Happy New Year

Happy New Year to you All.

The Year of the Dog got off to a wild start as always.

Shanghai explodes with fireworks in every direction

The noise starts slowly all day then builds steadily to fully erupt at Midnight, no safety rules, anyone can set fireworks of anywhere, between buildings, on the Rd, anywhere.

So its just crazy.. but also the most amazing site you will ever see, everywhere you look explosions of colour around the city

If you get a change to come over at this time.., I know its cold.., but it is worth it.

Hope you all have a wonderful Year of the Dog

Happy traveling

John
www.Travel-the-Real-China.com

General Update

Hi All

The cold weather and now rain is now upon Shanghai.

I have not been up to much, found a new bar called “Windows Scoreboard” it’s a great place to hang out and play pool and watch sport on the big screen, the beers are only RMB 10 each, it’s the best value in town.

Work and the quoting has really picked up, with everyone now planning for Spring time travel, March April.

Beijing, Shanghai, Guilin, especially, are wonderful in the springtime.

Tibet also is a big attraction with many new inquiries for this amazing place.

If I can help plan your trip to China, please let me know.

Happy traveling

John
www.Travel-the-Real-China.com

China Domestic Travel Tips

Hi all, I hope you are all well,

Wow the weather has got very cold again in Shanghai, down to 0’C with a very chiller wind.

All the foreigners have started to drift back into town, so business has picked up again with many planning the Chinese New Year ( CNY) now, which by the way is way too late.

NO flights, everything everywhere is no fully booked.

The only way to get something now is to wait, all the big companies block book and hold flights, everything that is not sold is released a few days before CNY.

Just a tip if you are planning to buy China domestic Air tickets , make sure you are firm with your plans, you can not change a 40% or lower discounted fare, and for 30% and above you can only change to the equivalent discounted fare, or it gets real messy and complicated.

Hope this helps.

I now have a Hong Kong page, written by a local foreigner who has lived there for 20 years, check it out, lots of good info.

Beijing, Shanghai, Xian, Guilin, will all be busy over the Chinese spring time , so if you are planning something, please plan early.

Take Care for now

Happy traveling.

John
www.Travel-the-Real-China.com

Seasons Greetings to you all.

Hi Everybody

I hope everyone had a great Christmas and Western New Year.

The Chinese New Year is the next big holiday break, so I hope you all have a great holiday wherever you may go.

Harbin Ice festival - Special for January and February.

Good Harbin flight discounts are now becoming available for January and February, so now is a good time to book if you wish to see this famous Ice Festival.

My special Harbin deal is still running for all of January and February.

I have been busy over the winter months making fresh new contacts all over China to be able to provide you with better local adventures and service.

Urumchi and Xinjiang areas

I now have a great travel contact for the Urumchi and Xinjiang areas, a New Zealander based there running adventure tours.

Camping, Home stays, 3-4-5 star hotels, Tailored family breaks, Dessert adventures, Mountain treking.

Together we can now provide a great adventure for all, with a certain guarantee of comfort and conditions.

I have just completed a good overall information page about this area, please go and have alook, and tell me what you think.

Urumqi / Xinjiang

Chengdu and Sichuan province

A terrific place to really get with nature. The mountains within the Chengdu / Sichuan province are a great getaway, with the further west you go the more it feels like you are in Tibet, without all the hassle of permits and cost. Tibet can be expensive.

I can now offer a complete range of adventures and trips all around this amazing area.

Skiing, camping, home stays, 3, 4 and 5 star hotels, tailored family breaks.


If you have not planned for the Chinese New year, I can still arrange travel, so please contact me anytime. or

Telephone 021 63874508 or 13585636884

Happy traveling

John
www.Travel-the-Real-China.com

More Tips and Tricks about Traveling in China

Hi Everyone.

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas.

I hope you enjoyed the China Travel Tips.

I have some other helpful tips and trick about traveling in China that I would like to share.

The others are

Train Travel in China.

Independent China Travel

Hotel Travel Guide China

I hope you enjoy them all

Happy traveling

John
www.Travel-the-Real-China.com

China Travel Tips and Tricks

Survival China Travel Tips and Tricks
by John Mckenna
www.Travel-the-Real-China.com

These China Travel Tips, Survival Techniques, will help you get around and make your trip to China easier, so you will be able to experience the real China with a little less stress.

China is an odd beast that needs to be respected; the major cities, Beijing , Shanghai , and Xian, all have their own personalities.

Some complex situations that you think would be an organizational disaster turn out to be great and you wonder afterward what all the fuss and worry was about. Then the simplest of tasks can turn out to be a major calamity.

This is when you have what we call here a “China day”.These days come and go and are part of the experience of everyday travel in China . One needs to have an open mind when traveling China . It is a place with thousands of years of history and culture that is trying overnight to adapt to Western ways of living.

You need to have a very open mind when you Travel in China .

I have listed below a few China Travel Tips that will make life that wee bit more bearable on your Travel China experience.

China Travel Tips, Be Toilet Wise

• Never expect a clean toilet 100% of the time.• Be prepared; Carry some tissue.• You may have to use a squat toilet, again if you know this before hand it is not a shock. If you don’t know how to use a squat toilet, try the following experiment at home.While holding onto something for support with both hands, lower your body down into a low squat position, so that the cheeks of your bottom is almost touching your heels or the back of your calf. Now, let go with your hands. See if you stay in this position for at least 1 minute. If you fall backwards or you cannot get up, then a squat toilet could be a problem for you! Practice, you will be happy you did.
• If you see a clean toilet, Go… it may not come again for a while.
• There are many public toilets around the cities, usually the ones you pay for are OK, (RMB .5), the others best to stay away from if you can. You will soon notice them as you walk around the cities.
• Be warned that public areas like bus and train stations are usually what I class as “tough toilets”, however if gotta go you gotta go.
• Outside of the major cities, the toilet systems are old or have very narrow plumbing /pipes and get blocked easily. In these cases a small basket is usually beside the toilet, this is for your used toilet paper. One of the best China Travel toilet Tips I can give you, is use hotel lobby toilets; these are everywhere and are always clean. Still they may not always have toilet paper. It depends on the class of hotel that you are using.
I do not wish to scare you. However, of all the China Travel Tips in all the other web sites I have read, this is a topic not often mentioned, but it is very important to us all.

So outside of the major cities conditions can be tough. But most of the time everything will be fine, especially if you book a tour; everything will have been checked out before hand. However even the best laid plans can go wrong, so be prepared, the toilets in the smaller cities, towns and villages can be scary.

China Travel Tips, The Food

• The food is great and the variety is overwhelming. Most of the time you get to choose what you eat, or you can recognize what you’re eating, however sometimes you do not get a choice. Carry a chocolate bar or something; this will keep you going until some food that you can recognize turns up. Drink bottled or boiled water, as the tap water is NOT safe to drink, this is for the whole of China . Even boiled water, while sterilized can contain a lot of minerals and iron deposits that you probably do not want in your system. The safest bet is to drink bottle water. Tap water in most big cities is OK for brushing teeth.
• Eating habits, Most Chinese people have a great habit of being very noisy when they eat and lunch and dinner times can be a wonderfully noisy celebration, food tends to go in all directions, its just part of being in China .
• People also smoke at the table while everyone is eating, so some restaurants get very loud and smoky.
• If you get stuck what to order as most of the menu’s are in Chinese just look at the table next to you and point to the dish you fancy and ask how much it is, this system works really well and know seems to mind.
• I have a basic menu that will help you order safe food, (no Cats or Dog) this will enable you to visit a larger selection of restaurants, not just the tourist ones with high prices. You can carry it with you and use it in the local restaurants where most will be able to serve what is on it.

This way you will know what you are eating.These local places are very cheap and the food it great. Contact me if you would like me to send it to you a menu.

China Travel Tips , Taxis

• China Travel Tips, Taxis, Taxis are an experience that can have you griping the seat and gasping for breath; however you soon get used to it, after the first few rides, you’re an old hand.
• The taxis in Shanghai are, overall, quite good. Try to get the Blue, Blue’ish Turquoise, Gold and White taxis, these are the best… these are the four major taxi companies and are generally recognized by their single colour paintwork. The others are OK, just older and a rougher ride (the others also may have faulty meters). No drivers will speak English.
• Carry your hotel or accommodation business card with you, written in Chinese, this helps if you get lost walking around town.• In all the taxis around the country you will see the drivers name and taxi registration number in plain sight. If you have any problem, or if you think you have been over charged etc, just take this number down, make a big fuss about it, and the driver then should wake up and fix whatever problem you have. Even better is to take the receipt. This has all the trip details on it and you can ring the taxi company if you want to take things further or if you’ve left something in the taxi.
• The government takes rip off drivers in all cities, Beijing and Xian especially, very seriously and if you complain they will lose their license. This is their livelihood. So far I have had not one driver in 3 years that has not backed down and we have then agreed a price for the trip or solved our problem.
• In Shanghai , it is common practice for taxi fare increases after 11pm. However, one can usually bargain for a 20% discount, which will get the fare back to the pre11pm rate.Be strong with the taxi drivers, never the less, keep your cool, smile and negotiate.

China Travel Tips, Shopping

• China Travel Tips , Shopping, China is a shopper’s paradise, Markets, Bargains; Top labels… anything and everything if you have the time. With clothes, the larger (Western) sizes can be quite hard to find, however in the major cities where you get a lot of tourist traffic, you can find them.
• Electrical gear, DVD’s, Cameras, stuff like this is not worth buying in China , Hong Kong is still the best place for this
• Store hours in the major cities are from 10am to 10pm, 7 days a week.
• Visa card is still the best card to carry, with ATM’s in good supply all with PLUS access etc.There is usually a surcharge for use of VISA, MasterCard or other forms of credit card.
• Wait on purchasing if you can, look around to get a feel for the prices. The Chinese are VERY experienced at selling and know that we halve the opening price when bargaining.In the markets go for 25% of what they first ask; go so low that they let you walk away.
This will give you an idea of the bottom price. The resulting end-price will probably be around 40% to 50% of where they started.

Whatever the market people say, they are used to pushing and haggling for best prices. Do not worry about being too hard, they are used to it and will not sell you an item unless they make a profit. Don’t be concerned with the apparently hurt body language when you go low, it is all part of the game. As soon as they have wrapped up your first purchase, they will try to sell you something more. Remember to keep smiling and having fun while bargaining.

China Travel Tips, Medical Treatment and Records

• Most hotels will have a doctor that you can see. In the major hotels English will be spoken.
• Always take a small first aid kit, cold remedy, headache tablets at the very least. WATSON'S is a very large chain chemist. Most of the remedies, tablets etc, that you may require should be in these shops. These shops are all over China .
• There is a great network of pharmacy type shops; these are indicated by a Green Cross. There will always be a 24 hr Green Cross pharmacy in the city you are in. It is handy to carry a Phase book, as no one will speak English, however you will end up with something that will help.
• IMPORTANT POINT .. for most of the mass produced packet type medicines, the packaging will be written in Chinese on one side, English on the other. However in the shops you only see the Chinese side. Have a good look, turn the packs over, it gives you a lot more confidence knowing you can read the package.
• If you have a specific medical issue, take records, most of the Doctors will have OK written / reading English, even though their oral English will be poor.

China Travel Tips, Telephone

• Using the phone is as easy as at home. However the person picking it up will not speak English or have very broken English… the Major 4 or 5 Star Hotels will all be OK.
• What is worth doing is buying a Chinese Telecom SIM card, they are about RMB100 and with this you get RMB50 in calls, the other 50 is for the price of the SIM card; this SIM card will go into all major brand phones and work OK.By doing this, people can reach you within and out of China if there is an emergency.
If you have a couple of phones, you can short (txt) message each other (SMS). Also you are able to call your tourist guide, hotel etc if you have any major problems. It is a cheap way to keep in touch.

NB. Before you buy a Chinese SIM card, check that it will work in your Cell / Mobile phone. There are plenty of China Telecom shops that can help.

China Travel Tips on when NOT to move around China .

• Spring Festival, this would be the Chinese New Year time, around the end of January / Early February
• Early May; Labor day Holidays
• Early October; National Day Holidays Of all the China Travel Tips National Day is the biggest one.

Millions of Chinese travel at these holiday times of the year. Most are traveling back to home towns or visiting family. Hotels, trains, planes, cars, buses, and roads are all crowded to the maximum. Major congestion, everywhere.

Also travel fares are at their full price. No discounts are offered!

Stay in one place and enjoy where you are. It’s best and causes fewer hassles.

China Travel Tip, TV

• If you want to watch TV, most of the major hotels will have cable and if you are in the smaller places, the national channel, CCTV9 is in English. Over the last couple of years it has got a lot better, with some great China Travel Tips programs, news and views on people and places around China . China Travel Tips , Airport Tax
• There is a “construction fee” at almost all airports.Domestic flights RMB 50
International flights RMB 90, which is to be paid in local currency.

Just recently, tickets are being issued with the Construction Tax included; however make sure you have the Tax money with you just to make sure.

I hope some of these China Travel Tips will come in handy and will make your trip to China that little bit easier.

If you have been to China and wish to share your China Travel Tips, please feel free to contact me anytime.

John Mckenna
www.Travel-the-Real-China.com
john@travel-the-real-china.com

About the Author
Hi I'm John Mckenna, I am from New Zealand and have lived in Shanghai China now for 3 years.
I own and operate www.Travel-the-Real-China.commy site provides experienced based Travel and Tour information on the wonders of Travel in China, the Real China, Ancient China, China at its very best.

An Adventure just outside Hangzhou - Day 3

by John Mckenna
www.Travel-the-Real-China.com

Hi All

Here is the 3nd and last day of this trip into the mountaions outside of Hangzhou.

I do hope you have enjoyed the trip,

If i can arrange a tour or a trip within China for you, please contact me anytime on john@travel-the-real-china.com

The full story and the pictures can be seen on Travel-Hangzhou-China

Day 3, Nov. 6th

Up bright and early again. Last night we came in after dark, so didn’t get a good look at Lin’an.

The Hotel’s name was Hai Ding Tian; the group rate we paid was RMB 140; the actual room rate was RMB320, so we did OK. Breakfast was a very expensive RMB 5 for a classic Chinese breakfast!…YUM YUM. Hehehe

We went for a small walk through town before breakfast and noticed that the town was very industrial; many small shops all with building supplies etc; many new buildings going up, and many, many small Chinese hotels. This town is the main feeder town for the mountain tourist area, as it’s much cheaper to stay here than in Hangzhou.

At 8-30 we were off in 3 large buses winding their way through very small towns and villages to Xiao Jiuzhaigou. The scenery is beautiful. We came across a hydroelectric dam, and the lake it has created is spectacular; we never expected this.

Our trip took about 50 minutes in our private bus. However you can get a public bus from the Lin’an, Hangzhou bus station up to here as well.

Well, what a shock. On the way we found we were in a 3-bus convoy (thought we had left early) and arrived to find another 10 buses already ahead of us. It was time to experience the throngs of Chinese tourism.

Another shock - all the signs etc were bi-lingual and the entrance fee was RMB 48. We were invited in as guests of the tour operator from Suzhou – very nice.

Later, in discussions with the operators of Xiao Jiuzhaigou I learned that this place also sees no western tourists; it’s just too hard to get to.

It had just started to rain a little and the temperature had dropped - very different from yesterday’s beautiful sunny day.

Xiao Jiuzhaigou is in a small valley with waterfalls, ponds, lovely little bridges, some monkeys on show; a cool climbing wall that everyone can have a go on, with the safety procedures looking OK as well.

It’s a lovely place to walk through breathing some welcome fresh air, be close to running water, sit and have tea at the temple at the top of the valley, and sample the local food on sale.

We went there with a lot of people, and in the summer it will get very crowded. But in the winter it would be quite beautiful, as there would be snow and ice all around.

It’s not a long walk up the valley and you only need a couple of hours there, then you either sit down and enjoy the atmosphere, or feel its time to move on.

We said our gracious thanks to the Suzhou operator for looking after us so well and said I will contact him concerning trips etc for Suzhou and the surrounding area; I now have a good contact in Suzhou.

Fortune rained down on us once again. We meet a tour operator from Shanghai and he asked us if we needed a ride back to Lin’an…. Yes please.

After a local lunch for us both in Lin’an (RMB11) it was off to find the bus back to Hangzhou.

Buses leave from the Lin’an bus station to Hangzhou about every 15 minutes and the ride takes about 35–40 minutes, costing RMB 10.

We had already bought our 6-30pm train tickets back to Shanghai from the main Hangzhou railway station, a big modern station with thousands of people everywhere.

We were now 3 hrs early for our train, so we dropped off our bags at the station luggage office (RMB 5 per bag) and headed into town, as I needed some coffee. (I must be getting too old for this wild exploring. Hehe)

To get into town from the main railway station, there are many buses so we jumped on a K900 to the lake.

Hangzhou is well set up; it was easy compared to the last few days of finding buses etc.

We found a new coffee shop down by the lake, Blenz Coffee shop, a nice clean, modern coffee shop overlooking the lake and ordered coffee and cake…wonderful…I must be getting old.

There is a great, cheap famous local place to eat in Hangzhou called Zhi Wei Guan where the main restaurant is upstairs and it’s a ticket system for downstairs, with all dishes about RMB 5. We had a quick dinner and headed back to the station on a 151 bus, which took 15 minutes.

We had brought soft-seat tickets, so we headed for the soft-seat waiting area; big nice soft seats to crash into, to wait for our train to arrive.

Then we took the N510 back to Shanghai; unfortunately it was a slow train and took 3hrs - oops, bad planning there.

Finally arrived back in Shanghai, and crashed.

A great weekend, exploring new sites to share with you all.

If you would like more information on Travel Hangzhou China, and the surrounding area please contact me anytime john@travel-the-real-china.com

Happy travelling

John

www.Travel-the-Real-China.com

An Adventure just outside Hangzhou - Day 2

The Continued Adventure in the Mountains just outside of Hangzhou
By John Mckenna
www.Travel-the-Real-China.com

The full story and the pictures can be seen on Travel-Hangzhou-China

Day 2, Nov. 5th

We were up bright and early after a great nights sleep; we’re not used to the quiet, and it was good to hear a truck roar through town at 3am. Hehehe.

Then it was off to the best place in town (the only place in town) for some breakfast. We got there about 8-15 and found the buns (Rou Bao), soybean juice, pan cakes etc were all sold out before 8AM. WOW - must be good business in the early morning.

We settled for their very good dumplings and local noodles, 2 bowls of each, (we were hungry), total cost RMB 11.

Here we saw a local running around with a snake trying to sell it to the restaurants; don’t you just love these local country places. Hehehe.

We were off to a local mountain called Da Ming Shan, which is a mountain that is compared to Yellow Mountain for views and scenery; however very much cheaper and closer to Shanghai and Hangzhou, being only about 2.5 hrs from Hangzhou.

We decided to take the bus. The hotel boss wanted to drive us there for RMB 80, but we thought the bus would be more fun.

After an hours wait, snacking on local pancakes with the whole town watching us, the bus stormed past us. Luckily for us two seats were available, and we discovered the local area officials are very strict on overloading and will not allow anyone to stand - no-seats and the bus will not stop to pick you up. This is actually is good to know, as when I back-packed 10 years ago, the policy was - pack in as many as you can. It’s a lot safer now.

Half an hour later we were dropped off in a small town called Long Gang (Dragon gate), to catch the next local bus to Ji Xi, which is the junction point to go up to Da Ming Mountain, another 4km up the road.

All the bus rides provide great entertainment from the locals, as getting to this mountain is easy for the Chinese, but very difficult for the Westerner. So this famous Chinese tourist site gets no Western tourist traffic.

The weather had turned into a beautiful hot sunny autumn day, and we had to buy hats; strange weather the Chinese autumn, cold and wet one day, so hot the next that you need a hat.

Da Ming Shan (Mountain)

The entrance fee and the sign are in English, and it says RMB 68. Yes, you get charged this, plus an extra RMB 8, which is not explained in English. It’s the fee for an internal mountain bus ride between the main entrance and the cable car area - (it’s a long walk but not worth doing), so the correct entrance fee to Da Ming Shan is RMB 76.

There is a hotel up beside the cable car station called Da Ming Mountain Villa; the rooms are from RMB160 to 350 per night with different prices for the weekday and the weekend. I checked the lowest cost room as well as the highest cost. Both rooms had small windows, but not really showing off the wonderful views, with the RMB 350 room being newer and cleaner.

From the cable car area you have some decisions to make - take the cable car up the mountain, or walk? The ride up is RMB30, the ride down is RMB25.

Trust me, take the cable car, it’s a LONG walk and there plenty of steps and climbing to do when you up there, so save your energy.

WOW …What a view. We have chosen the best time of year with all the amazing autumn colours around us.

When we arrived at the top and thought, good ride up, now what, we were told to “walk this way” straight into the side of the mountain.

All the scenic sites are linked via 10km of tunnels through the mountain, it’s just amazing. The tunnels are well lit and take you to all the best viewing points around the mountain..

The site description signs are bi-lingual, hanging bridges, spectacular outlooks, restaurants, very clean toilets, all well placed, very impressive. And not one foreigner.

There were many tour groups here from Shanghai, Hangzhou, Suzhou etc, and all the guides said that Da Ming Shan gets no western tourist traffic due to being so hard to get to. If a foreigner comes, it is always with a Chinese tour group.

We spent the rest of the day up there, checking all the sites out, climbing, what I though were thousands and thousands of steps, and ate good hot local noodles overlooking a beautiful mountain meadow.

The hot sunny autumn sunshine, magnificent views, and a well set up scenic site, provided a great day out - well worth the effort in getting here.

Da Ming Shan definitely should be checked out, and in the winter all the mountain peeks will be very spectacular. I will certainly be back over the winter months for more photos.

Oops! I forgot to mention about getting back. It was getting too late for the local buses, so some quick talking was called for. We needed to get back to Lin’an, which is just 35 minutes away from Hangzhou, and find a good cheap hotel.

Fortunately we found a Suzhou tourist group (120 persons) on their way back to Lin’an to stay the night. The tour group leader said he had some spare seats at the back of the bus and we could have them, so we were lucky.

It turned out that the tour group had some people drop out and the hotel where this group was staying had rooms booked that they had to pay for. So we were offered one of the rooms. We were very pleased to get a good hotel room at a tour group price, and it saved the tour operator paying for empty rooms.

We were then invited for dinner with the group leaders and the guides. Over dinner the group manager found out I was in the tourist business and then invited us to go with them to the locations they had planned for tomorrow.

WOW - great stuff. More sites to explore and investigate that foreigners would find difficult to get to, and so close to Hangzhou.

Tomorrow we would be off to a site call Xiao (small) Jiuzhaigou, named after the famous Jiuzhaigou in the Sichuan Province. This should be interesting, and just an hour and a half away from Hangzhou.

After a day of adventures and excitement it was off to bed, with much more to look forward to tomorrow.

I will post the 3rd and last day over the wek few days

Take care

John
www.Travel-the-Real-China.com

An Adventure just outside Hangzhou

An Adventure just outside Hangzhou
By John Mckenna www.Travel-the-Real-China.com

Day 1, Nov. 4th
Two of us went exploring over towards Hangzhou where we had heard about some impressive sites, that only the Chinese get to see, as the infrastructure is not yet set up for Western tourists.

White Horse Cliff, Lao Dui Xi (a great walk though a canyon and along the river), and Da Ming Mountain; this mountain is said to be as good as Huangshan (Yellow Mountain).

Let’s go and find out.

We took the early train, to Hangzhou. (6:30am, and it is the first fast train, arriving around 8:15am.) We arrived at the Hangzhou East Railway Station just as it started to rain.

The Hangzhou East railway station is very old and run down and a bit out of town, not like the main Station, which is very new and modern. As we were unsure of our plans for the next three days and getting train tickets can be difficult, we decided to buy our return tickets for the Sunday.

After buying our tickets back to Shanghai for the Sunday (6-30pm), we headed off to find a taxi, as we needed to get across town to the Hangzhou West Bus station. Hangzhou has a population of over 3 million, so it’s not a small place, and the lake is not the only main amazing attraction…as we were soon to find out.

It took us 45 minutes to get across town and then from the Hangzhou West Bus Station, we took the 9-50 bus to Chang Hua (cost RMB 20).

The bus is comfortable and we got a seat number, so we had a 2.5 hour ride in the heavy rain and muddy roads to get to a small town called Chang Hua.

There are two main towns that feed all the mountain sight-seeing spots in the Zhe Jiang province; one is Lin’an which we had just driven through, and the other is Chang Hua.

Lin’an is the bigger of the two and about 35 km (45 minutes) east of Hangzhou, on the Yellow Mountain side of Hangzhou. There are 3 main tourist areas with Lin’an being the central feeder to them all.

There is Jin Cheng (east side, Down Town), Tian Mu Mountain (in the middle) and Qing Liang Feng (west side); all are around and within 2 to 3 hrs from Hangzhou.

Lin’an is very well set up to get bus tours, etc, out to the mountain sight-seeing places. Here there are plenty of Chinese 2 and 3 star hotels ranging from RMB 60 to 300 per night, which are a bit more expensive over weekends. I asked around, and these areas get NO Western tourists - all Chinese, as these areas are very difficult for the Western traveller to get to. All foreigners go to the more easily reached Huangshan (Yellow Mountain).

In the Lin’an area, it’s all Chinese language, hotels, cafes, transportation out to the sites, sorry, NO English at all.

This whole area is much cheaper than Yellow Mountain and in my view, just as good … as you will soon find out.

Chang Hua is a very small country village and has a 500-year history of having the best roasted Chestnuts in the land; its bus station is a main feeder to all the mountain sites around this area.

Oh yes, it also has a classic Chinese toilet at the bus station, Take a deep breath. (Or don’t!)

At Chang Hua we boarded another bus (RMB 6) and headed for Tai Ping Qiao which is a very small mountain village close to the places we wanted to see.

The weather had started to clear and we were in for a great sunny afternoon.

When we arrived at Tai Ping Qiao, we were met by the hotel boss who took us to our room. The whole town has about 6, 5-floor low budget hotels and that is about all. This is the off-season, so we were the only tourists in the whole town and being a foreigner certainly made for funny looks in my direction; remember no foreigners come to these sites.

The room was as expected for RMB 60 per night. What was a surprise was a new hot water heater on the wall - at least we could have a nice hot shower. A point to remember, a RMB 60 per night room does not come with towel, so take your own… Hehehe.

We were starving by this time with all the travelling to get here. With only two proper restaurants in town, and both empty at lunchtime it was not a good sign… we went into one and the lady there had to phone the chef to come to work, another bad sign…. we left.

We ended up in a noodle place (the only one) across the road from our hotel. Here we had four local dishes including great dumplings and noodles. Our lunch cost us RMB 16 for two persons… nice.

Now, with a bright sunny day and being well fed, it was time for us to do what we had come here to do…see the sights.
As the tourist sites are still a good distance from the small town, we asked the hotel boss to take us to the furthest site up the mountain road and we would walk back. This cost us RMB 20. He took us to the first site called White Horse Cliff (Bai Ma Ya) where the entrance fee here is RMB 60, which also includes another sight-seeing place called Lao Dui Xi, just down the road.

We could choose to buy a 4-site ticket that includes all the sites for this area and this would cost RMB 110. However if visitors do not arrive early enough there would not be enough time to fit them all in.

The 4 sites are called Tuo Lin Waterfall (Tuo Lin Po Bu), White Horse Cliff, Lao Dui Xi, and Jian Men Guan.

If you have time to do just two sites you need to buy the tickets in this order, or you will be overcharged.

White Horse Cliff + Lao Dui Xi - both for RMB 60.

White Horse Cliff + Sword Gate - both for RMB 60.

If you start with either Lao Dui Xi or Sword Gate, you will be sold a ticket for RMB 60 for just one site.

White Horse Cliff

This place is really beautiful; it has a well made stone path walkway through the forest and valleys, with water pools, waterfalls, amazing rock formations, great views of lush valleys… all along the way. This walk takes about 2 hrs at a stroll.

We had chosen the best time of the year to go on this mountain trip as the whole place was alive with autumn colours.

As it was a Friday, we were the only people in the entire scenic spot. WOW. Nobody…no crowds, lots of peace and quiet, waterfalls, fresh mountain air…just great.

Well worth all the train and bus rides to get here.

It’s quite a climb in some places with many steps (many Chinese mountain sites seem to have a lot of steps), so visitors need to just take it slow and pace themselves.

Good for the legs and butt…my Mum always used to say.

There is a lady at the top-most point who has a shop there. She climbs up everyday summer and winter, and in the winter on some days when no-one comes, she earns nothing for the week. However she still does it; she is a tough lady dedicated to her business. This is typical of how hard some of the country folk have to work to make a living.

White Horse Cliff is a great walk and well worth the visit; however, in the summer I imagine it would be very crowded and very hot.

This place gets busy from May through to the October holiday, after which the tourist traffic falls away and over the winter months only the hardened day-trippers from Shanghai or Hangzhou come here during the weekends.

Lao Dui Xi

From White Horse Cliff you can then walk down the road to Lao Dui Xi, which was a complete surprise. Here were Minority dancing displays, working models of ancient grinding and mill-type tools for making different types of local oils, and a great teahouse overlooking the river. And open spaces for kids to run and play…all very well done.

Again, we were the only ones there, as it was a Friday.

Once you have enjoyed the main areas and sites, there is a walkway alongside the river. It is a good path that takes about an hour and brings you back to the road further down the mountain.

It is really a nice walk with high cliff-sides, big rock formations, autumn colours, and peace and quiet. Remember it’s a Friday, so the next day there will be many, many people here.

By the time we arrived back on the road it was nearly dark, but we knew where the hotel was, so we just walked back.

We got back in total darkness with the hotel boss thinking these two silly city tourists had got lost. She was quite worried for us.

We went straight to dinner and decided to try the restaurant that had a chef. On the menu was peacock, Snake, Wild Boar and Rabbit, Mountain Turtle, Wild Chicken, Donkey…quite an interesting menu with prices at Shanghai levels. In the summer tourist season the prices must be very high. We bargained and ended having a local stonefish dish, egg fried rice with mushroom and a local dish bamboo root / vegetable and bacon soup, total RMB 45. It was ok.

This is a real small country village and when it gets dark, well that is it. nothing to do except go to bed.

So we did as the locals do and retired to bed as well, a long day but a great day, well worth the effort to get up here.

The trip actually lasted 3 days , traveling to some great, sites, please stay with the site and i will post the others over the next few days.

Happy Travelling

John
www.Travel-the-Real-China.com

China Travel Website, My story

How it all started for me…and the lifestyle I enjoy now

Here is the secret of how I turned my fascination and enthusiasm for travel into an enjoyable and rewarding internet occupation – a move that changed and enhanced my life. In essence, my “hobby” is now helping to support me, instead of me supporting it.

With the help of Site Build It (SBI), I now have my own travel web-site and a sustainable enterprise. With the help of Site Build It (SBI), anyone can do this – turn a passion into a satisfying internet activity.

In just a few short months I went from not knowing one bit about “How to build a web-site”, to now having an internet venture with over 30 pages ranked within the top 10 on Yahoo and MSN search engines, and ranked 12 in Google. (That is good going for an amateur.)

Enquiries for my Real-China holidays and tours are coming in from all over the world. I now have many satisfied customers whose Real-China holidays have gone smoothly and who have enjoyed their Real-China experience. I am personally very pleased, and now receive viable compensation from my “scary experiment”.

The background:

After exploring around the world for some years (including three months backpacking the back-blocks of China), I returned to New Zealand to become a salesman for a multi-national electronics company with offices in New Zealand.

I must have been doing OK, because I was head-hunted by another large electronics multi-national, to help establish regional headquarters in Shanghai for servicing the Asia-Pacific region.

My job was to set up and train distributor-based sales forces within Asia-Pacific, and implementing procedures to develop each cell into an effective wholesale agent for my company’s products.

I was responsible for the AP markets of Taiwan, Japan, Korea, Thailand, Philippines, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Pakistan, and Vietnam and became a “frequent traveller” throughout the region. I also made regular trips to the US and Europe; I was “on the road” a lot….. Great fun

Actually it was. I enjoyed my 2-year contract and learned a lot about business, people, different cultures, etc.

However all good things eventually come to an end. With all procedures in place, and the people and businesses developing nicely, I had done myself out of a job and my contract was not renewed. So…time to move on.

I liked Shanghai so much I decided to stay for a while to see what turned up. Maybe it was time for a career change. Maybe it was time to try something really different.

I have always enjoyed travelling and have now lived as many years out of New Zealand, as I have lived in New Zealand.

I have a passion for travel and seeing new places, and I saw China Tourism as a growing business… maybe this would be an opportunity for me.

Just through my observations, I noticed that booking tours and dealing with Chinese travel agents was difficult; it was obvious to me that here in Shanghai there was a lack of understanding of Western travelling needs and requirements, with plenty of misunderstanding and confusion.

I noticed this lead to disappointment and frustration for many travellers wanting to arrange holidays and trips around China – especially those folks seeking experiences in the “old & authentic” China.

I looked at many China travel web-sites and whilst all were full of information, most gave me the impression of being in the “mass-production” travel business.

Visiting Real-China is a great (and quickly vanishing) experience; it’s a shame so many people have not been fully satisfied with their tours because of complacent planning and “formula” itineraries.

I had back packed through the highways & by-ways of China for many weeks and had experienced a great deal of the essential and basic China, so I thought, what about an experience-based, personal-plan travel site on China?

Here is what I did:

With no experience of building a web-site, I asked myself… What do I do first?

I started with plenty of research…on “How to”…including where else...on the internet?

I came across many “How to” sites. However I kept coming back regularly to one; a web-site business development system called Site Build it

Site Build It (SBI) sells itself as an all-in-one site-building, site-hosting, site-promoting suite of tools. It supposedly eliminates all the confusing technical complexities and exhausting manual labour involved in building and promoting a site, and leaves you with the fun part - creating content.

Here is the complete sales pitch, but if you’re in a hurry, here is the short version.

To cut a long story of months of research short, I determined this site building system could actually help me build a little web-site to showcase China, and have the flexibility to enable me to make it in the style I thought would work for intrepid travellers who might read it and find my knowledge helpful for their own travel plans.

I have found SBI really is an “Anyone can do it” web-site building system”.

You build a web-site according to their system and the guidelines laid out before you by ink=http://http://buildit.sitesell.com/B2B-China.html]Site Build It, [/link] and hey presto, you are supposed to have a successful site. (“Well, that’s what it said in the advert”.)

“Make Your Site Sell!” is considered by many to be the "bible" of selling on the internet. SBI was supposed to cover every imaginable aspect of building a web-site that can really SELL.

I was still not a believer; however all the research I had done indicated something was different about this SBI set-up.

I looked for proof and results, that the system works and has worked for others.

Here is the proof I found, and I checked case studies as well.

I decided - just do it. If it works, to pay a few hundred dollars for a web-site that could pay for itself at least and provide me with much satisfaction, would be a reasonable outlay.

If it didn’t work, then it’s only a few hundred dollars, not the thousands, business set-up and infrastructure costs would entail. So, what is my situation at present? My life has now changed…for the better.

1 – I sold a travel tour the first week the site was up.

2 – I now regularly arrange local tours for expatriates living in China, and have expanded my “territories” to include major cities, popular sightseeing, short “side trips”, and connections with Chinese festival occasions.

3 – My site traffic has increase 20% every month since my site was launched; with potential internet clients now visiting from further a field.

4 – I make a little money from Google for their links featured on my site.

5 – I am the travel writer for a local Expat magazine here in Shanghai - “Shanghai Scene”.

6 – My corporate days are over and my life is more relaxed.

7 – I have the time to travel and see more of this great country of China.

I can openly and honestly say “Thanks SBI”, for providing me with a system to build, maintain and grow an economically viable and personally satisfying web-site.

My own passion for travelling, seeing others enjoy this wonderful country, and receiving great feedback from my clients, has made it easy to write the content for my site.

The system is easy and very well laid out, and I can now say it is the best venture I have become involved with. It really does work - if you put the effort in.

Nothing in life is easy; however I now enjoy working in an industry I love and can share with others.

Travel, read the paper, sit in a coffee shop, chat to tourists. I now enjoy quite a different life compared to my corporate days.

If you want a change, have a passion about a product or service, an SBI site may be just what you’re looking for.

If you would like to know more, please contact me directly and we can have a chat.

Happy travelling

John
[b]www.Travel-the-Real-China.com[/b]