertowns in 1.5 days and claims they all looked alike to her. I believe someone went there recently (ekscrunchy?) and posted it in her very long TR. DH and I like Tongli, which is between Shanghai and Suzhou, and we toured the town in a 2-person gondola/water taxi. Lunch was great and I picked out fresh water pearls and had them made into earrings and a necklace while I waited drinking free tea.

Shanghainese,

Too bad that we can't meet.

I originally thought of going to Tongli. Recently, I read on another forum that it was getting very commercial Sometimes, though, that really doesn't matter if a place is charming. So, how do I choose?

Les

1. Post the ?? here.

2. When you get to Shanghai, ask the front desk person at your hotel.

3. Flip a chinese coin!

Are you in the U.S.? What state? The SF area Fodorites have GTGs several times a year, especially when out-of-town Fodorites visit.

Thanks for the suggestions, "S". It just may come to that coin flip! I'll start with a post, though/

I live in south FLorida (east coast. Unfortunately, I have no plans to be in SF, a city that I'm most fond of.

Les

Well, les, I have relatives in the FL area, maybe we'll GTG when I get there next. Not this year tho, back from China in Nov, year-end holidays will be on the U.S. east coast.

As they say, "come on down"!