Dennis's Feedback on 19-Day China Tour

In 2006, we had to take our second trip to Shanghai to meet with some people. While there, we wanted to see something more than Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong, which we had already visited. Searching the web, we looked for sites that would let us put together our own visit with breaks from the program to do things with friends. We found lots of good ideas and pricing at China Highlights, which we decided to use because most of the others required us to identify ourselves with our goals before they would give us pricing information.  

Unfortunately, because of the plans of others, we had to change our start and finish dates several times and also the order of our itinerary because others wanted us in specific places on changing dates. Each time, China Highlights quickly sent an email response without complaint saying the change had been made. Their responses were so quick and lacking frustration that we began to fear that they were a scam and that after our activities in Shanghai were over, we would be left waiting at our hotel for a guide who never came. Instead, we had a flawless visit to Hangzhou, Xian, the Yangtze, Chongqing, Dazu, Guilin, Suzhou, and back to Shanghai. What we really appreciated was that we were able to drop from their standard plan stops that did not interest us and substitute some more interesting visits. We had only one disappointment in the whole trip. Some of the places where we were taken to eat seemed to dumb down the Chinese food for the finicky tastes of Western travelers. We wanted something a bit more authentic. After we returned and compared notes with other food-loving travelers, we learned that our experience was less neutered than those of several friends who had  visited China in groups.

This year we decided to return to China. We have followed the fast pace of change in China and wanted to see the old China, the rural China, before it disappeared. We decided that we wanted to see the minority regions of southwestern China, some of the poorest provinces of China. We wanted to visit villages and find old visions of China. We wanted to get closer to Chinese life. We only had a little more than two weeks. Therefore we did not have time for Beijing, Shanghai, Guilin and other cities normally on any tour of China. Although we had been given the name of a few other online travel services, we started with China Highlights to put together our itinerary. We had confidence that they had thought through the best way to see any part of China. 

Our first email was to the agent who helped us in 2006, but she was no longer with them. Our second email got a quick response with a 16 day itinerary that seemed to satisfy our needs and fit our budget. We visited other sites to look for trips like that but found few. We did get some confirmations of the scope of the proposed itinerary. Over weeks, as we talked to friends who had visited the area, our plan went through several iterations, including the dates after we learned more about weather conditions and festival dates. A scholar showed us magnificent pictures of Shangri-la and Deqin. The China Highlights site further excited us about that region. Our agent at China Highlights fitted it into our program, which now ran 19 days. Our visit started off in Quilin, which we did not visit except for an early morning stroll around the lake, and then included  Longsheng, Sanjiang, Zhaoxing , Congjiang, Rongjiang, KaiLi, Kunming, Dali, Lijiang, Zhongdian (Shangri-La), Deqin, Leshan, and Chengdu, and many villages in between. Of those, only Chengdu and Kunming have populations of more than 1 million (including the rural areas included in the city), and they were the only towns of more than 160,000 people. 

Even if you had doubled our expectations for the trip, they would have been exceeded by the experience. Whatever minor problems we had with a hotel room were quickly taken care of by the guides. The agent who arranged our trip for us called us a few times during the trip to make sure everything was fine.

Every day, we had some experience that made us say “jackpot” because we thought we had hit it big with some new experience. For example, we were especially pleased to have several guides who really liked food and were happy to introduce us to things that Americans might not normally eat. We passed on bee larvae and a few others, but it helped us understand that we had options if we really wanted them. We love food that is really spicy. The guides did not quite believe us at first, but after a while they were instructing the cooks not to hold back on the peppers. Because of the itinerary, we could not eat in dining rooms on many days. We had to sit on short stools at a low table and eat in a roadside place in an isolated town. It surely seemed like an authentic experience to us, and we could tell from some of the other people who had obviously driven long distances to eat there that the places had good reputations. 

These places were out of the way, although they were along our route. One evening, when we stopped to eat during our drive back down to Shangri-la, a man from Taiwan asked if he could take our photograph. He could not believe that we two Americans were in this isolated village all alone enjoying a fabulous meal. We seemed so out of place to him that he had to show the people back home. We explained to him that our driver and guide were discrete and were eating elsewhere with people they knew. Nevertheless we gave the appearance of being truly independent. Some of our guides ate with us, giving us lessons in how to eat. Both approaches worked.

There was one problem with the daily meals. They were gigantic compared to what we put on our table back home. We would eat as much as we could and then force ourselves to eat even more, only to be asked by a kindly server if we did not like the food because we left so much behind. [I should note that my companion speaks Mandarin.

There was one other food issue. The hotels in Guizhou province are not set up for Westerners eating breakfast. China Highlights and some other agencies assume that Westerners want toast and eggs and cereal and jam and orange juice and American coffee, and they bring all that, including the toaster, to the breakfast table so that we can feel truly at home. We wanted to breakfast on Chinese noodles. It was hard for us to tell the guide and driver, who had made such an effort on our behalf, that we could eat like them. Eventually, we gorged ourselves on the two traditions.

When we got to the Tibetan parts of Yunnan, our guide asked us if we wanted to eat in the homes of her family members. We embraced the idea.

Okay, the trip was not just about eating. The scenery was magnificent. About 97% of the area is mountains. The valleys are breathtaking. The mountains are majestic. Walking at almost 4700 meters is exciting. We saved almost 1500 photos. But it was the people we came to see. They were extraordinarily friendly.

Perhaps it helped that my companion speaks Mandarin, although that is only a second or third language for many of these people. Even in a village of 800 people we saw children 2-3 years old who were instructed to say “Allo” to us or “Bye-bye”. The language of humanity brought many shared smiles. The guides took us through homes and served as our interpreters with these ambassadors of minority China.

Two of our jackpots were invitations to weddings that we could not attend. In each case, once in Guizhou province and once in Yunnan province, we came upon people preparing a feast for a wedding that would take place the next day. We were invited to return for the wedding or at least stay around for lunch with the party makers. Here in the USA the family hires a caterer for all the guests who know not what to give to the couple. In China we saw perhaps 50-60 people preparing the vegetables and butchering the meat for the next day’s festivities. No one worried about a few more people joining in. In Zhaoxing, we saw perhaps 50 men at a giant banquet. They had just ended the day building a home for a new bride and groom. Wow, how easy it seems for them to start a family. The wedding celebration and home acquisition are communal activities. The newlywed couple does not move into their home buried in debt.

That generosity was found in many places. We had read how people who leave their villages for jobs in the city send money back to their families to support them. We saw how guides tried to give their personal funds to villagers or spend money in their villages but how often villagers resisted the offerings. Their sense of hospitality meant that they should receive no compensation for our intrusion. We heard how villagers share their bounty with those less fortunate. We saw some people who looked like they had returned from the city because of the economic downturn and where now doing village work in their city clothes. 

This is an overview of what held our vacation together. Perhaps I’ll find the time to be more specific and to post some pictures of the region. It is an area that few Americans visit. During our nearly three weeks, I doubt that we saw more than 120 Westerner the whole time, and most of them were French or German speakers. We learned that the tourist office in Dali believes that they had 30,000 Western visitors in a single year. Americans were probably only 10-15% of them, but this is a big center for Chinese tourism. Therefore there is a decent infrastructure for tourism and still some sense of adventure. And we managed to spend 12 of our nights in 4 or 5 star hotels. So it was adventures and comfort (if you don’t mind hard Chinese beds).

Regards,

Dennis