Planning to visit China... Help! 帮助我！

bodawei,

like rippinmg the the best part off of a rather tall poppy you mean?

I'm not going to get into  marxist euphoric discussion and yadda on about class struggle, proletarians, owners of production and other such creatures born from a simplistic theory that totally disregards innate human competitiveness and the will to provide a better life for future generations. i'll leave that for the blind chardy sipping socio-cultural anthropologists, marxist sociologists and other twits complaining about terrorists being treated so badly while at the same time being able to freely carry out the most useless fart inducing research without having to be fully covered, and without fear of having a limb blown off at the local sour grape and blind melon inn.

however, i will say, before being kindly kicked out onto the street by our last landlord after being good tenants for for almost two years (hope you're reading bitch!), i used to save all my empty低糖绿茶bottles for the 看门的人 downstairs. i know it wasnt much, but  he and his wife earned next to sweet f all for opening the gate for me at ungodly times of the night. i couldn't bear the site of them going through the 公共垃圾桶 looking for empty plastic bottles disgarded by others in amongst the usual household waste, like toilet paper,  for recycling.

@Miantiao

The attitude to litter in China is fascinating for an Australian - I think that it is a 'class' matter, or it can be explained in terms of face.  People who can afford bottled low sugar green tea seem to carry the conviction that there is always someone below them in the social strata who will pick up after them.  And of course those rubbish people earn an absurdly small amount of money so they are hardly worth a moment's thought.  Making it difficult for them to retrieve the rubbish seems to be part of the game.  The Chinese cosmology/ Confucianism is distinctly tiered; it is entrenched in contemporary society.  By comparison in Australia we like to think that we are all at the same level. 

not sure simon, but there are numerous buddhist monasteries and nuneries? on the lower slopes of the mountain.

if you go, make sure to take a fair share of plastic drink containers. in one particularly scenic spot surrounded my cliff faces and cloud mists, if one looks down to the valley below you may be lucky enough to get a glimpse of 'garbage creek' (i've taken it upon myself to give this wonderful spectacle an english name).

you have the right as a paying visitor to add to this man made marvel of nature by tossing your finished bottle of green tea(当然低糖的喽！）down the hundren or so meters and add to rare deposits of garbage creek. like the yellow river, but unlike the yellow river, the creek bed rises annually, experts researchiung this phenomenon have estimated the creek bed to have risen by as much as five potato crisp packages in the last year alone.

of course once you get to the 山顶 where one gets the feeling of being a little god, on top of the clouds,and looking down, you also have the right to discard of your other bottle of low sugar green tea, and any other contributions you may want to add to the natural beauty of the area which may be too heavy to trudge all the way to the nearest bin. which i must warn you may be up to 50 meters away. so if you intend making such an arduous trek you will of course need another bottle of low sugar green tea to see you through. but of course once you eventually reach said bin, your empty bottle of low sugar green tea will be of no symbolic use at all.

enjoy your trip

http://www.ctrip.com/ is the most popular travelling webisite in China. You can book a hotel or book a airplane ticket there.

Hope you will have a good trip.

@Simon

I guess that is one reason why Sweden is said to have an exceptional quality of life?  You are fortunate to have the enlightened community opinion and the wealth to make such things possible.  

I may have given you a slightly skewed impression by the way; most national parks in Australia are free, but the three big ones I mentioned have an admission charge.  These big ones have major facilities that in other parts of the country you pay for too in various ways.  So you could say that even in the big national parks the wilderness experience and basic access is free, but the many and various extra facilities (airport, train service, roads, telecommunications, shopping centres, hotels, bus stations, medical centres, police stations, search and rescue facilities, etc.) are paid for by the admission fee.   

I don't know about the particulars of martial arts at E'mei Shan, sorry (I had to leave prematurely after being brutally attacked by monkeys). There are lots of English-speaking practitioners of the martial arts who would know much more than me - perhaps if you Google for a discussion site?    

Bodawei:

My question was not so much "Is there any E'mei martial arts at all, anywhere?" as "Is it still practiced at E'meishan?"

Also: really, it's that common to charge for natural parks? That makes me sad. In Sweden they're all free, of course. And we also have those "quaint old laws" (read: constitution) saying that you have the right to walk, camp, swim, boat, pick flowers and mushrooms etc. anywhere you want as long as you're not destroying the land (and it's not someone's private garden).

i reckon, and i may be wrong again, but the practice of adopted names is crap. i like my name, it sounds shit in chinese. the way i would like to pronounce it in chinese sounds like a peddlar of coke!

the local dialect my gf speaks is so sexy. 

hey i've heard even locals may take a putonghua exam in order to garner just how good their guoyu is. apparently its a pre-requisite to jobs in the broadcast media.

@tvan

Local dialect, I see.  Pinyin fails many local pronunciations, out my way anyway - I was just being schooled on that today.  

As you probably realise 柏 can be pronounced as either bo or bai in Standard Chinese.  Admittedly that is not true of 白。  It just seemed possible that a place was named after a tree rather than the colour white.  (I take special interest in these characters as 柏 is my adopted Chinese name.)  

@bodawei, good catch.  I intentionally spelled it that way because that seems to be the way that it is still often referred to that way.  Don't know why.  However, you are correct the pinyin is Báisè, though relying on pinyin in China is pretty dicy.

@tvan

Is 白 a misprint or should it be 柏? Or is it Baise?  

@Sebire 

Ah, Britain - well, Britain is very unusual!  I love those quaint old laws about having the right to pass through private land etc.  And definitely unusual if all National Parks are free.  I understand your irritation in China - but believe me that there is a debate. I once sat with a group of Chinese friends outside a place we wanted to visit for three hours while the matter of payment was periodically argued, in between meals and going shopping for farmer food... Chinese style.  We eventually got in for nothing; everyone agreed in the end that it was in the national interest.

Maps in China are dire - often beautiful but seldom practical, never reliable if your life depended on it.  I have written elsewhere on this subject.  I heard Simon Winchester speak once about his 'trip up the Yangtze' and how they used US Government maps of the country - far 'superior' (from a Western perspective) to anything available locally.  It is a complex cultural matter that cannot be covered in this post - suffice to say that Chinese people have a different perspective. For example, I had a map that seemed to expressed distance according to how much 'effort' was involved!  (I know, it doesn't make much sense.)  

It is hard to simplify about what is between wilderness and concrete - there is actually a lot of walking trails in the vicinity of cities, the kind of thing you might be after.  For example, around Hangzhou where I lived you can walk for days in the mountains surrounding the city.  Very cool.  There is also hiking and trekking in more remote areas. (But 'camping' is a little unusual; in some places it is tolerated but kind of illegal.)  China is such a big country that 'getting there' creates a hurdle.  It is remarkably like Australia in this respect.   

@Simon

I think Matt gave you the info you were after.  My advice is very beautiful but be careful of the monkeys.    

Considering the time if year you're going, I would give serious consideration to Southwestern China.  I won't share all my favorites, but 白色/Bose in Guangxi is quite nice,  has a historical link to Deng Xiaoping, and is close to/part of the Zhuang minority area.

@yueshuya I'd suggest Zhangjiajie in Hunan Province, and also Changsha or some small towns near there for super yummy spicy 湘菜  xiāngcài Hunanese cuisine.

I'd pick Suzhou OR Hangzhou, although they are close to each other (2.5 hrs apart by D train).

I'm sure you'll be getting enough suggestions from Poddies but what ever you do - try to eat where locals eat, not touristy places, find out the local specialities not the tourist specialities eg scorpion on a skewer in Beijing is tourist food, deep fried scorpionson a plate in Xuzhou is local food etc.

Go for packed out with patrons over nice looking interior decoration, when you can try to have 农家菜  nóngjiācài - but preferably at someones house.

If you do go to Changsha I can suggest the best place for 夜宵 yèxiāo night food.

Be daring with your explorations but also remember safety.

@simonpetterson I know a guy who lives in Germany who studied E'Mei gongfu about 2 years ago...there should be ppl still practicing it.

Hey, Bodawei. Were there any traces left of the famous E'mei martial arts at E'meishan?

What is the map situation like? I had terrible trouble cycling around the countryside in China trying to read this stupid tourist map that wasn't to scale. I am not a hardcore trekker or anything, but I do like discreet natural footpaths and a nice walk up to the top of a hill. From the sounds of it, it seems like it is either wilderness or concrete. Is there anything in between?

It's funny, my companion was complaining that China had the audacity to charge us to see something that was natural. Turns out, I think, that Britain must be unusual because our national parks are free.

Those parks you mention look spectacular. I must visit one day. I wonder if there are any lessons on Chinese national parks...

Hi Sebire

Well, I have only experienced two of the nine famous mountains (HuangShan and E'meiShan). Huangshan is certainly developed but it is fascinating that everything is carried up and down the mountain 'by hand'.  Materials and supplies up, rubbish down.  No vehicles.  The three 'big' National Parks in Australia, Kosciusko, Kakadu and Uluru (comparable I think to HuangShan) also have hotels and restaurants, and use motor vehicles for these tasks of servicing the facilities - the three big Australian parks also have airports, and planes and helicopters flying over the parks.  So, I see what you mean, but it is hard for me to agree that Western national parks are in every way more 'natural'.  

Some of the other Chinese parks I have been to do make extensive use of vehicles, probably because of the greater scale - JiuZhaiGou, Huanglong, ChangBaiShan etc.  At JiuzhaiGou they call them 'green' buses but they are not especially green! 

The 'insurance' charge is my translation - we were told at ChangBaiShan (not one of the 9 'famous' mountains by the way) that we could walk in the hills, off the made paths, (right on the border with North Korea), if we paid an extra 800 RMB each.  I considered it to be like insurance because it would be a great deal of trouble for them if we got lost!  It would not be hard to become lost there - it is what you might call wilderness.  Visitors becoming lost happens fairly often in Australian national parks, and the cost of rescue operations is usually contentious.  I would be in favour of this system being introduced in Australia.  

Hi Bodawei,

I visited Huangshan, which seemed more like a giant natural theme park rather than a national park. It was fun, but there were too many people, and hotels/restaurants/concrete/barbed wire definitely detracted from what would have been a spectacular natural landscape. I would definitely still recommend it though, but I don't think there should be any expectation of it being an experience of a national park as you might find it in the West.

I've seen some photos of some of the other mountains, and it looked like the same sort of thing. Maybe I am only seeing the big tourist traps.

I will definitely have to find somewhere a bit less crowded next time. What is this big insurance charge you are talking about?

@sebire

There are National Parks with Chinese characteristics.. :-)  

Seriously, Which ones did you visit?  I am drawing on my experience visiting two of the most famous ones in China: ChangBai Shan (on the North Korea border) and JiuZhaiGou (northern Sichuan); they are both extraordinary National Parks.  Although culturally, don't expect to be transported to a European or American National Park experience.  For example, Chinese people start out early in the morning!!  Too early for me.  So I am lucky to get any breakfast.  

Whether you consider these sites 'natural' is rather an intriguing question, because the natural features are unusual to say the least.  I have actually thought of them as 'un-natural' because it is so foreign to what I grew up with.  Other-world.  If you mean 'not quiet because of so many visitors' .. I would tend to agree, although in the large parks there is actually plenty of scope for getting away on your own.  In my experience it does not take much effort to walk further than the 'tour guide' sites - they are usually in a hurry and limit their stay.  Except on a busy weekend at HuangShan..:-)  

Actually, I was sometimes grateful to run into people; I would get lost and none of the maps are very helpful.  And I don't eat instant noodles.  And listening in to the booming commentary you can learn something..  

You need the time though, for a really wilderness experience ... And as I mentioned before, sometimes you have to pay a large extra fee to go off the 'concrete' paths.  

Even in ordinary countryside, far from National Parks, I have hiked for a day without seeing another person.  Again, you need the time...   

I recommended the 'mountain' experience (like HuangShan) to our fellow poddie for the cultural experience, not particularly for the natural beauty (see above.) Although the nature is still impressive - I can see what inspires the painters.  There are still areas of wilderness; it is just that you cannot access most of it.  In Australia our National Parks are similar in this respect - many areas of wilderness are inaccessible because we want to preserve them for posterity.   

I remain surprised that China has such beautiful natural areas, given the vastly different values underlying our cultures. Given the quantity and rate of development, and the pressure on natural resources.  Given the different attitudes to tourism and holidays.    

Their national parks are not what I expected. They don't seem very natural, and when you're on top of a mountain with people selling instant noodles and tour guides booming into their amplifying rucksacks, I thought it somewhat detracted from the natural beauty.

I wonder if it's just a place like Huangshan that is like that. I've seen some photos of other mountains, and there again seem to be lots of concrete featuring. There must be parks with less pressure on them.

@sebire,yueshuya

There is a direct train from Guangzhou to Hong Kong, it's very convenient.  

There is Chinese 'countryside', actually quite a lot of it, but not necessarily tourist friendly.  Or, if you wish to wander in the wilds you may be faced with a hefty fee (call it insurance) - a reasonable solution under the circumstances.  'Concrete' paths are, again, a wise solution for a country with massive visitor numbers to desirable spots.  They are not always concrete - some are environmentally friendly and aesthetically smart.    

PS. The student card trick does not work everywhere, even if you really are a student in China, and it is less likely to work if you are a student in your home country.   However, there are gullible people everywhere.     

Hmm, I didn't have any choice regarding sleeper bus, as as far as I could tell from where I was, there was no direct train to Hong Kong. I went Beijing to Xi'an via Datong and Pinyao (Datong have these really cool grottoes and the Hanging Temple, which was super cool), then Shanghai and Hangzhou, Huang Shan, Yangshuo and Hong Kong. I think next time I would like to go to Sichuan and Yunnan province, and I would like to see more countryside. However, judging from the Chinese approach to countryside, I am not sure if I will ever find anything that hasn't had a concrete footpath poured on it, and half of it fenced off.

Another tip for saving money - bring a student card. Or claim you're a student. People seem to like that.

@yueshuya

Sounds a fantastic trip. I'll add that the China experience is enhanced if you go to at least one of the famous natural features, like a 'famous' mountain, even if it is just for the cultural experience.  For example, Huang Shan (Yellow Mountain), within striking distance of Shanghai - allow yourself three or four days all up.  If you would like something a little more unusual let me know and I could PM a couple of suggestions.  

哇，谢谢你们的建议！真有用！

Matt, thanks man, so sounds like sleepers are the way to go for long distance trains. Jason, bodawei, sebire, Hostels I'm not too familiar with but I've been checking the sites that ya'll referenced and seems like the way to save a few bucks. Especially when all you need it just a place to rest for the night.

Oh and bus sleepers - a no no. Thanks for the tip sebire!

My schedule is going to depend on which city I can get a cheaper roundtrip ticket to China from Houston, Shanghai or Beijing, and from there the journey begins. For now I plan to go to the aforementioned cities with a visit to Praxis of course ;), check out the terra cotta soldiers in Xi'an，check out Chengdu, make it to Hong Kong, and other than that I'm not sure yet. I'm thinking with about 28/29 days, visiting 7/8 cities for 3/4 days each is reasonable, yes?

pretzellogic, the artzone sounds pretty interesting, thanks for the tip!

Thanks again everybody

Hey Bodawei,

I am getting mixed up, doubling rather than dividing. Yes, 14 RMB = £1 = $2. Am being stupid.

I'm not sure what the reference '28 RMB a dollar' means.  In the past couple of days friends got just under 10 RMB to the Euro (cash presented at a Chinese bank in China) and just under 7 RMB to the US Dollar.  Hope that helps.    

The inconvenience of having to buy train tickets at either your origin or destination (I know, it is a strange rule) and only up to (usually) three days before travel is off-set by the numerous train services in China.  If you use an agent to buy tickets there is an agency fee.   

I did pretty much exactly that in April last year, and it cost me about £400 (maybe a bit more, there were too many shops in HK...) Get sleeper trains to save on overnight accommodation. My budget was £20 a day, which at the rate of exchange back then was about $40, i.e. at probably around 28 RMB a dollar. However, I am not sure what inflation has been like in China over the past 18 months, you may want to check.

Get a YHA card, that was about £2 and you can use it across the world - it paid itself off probably about 3 times in one night in a Western country. Compares favourably to the £20+ back home!

I often didn't bother booking anything, and just turned up (except for first couple of nights upon arrival, and I think we just found it on HostelBookers/Hostelworld etc.) I found Hostelbookers etc really useful in terms of getting reliable reviews. Lonely Planet etc can be out of date, but you are unlikely to need to book.

I think I got the CITS to book us some train tickets once, because for some reason they can book tickets from other stations, whereas I think you can only book tickets from the station you are travelling from, and you have to get them in advance... So that's not much use for a really short stop. The CITS also helped us get a sleeper bus when there weren't trains to where we were going to. However, I do not recommend the sleeper bus - they do not have toilets or toilet breaks, and neither do they have seatbelts! Though, if you don't mind that feeling of being flung from your bunk at 3 am as the bus goes over pot-holes, go for it!

Anyway, I had the most fun ever travelling round China, so enjoy!

plug for the 798 artzone in Beijing.  It's free (unlike many of the attractions in Beijing), you can spend all day there if you like contemporary art, and it has other fringe benefits.

I can't add much to Jason & Matt except to say that I usually travel more cheaply!  (What is wrong with me?)  I have stayed in hotels for 15 RMB per night (provincial city.)  If you are intermediate I recommend 'Chinese' hotels (where Chinese people generally stay) or hostels - bit more exciting and you don't have to endure 'Western' breakfasts.   If you are interested in hostels (there are now YHA Hostels pretty much everywhere - check the website), often they are more attractive than hotels and cheaper. You get a member discount. Single/double rooms in a hostel will be much like your cheap hotel, but you get a place to hang out as well, and get meals (except in HK where hostels follow the old British model.)  These days lots of Chinese use the hostels so it is not just a foreigner haunt. Breakfasts in hostels will usually be 'Western' (ranging from good to horrible), but you can usually choose to go down the road and look for any place busy to buy a local breakfast.   There is a Chinese  youth hostel association as well, and some hostels are a member of both.  You can expect to pay between say 25/night - 60/night in a dorm; big city locations are more expensive.  You can book beds on the Internet, sites like hostellers.com.  Good luck; I'm always jealous of people setting out on China travels!     

@yueshuya Also you can book cheap hotels on Ctrip, Elong, Mango etc. You can even access these sites from the US (Chinese or English versions) - I THINK they quote the same prices on both language versions of these sites.

Jason was spot on with what you'd expect to pay per night in most low-cost hotels.

For train tickets check out http://skb.kuxun.cn/ its in Chinese but you can enter the depature and destination cities in English and select from a drop down menu in Chinese, make sure you look at the length of journey and the different seating/sleeper prices.

If you send us a list of places you will travel to and the order of travel, I'm sure one of us will help you get some prices.

I just checked your profile and saw that you are an intermediate so you probably won't have any problems with the sites I mentioned.

Hard seat 硬座

Soft seat 软座

Hard sleeper 硬卧

6 bunks per compartment, no doors.

Soft Sleeper 软卧

4 bunks per compartment, each compartment has a door that can be locked. Usually at least 50%+ more expensive than Hard sleeper

D train 动车组

(fast train - the train numbers all start with D) 

1st class seats:  一等

First class are only about 15% more expensive but there are power outlets to plug into for every set of 4 seats, the seats are way more comfy too.

2nd class seats: 二等

The train ticket you want all depends on the experience you want. Do you want to rough it out like half the population during festival times and get seats or standing tickets only, for a 24hr journey?

If you choose a sleeper, do you want to be in the middle of it all (noisy, stinky feet, snoring, never a dull moment)? Then get a hard sleeper.

Do you want to be a bit more cozy, and safer,  and hopefully get some nice compartment buddies then get a soft sleeper.

I've done the hard seat/soft seat for 16hrs and its not easy unless you got plenty of beer.

These days I prefer soft sleeper or 1st class on the D train - but I have to work to do when I'm on the train these days so I choose comfort.

Either way you'll have an awesome time.

Hey there,

Id say average hotel prices are around 200 RMB/a night for a 2-bed in the big cities and a bit cheaper in the smaller ones and much cheaper in the countryside.

There's also things like http://www.couchsurfing.com. There are a lot of expats and Chinese people alike very happy to host you and show you around. (of course, you have to be comfortable to meeting up with strangers though!) 

Food will be pretty cheap, but again also depends on where you eat. I'd give yourself at least 100 RMB a day for food. There will, of course, be many days that you don't spend that much, but a few when you do (and probably more. Especially in big cities) and it'll make up for it. 

The hotels, you don't need to book in advance. That's probably more trouble than it's worth. There are so many hotels in China, that if one is booked, you can easily find another!

You're other big expense will be the train tickets. You'll have to look into how much each trip is based on what kind of seat you want and where you're going, etc.

Hope any of that helps!

Ps, if you come to Shanghai, don't forget to drop by the office!