Fodor's Travel Talk Forums - Trip Report Splendid sightseeing, surprises and sickness...our trip to China

Admittedly, I am not much of a storyteller, but I worked for about a year researching our trip to China and I always find it immensely helpful to hear from others who have gone before me, so I'd like to reciprocate in any way I can by sharing some things we learned from our amazing and surprising trip to China.
Hopefully some of this info will help others.

I have posted my photos on my website:
www.luv2globetrot.com

First, our itinerary…or, I should say, our PLANNED itinerary (things didn't quite go as planned due to a food borne illness).

We have family that are expats living in Suzhou that we visited for a few days, and we were flying in and out of Shanghai, so:

Day 1 - Arrive Shanghai, drive to Suzhou
Days 2 - 4 - Suzhou, Tongli
Day 5 - Fly Shanghai to Beijing
Days 6 - 9 - Beijing
Day 10 - Fly Beijing to Chengdu
Day 11 - Pandas in Chengdu, Luodai Ancient Town, Fly Chengdu to Guilin, drive to Yangshuo
Days 12 - 13 - was supposed to be Yangshuo
Day 14 - supposed to fly from Guilin back to Shanghai
Day 15 - supposed to be Shanghai
Day 16 - supposed to fly home to US

So, days 1-10 were simply amazing and we loved our time in Suzhou and especially Beijing! Seeing the pandas was an unforgettable, unique experience! More on that later…

We arrived in Yangshuo on day 11 of our trip at 11:30 at night and everything seemed fine. But I woke up at 3:45am and became pretty violently ill. I have a newly diagnosed medical condition that made this very scary. I had to have an emergency shot of medication that we had brought along with us just in case this happened (but it was NOT supposed to).
Long story short, we knew that China was not the place we wanted to be if things got really bad and I ended up needing to be in the hospital.
We knew we had to get to Shanghai, so at 7am we were in a taxi back to the Guilin airport on our way to Shanghai.
Once I was stable, we decided that it would be best to just cut the trip short by 4 days and get home ASAP. Delta airlines was wonderfully accommodating in this matter and we were on a flight home the next morning.
My husband, poor thing, got the same thing I had on the plane! Needless to say, this was the flight from hell for him. It took us both about 4 days to feel back to normal. Turns out it was a food borne illness, but from exactly what, we’ll never know.
Here’s a tip: Get a prescription from your doctor before you go for antibiotics in case of a food borne illness. My husband and I both had them on hand and started taking them as soon as we could keep them down. We feel sure this made a huge difference and it would’ve been way worse without them.
So, even though it was a tough decision to make at the time to cut the trip short, we knew once we were both too sick to do anything that it was the right decision. Had we stayed in China we would've been confined to a hotel room anyway.

So, we completely missed out on Yangshuo. We had arrived in the dark, and the next morning as we were leaving, I was too sick to even enjoy the scenery. But I did see enough to know it would've been a wonderful place to explore.
Also, we never even got to see downtown Shanghai. When we flew into Shanghai, it was night and we got picked up at the airport and were driven straight to Suzhou.
Then, when we went back and I was sick, we went straight to a hotel near the Pudong airport and left the following morning. We never even got to see the skyline.
So, we definitely missed out on some stuff.
However, what we did see, we enjoyed so much and came away thankful that we got to experience the lovely towns of Suzhou and Tongli, the incredibly interesting, exciting city of Beijing, hiking the Great Wall of China!! And cuddling a panda cub!! Not bad for 10 days in China!
And we're also thankful that we came away healthy and everything turned out OK…we have some amazing memories and photos!

I planned this trip for about a year, and in that time, worried about a lot of things. I'd like to share some of what I learned so others don't have to fret about stuff like I did.

First, booking flights within China:
We had 4 flights within to China.
I scoured the websites Ctrip and Travelzen for months before, waiting to find a good deal and watching for the airfare to drop.
I have read many times here and on TA that you should wait until a couple of weeks to a few days before the flight to purchase. I found that the airfare never changed more than 10-15% from 2-3 months out until 1 week before.
Some fares did sell out 1-2 days before, so walking up and trying to purchase at the airport might not work out. The only fares I saw drop substantially were ones that departed very early in the a.m. (before 7am) or arrived around midnight.
Every flight we were on was full.
The moral here is, if you find a flight that works for you and you think it's a fair price, book it instead of fretting about it and waiting for the fare to drop, because it probably won't go down much more than 10-15% anyway. And it will probably sell out if you wait too long.
Also, I highly recommend Travelzen.com. They issue e-tickets so there is no need to pick up (or have delivered) a paper copy. Everything is done by computer. We only needed to show our passports at the ticket counter each time.
They also take foreign credit cards and do not charge any extra fee or ask for any copies of the card (which they do on Ctrip and Ctrip charges 3% extra for foreign cards).
They have a very generous change/cancellation policy. We changed some flights a few days before with no problems. The fee for changing depends on the fare class you bought but generally it was 5-10% of the ticket price.
They also answered every email within hours and were always helpful and accommodating.

Next, taxis:
Again I had heard troublesome stories here that you may have to haggle over the price for your taxi fare.
The taxis have meters in Suzhou, Beijing, Chengdu and Shanghai. We never had to bargain for taxi fare anywhere. It was always cheap and fair. Don't forget, you do not need to tip, but you do pay for tolls.
The taxis almost always did not have usable seat belts. If they were seat belts, they were buried underneath a seat cover or stuck under the seat. That was a negative for us as the driving in China is crazy and very dangerous.
When we could we hired private drivers for our long trips as they use nicer cars that do have usable seat belts. (More on private drivers later.)
Also, what you read about the taxi drivers NOT speaking English is correct. Most do not even understand proper names like Ramada or even the word airport.

You must have your destination written in Chinese characters.
My tip for that is to use dictionary.com. They have a translator link and you can type in any phrase and get the traditional and simplified Chinese translation. Google translator is another good one.
Email your hotel and ask them for the hotel name and address in Chinese characters to be sure it's correct.
I typed up every hotel and attraction and had the pages laminated.
We simply pointed to the phrase and said "Nee jee dow ma?" (Do you know?)
On that note…of course you should learn how to say hello, good-bye, and thank you (and do you know, etc). But beyond that, don't waste your time trying to learn Mandarin. It's all about tones and one word can be said in 4 different tones and mean 4 different things.

Our favorite tip of the the trip is an app for iphone that was awesome! It's called "Jibbigo" and you type anything into your phone and it translates it into Chinese. It types it out in Chinese characters, also shows you the pinyin and pronunciation with tone and also says it out loud.
It helped us tremendously on a number of occasions when we needed something besides what we had printed out. We would just show it to the person and they immediately understood and were able to help or get us what we needed or point us in a direction. It was really great in restaurants too!!
It costs $25 but to us it was totally worth it.

Private Drivers:
We used a private driver to the Great Wall at Mutianyu and can highly recommend him. His cost was 580RMB including gas, parking and toll fees. He picked us up at 7:30 and we returned to the hotel at 2:00. The car is a brand new Hyundai Elantra with a/c and seat belts.
He English was excellent and he was very pleasant, reliable and friendly. We enjoyed talking to him about life in China and we learned much from him.
If interested in his name and email, let me know and I can send you his info.

We also used a private driver in Chengdu to pick us up from the hotel, take us to the Panda Base. He waited there for us for a few hours, then drove us to Luodai Ancient Town, waited there for us for a few hours, then drove us to the airport. The driver did not speak English, but this was all arranged via email with a man who I assume runs an operation of a few cars.
I was a bit nervous about this, but it all worked out well. The owner made sure that the driver was aware of our entire plan. He kept our luggage safe in the car and was always there waiting for us as we were done with each sight.
The driver was safe, pleasant and reliable.
The only thing was he did seem to get lost from Luodai to the airport but he did eventually find his way, but it took about 30 minutes longer. But we arrived in plenty of time for our flight.
Again, if interested in his name and email, let me know and I can send you his info.
The price for our driver in Chengdu was 450RMB including gas, parking and toll fees.

Next up..sights!

Now onto the places we visited:

First up Suzhou.
We were visiting family here so we didn’t have the typical tourist experience...we stayed at my family’s house and were driven around by their driver so I can’t comment on hotels or modes of transportation. Everything was pretty much taken care of for us.
The weather in the first week of September was almost unbearably hot and steamy.
Suzhou is a clean city and the air quality was the best we saw while in China.
On the day we visited Old Suzhou it rained so we didn’t get to explore as much as we would’ve liked.
We also visited:
-Panmen Park and Pagoda with lovely grounds and you can climb to the top of the pagoda for great views! (didn’t get the cost, sorry) Spent about one hour
-Humble Administrator’s Garden which was lovely (cost 70RMB) Spent about one hour
-Tiger Hill (cost 60RMB), beautiful leaning 1000 year old pagoda and lovely grounds to stroll through. Spent a little over one hour
-Tongli (cost 80RMB) This is a lovely old water town that is very unique and scenic. There are many streets and alleyways to wander through. We spent about 2 hours but could’ve spent much more, but the folks we were with were getting tired.
We got a taste of local living here too with visits to grocery stores, DVD shops, massage places, tailor shops, etc. That was actually quite fun and interesting! Not to mention that I got a custom made cashmere coat for $69 US!!! Got fitted for it one morning and picked it up the next afternoon! Amazing and I have to thank my cousin the “local” for that!!

We took the fast train from Suzhou Industrial Park Railway Station to Shanghai Hongqaio airport for our flight to Beijing.
This train was amazing! Fast, clean, on time and cheap! The ticket costs $5 US and the journey took about 20-25 minutes.

Next up: Beijing!

Beijing!!! We loved, loved, loved this city!!
It is incredibly large! We spent 5 nights (4 days) and felt like we barely scratched the surface!
Of course, we did hit the highlights, but we enjoy doing a lot of sightseeing on foot and we just had so much fun walking through the neighborhoods and hutongs. We could’ve spent another day or two at least to try to fit everything in.
The weather in the 2nd week of September was much cooler than Suzhou and mostly very nice, sometimes cloudy and overcast, but mostly pleasant.
The air quality is poor and smoggy but it is mostly noticeable when looking at things in the distance. When you are walking around the city you don’t notice it so much. And it wasn’t hard to breath or anything like that. They actually have electric buses which we found pleasantly surprising. And we saw many houses and businesses with solar panels so at least they are attempting to make a difference.

We stayed at the Park Plaza Wangfujing and were very pleased with our choice!
This is my review and you can see photos along with it:
The location is excellent and there is a subway station literally connected to the back side of the hotel (you use the back entrance) with easy connections to all the major attractions.
The subway stop is Dengshikou on Line 5 and it is so easy an cheap to use the subway. Everything is written and announced in English. Cost 2RMB (about $.030 per ride!) Great deal, can't beat it!! When you come out of the subway station, there are different exits you can take. Look at the map for the exit that will be attached to the hotel (sorry, can't remember which one, but it's easy to figure out). The other one is across the street and down about a half a block.
There is free wifi in the lobby, and free internet in the rooms but it is wired, so wireless devices like iphones and ipads don't work. You need something you can plug in a network cable to (like a laptop).
The hotel is modern and beautifully decorated. The lobby is inviting and comfortable. We did not eat at any hotel restaurants so cannot comment on that.
The room was really nice, modern, spacious, with a great, large bathroom, and a great shower with plenty of hot water and good water pressure. Lots of counter space, hairdryer, iron, ironing board, robes, slippers.
They provide 2 bottles of free water daily.
There is a fridge/minibar, hotpot for boiling water and a couple of packets of freeze dried coffee are provided. We bought a jar of instant coffee from the "Quik" convenience store across the street. It was nice for stocking up on snacks and drinks.
There is a Starbucks right downstairs in the courtyard of the hotel.

The bed wasn't as soft as I would have liked but it was certainly comfortable enough (not super hard which is common in China). Lots of pillows and a nice comforter.
The staff was friendly, helpful and spoke English.
They were always there to hail a taxi for you and the concierge could help with recommendations and writing things down for you in Chinese to give to the taxi drivers (as they do not speak English and need to see it written in Chinese characters).

When you arrive at the airport, there is a taxi queue outside the terminal. Wait in line and get any taxi. The price should be around 100RMB to city center. Most taxis do not have usable seatbelts.
Drive took about 45 minutes to hotel from airport.

Here is the hotel name and address in Chinese:
Park Plaza Wangfujing 北京王府井丽亭酒店
(东单金宝街金宝大厦北侧)
97 JINBAO ST, DONGCHENG DISTRT
97金宝ST段，东城区

I highly recommend it.

On our first full day in Beijing, we went to the Great Wall at Mutianyu!!
I took advice I had read here and we took the cable car to Tower 14 and then we walked/climbed to Tower 20 and then back past Tower 14 to Tower 6 for the toboggan ride down.
This was a most amazing and wonderful experience!!!
Admittedly, I do stop a lot to take plenty of photos (probably took at least 150 on the wall), but it took us 3 hours and 15 minutes to do this and I didn't think it was long enough.
Everybody's different, of course, and some people only spend an hour or so on the Wall, but I certainly wish we would’ve planned for at least 4 hours.
We had told our driver that we'd meet him at a certain time, so we were tied down to that schedule.
I would have gone slower, spent at least 20 minutes at the very top, just sitting and enjoying the view and relishing in where we actually were!!! I mean, we were on the Great Wall of China!!! I wanted to take that in for a while! :)
Instead, we had to start right back down if we were going to make it all the way back at the prescribed meeting time.
If you plan to do the route like we did from the cable car to Tower 20, then to Tower 6 then I would recommend at least 3-1/2 to 4 hours, especially if you like to take tons of photos, relish the scenery, stop to catch your breath, maybe even have a sandwich, and just take it all in.
Don't forget, you've made a lot of effort to get here...there's no need to rush when you are experiencing one of the great wonders of the world!
Our best tip here is that we brought very lightweight hiking poles (one per person) and we found them immensely helpful...we even got comments from others who saw us and said they wish they'd have thought of it!
We're in our 40s and fit, but the incline can be steep especially as you get to tower 20....and there ARE lots of steps! We were so glad we had them!

And sunscreen is a good idea!! Maybe even a hat...there is no shade except in the towers.
There are a few vendors along the wall that sell drinks and snacks...even beer!

We got there at 9am and there weren’t very many people, but it definitely got more crowded by 11am. Go early.

We went back to our hotel to freshen up and then went to Lama Temple that afternoon.
This was a good first temple for us to see, but if you see some of the other ones first, like, say at the Forbidden City or Temple of Heaven, then it may not be as impressive, but it was a good introduction to Beijing’s temples for us.
Hit the Donghuamen Snack Night Market, but to look only...we did not partake! But it certainly was interesting!
We finished off the day with a foot massage at a little hole-in-the-wall place across the street from our hotel for $10 US for an hour! This was one of the best ideas we had! Especially having hiked the Great Wall earlier that day!! Definitely treat yourself to this cheap treat!! We did it again 2 days later!

Day 2 was a bit gloomy so we decided to hold off on Tiananmen Sq. and Forbidden City until the next day. So we did the Drum and Bell Towers, BeiHai Park and wandered through many of the hutongs in that area. There are some really neat hutongs at the Yinding Bridge on Qian Hai Lake!
We climbed to the top of both Bell and Drum towers (cost 30RMB for both) and watched a drum playing ceremony in the Drum Tower. You get some really good views from up there!
One of our favorite experiences in China was wandering through the parks and watching the hundreds of Chinese go about their activities in the parks....dancing, exercising, playing games.
There are so many wonderful parks in Beijing and they are great for relaxing and people watching!
In BeiHai park we rented a battery operated boat for one hour (cost 60RMB) and had a lovely ride around the beautiful lake. This was a great break for our weary feet!
We spent hours walking the neighborhoods between Jingshan Park and the second ring road, just wandering and happening upon interesting sights and sounds....our favorite way to sightsee! Good day!

Day 3 was Tiananmen Square, Forbidden City, Jingshan Park, more hutongs, and a foot massage at the end of this long day! I don’t need to go into detail about seeing Tiananmen Sq and FC as there is so much info already here.
But I will say if you want to see Mao’s body at Chairman Mao's Mausoleum, go first thing in the morning. We made the mistake of coming out of the subway at Gate of Heavenly Peace and by the time we saw that and walked over to the Mausoleum the line was huge! We decided to pass on it.
You have to check your backpack to get into the Gate of Heavenly Peace, but once you’re done there you can pick it up and take it with you into the FC.
We spent about 4 hours inside the Forbidden City. It is really huge and there is a lot to explore. You don’t really need a guide. Just read up on it before you go or use a good guide book. There are also signs at each important building in English. You can also get an audio guide.
There are places to eat inside the FC. We had lunch there as we were there until about 1:30.
We went right from the north exit of FC to Jingshan Park. Hike to the pavillion at the top for a fabulous of the entire FC!!
More wonderful people watching in Jingshan Park and more hutongs finished off our day.

Day 4
We were dragging a bit this day and were kind of moving in slow motion. Got a later start today than normal and started out going to Temple of Heaven. This park is very large. It covers more ground than FC but the highlight is the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests. This was one of my favorite temples architecturally. And this park was our favorite for people watching! There is a large exercise area near the east gate and there were hundreds of people exercising, dancing, playing games like the one where they kick around the weighted thing with the feather on it.
We spent a good while wandering (and even partaking in some of the activities) in this park!!
It was wonderful and highly recommended!
Next we did a little shopping at the Hongqiao Market. Little being the operative word...we are not big shoppers so I can’t really advise much in this area. But it was fun to watch my husband try to bargain with the girls for a watch :)
We did a lot of meandering and ended up near the China World Trade center area for lunch.
This was our first foray into the business district and we got to see a different side of Beijing with the modern office buildings.
Next we strolled through the Embassy neighborhoods and ended up in yet another park, Ritan Park. Stopped at a restaurant called Stone Boat for a drink with a fabulous view of a peaceful lake with a beautiful pavillion and weeping willow trees! A little slice of heaven in this bustling city!
We ended up on Wangfujing street and walked the pedestrian shopping street back to our hotel.

So, we didn’t get to see the Summer Palace or the 798 Art Zone which were 2 things on our list.
Which is why we would’ve loved an extra day.
Otherwise we did some incredible things and saw so many magnificent sights!

I’m noticing now how long winded I’ve become ;)
If you’re still with me, I hope you’re finding some of this info useful.

Next up: Chengdu and the pandas!!

We flew from Beijing to Chengdu, with the main intention being seeing the pandas.
We only had a day and a half here so we did not see much of Chengdu.
We arrived Chengdu around 12:30pm and the taxi ride to our hotel took about 25 minutes and cost 50RMB.
We stayed at the Holiday Inn Express Chengdu Gulou.
Here is my TA review:
We found the Holiday Inn to be a super value!
We got a "queen bed standard" non-smoking room at the rate of $65US including tax.

This hotel was much nicer than I expected from a Holiday Inn at this low rate!
The room was very nice, clean with modern decor, a really comfortable (soft) bed and a nice bathroom with wonderful rain showerhead…plenty of hot water and good water pressure.
The room was very quiet.

There is free wifi in the rooms, and a safe, but no iron or ironing board in room. They provided 2 small bottles of water for free.

The staff spoke a little English, but if you have any complicated needs or requests you may have a bit of trouble.

Others here have mentioned the location and the city itself.
We came here mainly to see the pandas (which was amazing and unforgettable!)
What others have said is true…the smog was the worst we saw in China (more than in Beijing and Shanghai) and aside from a few sights, Chengdu is just a big, busy city…the pandas seem to be the big draw here.
The main sights within the city are quite spread apart and therefore it seems that at any hotel you would need a taxi to get to most places. There is no subway yet In Chengdu but they are building one now.

Since all the sites are so spread apart, I feel that the central location of this hotel worked fine.
On our first day in town, we walked to the Wenshu Monastery from the hotel…it took us about 15-20 minutes.
We took a taxi to Tianfu Square (but it is probably a 15-20 minute walk from the hotel), walked from there to People's Park (highly recommend for great people watching!), then a taxi to Jinli Street and taxi back to the hotel.
Taxis are very cheap and are metered, but they drive like crazy, so beware!
Jinli Street was an interesting place to stroll through...lots of shops, food and traditional-style buildings.

There was a free Asian breakfast but we did not see any western choices besides a few cereals and bread.

You will need to give the taxi driver the name of the hotel in Chinese characters as they do not speak any English.
It's:
Holiday Inn Chengdu Gulou 成都鼓楼假日酒店
NO.72 WEST DAQIANG STREET
QINGYANG DISTRICT
西部大强街72号青羊区

Overall, if you are going to Chengdu, this is a nice, stylish hotel with comfortable, quiet rooms, free breakfast and free internet at a great price in the center of the city. I couldn't ask for more!
Highly recommended!

The following morning we had to check out of our hotel and were picked up by our driver at 7:25
for our trip to the Panda Base. The drive took about 25 minutes. Tickets into the Panda Base cost 58RMB each.
We immediately inquired once inside about how to go about holding a panda. We were told to show up at Sunshine Nursery at 9:30. This is the building where you can see the newborn pandas in the incubators! We were lucky enough to see 3 babies, all of different ages, one a little bigger than the next...if only they let you take photos here, but they don’t.
We went straight to this nursery at 8:00 just to check it out so we would know where to go at 9:30. There was no line whatsoever at 8:00 so we got a good long look at the babies in the incubators.
When we came back at 9:30 the line was very long and you could only spend a few seconds looking as you had to keep the line moving...go visit here early!
The Panda Base is very large and spread out. We spent 3-1/2 hours here and could’ve spent much more. There are many different sections to see each with different groups of pandas, including 2 different red panda areas! They were a treat to see also!
We did go to the Sunshine Nursery at 9:30 and got in line to hold panda cub. There were probably a total of 15 people in line with us. The cost is 1000RMB each. They do give you a ticket with the cost written on it and they tore off the stub as you go in. This gave us a better feeling of legitimacy that this is actually an official process and that the money is actually going to the Base for research and conservation.
They took the first ten of us into the area where we’d hold the panda. One person would sit with the panda while the employees would use your camera and take pictures of you.
I would say you had about 60 seconds with the panda on your lap. They gave the panda some honey which was all the panda seemed to care about in the world :) It was an amazing feeling and I am so glad we also took some video! My husband took video of me and vice versa. We are so glad we did this because it goes by so fast and it’s such a great way to relive it.
Overall, I would say, going to Chengdu just to see the pandas does take some effort and is quite an expense when you factor in airfare plus the fee to hold one.
I would only recommend this if you are an avid animal lover and would truly treasure the experience (which we did!)

We left the Panda Base at 11:30 and were driven to Luodai Ancient Town, the largest Hakka community in southwest China. The drive took one hour.
The houses, courtyards and streets in Luodai are all in the ancient style of Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) and there is one main street and some alleyways to explore here.
It was very different than any other town we had been in so far on our trip, so in that sense it was enjoyable. But if you’re pressed for time, I would say you could skip it. But we did enjoy it.
We had pre-arranged with our driver that we’d spend 4 hours here and then he would drive us to the airport for our flight to Guilin that evening.
We felt like 4 hours was too long. We would have rather had the extra time at the Panda base and one less hour at Luodai.
In Luodai, we did not see any other westerners there. But it did seem like there were very many Chinese tourists here, so it is definitely an off-the-beaten (western) tourist path site.

We are now nearing what became the end of our trip....even though we didn’t know it at the time.
We flew from Chengdu to Guilin and were picked up by our hotel’s driver upon arrival at 10:00pm.
The plan was to stay at the Li River Retreat in Yangshuo for 3 nights. The drive from the airport took 1-1/2 hours.
We arrived at the hotel at 11:30pm and I got sick around 4am. We were in a taxi back to the airport by 7:30am.
So, I can’t really comment on Yangshuo at all, except to say that the karst formations I saw out the window of the car that morning were breath-taking...just wish I hadn’t felt too awful to actually enjoy any of it.

Because we were only at the hotel for about 8 hours I did not write a review.
However, I feel that it is at least worth mentioning the experience we had upon arrival.
As we pulled up to the hotel we heard loud, pounding music and wondered what was going on as the hotel is pretty secluded and outside of town.
Upon check in the woman that showed us to our room explained that it was coming from a bar next door and that hopefully it would stop soon.
Long story short, it went on until around 5am. We had to have a fan turned on, wear earplugs and we wore headphones on top of that with white noise playing in order to drown out the sound enough to get any sleep. You could still actually feel the vibrations of it.
We were extremely disappointed in this as we picked this hotel specifically because it was away from the busy, noisy West St.
To her credit, the woman on staff did make some phone calls imploring them to turn off the music, but to no avail.
Also, the staff was extremely helpful when I got sick the next morning. They took care of checking us out of the hotel and got us a taxi very quickly.

Since the staff was helpful and I truly don't know whether the music was a rare occurrence or not, I felt like I shouldn't give them a negative review on TA, but I did at least feel it was worth mentioning in my report. We were in a deluxe riverview room which faced the front of the hotel which is where the music was coming from. The rooms that faced the back (with no view) did seem to be sheltered a bit from the noise.

So, that was basically the end of our trip. We flew to Shanghai, went straight to a hotel near the airport and stayed there until the next morning for our flight back home.

Even though our trip ended abruptly and it kind of put a damper on things, with the passage of a couple of weeks we look back on our trip as one of the most interesting and amazing places we've ever been!
Of course we are sad that we missed out on the beautiful countryside of Yangshuo and the exciting, modern city of Shanghai, but we feel so lucky that we were able to experience so many unique and wonderful aspects of China in 10 amazing days!