Sand Dunes and Cherry Blossoms

From Pandas to Pagodas: a China survival guide

Our fascination with China started by watching many, too many, period Chinese TV dramas.

If you never have, do, with English subtitles.

They are simply amazing.

We started planning in November 2019, booked for May 2020. Well, we know how that ended up.

So we decided  to try again for 2024.

We are not organized tour people, we like to travel and explore on our own and while this has its challenges, it is also extremely rewarding.

China was our 37th country visited and although I do my research and planning well in advance, China deserved a little more attention than usual.

First of all, China is a huge, diverse country.

It is continent sized and creating an itinerary could be daunting. I had several until I settled for the one we did.

China is safe, probably the safest country I have ever been in to, and to my joy, no drunkards and brawls in the streets on a Saturday night. Just families and young people enjoying life.

China is very child friendly and family oriented.

However, organizing an independent trip requires some research. But this China travel guide will make things easy for you.

Let’s start with the language barrier.

If you only visit the main cities (Beijing, Shanghai, Xi’an, Chengdu) and you stick to tourist places, you will find that English is moderately spoken and understood.

But turn the corner and you will find yourself plunged into the unknown.

We speak several languages and never really had any problems anywhere. China, as independent travelling, it’s a different thing.

We decided to study HSK Chinese Level 1and 2 a few months before flying and although it is not essential, it did help quite a bit.

I found a free app called Hello Chinese which makes it easy and enjoyable. I loved it.

People love when they hear you attempting a little Chinese and expect them to take photos with you!

“She speaks Chinese, she speaks Chinese!” they chirp, smiling. No I don’t. Just a few sentences!

So, although learning a tiny bit of spoken Chinese could go a long way, certainly essential is to download a translator app. They use it too.

They are various available for free.

VPN

If you want to access your usual social media, FB, Twitter, Insta, Google etc, you need a good reliable VPN.

We tried a few, some free, some with a minimal payment.

Shadowrocket was free, but it wasn’t 100% reliable, Windscribe (free) never worked, Let’sVPN cost very little for one month and worked perfectly.

Chinese SIM card or E-Sim

If your phone supports E-Sim, then it is super easy to buy a E-Sim online, even on Amazon prior to going and install it on your phone. Otherwise, buy a SIM in China. You will need it as you cannot connect to the WIFI while outside of your hotel and you will need it to book taxis and pay.

Essentials

If you want to make your holiday life easier, DO download WeChat and Alipay, create an account and validate it, connect a bank card to it and have it validated.

You will use them extensively.

Anywhere in China, literally anywhere, from high stores, to taxi to street vendors will have a bar code for you to scan your phone with your WeChat pay or Alipay.

Forget cash and cards. That’s the way to go.

Bear in mind that WeChat is called Weixin in Chinese and Alipay is Zhifubao.

If your phone is running out of charge with usage, like it happened to me twice, look out for yellow boxes (every shop has them) with take out power banks.

For booking hotels, I used Trip.com that has a huge variety (including cute, traditional wooden hotels) a very rock bottom prices that you will never find on the major booking sites.

Trip will send you the confirmation with the English and Chinese hotel’s name and address.

I strongly suggest that you print out the Chinese page and bring it with you to show taxi drivers as the Chinese name of the hotel will not be the English one.

Transportation

When you download Alipay, there will be a section, in your app, for DIDI. DIDI is basically the Chinese Uber. It is highly reliable.

You can also hail any available taxi.

Bullet trains are amazing. You can book in advance (recommended) but tickets won’t be released until closer to travel date. To book, just go through www.chinaticketonline.com

Prices

If you come from a euro/pound/dollar/ruble country, China is not expensive at all.

We tried both traditional Chinese and Western restaurants and found the prices incredibly good.

Markets and food stalls are even cheaper. And delicious.

Taxis and DIDIs are inexpensive as well.

The only thing we found a little expensive are the domestic flights, but they do fly huge distances and luggage is always included.

Vegetarian China

Contrary to what people think, there is lots of vegetarian/vegan food in China and veg restaurants too.

Rely on Happy Cow app to source for veg restaurants and usually around the Buddhist monasteries, there are many veg restaurants and buffets (they are very cheap).

Even in traditional Chinese restaurants, there are always many veg dishes available, the only problem is the language barrier, so do rely on a translator app to tell them what you would like.

We had some delicious food!

And some miss (boiled tofu, I will never forget you..)

Unfortunately, due again to the language barrier, we could not explore the incredible variety of food on offer on the street stalls, we tried what we knew was meat less and it was yummy.

Refer to our post on Vegetarian food in China here: Vegetarian and Vegan survival guide

After this long introduction, let’s talk about the places we have seen.

We took advantage of the Visa free scheme for certain European passports and we had to stay 15 days or less. Make sure you leave the Chinese soil on the 15^th day. We left on the 16^th, due to the flight been past midnight and they did notice.

Nothing happened, they just told us to be more careful next time.

**Update: you can now stay visa free up to 30 days for certain countries.

In our itinerary, we tried to cover traditional and modern, touristy and out of the tourist trail and it worked well.

Our route covered:

Chengdu

Kunming

Dali

Shuanglangzhen

Chongqing

Hangzhou

Zhujiajiao

Shanghai

Refer to the single articles for details on what to do and see in these amazing destinations.

Don’t be put off by having to put a little effort in planning, it is absolutely worth it!

Follow this guide and it will be easy!