Yunnan Holiday - SE China

[Sticky Fingers]

We are considering a trip to Yunnan in March/April, 2012. Seems to be some package tours but would prefer a self tour with less restrictions on where, when, and who to travel with. My wife has some command of Mandarin so language shouldn't be an issue.

Just wondering if any of you have toured in this part of China and how was your experience?

Thanks, Sticky

 

[Aaron Sice]

stay away from the Laos/N Vietnam border. Friend of mine was there last year and they had armed guards with ex-soviet AK47s outside their dorms at night - being white, female and with an oz passport.....

but what a beautiful place on Earth - anyone not seen Yunnan, google image it.

 

[virgo]

Yunnan

Aahhhh

Brings back beautiful memories....i was there 15 years ago tho'!

Beautiful climate and beautiful scenery...we.did the Tiger Leaping Gorge (so called as some parts it is so narrow a Tiger can easily leap across!) and don't miss Lijiang where the Naxi people live (apparently with the oldest written pictorial script in the world).

Also, we ventured to Jingdian (i think that was the old name? new name is Shangri La i kid you not!) where the Tibetans had a big presence....

We entered Yunnan via North Thailand (i think Chiangmai airport?) what a way to arrive!

SOme great minority tribes to learn about; fascinating costumes (at that time it is still daily dress !)...i regret not having time to venture into this tribe which is the last matriachal (sic?) in the world; where if you add a female radical to their script, everything gets bigger eg pebble becomes stone...and female runs the whole show and inherits and gets to change partners whenever they like....and men basically are seen as weak and useless !

That was some great travel experience! (things have changed a lot though i hear)

 

[Nemo30]

We did a tour all over China a few years ago - absolutely loved it!

We didn't go to Yunnan. Closest we got was Guilin - the scenery was spectacular!

We went with Helen Wong Tours - tour was great and well organised only downside was the number of 'factories' we visited.

We wanted to go to Harbin up north for the snow and ice festival, so we organised a private tour guide to take us there. It was all organised for us through the tour company.

 

[Deltaberry]

Yunnan's all sight seeing and mountains and rivers. Boring stuff. Could go to NZ instead. Would recommend you see some significantly historical sights like Xian or go to Jiuzaigou for hot springs instead.

 

[virgo]

Yunnan Boring?

How about culture (something like more than 200? different tribes )?
Does NZ have that Ha!

 

[Aaron_C]

How about culture (something like more than 200? different tribes )?
Does NZ have that Ha!

What culture? They destroyed most of our culture during the 1950s-1970s. Why do you think the Chinese all emigrated?

 

[peteb]

A friend of mine started this bed and breakfast over there, he raves about the area so much we are heading over there next year ...
http://www.tripadvisor.com.au/Hotel...alia_House_Boutique_Hotel-Lijiang_Yunnan.html

 

[H2O]

What culture? They destroyed most of our culture during the 1950s-1970s. Why do you think the Chinese all emigrated?

What happened during that period of time?

 

[Aaron_C]

What happened during that period of time?

Let a Hundred Flowers Bloom - In his new Government, Mao invited journalists/academics to critique his government to see what it could do better. Great, right? Well, after he got quite a few negative articles he decided to purge them. These same people he invited to criticise his government were locked up and/or killed.

Great Leap Forward (aka Backward) - Mao ZeDong decided to revolutionise China into a manufacturing powerhouse. How? He got all the peasants in the country to start their own 'smelting operations' to make steel in their backyards.

The fuel? Any wood these peasants could find, which included their chairs, tables etc. What did they smelt? Their forks, knives, anything made of steel. The resultant product? A ball of useless metal junk.

Oh, and since the peasants were busy doing such great industrial work, they forgot to reap their crops, which resulted in massive famines that killed millions. Such a great idea.

Cultural Revolution - Mao ZeDong was paranoid about his grip on power. So he instigated a purge of all educated people in China. Academics, teachers etc were all forced to go back to hard labour like the 'commoners'. Many were even killed. The result? A whole generation of Chinese who have no basic education, spit on the sidewalk, and are rude and uncouth - these are the same people who give the country a bad name. Imagine an entire generation of people who are uncivilized riff-raffs.

 

[H2O]

wow, you know that very well. It's really a shame on China's history. He's seriously wrong.

 

[Jamie M]

Tiger Leaping Gorge is a good two day hike with nice views. I remember one of the small guest houses at the half-way point boasting to have the best views from a toilet in the world.....quite a surreal experience.

Cheers

Jamie

 

[Mindmaster]

Hey Sticky, I live in China, use all my holidays to travel here and was in Yunnan last month so I can point you in the right direction.

Basically in Yunnan you have the capital Kunming, Lijiang City, places near Lijiang, Shangrila and a few other cities.

Kunming is a nice city but nothing special travel wise so you don't need to be there for more than two days. You fly into Kunming from the big cities such as Beijing and it serves as the entry point in Yunnan. In Kunming the two places to see are teh Stone Forest and Dianchi Lake. Nothing really special about either fo these but worth seeing.

From Kunming catch an over night train to Lijiang and this is where the fun starts.

Stay in Lijaing's Old Town and enjoy the place for a day. Old Town is nice but very touristy so a day is enough. In the Old Town, wander the streets, see the 700 year old Mu Palace. You can also see the Wangu Tower in the Old Town which is nothing outstanding but has great views.

Like a few other people have said, you HAVE TO hike the leaping tiger gorge trail which has incredible views of the Jade Dragon Snow Mountains JDSM and is almost 2 kilometers deep in some parts. You can hike it in two days but i recommend you give your self at least 3 days to enjoy it. Stay at the Half Way Guest House which has those awesome toilet views. Their number is 13988700522. You can get a bed there for $5 with views no 5 star hotel has.

From the end of the tiger leaping gorge trail, catch a bus to Shangrila and hang out there for a few days. Visit a few sites like the Ganden Sumtsenling Monastory, go for a ride out of town to enjoy the steppes and local Naxi people. A god hotel in Shangrila is the Lamtin Youth Hostel, their number is 0887 8876868.

The other places to see in Lijaing are 1-the Jade Dragon Snow Mountain reserve where you can take a cable car to an altitude of 4,5000 meters and check out some glaciers and see the Blue Moon Valley lakes and 2-Black Dragon Pool which is just north of the Old Town.

A great way to enjoy Lijiang is to hire a bike and go for a ride out of town the same way you do in Shangrila.

If you can do all of that, you are in for a smashing holiday and will see some stunning country side that you can't find in New Zealand

Feel free to PM me if you have any questions.

 

[Deltaberry]

wow, you know that very well. It's really a shame on China's history. He's seriously wrong.

Thing is in a few more decades when he's less of a controversial figure, there'll be less people who hate him and less people who love him. He'll just be another historical figure with a significant place in history.

Qin Shi Huang (China's first Emperor to unify the country) did the same thing. Burnt all the texts and books there was and killed all the academics 2000 years ago. But people only remember him now for the Terracotta Warriors and Great Wall (thing is the Great Wall you're looking at is not the one he built nor was it in the same location).

Regarding travelling - if this is your first time there - I'd go to Beijing without a doubt. The Forbidden Palace is probably the best tourist site I've been to and I've probably been to every major European one you could think of. It's a different sort of thing I guess - it's more about size. European ones have nice sculpting but are much smaller buildings.

 

[travelbug]

THIS is exactly why my travel list keeps getting longer even though I travel a few times a year.

I have been to China (which I loved) but obviously need to go back and see more now.

 

[propertyVIC]

I enjoyed Lijiang old town - didn't need a bike. Some of the tours in China in package holidays, eg Dragonair, give you your own car, driver and guide... so you can vary the itinerary a bit and leave places quickly, while still being pressured to visit some shops.

 

[Deltaberry]

I don't like those sort of scenery trips.

But if you really wanted one, I'd recommend this route.

Xian -> Hua Shan -> Luoyang (Xiaolin Temple).

In short Xian offers Terracotta Warriors and you'll get to see what remains of China's first capital city as well as the capital city of two of the most important dysnasties, the Han (which we Chinese are named after) and the Tang (which Chinatown is named after). Apart from Qin Shin Huang's tomb, there are also various Han Emperors and Tang Emeperors' tombs you could visit. The first and only female Emperor - Wu Zetian - also has her tomb in this area and it is estimated to be bigger than Terracotta Warriors but hasn't been open yet. There's also Hua Qing Chi you could look at which was the spas used by a very famous Tang Emperor who indulged in so much bathing that it led to a revolution - this was also the place that Chiang Kai Shek (Taiwan forefounder) hid (specifically in a rock behind the baths) from his deputies, who had taken him ransom and insisted that he teamed up with Mao Zedong's Communists to fight the Japanese invasion (Chiang had insisted on wiping out Mao first before fighting the Japanese).

Hua Shan is one of the five major mountains in China and while not the prettiest, more or less meets your objectives of scenery. You could take the traditional route up or take those rail cars (whatever they're called). Luoyang is China's second capital - where the Eastern Han Dynasty shifted its capital to and where the Chancellor Cao Cao (antagonist in Romance of the Three Kingdoms for anyone who plays video games) eventually set up his capital after overthrowing the last Han Emperor. You can also see the Xiaolin Temple in Luoyang, which is the heart of China's Buddhism (as opposed to Tibet's non-Han Chinese Buddihists) and where so-called Chinese Kung Fu originates. Pretty good place to see too.

Note Xian is relatively outback compared to the rest of China as it's a western city and modern day China hasn't put much money in to places like that yet - probably feels like a more populated Adelaide if anything. But you go there for historical reasons. Luoyang is completely a tier 3 city in modern day China, so don't expect hoohahs or anything.

If you want to visit the commercial powerhouses, only Shanghai/Hong Kong would be the ones to go to. That said Shanghai also offers a good scenic route, while giving you big city shopping akin to Seoul/Tokyo/Hong Kong. Shanghai has various historical sites too - though I found them rather boring - including Zhou Enlai's house (first Premier of PRC and second in command to Mao and often regarded as the one who soften many of Mao's policies and saved Deng Xiaoping from Mao's purge in the 60s) and Sun Yatset's house (first Provisional President of the Republic). Then people normally take the scenic route down to Hangzhou and Suzhou where you can see the famous West Lake and more traditional Chinese rivers that surround houses (much similar to Switzerland but narrower).

But as I said if you haven't been to Beijing, the last of the 4 capitals and the modern day capital as we all know, and that would be a no-brainer first choice. Obvious places to visit are plenty - more than other ancient cities, because Beijing is relatively modern unlike Xian/Luoyang/Nanjing which have obviously been sacked at various times throughout history and not maintained as well as Rome's mouments. Places to go to would obviously be Forbidden Palace, Temple of Heaven, Great Wall, Summer Palace (which was built at the expense of building a navy to fight the Japanese navy in the 1800s, which eventually led to the Japanese invasion), 13 Ming Emperor Tombs (there are only three dynasties in Beijing - the Mongolians' Yuan Dynasty, Chinese Ming Dynasty and Manchurian Qing Dynasty - these tombs are the Ming Emperors' tombs). A good Beijing trip could tack on Harbin, a tier-2 city and capital of Heilongjiang and where the Qing Dynasty Manchurians orignated and broke the Great Wall to enter China and overthrow the last Han people dynasty, which has great ice sculpting which is a must-see and a zoo where lions and cows walk together and you're in a car and you get to see the lion eat the cow.