Planning 2 weeks in China - know any small villages to visit?

[christopheroquist]

Hello,<br><br>

My girlfriend will be attending a business immersion program in Hangzhou China

for about 2 months starting in June, and at the end of the program, I will be

flying to Hangzhou to join up with her before we embark on two weeks in the

country. So far, we only have a skeleton of a plan:<br><br>

Meet in Hangzhou (stay about two days)<br>

1-2 days in Shanghai<br>

??<br>

1-2 days in Fenghuang<br>

??<br>

2 days in Hong Kong (then fly back to Boston)<br><br>

Neither of us have been to the country before, and we are staying out of the

Beijing area to avoid the madness of the Olympics (we will be travelling between

Aug. 8th and 20th or so, which coincides almost exactly). So far our trajectory

looks like starting in the Hangzhou/Shanghai area, then making our way down to

Hunan Province, to see Fenghuang, and eventually end up in Hong Kong for a day

or two.<br><br>

That gives us a few holes in the schedule to fit in a few more places. Since

we're already seeing Shanghai and Hong Kong, we would like to see less city and

more "small village" type areas, especially less touristy places. I have grown

up and travelled throughout Latin America, and my favorite places to visit were

nearly always either fairly remote or those less affected by a modern way of

life. I'd like to get a feel for how people really live outside of the big

cities, and hopefully meet people that live there. I've seen some beautiful

images of small, dusty, out of the way villages and would love to find some of

these spots before we come back. Does anyone have any suggestions?<br><br>

They can be slightly out of the way (necessitating a bus, train, or even plane

trip back and forth), but given that we only have about six days left to

schedule in, they can't require an epic or long, arduous trek. It could be two

different places, or a string of nearby villages to visit in order. I would love

to find a little village near some still-standing part of the Great Wall, even

knowing that it would require us to go out of our way.<br><br>

Stephanie has studied Mandarin for about 2-3 years, and will be studying the

language intensively for two months, so I imagine we will be able to communicate

with locals to *some* degree, but wherever we're going should be somewhere we

can reasonably find transport to and somewhere to stay, even if it's a tiny

hostel.<br><br>

Sorry for the long post, but I thought that if I gave some good info about us

and our trip I might get better answers.<br><br>

Thanks!<br><br>

Chris<br><br>PS: Another option, after having seen the ridiculously beautiful

pictures from Jiuzhaigou Valley, is to do Hangzhou-Shanghai-xxx days in

Jiuzhaigou Valley-Fenghuang-Hong Kong.. Would this work?

[nan_tu2]

Chris: Your trip plan sounds very exciting. However, please keep in mind that China is a very large country, almost as large as the US. Your plan of Hangzhou-Shanghai-xxx days in Jiuzhaigou Valley-Fenghuang-Hong Kong is like visiting Boston, Washington DC, then go to Utah and down to Arizona and then to Florida. A lot of frequent miles :) or a lot of nights in the Chinese trains :)

 

So you need to ask this question: do you want to go around China to visit the famous scenic spots or do you want to stay in a region and really go into depth by visiting big and small towns?

 

The great wall is in northern China. If you stay out of Beijing, then you will not see it. But if you come to Beijing, you should go and visit many sections of the wall outside Beijing, some less known but more striking sections like the Jiankou, Simata, etc.

 

Another thing to keep in mind is that there was a huge earthquake in Sichuan (where the JiuZhaiGou is), So JiuZhaiGou might be closed. JiuZhaigou is very similar to the YellowStone national park. If you have been to the Yellowstone, then, I'd recommend skip the Jiuzhaigou for the following reasons:

1: It is out of the way, in remote areas of Sichuan

2: Similar to the Yellowstone but with 10 times the visitors.

 

If you travel around Shanghai, HangZhou region, then you should visit SuZhou, and even smaller towns like ZhouZhuang. ZhouZhuang is a town that is connected by waterways (similar to Venice). The other place you can visit is HuangShan (yellow mountain, one of the top four mountains to visit in China and only 4 hours out of Shanghai by train of bus).

 

If you head for Hunan, besides visiting FengHuang, you should visit the Zhangjiajie ( I can not think of any similar national park in the US which offers the same, close to Yosimite).

 

Jiangxi is also an interesting place to visit. There is a LuShan (Lu Mountain) in JiangXi. It is where all the heavy weight politicians (Mao, Deng, Jiang) relax in the Summer. You will not be disappointed.

 

I think that the idea of visiting the small, remote and dusty town is totally over blown in the English media. There is nothing see in these towns. The transportation and the hotels may be difficult to find. These are not your typical Highway 51 small towns where every town is connected by Express way and all have bed and breakfast, some even has Denies:)

 

China is a huge country with 5000 years of history. If you can speak a little Chinese and travel like a Chinese (eat rice instead of bread, take train instead of air plane, hire taxi instead of drive around), you will find that traveling in China is a hugely rewarding experience and dirt cheap, perhaps the most bang for the buck in the world.

 

Enjoy

 

Mark

http://www.drtu.com/en (in English)

http://www.drtu.com/blog (in Chinese)

(20,000 around the world pictures)<div></div>

[renee_public]

Jiuzhaigou is beautiful, but really out of your way.

 

For small places and scenery, another place to go is Guilin - Yangshuo. Guilin is the famous city, Yangshuo is the little town nearby with the even more spectacular scenery. However, in the last few years, I hear it's been built up a bit.

 

The small towns in Yunan are also nice, great weather year round, nice scenery and friendly minorities in places like Lijiang, Dali, and Xishuangbana, but you also need some time to do this. There are direct flights to Lijiang from Shanghai, but you need to travel by bus or car to the other places, and they aren't close.

 

If you go to Hunan Fenghuang, you will obviously also go to Zhangjiajie, right? I mean, if it's scenery you're after, not just small villages, this is reputed to be one of the most beautiful in China. As for small villages, Fenghuang is already one. I would advise you to spend a few days here. 1-2 days is ridiculously short. You also don't seem to have put in time for travel. I don't think you can fly to Fenghuang directly, but must go to Changsha first.

 

1-2 days in Shanghai is also too short.

 

If you pack a trip with lots of different locations (like I did once, but not nearly as tightly as you seem to be planning) I predict that you will regret it. It's better to see fewer place but spend more time in each, otherwise, all you see is the inside of airports and buses, and before you've gotten the flavor of the place, you're packing again. You also have to allow time for travel.

 

Hong Kong has the least to see of all the above. (I live there.) I advise you either skip it altogether or spend the least time there. It's a modern city, but with very little for a western tourist (culture, history). When you're tired of the hassles of China, this clean and orderly city will seem nice, but since you're already going home, there's no need for such a break.

 

Of course, each person enjoys traveling in a different way. But if you would like to enjoy yourself and meet people, I think Shanghai, Hunan, and one other place in the mainland would be more than enough in the time you have.

 

One other thing: the Great Wall stretches over a long area, but the main places to visit are all accessible on a day trip from Beijing. So forget avoiding the Olympics crowd there. If you go to Dunhuang, in the desert out west, you can see the ancient parts of the wall, but they are reduced to small mud and grass mounds, and of interest only if you know the history well. Of course, you could also see the Buddhist caves there.

[stemked]

Over my trip to China the place I most enjoyed was my time from the Li River from Guilin to Yangshuo. This is the China of legend, it is sooo beautiful. A lazy river, sharp limestone peaks, water buffalo, bamboo cover river banks. I would spend a couple of days in Guilin, see some of the minority shows, hit a cave or two get some shots with cormorant fishermen and then go down the river and spend more time in Yangshou. Rent a bike and really see the country side.

 

I was in Shanghai almost two weeks to see in-laws. I personally wasn't crazy about Shanghai outside of the Yi Gardens, but then cities really aren't my cup of tea. My wife would totally disagree with me about this. It is a very lively modern city; New York city feels like a small hamlet after a trip to Shanghai.

 

Not far from Shanghai or Hongzhou (Hongzhou is supposed to be really lovely, by the way) is Suzhou. Think Gardens, gardens, Gardens and cool waterways.

[christopheroquist]

Thanks everybody. The reason why we are going down to Hong Kong is because that's where our flight leaves, so at the end of the trip we need to make our way down there anyway, whether its slowly throughout the two weeks or flying down at the very end. I guess from the comments it would be better to pack less in and spend a bit more time at each location, leaving more time for travel. Given that we'll be in the Hangzhou/Shanghai area, a visit to Suzhou makes sense. Is seeing this something that we should leave a few days for, or can we make this a short stop?<br><br>

What's the best way to experience the Li River (Gulin-Yangshuo)? I usually don't take packaged tours or guides, preferring to visit places myself, but since you need a boat (ha!) is it best to book something for this trip? How many days would you recommend to see it?<br><br>

We'll skip an attempt at seeing the Great Wall this time around, but photos like these really make me want to see JiuZhaiGou:<br>

http://www.photo.net/photo/621256<br>

http://www.photo.net/photo/6892014<br><br>

Found the following info:<br>

http://travelerfolio.com/jiuzhaigou-national-park-earthquake-report/<br><br>

However, as Nan and Renee suggested, Zhangjiajie might be an appropriate and closer substitute?<br><br>Sorry for the spastic/unfocused nature of the questions, but we're still in the early planning stages so I'm interested in learngin about a lot of options. Really appreciate everyone's input!<br><br>

Chris

[stemked]

Guilin to Yangshuo. The trip itself takes a day (well in the morning they take you to the infamous 'Friendship Shop' for shopping). Most tourists just take the boat down and return via bus to Guilin the same day. Mistake in my opinion. Yangshou, while not a small town, is easy to get out of and there is lots of things easy to see in the area. Yangshou is pretty touristy too, but like I said the country side is a-waiting. Personally I would stay a couple of days in Yangshou and maybe the same in Guilin. You will need to arrange your own transportation back to Guilin if you don't return with the tour, but that isn't difficult.

 

Suzhou is full of gardens. Try and plan CAREFULLY when you go. We went in early May and it was CRAZY because it was the second highest travel week in China. (I still remember a cartoon I saw in the paper-it showed a Western tourist playing a chess game sweating it out because the board was so full of chess pieces he couldn't put it down anywhere). While it will always be a lot of people, there is busy and there is 'too busy'. We saw three gardens in about 6 hours but we unfortunately had other plans that afternoon. I think if we had time I would have liked to see 5 of them, over a day and a half maybe. On a long day you might be able to get in on a train early and out the same day and see maybe three or four gardens, but you will feel rushed if you do.

[stemked]

PS. It is much cheaper to take the Chinese Language boat tours down the Li River than the Western Language ones. Trust me, you don't need much commentary to enjoy the river. And its a better way to meet more Chinese travelers rather than Western ones.

[rmdavis]

Not exactly a small village, but if you take the ferry from Hong Kong to Macau, and actually get outside the harbour/casino areas, you will find one of the most fascinating cities in Asia. The mix of Iberian and Chinese influences in architecture, food, and culture is truly unique, and the city is not actually that touristy (most everybody goes straight to the gambling).

 

The southernmost island of Macau, Coloane, has a great nature preserve (Hac Sa bay) and a small luso-chinese fishing village.

[renee_public]

I can't believe you chose Fenghuang as a destination without knowing about Zhangjiajie! That is usually the reason people visit Fenghuang, and not the other way around. It is DEFINITELY a better choice than Jiuzaigou for beautiful landscape, because you will already be in the neighborhood.

 

This may not be as professional a photo as the ones you indicated of Jiu Zai Gou (very nice indeed), but you can get an idea of the unique landscape of Zhangjiajie from this:

 

[renee_public]

Take the Li River tour from Guilin to Yangshuo. I hated the tour (80 people talking loudly, loudspeakers on the boats going constantly, the sound of the motors, terrible food.) However, that's the ONLY way to see the Li River, and you've just got to see it.

 

Ideally, you would take the boat trip to Yangshuo and stay there, instead of heading back to Guilin by bus with the rest of the group. But it may be difficult to deal with luggage on this trip. You can book tickets in most hotels for the river trip. Be sure to ask about the luggage when you book. If you can't bring your luggage on the boat trip, back in Guilin, you can take a bus to Yangshuo (I can't remember how long a ride, maybe 1-2 hours?)

 

Once there, you can look for women on the street offering trips on bamboo rafts down some side river where there are no tourists (at least when I went). WONDERFULLY peaceful, no motors, just 2 guys paddling quietly as you drift down sitting in bamboo lounges attached to a simple bamboo raft, through water clean enough to drink by the handful. These women (all women it seems because, according to them, their men don't work much) will also take you by car/van to nearby sites. Renting a bike is also a great idea, as mentioned above by Douglas. Then you could avoid the tourist sites and just enjoy the countryside.

[stemked]

Renee is correct (in pretty much every part of her discription of the Li trip), however we worked around the luggage to Yangshuo problem by staying one night in a hotel in Guilin. We arranged with the hotel to leave most of our luggage in Guilin and then took two day's worth of stuff to Yangshuo. The hotel seemed pretty accomodating.

[bart_batsleer1]

<p>I am a Belgian photographer who lives in Guilin, China. I organize affordable custom photo tours around Guilin, please check my website:<br>

http://www.backtonature.org.cn/English.htm</p>