Could you help me plan my trip?

[lordsuso]

Hello everyone,

 

If everything goes well (I might have to cancel/postpone the trip for family health reasons) I will travel to China in the second half of October. I will spend 14 days in China and will travel to and from Beijing. I will be alone without a car.

 

I hesitate between going west to Gansu, or north-east to Dongbei, but I'm leaning more towards Gansu, and I might even explore into Qinghai if I have time inspired by @suMMit's roadtrip.

 

I am looking for recommendations on places to visit along the way, so something in Inner Mongolia, Ningxia, Shaanxi (other than Xian), Shanxi (other than Pingyao and Datong), Hebei. Also, I don't mind going further east into Liaoning if it's worth it. My favorite things to visit tend to be historical landmarks (ramparts, grottoes, temples, tombs...), nature, and obviously food. I am not really drawn to cities or modern architecture.

 

Thanks!

[abcdefg]

Second half of October is a great time to visit. Weather is favorable and you will miss crowded holidays. Wanted to ask, if you don't mind, is this a first trip to China or have you been before? The reason for asking is that my priorities might be different on a first trip, at which time I would "hit the high spots" to gain an overall flavor of China, whereas on subsequent trips I would be more focused on exploring places that are off the usual tourist trail.

 

Hope you have a wonderful trip! You have done the right thing by beginning your planning well in advance. I would nail down a plane ticket ASAP if you haven't already done so because prices will rise the closer you get to your departure date, generally speaking. Volume of travel to and from China is still way below what it was before Covid, many flights have been cancelled. Cannot count on "last minute bargains."

 

 

[PandaCat]

My uni in Beijing had a nice field trip to Chengde, Hebei. We first dropped by Luanping town which is the place with the most standard putonghua accent in the whole of China. Then we visited the Chengde Mountain Resort (huge, beautiful place where previous Qing emperors stayed for a few months every year to escape the hot summers in Beijing). And also visited the Putuo Zongcheng Temple a.k.a "Little Potala Temple". It looks similar to the architecture of the real Potala Temple in Tibet. I may or may not have the chance to visit the real one in future, so I do feel lucky to have at least visited the "mini" version (not exactly mini as the place is pretty big). 

[nicklinjm]

Given your interests I am surprised you are not interested in Datong, Shanxi, as not only does it have the Hanging Temple (Xuan Kong Si) built into the side of Hengshan, but it also has Wutaishan, which is one of the '4 Big Mountains' for Buddhism in China and has (IIRC) > 50 monasteries on it?

 

Also if you are interested in grottos and/or cave frescoes I would have thought Dunhuang in Gansu is a must.....

[suMMit]

Just throwing these ideas off the top of my head. If your flying into 北京 I think it would be a shame not to see a few of the sites here(if you haven't been here before). I know BJ gets somewhat of a bad wrap here, but I don't really agree, It's a very interesting city. You could visit one of the Great Wall sections, Gu Gong, Summer Palace and/or Old Summer Palace for starters. The Hutongs(2000 of them) are living history that I never grow tired of exploring. Plus some excellent food. If you drink beer, I'd be happy to meet up for a pint at a Hutong beer place(you can PM me). So again, just ideas off the top of my head, all easy on 高铁:

 

1. BJ - DaTong(yungang grottos, hanging temple) - Pingyao ancient city - Xi'an - maybe a side trip to Huangshan or somewhere. And then back to BJ. 

 

2. BJ - Nanjing - Xiamen + TuLou in northern Fujian -Hunnan(Zhangjiajie, Phoenix ancient city)- Longman grottos(Henan) - Beijing

 

3. BJ - Qingdao - Nanjing - Hangzhou - Shanghai -Beijing

 

4. BJ - Nanjing - Xiamen + TuLou in northern Fujian -Hunnan(Zhangjiajie, Phoenix ancient city)- Longman grottos(Henan) - Beijing

 

5. BJ -Some combination of Kunming - Dali - Chengdu or Guizhou and Guilin

 

 

I think Dongbei would be better if you had some friends up there that you were visiting, plus it will be cold in Oct. Gansu I feel is better with a car. 

[suMMit]

On 7/30/2024 at 2:51 PM, nicklinjm said:

Also if you are interested in grottos and/or cave frescoes I would have thought Dunhuang in Gansu is a must.....

Yeah, you could go to Dunhuang, but it's getting pretty far out there and would probably require a flight. But yeah MoGao and YuMen pass are both really cool.

 

Another idea could be some combination of Longmen Grottos and Yungang Grottos.

[lordsuso]

Thanks for all the answers! I apologize I realize I should have given more information... 

 

@abcdefg this will be my 4th trip, and I already have the plane tickets!

 

In 2017 my childhood friend showed me the main cities and his hometown in Zhejiang. As a side anecdote, another friend of ours also came along... and he only came back to Spain last year with a Chinese wife and a beautiful baby!

 

In 2018 I did a semester exchange in Shanghai and I was able to do a lot of travelling. This is when I had the chance to visit Datong and the other places I mentioned @nicklinjm, and Datong was absolutely one of the main highlights! But now that you mention it, I only had the time for the hanging monastery and the grottoes, I will consider going back for Wutaishan! I love Beijing as well @suMMit, but I'm sure I missed plenty of stuff to do (like the Old Summer Palace), I will for sure contact you for a beer if I decide to stay there for a few days thanks a lot!! From the other places you mentioned, I haven't been to Qingdao - Nanjing - Xiamen + TuLou in northern Fujian, I will check them out. I will also check out Chengde, thank you @PandaCat

 

In 2019 I did a 3-week trip in Yunnan + Sichuan.

 

On 7/30/2024 at 9:08 AM, suMMit said:

Gansu I feel is better with a car.

This is something I wanted to ask you, because I got that impression from your post. In my previous experiences in China, travelling by train was extremely easy and cheap (I did a lot of visiting during the day and travelling during the night). Western Sichuan was the only challenging region, I had to rely on buses, and on one occasion they kicked me out in the middle of nowhere because foreigners weren't allowed to continue.

[suMMit]

On 7/30/2024 at 4:26 PM, lordsuso said:

this will be my 4th trip, and I already have the plane tickets!

I'm sorry, for some reason I was thinking this was your first trip to China. Most of my ideas don't apply.

 

On 7/30/2024 at 4:26 PM, lordsuso said:

This is something I wanted to ask you, because I got that impression from your post.

I'm sure you could do Gansu by train/bus. I was thinking this was your first China trip. The other reason I said that though was that when we got to Gansu, As I looked at the map and GPS I saw lots of small sites: Grottos, Great Wall sections, temples, etc. but they appeared to be off the main highway and onto smaller secondary highways and roads. These happen to be the kind of places I like most, but we were already running behind schedule and had to start moving faster, had to skip most of them. Had we flown from BJ to Lanzhou and started there, it would have been a different trip, but I liked the way we did it too. Anyway, my point is that some of the cooler looking things in Gansu might be harder to get to. But I'm sure you could. Like YumenGuan, which is one of my favorite sites I've been to in China, was no problem to get a bus or taxi for an hour+ from Dunhuang. Maybe you should consider a full Gansu trip, just heading straight there from BJ? Including Gannan https://www.chinahighlights.com/gannan/ which I simply had no time for. I'm planning maybe next year to do Gannan and the parts of Qinghai that I couldn't get to last time. Qinghai is huge and we only went to the North part.

 

The 土楼 are another one of my favorite places I've been in China, so interesting. I first saw them on a flight from Guangzhou to Xiamen from the airplane window and then read about them. On a subsequent work trip to Xiamen, we rented a car and drove a 3 day trip around Fujian to see 土楼. Fantastic trip. I tour busses parked at the biggest tuolous, but we were able to go to loads of different style ones and smaller ones in the mountains (there are thousands!). But this would be much harder to do without wheels. Great tea in that region too.

 

[lordsuso]

On 7/30/2024 at 12:00 PM, suMMit said:

Maybe you should consider a full Gansu trip, just heading straight there from BJ?

This is probably the best idea, 14 days is not that long. When I was younger I tried to visit as many things as possible, I don't think I would enjoy that kind of trip now, I'd rather be selective and take my time. I don't like planes and enjoy the build-up and anticipation that train rides provide, so I'll try to squeeze in at least one stop in the initial Beijing>Gansu trip.

 

Thank you very much for the tips and recommendations, I'll look into them in more detail, and I'll post here to share whatever schedule I end up with.

 

That Fujian trip sounds amazing, that's probably the next region I want to go the most, maybe one day!

[abcdefg]

Along the lines of what you have said are your interests, I am remembering a trip I took in October of 2007 that might have parts you would enjoy. 

 

Flew from Beijing to Xining 西宁 in northern Qinghai 青海 and used it as my hub to explore the Hexi Corridor by long-distance bus. Went west as far as Jiuquan 酒泉 and Dunhuang 敦煌。Spent a couple days in and around the Mogao Caves. At the time they offered a 3-day pass that allowed multiple entries and access to less popular parts of the complex. Back to Xining by the same route, then headed northeast into Ningxia 宁夏。Spent a couple days in Yinchuan 银川, then down to Lanzhou 兰州。From there, after a few days, flew back to Beijing.

 

 

It took a little over 2 weeks, to the best of my recollection. Part of the trip was with a Chinese friend and parts were solo. (My friend could only get one week off from work.) Logistics were easier with a travel companion, especially when it came to sharing costs of a car for side-trips away from the bus route. You can hire a taxi to take you just about anywhere if you find one which is owner-operated.     

 

Using the long-distance bus system is an adventure of its own. Your "assigned seat" was either the top or bottom bunk in a double-decker sleeping berth setup. Notably, they were only about 5’ 6” long. You couldn't really sit up; couldn't really lie down and stretch out. Just crawled into your space like a worm, with a big bag of unrecognizable sweet and salty snacks 小吃 purchased in the station or at a stall across the street. I remember fervently hoping that the driver’s idea of appropriate time between toilet stops was roughly the same as my own. The bus had a TV screen in the front, and the driver showed old Kung Fu movies or Da Shan doing cross-talk 相声 routines, one VCR cassette tape after another as the miles rolled by. 

[lordsuso]

Thank you for sharing @abcdefg, I have done a quick search on Yinchuan and it seems very interesting. From previous experiences, staying in hostels is a good way to find taxi partners for the next day, but I'll try to rely on buses as much as possible (hopefully they have been updated since your trip haha)

[abcdefg]

You mentioned an interest in food. Da pan ji (大盘鸡) in Yinchuan was popular and delicious; featured in lots of family-style restaurants 家常菜。 It's a staple of Uyghur cuisine. Not to be missed.

 

 

https://thewoksoflife.com/big-plate-chicken-noodles/ 

[lordsuso]

One random off-topic thought I have, it was not very clear to me (as a relatively new user) where this type of post should go, maybe a sub-forum dedicated to travelling would make sense? 

 

[zhouhaochen]

For two weeks this sounds like a lot of plans and not much time. To see the sights in Beijing properly you already need a week. If you add Pingyao (which you should) and Datong (which I think you should too), you will have seen a lot, did not waste too much time and money traveling and had a good time.

I would leave the rest for the next trip.

[lordsuso]

@zhouhaochen thank you for the suggestion, but I have already visited Beijing, Datong, and Pingyao. As discussed above I think I'd rather focus on Gansu (Beijing is probably not the best hub for this, but I took the shortest and cheapest flight).

 

@abcdefg I am very excited for the food. This will be my first trip to China where I can properly read the menus and am not on a tight budget, so I'm looking forward to treating myself rather than being in 'survival mode'. 

 

Here is the rough schedule I came up with, I'll revisit it when it's time to book the trains and main hotels. Thank you everyone for your help.

 

16th Oct:  Arrive at Beijing in the morning, spend the day and take a night train towards Yinchuan (which means two days without showering...)

17-18:       2 days at Yinchuan, hopefully with an escape to Tengger Desert if feasible

19-25:      7 days to explore Xining (and the Qinghai lake), Dunhuang (mainly Mogao Grottoes and Yumenguan 玉门关), and Zhangye (mainly the mountains). Did you include Zhangye in your recent trip @suMMit?

26-28:     3 days to explore Lanzhou and its surroundings (Gannan region), then take a night train towards Beijing. It won't be enough to see everything, but I suspect this area to be similar to what I saw when I visited Sichuan, so I'd rather spend more time in northern Gansu.

29:           Arrive at Beijing, spend the rest of the day

30:           Flight back in the morning

 

 

[Jan Finster]

On 8/1/2024 at 6:04 PM, lordsuso said:

19-25:      7 days to explore Xining (and the Qinghai lake), Dunhuang (mainly Mogao Grottoes and Yumenguan 玉门关), and Zhangye (mainly the mountains). Did you include Zhangye in your recent

I just did a trip covering all of them (starting in Dunhuang and leaving from Lanzhou). Personally I found Qinghai lake to be a major disappointment. Very touristy and afterall just a lake. Been to plenty of lakes that were memorable (Lake Constanze, Lake Garda, Lake Taupo, Lake Toba....). This one was not. Zhangye mountains can be done on a stopover (minibus tour from the train station, takes 3-4 hours. Starts around 14:00).  Yumenguan the same. The city itself is pretty bland. I would argue the fort is not worth it either. I really loved the grottoes in Dunhuang. Also near Xining there is a nice national park (Kanbula) and some nice monasteries if ou are into this. 

[lordsuso]

Thanks for sharing @Jan Finster, it's good to know that Zhangye is easy to access. I understand what you say about the lake, I haven't seen many lakes so I'm sure I'll enjoy it, but I imagine it to be the type of place that is better experienced with a car in order to access less crowded areas (like the great wall, or some areas in guilin).

On 8/1/2024 at 11:03 PM, Jan Finster said:

I would argue the fort is not worth it either

What fort are you referring to?

[Jan Finster]

On 8/2/2024 at 1:27 AM, lordsuso said:

What fort are you referring to?

 

Jiayuguan

[suMMit]

On 8/2/2024 at 5:03 AM, Jan Finster said:

Personally I found Qinghai lake to be a major disappointment.

I agree with this. On my trip, I read about QH lake and told my wife I'm not going to pay for a ticket to see a lake, seen enough lakes. So, I said let's take the smaller road that runs right next to the lake for like 2 hours as we head towards Chaka. We did this and there were plenty of places to pull over and play around by the lake, see Tibetan monuments and stuff for free. Chaka lake was pretty cool and worth it to me, does not look like any lake I had ever seen before and you can walk around in it, pretty fun.

 

On 8/3/2024 at 8:12 PM, Jan Finster said:

Jiayuguan

Also after reading about Jiayuguan, I skipped it. Yumenguan was really good, I didn't see any need to waste time or money with Jiayuguan.

 

On 8/1/2024 at 11:04 PM, lordsuso said:

Dunhuang (mainly Mogao Grottoes and Yumenguan 玉门关),

There is also Yandan natl Geopark that could be very easily coupled with Yumenguan, I think its about 30 min away and can be arranged together. I'd have gone to Yandan, but we ran out of time.

 

On 8/1/2024 at 11:04 PM, lordsuso said:

Did you include Zhangye in your recent trip @suMMit?

Yes. We stayed in a Yurt (glamping)walking distance from the Zhangye geopark. Cheap and nice yurt, one of my favorite accommodations on the whole trip. Lots of restaurants nearby.

 

You could actually consider saving Qinghai and Ningxia for a future trip and just going straight to Gansu. I think there are enough things to see there for 2 weeks if you were willing to go off the beaten path a bit, like Yongtai ancient town which was a highlight for me, but hard to get to without wheels and not much facilities there for tourists:

 

There were a bunch of little places we went in Gansu that were interesting , and even more that I would liked to have gone, but we ran out of time. We passed by bunch of low key very old wall sections along the highway, but again out of time. If you search on Chinese map app like A-map or Baidu map, or even C.trip you can see what is interesting and feasible by train/bus. Here a few random(there are many more, not recommending them, just saying whats out there) screenshots of Gansu  from A-map(搞得）and c-trip:

 

      

 

    

 

If you did decide to go to Qinghai, I thought(guessing) one or both of these roads might be a beautiful  drive from Chaka to Zhangye(I considered it, but we didn't go that way):

  

 

Anyway, just some ideas.

 

 

[lordsuso]

Thanks a ton @suMMit, I didn't know 搞得 that should keep me busy for a while. I'll consider not going to Qinghai, anyhow I intend to book most things on the go and improvise a bit. But I definitely will find a way to go to Yongtai, that's the kind of scenery that draws me to the region, it reminds me of one of my favorite Chinese films "Swordsmen in Double Flag Town" which was probably filmed in Gansu or Xinjiang.