China planning suggestions

[Floradon]

Planning a trip to China this November - 3 weeks in total with DH.
We’re flying in to and home from Beijing.
I’ve booked a few random places (Beijing, Chengdu and Xi’an) to use as the basis for the tourist visa which we’ve applied for but are looking for ideas - so anyone been and can suggest anywhere? Realise China is massive so we’re not trying to see everything in one go! We’ll probably go back if we enjoy it as we’re both keen travellers so we don’t feel massively pressurised to try and squeeze loads in. We’d rather visit maybe 4 or 5 places over the three weeks. Would love any ideas :)

I DIY'd the trip as a LP with a teen. Infrastructure works. Everything is done via Alipay and it was all very straightforward. We stayed in small, modest hotels and were treated well.

I would also recommend Pingyao. Also tiger-leaping gorge, da-li and li-jang. Beautiful

I did a tour with intrepid and traveled once without a tour. I found trains easy (need to be booked in advance) but the high speed trains are often outside of the city (xian). As you have so much time I would get down to Hong Kong. It’s an amazing city and then you can probably get an internal flight back. I loved Yang shou for the scenery and it’s to picturesque. I would look at routes that tours do and then pick what looks interesting and do it your self

Ive only been to Shanghai but china is one of my favourite places in the world.

I’d do either HK or Shanghai. Depends what you want. Both a glitzy cities. I would not keep adding places in though or you just scratch the surface. I get the DIY and I’ve done a lot of that and travelled widely but I now prefer less hassle but I’m not counting the £.

I went to China with friends who were living abroad in Shanghai. We stayed for a week in Chengdu to see the pandas. The main panda place that everyone goes to was ridiculously overcrowded and you couldn’t see much. They had the most adorable baby pandas which was a highlight but the reality was we queued for about 45 minutes to see them and then got to look at them as we walked past and someone rang a bell at us!
however we also went on a guided trip to be a panda keeper for the day to another panda sanctuary that was a couple of hours drive out of the city. It was honestly one of the best days of my life! We got to hand feed the pandas, clean out their cages and prepare their food. It was such a good experience!
I will see if I can find the details, it was about 7 years ago now.

We then went to Mount Emei and stayed in a hotel near the top of the mountain so that we could be at the top for sunrise. (Which turned out to be cloudy!)
I would also highly recommend the Leshan giant Buddha. It’s fascinating how this was carved out of the rock! You get the best views from a boat trip!

Enjoy!

https://www.getyourguide.com/chengdu-l1697/chengdu-dujiangyan-panda-volunteer-program-with-lunch-t835079/?ranking_uuid=78c1ca80-1575-45c7-bdfb-deb150f35388&closeTabOnNavigationBack=true

Found it! Dujiangyan Panda Base.
So much better than the one in Chengdu Center!

I cannot get too enthusiastic about being a panda keeper. It’s a bit like swimming with dolphins. There are several very good places to see the pandas.

I don’t think we’ll have time to do Hong Kong this time but would definitely consider it for next time! I’ll have a look at Yang Shou as I’ve not heard of it. Great to hear the trains are easy.

Thank you! Will have a look at all these places!

Agree with this - we defo don’t want to do too much. Three weeks is a good amount of time but we don’t want to feel too rushed. We tend to prefer having at least three or four nights in each place. So we’re thinking around 5 or 6 places including Beijing across three weeks.

We’re lucky we have a healthy budget and we’ve found some amazing hotels to book. Already booked the Pu Xuan hotel for when we arrive in Beijing - the spa looks gorgeous which I’m sure will be very nice after a long haul flight! A friend recommended the Niccolo in Chengdu which looks lovely too.

Standard seats on high speed trains are fine.
i lived in China for 12 years and definitely recommend getting WeChat and Alipay.
Xian is great and you can cycle on the wall, market is really interesting, goose pagoda- lots to see in addition to the terracotta warriors.
Nanjing is a fabulous city but doesn’t appear to be as well known in the UK. It used to be the capital of China. It has a city wall, great museums, purple mountain, sun yat Sen mausoleum - under 2 hours by train from Shanghai.
Suzhou is an easy day trip from Shanghai.
Guilin is beautiful as is the light show on the river in Yangshuo.

Oh yes, we definitely need to look into the ethics of the different panda centres. I know there are a few. My understanding is the main one is a legit conservation operation?

If you are going to Xian, I presume you are going to the Terracotta Army? It is mad and the cultural tendency to queue is more French than Japanese.
But don't miss out on the town itself. The castle is awesome.
Recommend a food tour in any place I go.
Also. Beijing parks are really awesome.

There are pretty good hotels everywhere but when you get into the more rural areas you get lovely little boutique hotels.

Thank you! Nanjing wasn’t on my radar so definitely will have a look at that. I’m not certain we’ll make Shanghai, would we be making a massive mistake in missing it and the surrounds this time? We fly into and out of Beijing and will probably have some city time in Chengdu as well, plus at least one of the historical cities (eg Pingyao, Xi’an or will look into Nanjing) so I think to balance it out we might add Zhangjiajie or another national park or similar to get a different experience.

Its sounding like we’ll need at least a second trip in the future 😁

Thanks for this @Laughingmole - good to know about the panda center! Did you look into the ethics of the Dujiangyan center? Im hoping they’re all ethical but keen to know more.

Yes we would definitely visit the Terracotta Army if we went to Xi’an - would probably have a couple of days so one to do that, and one to see the city/cycle the walls.

Was there any particular park you’d recommend in Beijing? Thanks for the tips!

I wouldn’t worry about missing Shanghai: it’s a huge city and you may not want to do both Shanghai and Beijing. I prefer Shanghai but know it better than Beijing as used to travel there frequently for specialist medical appointments, passport renewal etc.
jiuzhaigou is also a stunning national park.
I think it’s wise not to do too much places: China can be incredibly overwhelming and it’s good to have a little down time.
*many

@Floradon We went to one where hygiene around the baby pandas was obviously paramount. They explain they take the tiny panda cubs away from their mums because the mums can roll on them and suffocate them. We did see them being fed by staff. Pandas are more active in the morning and we saw lots of “teenage” cubs playing. We really enjoyed seeing cubs as we’ve never bred one here!

I’d do your homework on which one appeals to you and we did go immediately it opened in the morning so the pandas were active. They sleep a lot! This was some years ago and feeding experiences were not available then - anywhere. It felt like a more scientific based research centre. I have read that other experiences were now available but I didn’t know guests would act as keepers.

We went on an organised tour:

1. Beijing
2. Xian
3. Chengdu
4. Guilin - boat trip, then stayed in Wuhan overnight
5. 3 day cruise on the Yangtze to Three Gorges dam - we all appreciated the rest from non stop tourism
6. Shanghai

We too saw the Leshan Buddha, but can’t remember where it fitted in. We flew mainly from one city to another; but we did one leg by coach - and we stopped off at Leshan.

It’s a matter of personal taste, but none of us enjoyed the Peking opera!

My friend who lived in China booked the panda experience. But from my own experience, I would chose the Dujiangyan panda Center over the Chengdu research base. The chengdu Center seemed very touristy and was packed full of visitors.
While the Dujiangyan Center was pretty empty and a lot of the day was spent talking about conservation and panda rescue. We also watched a video showing how the are supporting the wild pandas. They were clearly very well cared for and everyone had a lot of knowledge.

I don't have much to add to the excellent info here. Pingyao is pretty much en route to Xi'an and you don't need more than a night there. Definitely worth it.

If you have the alipay app it will include the didi app - the Chinese version of Über. Really easy to use and cheaper than private drivers. In major cities you can also use the alipay app to install your travelcard for the local public transport system. A good map app is Amap which is now available in English. There is also a state allowed vpn, Lets. This seemed a bit strange but worked the whole time we were there on our second trip this year (express vpn definitely did not work).

When we went to Guilin we avoided Yangshuo (too touristy) and headed to the Yulong River scenic area (or something). It was a protected area with restricted traffic and less touristy. We stayed in the Yangshuo Mountain Retreat (I think). We really enjoyed this part of our trip.

Behai Park in Beijing. Also Jingshan park with a view over the Forbidden City. The centre of Beijing is very walkable.

I have DIY in China a couple of times.

not an issue although on one of those we had my husband who spoke some mandarin with us.

it didn’t always help as mandarin isn’t always widely spoken by the older people and particularly in Shanghai the locals speak Shanghainese.

the big western hotels in Shanghai have staff who speak English. Many of the younger Chinese also speak at least some English as it’s compulsory on secondary school over there.

Shanghai is lovely but doesn’t have much historical Chinese stuff compared to some other places. There’s a great museum on people’s square and there are the old European concessions which are full of French style buildings etc.

lots of designer shops as well 😀😀.

Hong Kong is very much its own trip and is more like a cultural melting pot rather than being Chinese. Mandarin also not helpful there - people speak Cantonese or English.