NeoPatrick

Just beginning my planning, but I'm going to need to book FF air soon. I'm looking at going in August/September.
Let's assume I'm doing three to four weeks in China -- my first trip there and I'm doing it on my own. I know I want to fly to Shanghai and start there. Then to Beijing, and then to Xian. But what else?

I could spend months planning, but I think I want to come up with two or three more cites to add to the routing and get it set and then do specific planning from there. I may have enough problems as it is if I wait any longer. From China I will go to Bangkok and to Vietnam (into October). I may end up needing to end the China portion in Hong Kong for a flight to Bangkok -- but I have been to Hong Kong before. Not looking at spending a lot of time there.

Should I include after Xian, Chongquig, Yangshuo, Chengdu? Other suggestions. In other words if it were your first trip to China (and possibly your only one) and you had a month total, how would you break up the "bases" for the trip?

thursdaysd

I'd vote for Xi'an and Chengdu (see my TRs at wilhelmswords.com Asia2001 and RTW2004 for why). BUT if you check past threads here you'll see that you don't need to arrange transport and hotels ahead of time for China. In fact, you'll get much better prices if you don't. Also, consider the train - soft sleeper on Chinese trains is really quite luxurious these days, and there's a good chance you'll get to meet friendly locals. (See http://seat61.com/China.htm for lots of info on Chinese trains.)

DonTopaz

I'll toss in a suggestion for Lijiang. It's in a gorgeous setting in the foothills of some serious mountains, and it is a much more relaxed and relaxing environment than most other cities I've been to in China. If your FF miles are with Star Alliance, Thai has non-stop service from Kunming (gateway to Lijiang) to BKK.

NeoPatrick

The reason I'm asking is that I can do flights within China free as part of my One World Pass (hopefully). But I have to book the full itinerary of cities and then can change the dates or times only if necessary, but not the routing. And one thing I despise -- for some reason -- is overnight trains. I wouldn't mind some daytime trips by train -- but then I have to return to the previous city for my One World Pass as I can't do open jaws within the itinerary. (Well, I can do just one of those, but may need it elsewhere).

thursdaysd

Love the One World awards, but have you looked at the route maps for the member airlines? I don't think it's going to do you much good in China.

DonTopaz

OP needs to supply more info, methinks. To best of my knowledge, there are exactly zero intra-China flights on OneWorld airlines (except for flights to/from HKG).

Shanghainese

Greetings, Patrick, we met before, I'm not going to China till Oct so can't GTG there.

I think you need to look at where to exit China for BKK, doesn't have to be HK, then we can help with the routing.

Do you have to start from Shanghai?

NeoPatrick

Perhaps you are right. I was told that DragonAir is included and has "most locations within China", but what I didn't realize is that nearly every one (or maybe all of them) have to connect through Hong Kong.

Otherwise I can certainly fly into Shanghai, and use one Hong Kong connection within China, plus one more to connect to Bangkok from China. But I guess the question still remains, what four or five cities total would you include as "bases" for a month long trip within China?

Marija

Beijing is a given, you have to go there. The terracotta warriors, in my book, are a must see, so add Xian. There's more there than just the Army so give it several days. After that it's a matter of taste. We enjoyed Shanghai, though many people here don't. We spent a couple of nights in Hangzhou, the honeymoon center of China. West Lake is scenic but it wasn't as wonderful as our friend from Hangzhou made it out to be. The area around Guilin/Yangshuo is beautiful, with the classic karst formations. Despite admonitions not to, we took a Yangtze cruise, and I hate to admit the admonitions were correct.
A good starting point is to look at the itineraries for some of the high end group tavel. They usually hit the top spots. You can then add or subtract based on your personal preferences.

Shanghainese

Start with Marija's route sans the cruise, you can add Suzhou and/or a watertown to Shanghai. Drop Chongqing for Chendu, and since you have a month, check out Lijiang, then you can leave from Kunming to BKK.

NeoPatrick

So let me ask -- if my one world isn't going to work at all within China, roughly how much am I to allow for travel between these various cities. I started this plan thinking my airfares would be "free". Several people have said you can buy your air while there, but how much will that amount to -- say for about 5 of these flights within China? And how much will it cost me to fly from Kunming to BKK for example.
When I look these fares up they are several hundred dollars each.

PeterN_H

> When I look these fares up they are several hundred dollars each.

Then setting aside that the rates for fares in August cannot now be determined, you are looking in the wrong place. If it's Expedia or similar you will only find a tiny proportion of the flights actually available in China, and you may find prices four to five times higher than you actually have to pay.

You buy your flights when you are in China a few days before each one, from agents at its point of origin. Nearer the time of flying (much nearer--real prices are not available more than about three weeks in advance) you may get an idea of what's likely to be the rate by looking at Ctrip or eLong, two China-based booking engines with English-language pages. You're best not to book with them (for reasons set out in many other posts), but book locally as you go. However, if you actually cannot conceive of travelling within the Chinese system, where even international tickets are often not booked until a day or two before flying, then these agencies would be the ones to use, about two weeks in advance (but expect some hiccups).

Micro-planning China travel usually doesn't work very well, and showing up and making it up as you go along works best. August is low season, there's little sign of any increase in travel volumes this year, and plenty of capacity.

As for the domestic itinerary, surely there's not much to be said without knowing your tastes and interests, and you need to sit down with a good guide book and read it through. Since you're flying into Shanghai there's no avoiding that, and the arguments for Beijing and Xi'an are strong. But Lijiang is a tourism maelstrom and the world HQ of cultural destruction and misrepresentation, so I'd certainly give that a miss in favour of some genuine rural experiences. If you're genuinely interested in getting some idea of China, hopping from big city to big city won't do it. 70% of the population is still down on the farm. Travelling through Shanxi and Shaanxi to Xi'an would be on idea, or travelling on south to rural Sichuan, Yunnan, Guangxi (NOT Yangshuo or Guilin), or Guizhou from Xi'an makes sense, and hopping from any of those to Hong Kong is not difficult.

Peter N-H

NeoPatrick

Well, I've been working all day on OneWorld and I think it is going to work to a certain degree, and Peter I take what you say with a lot of respect. I do want to do some rural and small town travel, and hopefully I can do most of that by train? Perhaps working my way south from Beijing and Xian? At this point, I'm only talking about which cities to use as major bases. And it seems now I can do the following on my pass (all business class)

Ft.Myers-Chicago-Shanghai-Osaka-Beijing-(open jaw to Xian and maybe somewhere else on my own working south) then some other town in China to Hong Kong, Hong Kong back to another city in China where I can do some travel from and return to then fly to Hong Kong again -- then Bangkok, Tokyo, Los Angeles, Ft. Myers. All that I can do on one ticket for free, business class. I wanted to go to Kyoto if possible, so putting Osaka in between Shanghai and Beijing seems OK to me. Just a couple of hours each way and I could spend that time in Osaka/Kyoto then, instead of after the rest of the trip. I would probably only stop in Tokyo for a couple of nights to break up the trip home.

I'm only allowed one "open jaw" segment, so it seems logical I should travel on my own from Beijing to Xian and maybe elsewhere, then fly to Hong Kong and back to another area before going on to Thailand.

I don't want to micromanage, but I'm not the type to totally improvise either. By the time I get to China, I have a feeling I'm going to know the bulk of what I want to see and will semi stick to it -- although I'm very open to rambling somewhat within a specific time period.

So now to be more specific, if this all makes sense -- what city should I travel to from Beijing on my own that would allow me to fly to Hong Kong, and then what city should I fly back to from Hong Kong to do another area before moving on to Thailand? Or I could simply ramble on my own with China after flying from somewhere to Hong Kong and back to another area -- then fly to Phonm Penh and do Angkor Wat, before flying to Thailand via Hong Kong. In other words -- pick one city in China well south of Beijing that I could fly to Hong Kong from, allowing for travel on my own, making some sort of loop to get back to that city that I'd fly into. My restriction is that I can only connect twice through any city (so I can only pass through HongKong twice).
Sure I can buy other inter China flights on my own, but I still want to get the most "bank for my buck" from the One World Pass too.

Oh and please don't suggest "see places you want to get back to" or "save that for next time". I really do believe at my age, this will probably be my last trip to Asia. I have too many other places and not enough time to see. So I'm trying to cover a lot of territory on this trip.

I should also ask, is there any Visa problem with spending a week in Shanghai then flying to Japan for a week, then back to Beijing?

rhkkmk

seems to me you better make sure that you can get trans pacific flights first--- and that's not a given these days given that you are now only 180-210 days out...

PeterN_H

Your plan appears to require three entry visas to China (if you think Hong Kong is in a visa sense part of China you really do need to do the basic reading about China travel): one for initial entry, one to re-enter from Japan, and another to re-enter from Hong Kong.

You can begin by buying a double-entry visa, and then pick up another single-entry visa when in Hong Kong (can be obtained same day, with next working day delivery for an early morning application fairly standard). But your life would be made easier by leaving Hong Kong until last.

But if you want to stick to your plan you could consider making your way overland from Beijing to Xi'an (note spelling) via Datong, Wutai Shan, and Pingyao, or a subset of those, and flying to HK from there. Then fly to Kunming in China's southwest and explore some of sub-tropical China there (although a bit steamy at that time of year).

Peter N-H

NeoPatrick

I checked today on the Chicago to Shanghai flight. A business class seat is available for One World every day but one in a two week period I checked. Same with return from Tokyo, but since then I've realized it is shorter to return from Bangkok to Miami via London.

The entry into and from Hong Kong is only a method of getting from one city in China to another on an award ticket -- so there's no reason or way to "leave it till last" -- other than as a connection to Bangkok which I probably will do. Perhaps all my travel within China will be on my own, other than that Osaka flight between Shanghai and Beijing.

I do know people can be very picky about some things, but I'm a little confused about the comment of "note spelling" of Xi'an or Xian. Since it's listed as Xian on the national train schedules I'm looking at, on airline schedules, on maps, and on many tour itineraries, I guess I had no reason to worry about that '.

PeterN_H

On true national train and airline schedules the spelling would of course be 西安. And that's the point: two characters with two distinctly pronounced sounds, 'xi', and 'an', unlike 'xian' which produces only a single, completely different syllable, and a choice of single, completely different characters. If you think it's alright to write and pronounce 'thorough' as 'through', then of course you have no reason to worry, and in general with this approach should get around China just fine.

If you only plan to spend a short time in Hong Kong, and plan to get your second (or third) Chinese visa there, try to avoid weekends as many of the agencies are no longer open at weekends, or only Sat morning and you need to wait to Monday afternoon to get your visa.

NeoPatrick

I know of few major China travel websites or guidebooks where they would spell thorough as through. But I have seen dozens that spell Xi'an as Xian. I fail to get the connection. Interestingly enough Fodors -- I think you've heard of them -- uses Xian and not Xi'an in their guides. Do a search in their destinations section of this website for example and you won't even find Xi'an, but you will find the listings for Xian. So if it's good enough for Fodors (and most other guidebooks and China travel brochures) then it's good enough for me. What writing and pronouncing thorough as through has to do with it is totally beyond me.

thursdaysd

My Fodor's "See It China" spells it Xi'an. Lonely Planet spells it Xi'an. Rough Guide spells it Xi'an. Insight Guides spells it Xi'an. I could go on, but every book I've read on China spells it Xi'an.

That's because Xi'an is the correct spelling. In Chinese, as Peter explained, it is two syllables, written with two characters. If it were Xian it would be written with one character for one syllable. Hence the example of "thorough", two syllables, versus "through", one syllable.

Not sure why Fodor's web site has it wrong....

NeoPatrick

http://www.travel-to-china-tours.com/

http://www.travelchinaguide.com/cityguides/xian.htm

http://www.warriortours.com/

http://www.beijingservice.com/xiantour.htm

http://www.chinatouronline.com/china-tours/xian.html