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Holiday in China - Any Hints (LURK MODE OFF)
Afternoon All. I'm off with the other half to China in September for 2 weeks (we are flying into Beijing and then back home from Hong Kong). We have looked through the various books and guides and got some obvious places to go, but does anyone have some advice? places not to be missed etc. We plan to stay in mid range type of hotels happy to travel with or without guide - any suggestions? Our previous travel experience includes India (which I loved) and Peru (which was nice but not great) Thanks for your help (LURK MODE ON)  | |
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Unless you have a very tight budget you don't have to shoot for the mid range hotels. China is dirt cheap, and a friend of mine who recently travelled by train and boat from Hong Kong to Beijing said that she didn't even spend a third of the money she thought she'd spend. She preferred having a guide the whole way, especially since most Chinese don't speak a word of English, but personally I would find having the guide around a bit annoying after a while. Unfortunately I can't remember the names of the locations she mentioned, but she did go and see the rare red pandas, a "temple of ghosts" and stayed a couple of nights at a buddhist temple up in the mountains. | |
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Go to the Gobi Desert, and then contrast that by going to Hong Kong. Beijing is overrated. visit the Great Wall! Carpenters bend wood, fletchers bend arrows, wise men fashion themselves.
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karmatornado said: visit the Great Wall!
My friend told me that it was totally falling apart and that she was stalked by wanna-be "guides" the whole way. There were also vendors in every tower selling tacky knick-knacks. She was more happy to have been there than to be there, which is what I call an "Eiffel Tower Experience".  | |
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retina said: karmatornado said: visit the Great Wall!
My friend told me that it was totally falling apart and that she was stalked by wanna-be "guides" the whole way. There were also vendors in every tower selling tacky knick-knacks. She was more happy to have been there than to be there, which is what I call an "Eiffel Tower Experience". Thanks for your suggestions. A lot of tourist sites now are a bit too commercial - I found most of Peru pretty established in terms of extracting money out of the older tourist (being under 30 we were in the minority, seems to be popular with the "re-entry" market"). Although in India there is a lot of begging / hassles I found the Taj soooo calm and relaxing could've stayed there for ages..... | |
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