China - anyone been and have tips?

[jellybeanteaparty]

Thinking of China in August (Beijing, Xian, Guilin) Using bullet trains x2 and 1 internal flight. Family of 4 with older teens used to travel and a more adventurous itinerary. Love some tips on how long you stayed in places and must do"s etc. Thanks

Also take toilet paper with you when you go out. Most public toilets dont provide it. Some give you an option of squatty or potty (usually at the big tourist attractions) they are often very stinky, just dont breath through your nose, and make sure you pull your trouser legs up before you pull the top down, otherwise your trouser bottoms end up in the ‘liquid’ on the floor. I used to tuck my touser legs into my socks before going in.

Yes - always take toilet paper and hand sanitiser. Sometimes there is loo roll on the wall outside the cubicles, but not inside.
Zombie is correct re disabled loo - although they do tend to be used as the cleaner's cupboard.
Good tip there re tucking trousers in socks! I have been know to completely remove mine and hang them over the door as there was so much liquid on the floor, but that was out in Wild West of China. Have also had a few Al fresco toilet trips in Tibet - home to the worst toilets I have ever seen and I have been living here for 10 years.

Fabulous @zombiehunter
I’ll download it now and see if I need help lol

WHicj one @zombiehunter ?

DUR. Sorry I see the difference now 🙄

My two favourite places in China were the ancient city of Pingyao. It was where the soldiers took all of the gold so is full of banks and training barracks. We got the overnight train from Beijing and spent the whole day there, then the overnight train back (this was 10 years ago though so it's probably changed) Probably a bit much for a family!

My absolute favourite place was Hoihai lake in Beijing, it's beautiful after dark. It's surrounded by restaurants and bars and you can take a boat out on the lake. Every place had a different type of live music and it's just amazing.

I guess we just went to a higher class of establishment! Loos just were not an issue! It would be a shame to put people off having a holiday in China by discussing dreadful toilets which may only be a very temporary inconvenience. We book with high end travel companies so I guess our trips had some problems removed from the itinerary!

Thanks all - Guide books have arrived (Lonely plant and rough guide) Our flights are actually in and out of Xian (would have opted for in to one place and out of another but got a deal where even adding in an extra internal flight was worth it.

Plan today (may well change after your input and reading books)

Xian 2 days (warriors,muslim quarter, cycle walls)
Xian to Beijing on overnight train (Kids very keen to sleep on a train)
Beijing 4-6 days including possible overnight near more remote great wall destination. Like the sound of the lake 88mph
Beijing bullet train to Guilin (Husband and son fancy this experience!)
Guilin /Yangshuo area 4-5 days(river trip ,raft trip, terraces,walks,cycling)
Guilin late flight to Xian , Xian full last day (pagoda or trip to mountains)

We have in 17 nights in China so have some time to play with or add in more like Chengdu. We are not intending to go to Shanghai.

I have noted that visa's are expensive Thanks Spiderpants and will get some fetching facemarks Seatoski.

Bubbles are not put of by toilet situation - some good tips though noted.Have done DIY trips on a budget to quite a few places where English not spoken much ( India, Nepal,Uganda, Malasia, Thailand, Costa rica) and have been to Hong Kong.

As my husband and I have got older we are more likely to mix up the backpacker style with an organised tour company for specific things. Shanghai diva thanks for clarifying the car hire is with a driver - phew , and a good idea to do this (also heard this recommended for getting to the less touristy parts of the great wall.)
Really helpful to know the haggling etiquette as it does vary in different cultures.

Would like to catch some Chinese opera (Daughter studies music) some acrobatic/circus stuff and poss some martial arts demo type vibe.

we are going back to shanghai as we are also visiting friends whilst we are there. so have a couple of days at the beginning and a couple of days at the end to see our friends.
most excited about the ice festival in Harbin at the moment

on another note the visas are 2 year multiple entry so will probably try and do another visit before they run out.

To visit some more areas as this time round we just picked some bits that we all wanted to see and arranged the trip around that.

Have fun planning with your guide books!
Personally, I would reduce time in Beijing from 6 days, but I don't know Beijing well and LP may have some good recommendations for day trips out of Beijing. If you decide to add in another place what about Inner Mongolia? Only a short flight from Beijing to Hohhot and then out to the grasslands.

We weren't able to fit it in in the end but I really wanted to stay here near the wall. I actually really enjoyed Beijing - I really enjoyed exploring the '2nd tier' parks and temples as well as the obvious Forbidden City, Summer Palace, Great Wall etc.
In Chengdu we enjoyed the opera here and it was a lot of fun.
We generally found it much easier to get around ourselves than last time we went and we found people extremely helpful and friendly despite the language barrier.

QOD That's the one. Blue background with the golden key. Very easy to connect to.

Sounds like a good itinerary, jelly. If you want to I can recommend a driver for Xi'an. A colleague of mine used him and passed on the details and he was great. Collected us at airport (and returned us in the snow!), took us everywhere we wanted, waited for us to visit the terracotta army and so on. Nice car, good price, punctual and friendly - but he doesn't speak English. No problem though if you get wechat before, as it translates messages for you. PM me if you want his details.

👌🏼

I’ll hopefully check in in March from China 🇨🇳

Disabled people are shunned away despite those amazing Paralympics? How sad 😞

we are back, will update more later but it was amazing!

Glad you had a great time.

I think I would reduce Beijing to 5 nights and spend more time in Xian. 2 nights is not enough. It’s a fantastic city to visit and a huge amount to see. There are other burial chambers which are amazing. Less visited! Also the museum of the artefacts from the burials is superb. When you see what the Chinese could produce when we could manage only a rudimentary pots: it’s incredible.

Be very careful about the safety of the rafts on the Li River. There were many safety patrols and a lot of shouting at unsafe rafts when we were there.

I would also try and fit in the Rice Terraces when you are in this area. We stayed at Ping An. There are other great areas too. You won’t be disappointed and it gets you into a minority area. Not to mention clearer air!

ok, so we arrived Shanghai spent mostly Saturday recuperating from the flight having a little nosy around the area. Sunday we went o shanghai zoo to spot pandas. kids loved it.
Monday we flew to harbin which was freezing and amazing but not much point going there unless it for the snow and ice festivals.
train to beijing, forbidden city and great wall. don't got to baddaling for the great wall lots of areas close by that are pretty much deserted we had the wall pretty much all to ourselves.
lots of wandering - would have liked to spend more time here. lovely just wandering around the streets.
then train to xi'an to see the terracotta warriors which is the busiest place I have ever been. but was great to see them up close.
we also went to the han yangsling archealogical site which was a lot less busy and was small little terracotta figures. xi'an great wall was also good. this was a great city for wandering around.
we then went back to shanghai for a few days to explore.

it definitely helped to have friends that live in China as it was much easier to get about dragging 3 kids with their help.
it was amazing and we are hopefully going to go again to explore some other areas.

Sounds great. I went to Harbin about 8 years ago and it was pretty warm at -10! I love xi'an too great city to wander through and the warriors are amazing.

Bring tampons, they were hard to find when I was there but that was in 2001 so things might have changed.

Spiderpants did you hire any guides, other than your friends? I'm planning a trip next year and would really like to do most of it without guides if possible.

I'm also neurotic concerned about pollution and food poisoning.... Any thoughts?

We went in October and we thought the pollution levels were low. However we also found most days cloudy. It made everything look dull! The summer is very hot and more prone to pollution.

I think you have to trust the food! Our bigger problem was making sure we didn’t eat an animal we have as a pet. There are great dumplings, noodles and rice dishes.

Having a guide can help with local restaurants but otherwise the Lonely Planet guide has excellent recommendations. No doubt other guide books do too.

The guides in China are a curious mix. We had a couple of excellent ones but others just rush you around. If you stay at a hotel there will be tours you can book. For example, the Jinshanling part of the wall is 2 hours drive from Beijing. If you go to the nearer sections of wall, they may be crowded. The Chinese are tourists too and many sites are very busy. If you get a taxi to and from sites, you can diy and spend as long as you like. Guides can rush you through and miss bits out!

We went on a guided tour to the terracotta army, it was very rushed and you need to walk quickly, fortunately we weren't the only one with children and needed to go at a slightly slower pace. We arranged this through the Hostel we stayed in and worked well for the busiest part of our trip.
I think without children you could make your way around more easily as you could concentrate more on getting yourself there than stressing and trying to drag kids about.
we also did a "tour" to the wall arranged through the Hostel, which was about 2 hours from Beijing but that entailed a lift to the wall and then left to our own devices to explore and then a pick up, some food and a lift back to the hostel - which worked perfectly
The pollution was quite high when we were there but cant say i really noticed any thing different.
we found the food fantastic, we did not have any illness even with eating street food etc