Having chalked up almost two years in China, I often get asked advice on where to go and what to see, so I thought it was high time I put together a 'go to' post, if the Middle Kingdom's on your bucket list. Given the vastness of China, we've seen a mere blip of the world's most populous nation that's home to 661 cities. Nonetheless, we've managed to tick off quite a few, on the journey thus far! If you've got the urge to come and see what all the fuss is about and want the adventure of a lifetime, here are my top recommendations, for first timers, at least. First Stop: Shanghai Given that most airlines fly direct to Shanghai from most cities across the globe, China's biggest and brightest city is probably a good place to start exploring this unique part of the world. This city of 24 million people is buzzing with all the excitement of modern day China. With a skyline that's literally 'out of this world', Shanghai is renowned as the 'Paris of the East!' Bustling with a charismatic fusion of the East and West, the city has a unique blend of the sassy and sophisticated with the culturally quaint essence that is 'old China' running through her veins. Dip your toes in Shanghai and gradually get a feel for life in China, without throwing yourself in the deep end. For a list of what to do and see... click on my post: Shanghai Shenanigans: A Weekend in the Paris of the East Note: There are two international airports - Pudong International Airport and Hongqiao International Airport, the latter is closest to the city centre. Two to three days should be enough time to indulge in the city high life... Hangzhou If you've got extra time in your schedule, take a side trip down to the place they call 'China's Paradise on Earth!' Hangzhou is just a 45 minute train ride from the metropolis of Shanghai so it makes an easy day trip. The top must-see...the country's famous West Lake (just steer clear of national holidays)! If you're up for staying overnight, the area is also famous for its Longjin Tea Plantation. For more on what to do in Hangzhou or if you're unsure whether or not to add it to your itinerary, check out my post: China's Paradise on Earth: Hangzhou is it Worth the Visit? If you're up for another day trip from Shanghai and a taste of mini Venice in the East - head to one of the area's classic ancient water towns. I'll be honest with you, we missed these on our first trip but visiting one is still on the bucket list! Beijing If you've made the decision to visit China, it's hard to go past the nation's capital! The great political hub where the past and future collide in a hot pot of cultural ideologies. Home to seven UNESCO World Heritage sites, you can immerse yourself in China's rich history and get a sense of the how the headquarters of the world's second fastest growing economy ticks. Of course, access to one of China's greatest treasures, the Great Wall of China is just a stone's throw from the city (well, a two hour drive). A once in a life time moment -- you can soak up tradition and the mere scale of the great wall itself, which stretches across China. (Just be prepared for heart palpitating chair lifts up and a toboggan ride down that will have you hanging on by the skin of your teeth!) Beijing has a cold winter and very hot summer so choose your times wisely. March to May and September to November are ideal. For more on what to do in China's capital: check out my post: Visit Beijing: The World's Super City in the Making Harbin Time permitting and depending on the time of the year you're visiting (early January to mid February), take a trip up to Harbin to see the famous ice sculpture festival. Not for the faint-hearted, Harbin has without doubt one of the most bitterly cold winters in China, but if you're game -- I have it on good authority that the "Ice City" is pretty dam spectacular! At night these gigantic snow and ice sculptures are bathed in a kaleidoscope of brilliant colour. (Just think -- all of those Frozen fans visiting their own real life Arendelle!) A two hour flight from Beijing, Harbin bears the influences of Eastern Russia, so harbours its own distinct flavour. (Tip: I'm told you don't want to go too late in winter or the sculptures start to melt and get a little dirty.) Xi'an Of course, there's no visiting China without taking a trip to the so-called cultural cradle of civilisation! Pop in to say hi to those world-famous Terracotta Warriors (oh and me)! There's no shortage of things to see in this historical city, from a bike ride around the ancient city wall to the mesmerising and utterly mad Muslim Quarter, the 1300 year old temple we like to call our neighbour, Big Wild Goose Pagoda.... and an opportunity to soak up what I like to call the "real China!" For more - this post has got you covered: 48 Hours in Xi'an: Top 5 Things to Do! Note: Xi'an has two seasons, a cold winter and a hot summer, so if you don't want to get caught in the icy winter pollution or summer furnace, the best times to visit are between March and May and September and November. Xi'an is just under two hours flight from Beijing. Luoyang If you have time for a side trip from Xi'an, I would highly recommend catching the high speed train to Luoyang. It's a one and a half hour trip through the countryside to the city of six million and from here you can visit the mystical Shaolin Temple high up in the Song Shan Mountains -- this is the birthplace of Buddhism and is still an active monastery today, as well as being home to the world's largest Kungfu academy. The world famous Longmen Grottos are a 45 minute drive from Luoyang and here you can get up close and personal with incredible gigantic sculptures carved into the side of cliffs that are still clearly visible centuries later. For more information on visiting these hot spots, check out my post Kungfu But No Panda: Welcome to 3rd Tier China. Tibet Sustaining spectacular landscape, spiritual traditions and a mythical-like culture, the Buddhist region of Tibet is a once in a life time wonder....which also boasts the world's highest peak, Mt Everest. But this is a magical place in which you need time up your sleeve to visit. At around 3000 metres above sea level, Tibet is the highest region on earth so it takes time to acclimatise, which means ideally at least four to five days in the region and even better, stretching the journey there over several days to avoid altitude sickness on arrival. (Note: Altitude sickness doesn't discriminate, so regardless of age, gender or fitness there's generally no rhyme or reason as to who gets hit and who doesn't.... If you suffer from any illnesses, you should definitely check with your doctor first if you do plan to go to Tibet.) Experts say, taking the train to Tibet makes acclimatising easier......but you can easily fly from many cities in China, including Xi'an, Chengdu, Beijing and Shanghai. It is difficult for non-Chinese citizens to travel independently in Tibet with various restrictions on foreign tourists. All foreign travelers are required to join an organized tour operated by authorized travel agencies and Chinese authorities often close Tibet to foreign tourists altogether in March. If you have the desire for adventure, take time to schedule a trip to the place they call the 'roof of the world' into your itinerary. Chengdu If you love cute and furry teddy bears, aka Giant Pandas - Chengdu is the place to see them in China. Just a short one hour flight from Xi'an, Sichuan Province is where you'll find the majority of these furry critters lounging about, just chewin’ on bamboo. It’s predicted just over a thousand live in the wild and the China Conservation and Research Centre in Chengdu is home to around 80 of the provinces most famous residents. Head to Chengdu for an overnight trip. For more check out my post Pandas in Chengdu: Don't Mind if I Do! Yangtze River Yangtze River known as Cháng Jiāng - or longest river is the largest in China and the third largest in the world after the Nile in Africa and the Amazon in South America. It spans over 6000 kilometres and traversing eleven provinces and cities from west to east! Tourists can enjoy the stunning scenery of the Three Gorges while exploring the ancient cultural sites along the river. There are a myriad of different packages, boats and routes to take so you'll need to pick your package carefully... whether you take one that winds from Beijing to Shanghai over 10 days or just a few days between Chongqing and Wuhan, there are many options. I'm yet to tick this off my list but for more information, check out these sites: The Travel China Guide The Yangtze River Cruise Guide Guilin One of the most beautiful and quaint places I've seen in China, Guilin has definitely earned it's nickname ‘Shan shui jia tian xia’ meaning Guilin’s ‘mountain and water scenery is the best under heaven’. Guilin city is the stepping stone to places like Ping An Village where you can see the China of old in all her glory. From Guilin Airport, Ping An is a 2.5 hour drive up into the hills.... spend a night here and soak up the unique and rich culture of this 600 year old village that oozes unrivalled charm amongst a setting of stunning rice terraces. A world away and a breath of fresh air from China's manic side! Catch a ferry up the river to Yangshuo and marvel at the limestone karsts that jut from the sea in their mesmerising shapes and sizes. No wonder they call it a ‘jade ribbon winding among thousands of Karst Hills.’ Yangshuo Village is the perfect place for a fun adventure. Ride bikes along the river path or catch a bamboo raft and glide your way down the river. This post will give you the lowdown! China's Pearl of the Orient: Why Guilin is Compulsory Viewing! Hong Kong It's not part of the mainland, but my advice is after all of that adventure, you need to end your trip on a high note....perhaps amongst Hong Kong's glittering sky scrapers? The 'city that never sleeps' is home to 8000 plus restaurants, not to mention some beautiful beaches and hiking trails. Oh and let's not forget the fabulous shopping! Finish off your amazing trip to the East with a relaxing couple of days in the fragrant harbour. Hong Kong gets very humid, so avoid the blazing summer months from June to August. Travelling to Hong Kong? This page has it all. Oh and if you're still not convinced...check out my post Four Good Reasons You Need to Travel China If you are convinced.... don't forget to read this! Travelling to China: Top Ten Things to Pack! Happy Travelling! This is China. Pssst... feel free to message me with any further questions and I'll try to help. Nicole@mintmochamusings.com … [Read more...]
China’s Pearl of the Orient! Why Guilin is Compulsory Viewing
When I told my local hairdresser in Xi’an I was off to Guilin for a few days, he got very excited and made me practice China's famous saying: Guilin is "Shan shui jia tian xia!” …until I had it right (as you do). (FYI - I’m starting to realise that Chinese people love their proverbs and there's a ‘saying’ for just about everything and anything.) In this case, ‘Shan shui jia tian xia’ means: Guilin’s ‘mountain and water scenery is the best under heaven’. That’s a pretty big call, right? ......Oh and there’s another one: “East or West: Guilin Scenery is Best!” Not wanting to be disappointed after all the 'hype,' I purposely didn’t look at any pictures of where we were going. (Unlike the hotelier who, I might add, scrutinises the website like a seagull scavenging for food, weeks out from the trip! ;-) ) Me? I like to be surprised. Plus, we had a few good friends who’d trodden the path before us and given us the lowdown. I knew we were in good hands. So, a two hour flight south from Xi’an to Guilin in China’s Guangxi Province and the adventure was on! Stepping outside from the airport, it immediately felt different, warmer for a start. Dare I say, there was almost a tropical feel in the air… (or maybe that was just wishful thinking on my frozen parts?) But there were palm trees, I swear! We were picked up by a recommended driver and had a two and a half hour journey up into the hills to a place called Ping’an Village….it’s the spot where the famous rice terraces reside in all their glistening glory. Despite the palm trees, once we hit the road, there was no mistaking we were still in China. The ramshackle streets, the ubiquitous beeping, the swarm of motorbikes and three wheeler Tuk Tuks snaking their way in and out of the traffic…all manner of goods being transported on the back, from people to packages, piled high! We saw a couple almost swallowed by a giant bouquet of balloons; live chickens in small baskets, perched on the back of bikes; there was even a lone cow standing on the back of a 3-wheeler! Gridlocked in the bumper to bumper, mid-morning Spring Festival traffic, we couldn’t miss the sound of a few overexcited kids yelling out “There’s a wai guo ren!” before erupting into fits of laughter. Yep. That’s us. The foreigners are coming! Once we got through the mayhem, it was a long and rather windy road up, up and up high into the hills. First stop - a gated entryway where we needed to hand over cold hard cash to the “officials” for entry into the village. Another 15 minute drive to the village itself or at least the bottom of the village and despite travelling up... we had definitely travelled back in time. Hello Ping'an! We thanked our driver and grabbed our bags from the boot, not before being swamped by lots of little old ladies in pink hats, gesturing madly at our belongings. Don’t be fooled by their small stature and number of years under their belts, these women are tough cookies and will carry your bags in large round baskets on their backs, all the way up steep, rickety walkways to your guest house. Our room for the night was first cab off the rank, just a 300 metre walk so we politely declined. The mere idea of making these women carry my luggage when I was perfectly capable seemed a little preposterous, but then again, this is how they make their living. And if you're really not up to the walk, or just want to take yourself back to China life of old, you can always sit yourself in one of these (for a small fee)! Ping’an Village is over 600 years old and has been harvesting rice for just as long. The village is made up mainly of the ethnic minority, the Zhuang people, but there are also the Yao people. The Yao women are easily identifiable because of their very long, long hair (which is wound around and around and bunched on top)! It’s believed they only cut their hair once during their lifetime. (Now that’s one way to save on hairdressing costs!) In recent years productivity in Ping'an has been slow and the rice is mainly harvested for the locals to consume and now the more than 60 guest houses that cater to the 2000 tourists a day. In 1949, Guilin was the first place in China to open up to tourists and this tiny but oh so charming village amongst the rice fields has been a hard treasure to keep hidden. For the last 12 years, intrigued tourists from around the world have been sneaking a look at this quaint, authentic Chinese town where life resembles that of a bygone era. Today the government even pays local farmers to flood their rice terraces, making for better quality pictures for tourists like us! Walking up to our guest house it’s clear though, tourism has cast her spell. There are now lots of little stalls selling all sorts of souvenir trinkets and locals are busy cooking up all sorts of traditional concoctions, including jars of extremely spicy looking chilli. The Zhuang ladies in their bright pink hats are squatting around a fire, cooking Tudou Hong zi (sweet potato) and their Chinese is peppered with a few English words like “hello” and "Come and look!" That aside, it really is another world…… Our guest house ‘Bai Ke’ is four floors on stilts….it’s endearingly rustic and authentically Chinese in style, with a sweeping view right across the mountains. We hear roosters screeching and I spy a lone woman toiling the rice fields. It feels like we are a million miles away from the hustle and bustle of manic China. We are made to feel incredibly welcome by the owner of the guest house from the minute we arrive until he drives us all the way to Guilin the next day. How's that for service! First things first though, it's time to explore. We get directions to walk (hike) up into the village and to the top of the mountain for the best views. Directions in the loosest sense of the word. We find ourselves in and out of backyards, along rickety stone pathways, up steep stairways and past random chickens, ladies cooking their bamboo rice and locals lunching in the sun. We pass by a grandma, baby on her back, hanging sheets in her yard. Everyone is friendly and it’s just a matter of heading up! After many pit stops and photographs, we make it to the top. (The Small Person is exceptionally stoic in the face of a promised ice-cream). We’re lucky, we’ve struck amazing weather and it’s nudging 25 degrees….in the middle of winter. I’m told if it’s a foggy day, the view can be disappointing, but today the view is breathtaking. At the top we’re clearly back on tourist soil and their are a million and one people wanting to take a photo with the small blondie. Luckily though, we spot a stall with ice creams and coke! We find a private spot in the grass but one of the 'Yao' ladies selling postcards and bracelets spies us and seeks us out. As much as I know we’re the 'wai guo ren' so there's a fair chance we are probably being ripped off, before I know it, I’ve purchased two bracelets, one each for Small Person and I! Back down the hill and that night our B & B serves us a delicious traditional village meal of sticky rice and chicken in bamboo. This is one of only two remaining places in China where they still use this kind of ancient cooking method. And of course we BYO our bottle of white for a modern day touch! The next day, country air in our lungs, refreshed and raring to go we hightail it back down to Guilin City for the night. First up, if you don’t need to go to Guilin or are short on time, I probably wouldn’t bother. As a city in China, sightseeing wise, apart from being surrounded by impressive karst mountains as you drive in, there’s not a whole lot going on. In this part of the world, it’s all about the surrounding areas. The next day we are lined up for a 3.5 hour, 83 km boat cruise up the Li River to Yangshuo. It’s been booked by a local friend so we have no idea what to expect. Picked up by a tour bus we find ourselves the only foreigners on board (which is really nothing new) and next minute we’re in a tight squeeze following one of those flags you see Chinese tourists huddled around, the world over! In true China style, it seems every cruise boat is scheduled to leave the dock at exactly the same time. You can imagine, this makes for a rather crammed and rushed entry on to the boats. Pushed, squeezed and shoved forward, we try to keep an eye on our flag bearing a Winnie the Pooh mascot, in the hope we make it on board the right boat. (Did I mention we forgot our luggage?….ah yes, such seasoned travellers, we got so excited getting on the tour bus we forgot we were actually going away for the night!) That said, the tour operator kindly arranged for another bus to pick up our luggage and get it to Yangshuo by the afternoon at no cost. A side to China where things like that are always infinitely easier, than being engulfed in red tape. On deck and every boat motors off up the river in unison…the chefs start cooking lunch on the back of the boats and we’re all seated at tables. It's no luxury cruise. It’s basic and there is one pretty dirty squat toilet for every female on board. The food is a very basic, Chinese buffet of rice and noodles and at feeding time, it's one in, all in. The view though is mighty impressive. They call it a 'jade ribbon winding among thousands of Karst Hills' and I can immediately see why it’s beckoned so many poets and artists over the years. Middle Earth springs to mind as we gaze at these hundreds of limestone peaks jutting sharply from flat ground in all manner of shapes and sizes. This is apparently the result of a perfect alchemy of geological conditions tens of thousands of years ago. About half way up we’re told the scene before us is that famous one on China’s 20 yuan note. Arriving in Yangshuo…this is a village that’s more than a village but not quite a city. It’s quaint and quirky and for Spring Festival it's draped in pretty red lanterns. Again, the minute you step off the boat, you’re flanked by a plethora of stalls selling everything known to mankind…. if you have kids you may want to put blinkers on them! Once you get through the merchandise hysteria, turn off the main path and you’ll be confronted with lots of cheap and cheerful bars and restaurants in an enchanting setting, complete with trickling river. On recommendation, we stayed at the eco-friendly Yangshuo Village Inn which was about six kilometres from the main drag near Moon Hill. Set in a tiny local neighbourhood, it was authentically Chinese and a world away from our five star bubble. I loved it the minute we stepped inside to a roaring fire and tiny cups of ginger tea. Owned by an American who has been in China for over 20 years, he has local villagers running the guesthouse and the service is impeccable. Upstairs the Italian rooftop restaurant serves genuine Italian food to die for. Not a noodle in sight. Our room is simple, cosy and comforting. We sit on our private balcony while fire crackers erupt across the laneway and the karst mountains rise up into the night sky. With just a day and a half in Yangshuo we decided to hire bikes (which are everywhere). Despite the seemingly towering karst mountains, it’s completely flat and super bike friendly. Let’s be clear though, until this point, I hadn’t been on a bike for 22 years, but who’s counting. We I wobbled off down the laneway and onto the main road. Yikes! Competing with large tour busses, cars, motorbikes and a host of wobbly bikers like us …we pedalled up to the Yulong river. Here you can jump on a bamboo raft and glide down the river, appreciating the vivid and beautiful landscape before you. If we thought the view coming up from Guilin was incredible, this is even better. We cycled along the river for about ten kilometres enjoying the serenity.... Along the way, we found Yangshuo Village Inn’s sister hotel set river side at this incredible spot. Lunch! By the time I was getting the hang of the whole two wheeler thing, it was time to start heading back, but not before an impulsive stop off at a little roadside cafe. We soon found out this was no ordinary cafe….while it looks pretty under a rooftop of passion fruit vines, there was a fair bit of rubbish on the tables and strewn across the floor and I'm not sure how game you would be to eat the food. Bottled beer though, that we could do! US$3 for two giant bottles of beer and a coke and we were set! All that pedalling is thirsty work! (Never mind that the table-top almost wobbled off.) I think my hairdresser might just be right, with his saying "Shan shui jia tian xia!” If you live in or are visiting the Middle Kingdom, this is definitely scenery that has to be seen! This is Guilin. This is China. Tips for Your Trip (*I am not being paid to endorse any of the following, these are just my personal recommendations.) Car from Guilin Airport to Ping’an Village (around 250rmb). You can also catch a bus! Gate into Ping’an Village - 100rmb each, kids under 1.2 metres free. Bai Ke Hotel, Ping’an River Cruise from Guilin to Yangshuo - 550 rmb - kids under 1.2 metres free, Kids under 1.5 metres half price. (Note: There are different prices at different travel agents so it pays to negotiate.) Yangshuo Village Inn Yangzhou Mountain Retreat (Sister hotel on the river.) … [Read more...]