China Travel Forum

[lorra]

hi
next month, i've got 16 full days in china. so far i thought i would:
6-7 days in bejing
over night train to xian
2 days in xian
fly or o/n train to shanghai
4 days in shanghai (including suzhou & hangzhou)
fly to hong kong
3 days in hk
am considering cutting a couple of days from beijing/shanghai/hk to squeeze in yellow mountain. or is that just pushing it?
any advice appreciated.

[kamal]

on this tour i think you can cut a couple of days from beijing without too much difficulty. also depending on what you want you don't need 2 days in xi'an. of course you can easily use 2 days there but the overnight train from beijing will get you in very early in the morning. you can go see the warriors in the day, check out the muslim quarter that evening. have the next day for seeing anything else you are particularly interested in and then take the night train out (which i guess may be what you already meant by 2 days). you could also cut time from shanghai by skipping hangzhou. nothing against hangzhou but it is quite far from shanghai so you either need to stay overnight or have a really really long day trip.
don't forget that it is going to be really really hot so don't forget you may not want to do stuff all day everyday. i went to xi'an last summer and it was really unpleasantly hot.

[smith]

I agree with cutting a couple from Beijing, maybe overlapping with that from Xi'an? Hangzhou actually isn't that far from Shanghai, only 2 hours by the best trains. If I had to, I'd rather cut Suzhou rather than Hangzhou!
Cheers!

[sothman]

tour to Hangzhou and Suzhou can be done in daytrips, if you start early.
possibly take the nith train from Huangshan to Suzhou, spend a day in Suzhou, then arrive in Shaghai in the evening
cut a dayor two from Beijign, yes
not sure if there is a train or flih gfrom XiAn to HuangShan, but try looing fro one
you might have to fly one of the journeys.

[ter45]

I too think you can cut a day or 2 or 3 from BJ. I also think Shangers and the 'zhous may not have enough time budgeted, especially if you are going to base yourself in Shangers. I would try doing Suzhou > Hangzhou by overnight boat. Then, I did Huangshan from Hangzhou by taking a very early bus from the north bus station in Hangzhou on saturday, getting to Huangshan around 2pm (but there was lots of highway construction then don't know about it now), climbing to top of Huangshan, sleeping up top, wake for sunrise, climb down the longer western steps on sunday, afternoon bus back to hangzhou. You can take an afternoon bus to Shanghai though.
So, to recap: Xi'an > Suzhou (train), Suzhou > Hangzhou (overnight boat), Hangzhou >Huangshan (bus), Huangshan > Shanghai (bus). Thats 5 days for Suzhou, Hangzhou, and Huangshan in my opinion. If you are doing HK, Shanghai does not have much to offer imo. You can see the french concession, walk down nanjing road, spend most of the day in the museum, and see the lights of the bund all in one long day, or easily in 2 days.

[tomchiu]

The best itinerary is:
01) Beijing
02) Beijing
03) Beijing
04) Beijing/Xi'an (Train)
05) Xi'an
06) Xi'an/Huangshan (Yellow Mt.) by air.
07) Yellow Mt.
0 Yellow Mt./Hangzhou (Coach)
09) Hangzhou
10) Hangzhou/Suzhou (Train)
11) Suzhou/Shanghai (Train)
12) Shanghai
13) Shanghai
14) Shanghai/Hongkong (Air)
15) Hongkong
16) Hongkong/Your home