Any sights worth seeing in Shijiazhuang, Hohhot, Baotao or Yinchuan?

[anonymoose]

Next week I will probably be off on a trip to Shijiazhuang, popping over to Pingyao, and then on to Hohhot, Baotou, Yinchuan and Xi'an.

Time will be fairly limited in those places but I may be able to extend the trip by a day or two if there is anywhere particularly worth going. I expect to see the city centre area in all of those cities, but was wondering if anyone had tips for any places that would particularly be worth a detour to.

I'm interested mainly in either spectacular natural scenery, or any interesting historical sights.

[trevelyan]

The only thing you can really do in Baotou is take a trip out of the city to the Gobi desert. It is actually sort of cool, since you wouldn't expect there to be this Sahara-like expanse of sand in China. They also have excellent (Mongolian-style) hotpot up there.

[abcdefg]

Some outstanding historical destinations in Xi'An of course. I was there last month (June) for the usual tourist sights and also enjoyed eating 羊肉泡馍 = yángròu pàomó. How much time will you have for your trip?

http://wikitravel.org/en/Xi'an

EDIT: Reread the title of your post and see that your inquiry is really about the secondary places, instead of Xi'An. Cannot help with those.

[PanShiBo]

Check out this website, good travel reference:

http://www.travelchinaguide.com/cityguides/

or go wikitravel, it has good points too.

[skylee]

Re 羊肉泡饃. I had it once, in Xi'an. It took an incredibly long time to break the 饃. People seemed to enjoy doing it chatting with friends/family. But as I was alone, it seemed really silly/tiring ... The food was ok, not impressive IMHO.

[abcdefg]

Re 羊肉泡饃. I had it once, in Xi'an. It took an incredibly long time to break the 饃. People seemed to enjoy doing it chatting with friends/family.

I got that feeling too. It was a social activity as much as just preparing food. I was alone at a table with three strangers and we all chatted. Felt like a friendly game of 麻将 má jiàng.

[anonymoose]

The exact itinerary is not fixed, but that leg of the trip will probably be completed in a week, or slightly more. I've had another look at Baotou, and might scrap it in favour of Datong if the transport works out conveniently.

Thanks for the website, Panshibo.