China Tours...?

What's your age and budget ? Are you an experienced traveller ?

You could try tour groups like intrepid, imaginative traveller etc which do tours that cover the basics.

I was there this summer and did part with a group (which was obviously easier as things were done for me and no communication problems) but also did 3 weeks on my own (only speaking a few words of Chinese !) which was relatively easy.

China is CHEAP to travel around in and a private room in a hostel with en suite might only cost you a few quid a night. I am past the stage of sharing dorms, but like the people you meet in hostels and then can travel with.

You will have been in Japan for 3 months, so China won't be completely foreign by the time you get there.

I highly recommend Beijing and it may not have been in your plans, but get yourself to the magical Tibet - it exceeded my expectations !! Easy enough to get to from Chengdu (which is also good as there is a panda reserve there's a giant buddha and Mount Emei close by)

Feel free to ask any other questions

£250 a week would be MORE than enough to do China with.

TBH, I would leave booking it till you went out to Japan as you can do everything over the web now. Do the research now, see what you fancy etc.

You will probably meet people in Japan who are also heading over to China and could end up travelling with them (and would regret having booked a tour) and if you don't meet anyone, then book a tour !!

The intrepid tours are guaranteed (have dif levels of comfort on tours) but with your travel experience it wouldn't be a problem for you to do it in your own (but Tibet would be hard to do on your own, although as it stands just now you need to be part of a 'group' i.e 2 people to get a visa but that may be scrapped in the next couple of weeks)

Have a look on the lonely planet thorntree travel forums - that's where I got most of my Chinese knowledge from.

You could feasibly do Beijing, Great Wall etc, onto Chengdu, fly to Tibet (or do the railway) for a week, back to Chengdu, giant buddha, pandas, Mount Emei, Jiu Zhai Gou in Sichuan, Lijiang, Dali, Kunming in a month, but then maybe you would want to see the Terracotta warriors aswell ?

I have bombarded you with names which mean nothing to you now I am sure - but stick them in wikipedia or something

I always try to learn some of the language of the country I am going to but China and Tibet tested me out ! Smiling and respect gets you most places.

Don't buy Chinese flights here or Japan, wait until you get to China and you get far better deals and very rarely sold out (apart form National holidays)

Check out Thorntree, you could be there for hours soaking up the info there.

Tibet tibet tibet................. just magical in the people, their way of life, their devotion, the scenery - no where else on earth like it !!

June is a good time to do it - that was when I was in China this year. Yes it was hot, (but not stifling) and not TOO busy (for Chinese standards)

I hadn't planned to go to China either, I was planning a trip to Laos and ended up in China for a month, Tibet and Thailand as well as Laos !

China was on my - 'yes I'll get round to it one day' list as opposed to my MUST DO NOW list but it was really good.

I will definately go back to Tibet next year, maybe from Nepal and explore it further.

If you send me a private message with your email address, I will give you the link to my Tibet photos to whet your appetite even further !

rich_45 wrote:

The reason I need to sort out all my plans now is so I can go ahead and start booking some flights...get some firm plans in place.
Rich :T

Rich

I can't comment on China as I've never been there! However regarding flights, have you thought of doing a Round the World trip? I'm doing my fourth RTW (starting sunday) for six weeks! I got a brill deal using the
"Great escapade" and adding on some extra flights myself. The RTW ticket cost me £1,100 inc taxes. If that dosen't suit you have a look at the "Star Alliance" package which includes a lot of other airlines.