Posts Tagged ‘travel in china’

People planning to travel to China are always worried about the cultural differences they may experience on their china touring holidays.

Before you finalize your travel plans for China, you need to do a lot of research about the country, regarding the food, culture, transportation, vaccination, visa formalities etc, but sometimes you may not need to stress yourself with all these information. This is the reason why tour operators were created; they provide all forms of travel related services from flights, hotels, escorts, cars, food and entertainment for your stay in China from start to finish; all you need to do is relax and enjoy your vacation experiencing the unique Chinese lifestyle.

Luxury Travel in China has not been more exciting and adventurous especially when you choose the right China tour operator. For a country like China with an ancient history and culture, your travel within China can be a deluxe or first class tour by visiting the major cities in first class air travel, luxury and character hotels, using VIP services and escorts making you feel like a superstar. For example, having a plate of local Chinese dumplings in your 4/5 star hotel while watching a piece of Beijing Opera translated in English could be one of the greatest travel experience you’ve ever had. Perhaps, you may want to climb the Great Wall in style by having a French picnic privately or with other visiting tourists from around the world. There are particular sections around the world where many renowned public figures have visited and you too can be a part of visiting these sections.
If you are not aware of the tropical side of China, then, you may want to bask in the sun this summer on China’s most beautiful beaches in Hainan and Hong Kong after which you are treated to a great spa experience in some of the exclusive resorts around.

Chinese gastronomy is another interesting activity you may want to experience during your travel in China. These include Chinese cooking styles and traditions of the various ethnic tribes in China. If you would like to take on this cultural experience, Chinese gastronomy tours is your perfect answer to discovering the exotic wonders of fine dining and a unique culture on your China tour.
Golfing is becoming a popular sport in China especially amongst the elite Chinese locals. This has led to the discovery of some of the world’s finest golf courses and resorts all filled with oriental touches. Some tour operators have deluxe golf travel packages designed to allow international tourists spend some time golfing in the lush country sides of Kunming and Beijing. The best place to enjoy golfing in China is in Kunming popularly known as the “Spring City”.

The special administrative region of Hong Kong is also one of the major tourist hubs in China where many international travelers love to visit. Hong Kong is the metropolitan city of China which is very fast paced and still retains much of its oriental culture. Leisure and travel in this part of China is usually considered as luxury and upscale with first class hotels and restaurants. The famous Repulse Bay and Victoria Peak is a major site of interest when visiting Hong Kong.
China may be under developed but with its fast rising growing economy and exposure, you can indeed enjoy traveling in China with style and class.

For more information about China Travel, China Tour [http://www.passport-to-china.com] Vacations, visit Passport to China.

Author: Lola Adewoyin
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Provided by: Guest blogger

China is a large country at a size of 9,596,960 sq km. China was only partially open to the world from 1980 onwards and has been a communist country for many decades. Although there is much progress in the travel industry and infrastructure of China, there remain areas that need to be improved before it can match the level that most tourist would require.

However, much of the fun remain that it is different from the rest of the world. China will be the host nation for the Olympics in Year 2008. Travel facilities and infrastructure will be improving quickly as we approach Year 2008.

China is rich in culture and history. Visit the Great Wall of China in Beijing, sip Chinese tea in Xiamen, dance with ethnic tribes in Yunnan, check out 19th Century European buildings in Qingdao – there are just so much to do and see in China!

Below are some travel tips to make your travel in China easier:

Entry Visa

China require entry visa from most countries. Apply at the Chinese consulate or through your travel agent before travelling to China.

Climate

Extremely diverse; tropical in south to subarctic in north. Be prepared with the right seasonal clothing.

Foreign Exchange

The unit of currency is known as Renmembi(RMB) or Yuan. Get some Chinese Yuan in your local country before travelling. When in China, exchange foreign currency for local currency in the banks or at the hotel. Banks tend to give slightly better rates than hotels. Take note that some banks close for a noon siesta between 12-2pm.

Payment facilities

Most better class hotels and shopping centres take Credit Card or Travellers cheques. Smaller hotels and shops take cash only. Once out of the bigger cities, credit card and ATM cards tend to be almost impossible to utilize. Cash is still king in Chinese business and trade.

Counterfeit notes are common in China. Check carefully before accepting change, especially if it consists mostly 100RMB notes. You can feel a texture difference where counterfeit notes is concerned.

Understanding of English

Most civil servants, custom officials, police, hotel staff and men in the street do not speak English or at best a smattering of English.

Most signboards and notices will carry both English and Chinese. However, be aware that some translations can be so notorious that one can hardly understand what was it’s original Chinese intention.

Do not expect hotels or shops to understand English. Only the very big hotels will have staff that will understand English.

Most young people can understand basic English if you speak slowly.

Social Security

China is generally a safe country. However, hang on tight to your wallet especially in crowded, popular tourist sites in tourist cities such as Beijing and Xian.

These tourist cities also has a lot of touts in the streets touting tourist from currency exchange to jewelleries to female companionships. Avoid at all cost!

Domestic Travel

Bus, train, ferries and domestic flights are quite well developed. Avoid the crowd at the stations and book your tickets through the hotel tour desk or the nearest tour agent. Prices are likely to be competitive and tickets will be delivered to your hotel room. Again, avoid ticket touts who approach you in the streets.

Local buses are cheap (US$0.10 or YS$0.20) and you may want to try out. Taxis are convenient and are available at all hours. Starting fares differ from each city and may be as cheap as US$0.70 in Weihai and US$1.50 in Shenzhen.

Avoid travel in China during peak holiday seasons or book tickets well ahead.

Local Hotels

There is a good choice of hotels in China ranging from one star to the most luxurious 6 stars. Most of the time, the rooms are safe and clean and in my opinion, cheap does not mean bad.

There are many websites selling China hotel rooms on the internet. You can also check out the travel counters which are available in most train, bus stations as well as airport.

Book ahead if travelling in peak seasons.

Peak Tourist Seasons

Chinese New Year: Date varies but generally late January or early February.

May Day: First two weeks of May

China National Day: Middle two weeks of October

Avoid travelling during these period. Book rooms and travel modes way early if need to travel. Believe me, the crowds during these period of time will be scary. What do you expect when the entire Chinese nation of 8 billion people are on holiday as well!

Chinese Food

Local food is absolutely fabulous. Try as much Chinese food as your wallet or stomach can afford. Restaurants are available everywhere and open to late hours. Most restaurants will have a menu that include photographs of the various dishes. Better yet, simply point at the food that your next door table is having, especially if it looks delicious!

However, avoid street side stalls and drinking directly from the taps if you have delicate stomach.

Telecommunications

Mobile phone coverage in China is good in most locations. Global auto-roaming within China is not a problem.

Internet

There are cyber-cafes everywhere in China, especially in tourist areas. Most are patronised by young people playing online games but you still can check your Hotmail, Yahoo or Gmail. Access may be a bit slow for international websites.

You will need to show your passport as China has tight regulations at Internet Cyber Cafes.

Toilet facilities

One of the worst experience many has with China is the atrocious toilet facilities. Things has improved very much but it may still be a good idea to empty your stomach or bladder at every opportunity in a hotel, restaurant or departmental store. Public toilets and toilets in small shops can be a nose hazard!

* Useful China travel tips *

Try to get a English speaking tour guide at every opportunity you can. China has a rich and wonderful history and culture and without a guide, somehow, the flavour and significance of most tour sites can be lost.

*Sneaky tip: Hang around a group that has a English speaking guide if you cannot afford one!

Always ask for a receipt from a taxi driver so that you can complain if you have been cheated or for tracing purposes if you happen to leave your camera behind in the taxi.

Try to take the namecard for each hotel that you are staying at as these cards will have a Chinese address and the map of your hotel location. This is useful if you need to seek assistance to find your way back as the English version or pronounciation of a hotel or a street name may be quite different from the Chinese version.

After a tiring day, check out Chinese foot reflexology or Chinese TuiNa (Chinese massage). Wonderful for the body after a hard day and very cheap to boot. Simply look out for shop signs that shows two feet! They are everywhere.

Make friends with the Chinese whenever you can. They love to meet foreigners and will make good tour guides. Just buy a small present as a small token of appreciation.

Author: Ken Cheong
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Provided by: Make PCB Assembly

Survival China Travel Tips and Tricks

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 travelling 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 dont 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 youre 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 sterilised 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 menus 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.

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, youre an old hand.

The taxis in Shanghai are, overall, quite good. Try to get the Blue, Blueish Turquoise, Gold and White taxis, these are the best these are the four major taxi companies and are generally recognised by their single colour paintwork. The others are OK, just older and a rougher ride (the others also may have faulty metres). 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 youve 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 pre-11pm 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 shoppers 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, DVDs, 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 ATMs 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. Dont 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. WATSONS 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.

INPORTANT 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; Labour 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 travelling 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. Its best and causes fewer hassles.

China Travel Tips 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 tissued 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

http://www.Travel-the-Real-China.com

Author: John Mckenna
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Provided by: Programmable pressure cooker

Going to China is quite an adventure — one you’ll be talking about for years to come.
I know! I’ve been there twice. And each time was a monumental journey.

I was fortunate. My son, Kris, traveled to China in 2001. He planned to stay at a martial arts temple in Dali, China. And he did stay there for a few months. But his China travels led him to become an entrepreneur and open a restaurant called Salvador’s Coffee House with a few business partners.

I say I was fortunate because when I visited China, I had my own personal tour guide (my son) who spoke English flawlessly, as well as fluent Chinese.

Haggling for goods in the marketplace or getting the best price on a cab ride or tour package was all taken care of by my enterprising son.

One of the first things you need to do before going to China is to fill out an application for your China travel visa, as well as apply for your passport. Do this with plenty of time to spare so that you’re not anxious as the trip date approaches.

You might want to check out cheap china travel or discount travel in China. You might want to plan a china travel tour with a group of people. Although this isn’t as “up close and personal” as having your own personal tour guide, it’s easiest for most people.

Among your plans for travel to China, if you plan to bring anything electronic, you’ll need an adapter for china travel. I brought my little hair dryer and used my adapter a lot.

China rail travel and China air travel are two modes of transportation you’ll want to research. China train travel is relatively inexpensive and it’s a fantastic way to see the countryside. But you’ll want to be aware of the food choices on the train. They don’t generally have Western choices of food, or snack machines. This takes some getting used to and planning for.

The sites you’ll see when you visit China are breathtaking! You might want to travel the Great Wall of China. What an amazing adventure that is! Your China travel package might include the Terra Cotta Warriors in Xian or Leaping Tiger Gorge in Lijiang. Your China travel agent can help you make some informed choices when you begin planning.

In my visits to China, we went from one end of the country to the other, just about. It was exhausting and exhilarating all at once.

I think everyone should go to China. It is a fascinating country — one you’ll not soon forget.

Author: Roshana Ariel
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Provided by: Cellphone news