Trip to China

Scream

Scream

Scream

Soldato
Joined
18 Oct 2002
Posts
4,656
Location
The Darkside
In a few weeks myself and a few friends are heading to China for two full weeks. Landing in Shanghai, we plan to split our time between there and Beijing. If anyone has been to China I would like your opinions on how best to plan our two weeks. How long to spend where, things we should do there or even not do etc.

Recommended hotels etc would be a bonus. Would an overnight train be best to get to Beijing?

Any suggestions would be great as we don't want to land and then scratch our heads. We have a few ideas but nothing concrete.

One other thing, is it best to bring a good sum of money with us and then rely on atm's to get whatever extra we need? Its just a while back someone told me you can only get their currency in China and you can't take it out of the country. That sounds bull isn't it?
 
Last edited:
Officially, you're not allowed to take currency out, but I still have a wallet full of various Chinese bills, so I wouldn't worry about it :p ATMs are everywhere, especially where you're heading, so I wouldn't worry about it.

Never actually stayed in hotels in either city, I'm always too broke to go above hostel standard though on the off chance you do end up looking for a hostel, I'd recommend Captain's in Shanghai (on Fuzhou Lu 福州路）and either P-Loft or Downtown Backpackers in Beijing - though the latter may now be closed, I know the authorities were planning to demolish half of Nanluoguxiang to build a car park, and I've not been for a while.

As for what to do, it's pretty much a given that in Beijing you do the history bits, Forbidden Palace, Great Wall, Summer Palace, Tiananmen, then in shanghai go up the massive shiny buildings and wander about the old French quarter. Actually, the rooftop of Captain's is a superb place to get a view of the Bund skyline, you can visit the bar without staying at the hostel, but it's monumentally expensive (in Chinese terms) - think £5 for a bottle of beer, which is 80p in the hostel reception, or 35p in a shop round the corner.

I'd probably give more time to Beijing, personally, but I can get stuck there for weeks doing things. Shanghai's got a different vibe to it, it's pricier on the whole and doesn't really have so uch to see, though it's just...impressive.

As for travel between them, hard sleeper on an overnight train is probably your best bet, hostel staff should be able to write down a message for you to hand over at the ticket office to get what you need, as the "English speaking window" is notoriously useless. Should be 12 hours or so, but a comfortable enough journey. Worth looking in to internal flights, they can be had for about the same price as a train ticket sometimes - try http://www.9588.com or http://www.elong.com to get started.

And, have fun :) spent 18 months or so over there, and I'll be going back to take up a job later this year, so fire away with any more questions.
 
Shanghai and Beijing for places I been to in both. In Shanghai I ended up in a blue mountain hostel (think thats what it was), which was quiet far away from anywhere interesting, so was taxi rides to get anywhere. On the plus side it was right next to the airport and Shanghai got the most expensive taxis of all places I been to (well not really that expensive really, just more so then other cities). Was pretty interesting there, can't fault the hostel as it wasn't bad.

In Beijing the first hostel was like a hotel, it is actually really good, just staying there too long isn't. But its very central, you can walk to the forbidden city and the lot...

Sorry its late here and my head gone blank, but from general advice:

Don't drink tap water, Beijing is incredibly polluted so best stock up on vitamins, if you want to go anywhere by a taxi, best to write down the address or pronounce it well, Beijing accent is harder to understand then others, more things to see in Beijing, go on a tour of a less popular wall bit, if you have issues with lack of ANY personal hygene, constant gobbing, caughing, spitting\ and any number of other disgusting things, then stay at home :p
 
A lot of people I spoke to loved Beijing, I didn't like it as much as the rest of China. Maybe because it's the place I got the worst diarrhoea of my entire life.

I spent a month going from southern China to Beijing. I recommend heading out with your two weeks and taking overnight trains (the only kind :P) to further out places, spend 2-3 days per place.

We (Me and fiancée) blogged a little about the time we spent there. If you'd like to read it feel free.

http://www.roundtheworldadventures.com/?cat=15&paged=5

I've given you page 5 as that's the first entry. It's a bit of a book I guess :(, closer you get to page 1 closer you get to Beijing.

My one piece of advice... eat eat and eat. :)

My phrases: "Moo lah" (Not spicy). :D That didn't help in the Sichuan province.

Oh and you'll hear people saying "Gwy Low". Which basically means foreigner. They don't mean it offensively, they're just not used to foreigners as much as you'd think. They really mean nothing by it.

BTW budget wise. China was about £30 (for two) per day for everything, travel, accommodation, food, sights. That's at hotels too.

OH!!! I almost forgot, DO THE GREAT WALL. Awesome. Not just any part of it though. "Simatai" you must do that part. It's less touristy, a bit more challenging... AND there's a zipline for about £4 at the end across a river :P


My video.

In Beijing go to the silk market to buy souvenirs. The mark-up is HILARIOUS, literally 10x mark-up... I bought some chopsticks, they started at 300 yuan. I said "10", we settled on 30 :P
 
Last edited:
Many thanks for the input guys. You have given me plenty to think about. Hotels, hostels, it doesn't matter as I have travelled rough many times before.

Thanks for the video FabienO and your blog will be read by all of us. Medically, should we be getting any additional jabs before we go or maybe get some malaria tablets etc or is that going overboard? I have heard a lot of people suffer the runs when they visit China so is there anything one should take to sort that problem out?

What about the nightlife in terms of bars, nightclubs etc cause we need to discover that area of china also?

fifiov mentioned you shouldn't be taking the money out of the country so is it still possible to go to your bank and get some yuan out? Its always nice to have some of their money in your wallet when you land or should I just go to the atm at the airport when I land?

I forgot to mention clothing. What's the dress code like and are there restrictions when in restaurants bars etc. I don't want to look out of place.

Cheers
 
Last edited:
Don't forget your Hep A/B jabs, they take 3/6 months to take effect. 1 in 5 people in china have hep B and it can be transfer by surfaces so be warned. ;)
 
FabienO said:
In Beijing go to the silk market to buy souvenirs. The mark-up is HILARIOUS, literally 10x mark-up... I bought some chopsticks, they started at 300 yuan. I said "10", we settled on 30 :P
Click to expand...

Pfft, that's nothing. I wanted a small bronze buddha. He started at 2000! :eek: I offered 20 :p

Settled on 50 :D Could've done better, but was tired.

The one time I didn't know what to do was when I wanted to buy those tea cups (with the built in strainer). I knew that they sold for around 10 and had a particular design in mind. Saw it at a stall and went in all ready to do battle and bring him down to 10. I asked him how much, and he started at 10! Was gobsmacked and had no idea what to say so just nodded and went "uh.., done."
 
Scream said:
What about the nightlife in terms of bars, nightclubs etc cause we need to discover that area of china also?


I forgot to mention clothing. What's the dress code like and are there restrictions when in restaurants bars etc. I don't want to look out of place.

Cheers
Click to expand...

International ATMs are everywhere, so no worries there. I never knew about not taking money out of the country and have done it loads of times, they never check.

No serious dresscodes for going out, not at the places you'll be going I imagine anyway, in Shanghai it's hard to find a good western nightclub, everywhere is either really pricey so that'll put you off, or they're pickup bars filled with prostitutes.

In Shanghai 'Shelter' is the best western club, it's an underground dingy dark and LOUD club, saw Pete Rock there last/this? month, £13 on the door (steep by their standards) good beer at £2-3 a bottle (fairly cheap for shanghai)
Other western/expat style pubs are around £3-4 a pint for a beer.

JingAn temple is a nice place to look around, fairly central to some things if you want to stay that side, other side is across the river.
 
Spent a month in China without any jabs and was fine, but I am pretty fussy over personal hygene, but you just stick to toilets in shopping centres/hotels (for shopping centres go to higher floor, they are cleaner). Any fruits supermarket/normal market bought, always washed from bottled water, brushed teeth with bottled water and was absolutely fine and happy. Also toilets always have soap (because hardly anyone uses it), so you can be fine there, just carry some mini-hand wipes you can buy them in any convinience store.

There is no dress code, and you will look out of place if you are blond. One experiment I had, was blending in with a black bandanna, and it worked like a charm, most people ignore you if you have black/dark hair. Oh I remember when I was walking on my own, was approached by some local girl asking something in English. Didn't bother asking what she really wanted, either scam or prostitute, suggest ignoring them. This was on WaFuJin or however you spell it, big shopping street in Beijing.
 
Yeah. There were very few scammers but one did try to get us.

Spoke english to us on the street and tried to lure us into a 'family tea house'. Reality is we would have had some tea then been charged extortionate prices for it, and if you don't pay apparently some burly men come out. I thought it would've been interesting as I am 6ft5 and about 220lbs but better to not get scammed. We made out excuses and left. Saw the same guy the next day talking to some old English couple, kinda felt bad for them. That was the only scammer we had in one month of being there.

Re. Jabs, I would check with doctor to see if any are needed. I got a lot of jabs but I was doing a full loop of the world. I also though "well better to be protected for the next 'x' years, even in UK".

I recommend you check out gapyear.com forums. They have decent travel advice on there. Also, the Chinese have hand gestures for numbers. It's useful to learn these for easy communication.
 
Last edited:
lol, on reading that link it seems that a friend and I almost fell for the 'practice english' scam. Couple of women came up to us and asked us if they could follow us around. Very apprehensive, but we were in a busy mall so said ok :p I had a bit of my laugh because the one following me around asked some questions about how exp. UK was etc. and I answered. My friend, who is English, got the older, more experienced one and was being questioned on his/family's income and what not. After an hour or so they asked, as the scam on the site said, to go for a coffee or something. We politely declined and left. They pressed it a lil bit, but nothing much.

Always thought it was wierd. Only on reading that link now did I realise that we just missed being scammed :p
 
I found China very safe, as long as you use a bit of common sense and respect the local laws (no walking around with free tibet t-shirts etc!). The scams with English students are pretty common, but they don't hassle you much if you say you're not interested. Other than that there are a lot of Police around, so you should be fine.

Things i'd recommend in Beijing.....

Da Dong - top class chinese restaurant (there are 3 in beijing), providing a modern take on chinese classics. Well worth a visit, though pricey by local standards.

In terms of clubs/bars:

Mix/Vix - two huge clubs by the workers stadium near Sanlitun. Mix is a very chinese crowd, but good fun if you're up for it. Vix has a lot of international people, mainly students at chinese language school, so you can have fun there. Expensive by local standards, but average by western standards.

xiu - roof-top bar/club at the hyatt regency. Heavy expat present, and expensive by western stadards, but I had some good fun there when I was in bejing a year or so ago.

798 art district is worth wondering around for a day if you are into modern art.

Also worth spending some time at a spa, I can't remember the name of the famous one in bejing dragonfly possibly, but you can get massages (not that kind :P) for barely anything and is a good way to chill out after a long day.

I'd recommend the overnight sleeper from shanghai to Beijing, its about 60 quid single for the 4 berth cabin and very reliable and safe and the stations are both located centrally. Though Beijing is an absolute monster of a city that sprawls for miles and miles, so central is always relative!
 
Scream said:
In a few weeks myself and a few friends are heading to China for two full weeks. Landing in Shanghai, we plan to split our time between there and Beijing. If anyone has been to China I would like your opinions on how best to plan our two weeks. How long to spend where, things we should do there or even not do etc.

Recommended hotels etc would be a bonus. Would an overnight train be best to get to Beijing?

Any suggestions would be great as we don't want to land and then scratch our heads. We have a few ideas but nothing concrete.

One other thing, is it best to bring a good sum of money with us and then rely on atm's to get whatever extra we need? Its just a while back someone told me you can only get their currency in China and you can't take it out of the country. That sounds bull isn't it?
Click to expand...

Just don't bring any products from China. We have enough of this here in UK :D
Have a nice time, sorry couldn't help ;)
 
My 23 year old daughter announced last week that she is going to China in May on her own :eek:
She's going on a package trip so will be with the same people in the same accommodation so it shouldn't be too bad.
She'll be going to see the Alright Wall Of China and the Terracotta Army.
I'm jealous to death.
 
Thanks for all the info guys, much appreciated.

One last thing, a couple of people have told me to take US Dollars with me instead of the chinese currency or pounds sterling as the chinese will change it without any bother and at a better rate. They say the chinese will give a very bad exchange rate if I want to change sterling.

They say US Dollars is accepted everywhere nearly and the Chinese will go mad for the dollar especially because of their good trade deals between the two countries.

Is US dollars the way forward?
 
You'd be converting twice if you went USD.

Just change £50 at local post office, then go to an ATM first day you're out there. Get a little bit of money. Then wait 24hours. Then proceed to use ATMs. Get out larger sums and keep wads of it in a safe place (hidden compartment on bag, or hostel safe).

tbh it's a small worry to have, paying the odd transaction fee. Just make sure your card isn't frozen for use abroad, the 24 hour wait usually works, for nationwide it did.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom