Routes around China on your own. Travel to China on your own. Mysterious and unusual China. Play with the golden monkey in the forest area of ​​Shennongjia

So, you are planning to go to China. And they did it right! This country is famous for its centuries-old culture, inventions, natural landscapes, food and much more. Now there are many offers on the tourism market, but they are all of the same type and run along the same well-trodden routes. Besides, they don’t give you freedom: look to the right, look to the left... How about entering a country where they look at you with genuine childish interest, like an alien, where the whole carriage stands up when they see you)). Or chat with local residents and get to know the life of the country from the inside. Independent travel provides all this.

Below we discuss the main practical issues related to independent travel in China.

1. Visa to China

The first thing you will need for such a trip is a Chinese visa. There are several types of visas, which require different documents, different prices. The simplest one is a one-time tourist trip. You can register with a travel agency, which will naturally charge an additional fee for their work. You can apply for a visa yourself by taking the documents to one of the Chinese consulates: in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Yekaterinburg, Irkutsk, Khabarovsk and Vladivostok.

2. How to get to China and travel within the country?

There are several ways to get to the Celestial Empire from Russia: by plane, by train or by bus, and by hitchhiking. It all depends on your budget, where you are going from and what places in China you are going to visit. China, as you know, borders Russia in the Far East, and from there the route to Beijing is the closest. You can cover this distance by train. The easiest way to travel from Moscow, St. Petersburg, and the European part of Russia is by plane. There are both direct flights and with transfers in Astana, Almaty, Dubai, depending on the airline. Cheap tickets can be found on the website .

Inside China, you can also travel in different ways, whichever suits your taste. We traveled by train, buying tickets ourselves at the ticket office a few days before departure.

3. How much money to take to China?

It’s difficult to give a definite answer here - everyone has their own requirements and preferences. I can only give a link to our

It is better to exchange cash in Russia for dollars in advance, since rubles are not exchanged in China. Dollars are exchanged for yuan mainly by the Bank of China; the rate in the spring of 2013 was 6.1 yuan per 1 dollar. You can also use Visa and MasterCard bank cards. A fee will be charged for withdrawing money from the card. It varies from bank to bank, check with your bank before traveling.

Anya and I applied for ISIC youth cards; in some places they give a good discount. For example, we saved 90 yuan (450 rubles) on Mount Emeishan.

4. What to take with you to China?

Experience is the son of difficult mistakes)) It’s unclear why we were dragging sleeping bags with us, but it turned out that China is full of cheap and comfortable housing.

When packing, pay attention to what kind of weather awaits you in China. For example, in the spring there is a lot of rain and dampness in the southwestern regions, while in Xinjiang it can be cool but dry. From here, choose what to take. For independent travel, a backpack is an irreplaceable and convenient thing that you must have =).

As a last resort, buy what you need in China, all the clothes are made there anyway!

5. Accommodation in China - where to spend the night?

As mentioned above, the choice of accommodation is huge, especially in places popular with tourists. And competition makes prices reasonable. You can book a hotel or inn in advance - this is easy to do on the website. If you prefer to improvise, you can decide on housing on the spot. I just strongly advise against doing this if you are traveling on holidays: at the beginning of May and in the first half of October.

If you want to stay in an apartment or rent a room from the owners (often this works out cheaper than a hotel), try Airbnb (go to and get $25 as a gift for your first booking).

6. Where to go in China, attractions

The choice here is simply endless, China amazing country! Discovery awaits at every step =).

We visited 4 provinces, or rather , and the province , Yunnan and Manchuria. We simply passed by the rest of the districts by train.

7. Food

People in China love and know how to eat! Locals adopted the rule “War is war, and lunch is on schedule”)). The choice of food is very large, although the main products for the Chinese are rice and noodles, as well as additives for them. You can have a snack at local chifans or buy food at the market or supermarkets.

It should be noted that Chinese food is very spicy - be careful, especially in the first days.

When organizing an independent trip, mobile applications are very helpful. We wrote .

That's all I wanted to say about traveling to China on your own. Come to the Celestial Empire, you will definitely be satisfied! Easy roads!

February 18th, 2015

China is one of the most visited countries in the world, receiving more than 55 million tourists a year. China attracts with its rich history; incredible monuments, temples, towers, as well as landscapes and hearty food.Here are the most interesting and beautiful sights of the Celestial Empire, which you should definitely visit at least once in your life:

Rewind the clock and admire the distinctive Chinese architecture of the scenic Hongcun Village, which is over 900 years old.

The famous Peking duck, of course, can only be tasted in Beijing. And the best place for this is the Da Dong Duck Roast restaurant.

Take a ride on the 1,580-meter Great Wall toboggan run, which starts from the Mutianyu section.

Conquer the sand dunes of the Gobi Desert on camelback, which will take you straight to Yueyaquan Lake in Dunhuang Oasis.

An excellent fishing spot is the Xiapu Shoal, located along the southeast coast of China in Fujian Province.

Scorpions and other Chinese culinary delights can be sampled at Wangfujing Night Market in Beijing.

Today, about 1,800 fortified multi-story diaolou mansions remain in Kaiping County, which were built in the early 20th century to protect local residents.

Stroll along the waterfront in Shanghai.

Enjoy scenic views of one of the largest waterfalls in Asia, Huangoshu.

Take a sunbath on the beaches of Hainan.

Forbidden City and Palace Museum of the Ming and Qing dynasties in Beijing.

Walk through the 12-kilometer Long Tan Valley and admire the reddish-purple quartz sandstone.

This is a traditional brunch for Southern China, during which dim sum is served - small portions of dessert, fruits, vegetables or seafood. You can taste it in the City Hall at the Maxim’s Palace restaurant.

An outdoor escalator will take you to Hong Kong's best boutiques.

Did you know that the floating island mountains on the planet Pandora from the famous movie Avatar were created in the image of a real place on Earth. This miracle is located in Zhangjiajie National Park.

Fans of unusual travel can ride a donkey through the Gobi Desert in Inner Mongolia and spend the night in a yurt.

Climb the Lushan Mountains and you'll understand why artists and poets come here for inspiration.

All the gamblers in China gather in Macau, the only place where gambling is officially allowed.

You can see your reflection in the mirror lake Tianchi or “Heavenly Lake”. This is the deepest lake in China, which is located on the top of Changbai Mountain.

Wander through a village made entirely of ice at the world's largest ice and snow festival in Harbin.

Take a boat trip along the mountain range on the Golden Stone Coast, Dalian.

Yu Yuan Garden in Shanghai is a great place for a leisurely stroll.

Ancient Buddhist temples are represented in the Yungang cave grottoes in Shanxi province.

What could be better than a bike ride through the park and surroundings of Xihu Lake in Hangzhou?

The Terracotta Army in Xi'an will make an indelible impression even on the most experienced tourist.

Play with the golden monkey in the forest area of ​​Shennongjia.

Spicy pork brains in simmering chili oil are a challenge for your taste buds.

The fabulous cave of the “Reed Flute”, hiding in the depths of the Chinese land. Only there you can see stalagmites and stalactites illuminated in different colors.

Funny hugging pandas in Chongqing city.

Jiuzhaigou National Park is famous for its multi-level waterfalls and colorful lakes.

According to rumors, the legend of Aladdin originated in the bazaar of the city of Urumqi.

Night lights of the fountain of the Great Wild Goose Pagoda in Xi'an.

Take a cruise along Eurasia's longest and deepest river, the Yangtze in Yunnan Province.

Visit Mao Zedong's mausoleum, a symbol of communism, in Tiananmen Square in Beijing.

Tiger Leaping Gorge in Lijiang is famous for its incredibly beautiful panoramas and landscapes.

Tourists have a unique opportunity to celebrate another New Year according to the Chinese lunar calendar.

Magnetoplane or maglev is a magnetic levitation train that reaches speeds of up to 500 km/h.

Being passionate fans of independent travel outside traditional tourist routes, we decided to go on another trip to China.

Since we have already been to Beijing and Guilin, new route was compiled in such a way as to see the maximum possible number of attractions that are usually not included in a traditional tour of exploring China: Shanghai - Suzhou - Xi'an - Chengdu - Leshan - Emeishan - Dazu - Chongqing - cruise along the Yangtze to Yichang - Wuhan - Hainan - Hong Kong.

Agency: Astravel - no special problems. We booked tickets, hotels, transfers, made visas and insurance. Manager Sergei treated our requirements with understanding; the whole process was slowed down by the Chinese, who were not ready to quickly solve problems (we started discussing the route already in January!)

Departure from Sh-2

The men dropped $100 each. and bought whiskey, cognac and Baileys liqueur for the ladies for everything. This stock helped us in a number of situations in inland China, but more on that later...

Shanghai – a city of contrasts

The first time I was in Shanghai was in 1989, passing through from Hangzhou. Since then, enormous changes have occurred, even compared to our last trip in 2004, many places are simply unrecognizable. The new Pudong district on the other side of the river, with its striking architecture, will compete with any metropolis with traditional skyscrapers.

We stayed at the New Asia Hotel (***), relatively decent, located a 10-minute walk from the main shopping street of Nanjinglu and 20-25 minutes from the old city. There are no particular complaints about the hotel, since we only spent the night there after long outings, we did not notice any flaws. The money was changed at the reception - 1 dollar - 7.9 yuan (the rate is approximately the same everywhere). We arrived at the hotel at about 12 o'clock local time, immediately met our friends who had flown in from Guangzhou, and went to the Bund embankment to take pictures and have lunch...

We took pictures against the backdrop of skyscrapers from the embankment, chock-full of the same “tourists”, on our side - historical Buildings, built during British colonial rule. I was especially impressed by the HEPING (World) hotel with amazing interior interiors, incl. stained glass. You immediately imagine bohemian Shanghai, ladies in evening dresses and pearls, exquisite dishes... But we were not allowed there - after two all state restaurants are closed, wait, they say, until dinner.

As a result, we sat down at one of the tourist eateries and, out of hunger, ordered twenty dishes for 12 people (6 couples) and Chinese beer and Chinese vodka “argotou” (the so-called “palm” in common parlance - since the bottle itself easily fits in the palm). Three of us speak decent Chinese, so we were treated to the highest class... The only fly in the ointment - a girl who tried Chinese cuisine for the first time in such a unique place found a cockroach in her dish... Only "Red Label" saved the situation, and subsequently we were all disinfected with the help of strong drinks, prudently captured from Russia. Then we went on foot to Old city DownTown. In fact, the abundance of hieroglyphs initially amazed our friends, who had never seen them in such volume. kiosk.

Relationship without marriage - some distraction from the route

There, on the embankment, they also bought a telephone card for 100 yuan, which gives 999 minutes of conversation within China. Unfortunately, we were unable to activate international roaming, so the husband (or wife, respectively) had a Russian number, and the wife (or husband) had a Chinese number. We also took portable walkie-talkies with us, which we used quite actively when moving around the city and even shopping (it’s easy for even a Chinese to get lost in Chinese multi-storey supermarkets).

Old and New Shanghai

The old city is a collection of streets with a lot of shops selling Chinese consumer goods especially for tourists (both Chinese and relatively few foreigners) and various eateries and restaurants. In a small courtyard there is a tree of Happiness, completely hung with red ribbons with wishes in the form of bright yellow hieroglyphs (the ribbons with wishes themselves can be bought immediately for 5 yuan). You need to throw the ribbon so that it hangs on the branches, then, as the Chinese believe, your wish will come true.

A human whirlpool takes you to a small lake (fat, fat red fish swim) with a zigzag bridge with the famous tea pavilion.

Part of our group bought tickets (about 60 yuan) to Yuyuan Park and managed to prudently enjoy the beauty of the park architecture almost alone (prudently - because the next day we went to Suzhou, a city where gardens are laid out in chinese style are the main attraction). Bizarre forms of gazebos, stones, the chirping of birds and ... behind the wall - huge modern skyscrapers - this is present-day Shanghai.

Nankinglu Street itself is an instant-kilometer shopping marathon (by the way, we did not participate in it), when the red light turns on and you cross this street in a taxi, it seems that it is all black from Chinese heads to the horizon - only people, a little higher - lights of neon advertisements for shops and restaurants. There is nowhere for an apple to fall... There is definitely room for pickpockets, since the flow of people moves as densely as at the May Day demonstration.

After resting at the hotel (it took half an hour to walk there, continuously photographing rickshaws, laundry hanging on balconies and street benches), we decided to go see the city from a bird's eye view, not at the advertised "Pearl of the Orient" tower (the tallest in Asia), but at the very top tall skyscraper GuoMao with a bar either on the 54th or 84th floor. Refined oriental interior, Bellini cocktail for 10 USD. and a fantastic view of the city...

Suzhou – the city of gardens and canals – Chinese Venice

It took us an hour and a half to get to Suzhou by bus. The guide - a sweet girl in glasses with a quiet voice - a typical representative of the Chinese intelligentsia - diligently told us facts we already knew from guidebooks. We had both "Polyglot" and "National Geographic" (an order of magnitude better than the first in all respects). The modest official's garden was completely filled with inquisitive Chinese, who, both alone and in tourist crowds, slowly moved around the most famous places in this garden. Having suffered for an hour in the crowd and waiting for another group will leave the cute pavilion or historical gazebo, we decided not to tempt fate any longer.

We also visited a park with a charming pagoda, after which we insisted on purchasing an excursion for 85 yuan on a self-propelled boat along the canals of Suzhou. This is truly a worthwhile event - extraordinary beauty, balconies with Chinese lanterns, hung with all sorts of laundry that is drying. A Chinese man was squatting in the window, brushing his teeth. All life is for show. We bought dumplings for 16 yuan (about 2 dollars) on the beach right on the street and ate our fill, since it was impossible to sit in a restaurant.

Our adventures did not end there - the most active ones went for a foot massage on the nearest street to our hotel, for 58 yuan (1 dollar = 7.9 yuan) for half an hour, cute girls with tenacious fingers and boys with sculpted muscles demonstrated the wonders of oriental massage. The next day, one of our friends had to be carried on a cart at the airport - his legs could not walk, the second participant in the experiment walked on bent legs for a couple of days. The rest of the experiment participants were delighted...

Xi'an - who has more statues or Chinese???

To be honest, answering this question was quite difficult. In the morning we checked into the Le Garden hotel (a solid four, only tourist groups, there were already two buses of our compatriots, and local guides they were bred like rabbits to visit a silk and pearl factory, however, the hotel itself is located a little far from the city center).

We came across Gosha - a tall Chinese man, about 45 years old, as he said, a retired pilot, but judging by his knowledge of our country, he also studied optionally at another faculty (definitely intelligence).

In the morning we saw the Wild Goose Pagoda - famous temple in Xi'an during the Tang dynasty (VII-X centuries). About half an hour by minibus and we are almost there. We passed the tomb (alleged) of Qing Shi Huang - the emperor who unified China, as Gosha, who was knowledgeable about everything, told us, there is nothing there except a modern stele. However, hundreds of buses and crowds of (literally) scary crowds of Chinese made us give up on the idea of ​​taking a look at this historical site.

Bin-mayun itself (or the Terracotta Army) turned out to be no less filled with tourists, having difficulty parking the bus, we began to make our way among groups of tourists led by guides with different flags and an army of sellers of copies of statues (which, by the way, cost 10 yuan, and if you haggle a little, then it’s 1 dollar for a set of 5 figures). Without a doubt, the 3 pavilions themselves and the main one, where the unearthed army was located, are a grandiose spectacle, rightfully included in the “obligatory” program for visiting China.

In front of the pavilion you can (as in the past at VDNKh in a circular panorama) watch a film about how the figures were created, how they were destroyed by time, and how they were found. The peasant himself, who stumbled upon the clay head in 1974, and ultimately revealed this grandiose spectacle to the world, as if nothing had happened, sits in the cinema hall and signs books (30 yuan on top + the book itself = 120 yuan). At the same time, I saw him about 10 years ago - during a previous visit to Xi’an, and he just as calmly fanned himself and signed postcards and books with a felt-tip pen for money.

After wandering around the pavilions (the whole thing took 2-2.5 hours - no more) and pretty tired of the photo flashes (despite the ban on photos inside the pavilions), we headed home to the hotel. After the terracotta army they did not go out to central square to see the 14th century Drum Tower and the Bell Tower.

In the morning we went to the mosque located in the Muslim Quarter - indeed, worthwhile place. The mosque building, founded in 742, does not resemble a mosque in any way, since its appearance is in the spirit of Chinese architecture, only sometimes Arabic script appears alongside hieroglyphs. On the way to the mosque there is a market for all sorts of Chinese things - mostly fakes, however, with some digging you could find interesting things. As a joke, we bought a Mao quote book in Russian, which brightened up our train ride from Xi'an to Chengdu. Someone bought ceramic tiles, someone bought funny jewelry...

Travel from Xi'an to Chengdu

The station in Xi'an is three (no - five!!!) Leningrad, Yaroslavl and Kazan stations combined. People (mostly local peasants) sit, sleep, eat on the floor, in front of the station, inside the station, we are lucky - foreigners are allowed into the so-called. VIP room with air conditioning.

As befits Russians, we bought all sorts of fruits, drinks and even chicken at the station; the alcohol we had prudently purchased at Sheremetyevo was not finished yet...

Really, beautiful landscapes, which you can’t see from an airplane, stops in cities that are small by Chinese standards (1-2 million people(!), exotic characters in the carriage.

A cart with food is wheeled around every 15-20 minutes (probably only on trains near Moscow there are more intensive offers from network marketing workers), newspapers, napkins, game consoles and all that stuff. A trip to the restaurant carriage by a close group of men with a bottle of CHIVAS cost 60 yuan for everyone (hot dishes) and ended with fraternization with local mafiosi, completely covered with tattoos, drinking rice vodka.

The female half of the group was able to take a break from the excursion marathon and read about the sights of Chengdu.

Chengdu

The provincial capital of Sichuan is a classic example of an inland Chinese city that has been less affected by modernization. However, the purpose of our visit was to visit the city of Leshan - with the world's largest Buddha statue, carved from the rock and the Emeishan Mountains - a sacred place where poets wrote amazing poems about the beauty of the local nature. In general, Chengdu was the most “unsuccessful” point of our trip. We arrived at the station at 5 am. “No one will meet us at night...” and all that stuff...

After rushing around with our suitcases, through a series of calls to Beijing (to the credit of the host party, a Chinese Zoya from Beijing, despite the early hour, helped us solve the problems) we found our English-speaking guide.

There was no bus, to all questions about where the bus was, the answer was that it was on its way... After waiting for half an hour, to the delight of the guide, who was practicing English with us (and at half past five in the morning after a stormy night, I didn’t want to talk about the weather at all), and switching to conversational Chinese , it turned out that the bus would be waiting for us at a certain hotel where we were planning to have breakfast, but we had to go there by taxi. The taxi stopped on the opposite side of the station; we didn’t trust the porters with our cargo, so the charger came in handy. After breakfast we went to Leshan, to see Buddha. The statue is a grandiose sight (the head alone is 15 m, the ears are 7.5, and the total height is more than 70 m). A local monk made it for about 90 years, starting in 713 AD. , but never finished. Leads to the complex beautiful embankment along the Dadu River, along which we took a walk. There are rickshaws scurrying along the promenade, and for 5 yuan you can get to the main entrance.

70 yuan for entry, 200 steps up, 5,000 Chinese people around, half an hour of waiting - and you can take a photo of the Buddha’s head with 365 curls. We didn’t go down (3 hours in the labyrinthine queue was beyond our strength after wandering).

We boarded a ship (included in the main excursion package) and looked at the Buddha from the river - much more attractive. You just need to abstract yourself from the Chinese.

The trip to Emeishan was also unsuccessful. Two hours by bus, we arrived in the rain, we were given down jackets to rent (in the heat of 25 degrees) and raincoats and we went up to the beauties... despite everything, we got wet... The fog is terrible, you can’t see anyone walking 10 steps away, not like the glorified beauties. But we decided to go all the way, but we were stopped by a local employee who said that there was a thunderstorm at the top and it was simply dangerous there. Two hours by bus back... Goodbye, Emeishan! Next time! On the bus we watched a tape on TV, how beautiful it could be.

At the Emeishan Hotel (even though it is 4 stars) no one speaks English. Those wishing for civilization were not able to eat at the hotel, but thrill-seekers went to chi fan jie - an area where all kinds of living creatures are fried and steamed right on the street. At first, rickshaws brought us to the restaurant for only 1 yuan (apparently, the restaurant management paid them extra for bringing clients), but the emptiness inside and the suspiciously kind staff forced us to insist on our own - we were going to the very heart of Emeishan. Dinner at 150 yuan (about $20, including alcohol for 5 people) included a huge plate of crabs in hot peppers, an impressive size frog, various kinds of meat and shrimp, salads, and hot appetizers. We got by without knowing Chinese – we all used gestures and sounds. The only bright culinary spot...Before this, everyone succumbed to the guide’s persuasion and ate absolutely tasteless food at a local tourist tavern for 600 yuan.

In the morning we took a bus to Chongqing, the starting point of our trip along the Yangtze, after seeing the famous tea houses in the park. The 7 hours of travel flew by unnoticed. A grand stop is the Dazu Monastery (also a UNESCO protected heritage site). The expressive sculptures, carved into rocks and painted, are associated with themes from Taoism, Confucianism and Buddhism. The most famous mountain Baodingshan - more than 10,000 various sculptures - an incomparable spectacle in the rays of the setting sun. It's cool and there are almost no tourist groups.

Chongqing - the capital of the "third line of defense"

In an hour we drove to Chongqing, which I practically did not recognize (in the 17 years that have passed since the internship), only the liberation square (where the Chinese still gather every evening for mass dances) with the Jie fang bei monument, the Renmintang People's Hall and honor remained recognizable steep descents. Everything else is modern city with four-level interchanges, illuminated by multi-colored lights with 50-story skyscrapers erected on the banks of the Yangtze and Jialing rivers. After tasting a real Huoguo (a boiling pot with a spicy oil-broth in which to cook meat and vegetables) in an authentic restaurant, we took a 3-hour bus ride to the city of Fengdu (the city of ghosts), since our liner did not dock at an expensive and pretentious port Chongqing.

Ah, the white ship... the running Yangtze...

Former GDR a cruise ship, built at the end of the era of stagnation and unclaimed by the USSR during the turbulent years of perestroika, was immediately purchased by enterprising Chinese, everything was redone in English and Chinese style, the “Domestic” origin of the product is given by the “Morozko” refrigerator in each cabin and warning signs in Russian on the stop - tap and fire safety, apparently, the Chinese did not dare touch them.

Small cabins with two beds, a shower and a bathroom, a local radio, on which guests were periodically invited to all kinds of seminars (2 hours on acupuncture, 2 hours on the history of the Chinese circus, etc.). In the evening - a folklore evening (a colorful spectacle of mummers) + a traditional welcome drink on the upper deck with a captain in a snow-white jacket and well-trained staff - everything is like on ordinary cruise ships, but with Chinese characteristics. A three-course buffet with attached professional (also an intelligence school, no less) waitresses, who instantly learned our entire company by name and for three days brought us our favorite dishes and drinks - green tea, na-ta-sa)))))

Fengdu is a city of ghosts, a curious place on the river bank with an eloquent visualization of all the punishments for each specific earthly sin. This is a must see... Wonderful landscapes with pagodas and a lot of superstitious legends. The lowest part of the city is planned to be flooded as a result of plans to build the largest dam in the world. However, Fend itself (the historical part), fortunately, is not in danger.

The next day, May 7, we passed the famous Three Gorges (Sanxia) - magnificent landscapes of a rapidly narrowing river with steep cliffs.

In the bar on the bow of the ship, a kind of political information is held in English for everyone with a detailed story about gorges, legends and historical facts. In the afternoon we were transferred to a small boat (half an hour up the Yangtze tributary) and then to wooden junks, which at some stage of the journey were pulled along the shore by local peasants. The barge haulers on the Yangtze started a song (we are sure it was a sad song about a hard life), we responded with “Dubinushka”, the guide, a pretty Chinese girl, sang a couple of songs of local national minorities. The barge haulers themselves are an excellent example of the fact that healthy physical labor in the open air will mold anyone into an athlete; such prominent muscles are not always found even among fitness club trainers. We were especially struck by the 80-year-old toothless grandpa-coxswain on one of the boats, whose face was literally covered with wrinkles, but whose figure and muscles would have been the envy of the finalists of bodybuilding competitions - for another 60 years in a row he would have been able to carry the heaviest things over stones and boulders up the river boats with cargo, and now - overweight retired tourists.

In general, it must be said that the audience on the ship (about 300 people) was a gathering of American and European pensioners who decided to see the world in their old days. They eagerly listened to all the stories of the guides, tirelessly photographed everything and everyone, carefully studied the special pictures hung in the corridors between the cabins with explanations in English with curious historical facts about the gorges, about the history of certain places that we passed, various facts that might be interesting during a three-day trip along the river.

We were probably the youngest group. One American couple of about 60 years old listened to Russian speech for a long time and, finally, one of them asked what language we were speaking. Having received a proud answer in Russian, after thinking, he replied that we are probably very rich Russians if we can afford a trip to the Yangtze. We did not argue with him, although there was a desire to say that real rich Russians have long been living in London and hanging out in the Costa Smeralda, and not sailing on a ship in the Chinese outback. Really new Russians would either rent the entire liner, or sail on an ocean-going yacht with their staff, female models, champagne and all that jazz.

Apparently, the boom in information about the crazy spending of the rich nouveau riche has not yet reached provincial America.

Nevertheless, we did make some contribution to the idea of ​​the extravagance of Russians - people came to local bars not only during happy hours, when foreigners wanting to save money filled them because of the 20 percent discount, but quite regularly. There was a constant bottle of whiskey on the table - the bartender didn’t mind, since we occasionally took cocktails and coffee with juices in the bar itself, but the regular appearance of a full bottle of expensive alcohol on the tight-fisted pensioners (any cocktail at the bar cost about 60-70 yuan - almost 10 dollars) was another confirmation of the fabulous wealth of the Russians - they could not have guessed that all the alcohol was bought in Duty Free. In the evening we had a party on the deck, also with cognac and whiskey. The foreigners were shocked, they even looked closely at the drinks that were not in the bar, trying to figure out where the expensive cognac came from in the Chinese wilderness.

By the evening of May 7, we sailed to the famous Sanxia Dam and spent about 5 hours passing through the locks together with similar cruise ships. A grandiose engineering structure, or as local guidebooks write, it is the crown of man’s victory over nature. In the morning we took a bus to the dam itself. Despite the ongoing construction of the next stage of the dam, everything around is perfectly clean, flowers, flower beds, everything has been swept. We also arrived at the Sanxia Dam Museum, which offers a majestic view of the river itself, the dam and the locks, and where, naturally, you can buy various books and souvenirs to remember your visit to the dam.

In general, the Chinese are very proud of their achievements over the years of reform - this is not ostentatious pride, but the real feelings of a once poor people, who in just two decades have become world economic leaders. After the entire dam is commissioned, it will provide a third of all electricity to China, some of which will even be sold to China. neighboring countries. 25 billion dollars is the volume of investment in the project, while part of the money was collected “from all over the world” from all Chinese in the form of a special tax on electricity.

We had to wait for about an hour because all the roads were blocked. At first we decided that the abundance of police was connected with the arrival of some important person, however, imagine our surprise when a giant truck slowly appeared with some kind of turbine blade. Increased precautions were precisely related to the unique part, while all the Chinese literally glowed with happiness, talking about how large and important this part was for construction.

Half an hour after the excursion, we unloaded in Yichang, since there was no point in sailing further - downstream there are only cities that are a mixture of gray industrial buildings and gray smoke (all the way to Shanghai, where we had already been).

We took a bus to Wuhan, where we wanted to eat a rat, which baffled the guide’s girlfriend. She said that rats were eaten during famine years or during the troubled years of the Cultural Revolution in the most remote villages. Having struggled with the search for the rat, we were forced to visit a restaurant at the local airport - one of the most tasteless dinners during our entire stay in China. An hour and a half flight and we are on the island of Hainan - Chinese Hawaii.

Hainan - the harmful influence of the Russians

The scam began right at the airport - a lively Chinese woman tried in impeccable Russian to recruit us for a free visit to silk, pearl and tea factories. It was decided not to reveal our knowledge of the Chinese language in order to understand how far the desire to deceive the stupid Russians would go.

Having made sure that we didn’t need anything yet, she left us behind and we safely arrived at the hotel.

According to some versions resort hotel Intime (or as our experienced compatriots called it - “resort intimate”) - either four or five stars. We got rooms with a sea view, but without a balcony, so Sea View can be different. Paying $100 on top for three days was a toad, since the room itself is quite decent, two beds, a TV with a Russian program, all sorts of bathrobes, slippers and detailed explanations in Russian on all issues.

The vacation itself is nothing special: the sea (warm, 27 degrees), the beach (with crowds of women offering black, pink and white freshwater pearls and literally sitting on their heads with the desire to sell these threads to anyone), a healthy afternoon sleep. For those who wish, there is a SPA with massage. Since you still can’t cure anything in three days, we decided to ignore this side of the holiday, but watched with interest the girls and women of Balzac’s age who regularly attended all kinds of procedures.

The hotel is COMPLETELY filled with Russians, there are 20% Chinese from the mainland or Hong Kong.

Moreover, our audience is very specific - some are rich daddies with young girls pumped up with silicone of known behavior in more than revealing outfits from D&G and other Italian rubbish (they looked strange against the general background), some are methodical spa visitors who do not miss more than one procedure, some are curious beach fans, somewhat tired of Turkey and Egypt, who want to plunge into Chinese specifics.

Two (or three) charters from Russia a week did their job: prices in stores tripled in two years (including for my favorite silk, we even regretted that we didn’t buy all sorts of cute dresses in Suzhou), some street restaurants seafood stalls were demolished and replaced with glass menus in Russian with unusually inflated prices for absolutely tasteless food.

Drunk Russians (and where they are not) completely spoiled the aborigines, buying a bunch of bananas for 50 dollars for their silicone steal. After such generosity, the locals are blown away and they languidly wait under the hotel for the next Russian with merchant habits.

However, we found the remnants of “old Hainan” - a corner of Chinese cuisine, where everything is cooked on the street in front of your eyes, made friends with a Chinese woman - the owner of a restaurant, and spent three days going to the crossroads to eat shark, crabs, shrimp, snails, mussels, shells, moray eel, eel, parrot fish and a lot of other stuff.

Lunch for 10 people - about 100 dollars, a little expensive by Chinese standards, but absolutely nothing by Moscow standards. We also made a foray to the so-called. crocodile farm, where we ate fried and boiled crocodile (experienced people said that it was better in Kenya), snake soup (not a bad thing) and turtle soup (also very tasty, especially the paws with small claws).

Moral: in 20 years, before my eyes, Hainan went from a real paradise with Hawaiian bars (where a retired American paratrooper who married a Chinese woman mixed delicious cocktails) to a large entertainment center - a typical resort with multi-story hotel boxes with small (and, unfortunately , rapidly disappearing) interspersed with Chinese life in the form of street markets, fishermen’s villages, rickshaws, etc.

It was here that in just two or three years our compatriots (in my opinion) managed to turn a paradise into the Turkish coast with all the ensuing consequences. It’s a pity, but we probably won’t go to Hainan again, so as not to spoil the remains of good impressions.

The guys went to the jungle for one night and were incredibly pleased, but we spent the evening in colonial style, dressed up in various kinds of skirts and sweaters, already packed in suitcases during excursion wanderings around inland China. A buffet with sea reptiles in the form of dinner for 126 yuan per person + a Chinese woman who diligently depicted “evenings near Moscow” (they even played the song “life-long sosse” - we did not immediately understand that it was about truck drivers).

Hong Kong

Having happily received a $100 deposit, we headed to Hong Kong - the last point of our journey.

We were met by the same guide - Mr. Yamb, very cheerful, we especially liked the fact that he translated everything into dollars and focused on this - “a square meter of housing on this street costs 3,000 bucks” (apparently so that we would not get confused in Hong Kong dollars ). Hotel MIRAMAR (three stars) - small, smoky rooms, but an excellent location - in the very center, on the busiest shopping street in Hong Kong. A delicious crab buffet for HK$126 (about $15), which attracts rich Hong Kong residents and tourists in limousines.

I've been to a lot of places, but... after London, Hong Kong is the place where, in principle, you can live on a permanent basis - colonial influence has yielded the most generous results: impeccable politeness, capitalist abundance, oriental luxury combined with European restraint... By ferry for 2 HK$ sailed to the island part of Hong Kong, strolled along the antique Hollywood Street (for 2 last year it has turned into a gathering of boutiques, where languid-looking Chinese women sit with thick catalogs, waiting for a connoisseur of Chinese ceramics and painting).

After three hours of free walking in the busy shopping district, ShangHai Tang - one of the best boutiques offering stylish, modern clothes in the Chinese style, was surprised by the consumer pressure of the Russians. Some of the nice things were bought at the most expensive hotel, The Peninsula (we are, of course, not talking about Louis Vuitton, who, without a doubt, makes billions from the Chinese love for brands). In general, the Chinese and Hong Kongers have felt the taste of luxury and passionately love to emphasize their status; all sorts of brands like ARMANI, which opened its 6-story (!!!) supermarket in the very center of Hong Kong, Prada, MIU MIU, CELINE, DIOR and others take advantage of this luxury brands.

The next day - sightseeing tour($60 per person) with check-in fishing village Aberdeen, then to a couple of newly built Buddhist shrines and a mandatory stop at Victoria Peak, from where an enchanting view of the harbor opens (the sight of Hong Kong at night is especially mesmerizing).

We also visited a jewelry factory, from where we carried away the coveted topazes, aquamarines and black pearls in our beaks. The work is indeed very beautiful; it is not for nothing that Hong Kong is considered the center of the jewelry industry in Southeast Asia. The Australian opals processed in China were not at all impressive - they were like plastic.

The last day of departure from hospitable Hong Kong has arrived. The airport is ultra-modern, but since the flight was at night (at 0.30), all Duty Free shops were closed, except for alcohol and cigarettes with cosmetics.

Conclusions:

1) independent travel is much more interesting and, importantly, cheaper than standard tours.
2) The route (as trivial as it may be) must be drawn up independently (from books and guidebooks, via the Internet, from reviews of friends, etc.), since even in good agencies I don’t know everything.
3) China, despite the language barrier for most of our people, is not a terrible country at all, but simply different. Be polite, read guidebooks, be inquisitive and you, without a doubt, will discover a different China - not the “shuttle” Beijing and Shanghai, not the beach Hainan, but a truly interesting, distinctive, great country.

nataly
21/06/2006 11:59

The opinions of tourists may not coincide with the opinions of the editors.

Article text updated: 05/29/2018

In November 2011, together with my wife Ekaterina, we made our first full-fledged trip on our own, without travel agencies. We visited several popular places in China, spent one day in Hong Kong and then flew off to the Philippines for adventure. We really liked the country: kind, benevolent people, a sense of security, cheap transport, food, hotels and excursions, a huge number of attractions. I knew I would return to China again. In March 2014, my dream came true: we flew to the Middle Kingdom for the second time. And today I begin a very long and detailed account of our journey as savages through China and Thailand.

General questions regarding preparing a trip to China

When I wrote a report on my first trip to China on my own, I did not dwell on general issues related to this country that may be of interest to travelers. Let's talk a little about the People's Republic of China. We all know that the Motherland of Mao Zedong is by far the most densely populated country - more than 1.3 billion people, i.e. every 5th inhabitant of the planet out of 10 is Chinese. We don’t think much about it, but an equally rapidly growing country in terms of demographics (and economy) is India with 1.22 billion hungry mouths. So, every 4 out of 10 people are representatives South-East Asia. The territory of China is 6.5% of the earth's landmass. Only Russia and Canada have more land. Imagine how many tourist attractions this country can fit!

Most of the Celestial Empire has a temperate climate. In the South - tropics or subtropics. In the North - continental climatic conditions. On average, the winter temperature in the northern provinces of the country is -7 °C (but also up to -20 °C) in the center - 5 °C, in the south from +5 °C to +15 °C. In summer - +20.22 °C, +25 °C in the North, Center and southern regions, respectively.

They say that you can fly to Hainan Island for vacation all year round, since the air there is always warmed up to +28 °C, and the water - up to +25.6 °C. We didn’t go to Hainan but we condemn it...;), After a close acquaintance with Chinese hotel service, I am sure that for the same money in Thailand or, for example, the Philippines, you will be able to relax more fun and pleasantly. After all, the Chinese neighbors, like us, have a socialist past with all that it implies.

Time difference with China

The Celestial Empire is a huge country located in 5 time zones. But the party said that it did not want to bother - everyone should live according to Beijing time, i.e. in summer it is ahead of Moscow +4 (the difference with Yekaterinburg is +2 hours), and in winter it is +5 hours to Moscow (+3 to the capital of the Middle Urals).

How to talk to Chinese

In general, the Chinese generally do not speak foreign languages. And they write in hieroglyphs. People often ask me: “How did you communicate in China? What to do if you need to ask for directions? How can you explain to a taxi driver where your hotel is?” In the first story about a trip to China as a savage, I described this moment in detail: pantomimes of a deaf-mute plus printouts with a dictionary and names of existing places in Chinese - up to Kyiv, i.e. They will take you to the most remote Chinese village. This year we were luckier: in Shanghai, in Zhangjiajie Nature Park (Zhangjiajie | 张家界), ancient city Fenghuang Ancient City (凤凰县) and in Guilin (桂林) and even in the village of Ma'an (马安寨) hotel staff spoke passable English (at least one person in the hotel could speak).

How to change currency in China

Take some euros with you in cash (as a last resort). But there was no such need (to change the currency). We withdrew money from Visa and MasterCard debit cards at ATMs (everywhere in the menu you can select English and sometimes Russian). The exchange rate was 6.3 rubles per yuan (including a bank commission of 150 rubles for each transaction). Before the trip, we bought 500 yuan from Sberbank (in Yekaterinburg - this is a branch on Tveritina Street, 34) so ​​that we would have money for a taxi from the airport in Shanghai to our New Asia Hotel. And in the morning they withdrew money from an ATM... The procedure for exchanging cash in Chinese banks, according to independent travelers, is long and tedious. On our first trip to China on our own, we exchanged dollars for yuan in hotels a couple of times. They officially issue a receipt, i.e. this is legal.

Article text updated: 05/29/2018

I’ll tell you a secret - I’ve already started testing the waters for independent travel on vacation next spring. And yet I haven’t even started writing travel reports on my own in China, Hong Kong, the Philippines and New York. To set myself a goal, a beacon, and to get the writing of the story off the ground, I decided to write this announcement today.

The trip to the Celestial Empire took place in mid-November 2011, as part of the route “Ekaterinburg - China - Hong Kong - Philippines - China - Yekaterinburg”. The Chinese part of our trip included:

1) Excursions around Beijing and surrounding areas. In particular:

• Visit Summer Imperial Palace.

• A trip to the farthest section of the Great Wall of China - Mutianyu Great Wall . There are three sites in total that have been developed and restored for tourists to visit.

• Walk along the famous pedestrian Wangfujing Street .

2) Flight to the city Guilin in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region of the People's Republic of China. And from there moving to commuter bus to the village of Yangshuo, where we spent four days.

• We rode bicycles and mopeds through the orange groves and strawberry fields in the surrounding area Yangshuo village .

• We also rafted along Li River .

3) Travel by night train to the city Shenzhen), which stands on the border with Hong Kong. We arrived in Shenzhen on the third shelf of Chinese reserved seat carriage.

4) We arrived in Shenzhen in the morning. We ate and went to cross the land border with Hong Kong. We walked around Hong Kong until the evening and flew to the Philippine island of Cebu at night.

5) Then we wandered around the Philippines for a week (the islands of Bohol, Pangalao, Boracay) and flew through Manila to Shanghai th where we spent one day.

In Shanghai we managed to visit the aquarium and walk around the center.

We really liked China. Absolute safety, friendly people, ancient history and amazing nature. Delicious and varied cuisine!

We will return to this country more than once. That's for sure. At a minimum, to see the sights that we didn’t have time to see the first time. I have a dream to walk along the most terrible trail in the world in Huashan Mountains , meet the dawn in Zhangjiajie Mountains and see the clear waters national park Jiuzhaigou .

There are many nuances when preparing an independent trip to China. For example, the Chinese do not speak any language other than Chinese. And you need to prepare for this. Train tickets cannot be purchased earlier than 4 days before the trip. And a ticket for 1 flight on an airplane, unlike the rest of the world, costs exactly 50% of the round trip flight.

Note. In addition to this report, below is a link to a story about a trip to China in the fall of 2017, which details how to buy Railway tickets from Russia via the Ctrip service. It also describes how many troubles there were due to the presence of Turkish stamps in the international passport.

A Chinese proverb says that a journey of a thousand miles begins with one small step. Let's assume that today I have already taken my first small step in writing a report and recommendations for traveling as a savage to China...

How to organize an independent trip to China

Before we begin a detailed report about our vacation in the Middle Kingdom, let's tell you how we organized our trip. Maybe my advice will be useful to someone.

So, the procedure for developing a trip plan for China is, in general, similar to organizing a trip to any other country. You need to think through five strategic points in detail:

1. Select tourist places where you would like to go on an excursion, identify attractions that you would like to see.
2. Create a travel route around the country and book air tickets. If possible, also purchase train or boat tickets.
3. Decide on where you will spend the night and book hotels. In China, we booked hotels in advance. But in Mexico and Sri Lanka we reserved rooms only at the first point of our route. True, then we traveled in rented cars.
4. Go to the insurance company and buy a medical policy. Please note that when you rent a car, you need to inform insurers about this. Driving is considered a dangerous sport and insurance will cost more.
5. Get a visa.

Let us now consider these issues in more detail using our route as an example.

First. Choose places to sightsee in China

Why was China chosen for our trip? Because it is the third largest state on our planet by territory. Its history dates back thousands of years. Making a choice about which attractions to see in the People's Republic of China is not easy. As I wrote above, I wanted to see the “Avatar Mountains” in Zhangjiajie Nature Park, walk along the most terrible trail in the world in the Huashan Mountains, and see the clear lakes of Jiuzhaigou. I really wanted to see rice terraces in Yunnan Province and walk through the Tiger Leaping Gorge (Hutiao Xia) in the same area and dozens of other attractions.

At the same time, the wife set the condition: “Take me to whatever pampas you want, but several days of beach holidays on our vacation must be reserved in any case!” I read reviews from tourists about sea ​​resorts China and realized that “service like in the USSR does not appeal to me.” Moreover, it turned out that you can buy inexpensive air tickets from Hong Kong to the Philippine island of Cebu.

Many hours of studying reports on Vinsky’s forum for independent travelers crystallized the following plan for traveling with savages in November:

1. Arrival in Beijing. Visit to the Summer Imperial Palace. If we have time, we will also drive to the Forbidden City. In the evening we will take a walk along the famous Wangfujing pedestrian street.
2. On the second day we will go to see the Great the Chinese wall(Great Wall). There are several sections of the wall that attract tourists: Badaling, Jinshanling and Mutianyu Great Wall and Simatai. Badaling is the closest, but all the billion Chinese tourists come there. Symatai, it seems, has not been restored and looks cooler. We chose a compromise option: the Mutianyu Great Wall section, where there are not many tourists, and it is not very difficult to get there and there are very beautiful mountains.
3. Flight by domestic Chinese airlines to the city of Guilin. Here we had to buy train tickets to the city of Shenzhen, bordering Hong Kong, and then to intercity bus go to Yangshuo village for four days. The village is famous for its magnificent landscapes of karst hills. As I told you earlier, we rode bicycles and mopeds, and rafted on bamboo on the Yulong River.
4. On the evening of the fourth day, we arrived back to Guilin, where we boarded the train and, on the third berth of a reserved seat car, traveled overnight to Shenzhen. We ate here at the station and crossed the border to Hong Kong via an underground passage. We took the metro to the final station of the express train to the airport, left our luggage in the storage room, and then went to observation deck Victoria Peak. When it got dark, we took the metro to the Avenue of Stars embankment, where we watched the evening laser show.
5. After midnight we flew to the Philippines to the island of Cebu. From Cebu we took a ferry to the island of Bohol. From Bohol we took a tuk-tuk to Pangalao. Here we sunbathed for four days, swam, went on an excursion to see the Chocolate Hills, a butterfly park and a nursery for tarsiers (torsiers). We also went down the Loboc river cruise.
6. Then head back to Cebu and fly to Caticlan Island. From Caticlan, a sea minibus departs every half hour to Boracay. There is a wonderful place here - a beach with white sand and crystal clear sea (White Beach). Here we just relaxed by the sea.
7. A few days later we flew to Shanghai with a three-hour layover in the capital of the Philippines, Manila.
8. We arrived in Shanghai in the evening. We spent the night at the hotel, left our luggage at the reception, and went to the city center. We saw skyscrapers, the famous Shanghai Oriental Pearl TV Tower and went on a very impressive excursion to the Shanghai Aquarium (Shanghai Haiyang Shuizuguan). In the evening we had a flight to Beijing (Beijing) and five hours later a flight to Yekaterinburg.

The itinerary for our trip to China looked like this:

Second. Booking tickets for a trip on your own in China

At the beginning of my report, I already noted that one of the features of China is that plane tickets cost exactly 50% of the round-trip price for the round trip route. I described in detail how to find and book cheap air tickets in the 10th part of the story about prices in Sri Lanka. Having studied the airlines' offers, we found an acceptable option: the flight Ekaterinburg - Beijing - Ekaterinburg, operated by S7.

To search and purchase air tickets within China, independent travelers are advised to use the websites elong.net And ctrip.com. Another difference in the Chinese transport system is that, usually, the closer the departure date, the higher the discounts on tickets. So, we booked tickets on the Ctrip website with a 40% discount.

Payment was made with a mastercard card. When filling out the payment form, the program did not allow me to enter the name of the bank with numbersBank24.ru and I had to type something like "BankTwentyfourdotru"…

On one of the sections of the trip (from Guilin to Shenzhen) it was planned to travel by train. Here is the following difficulty: in China you can only buy train tickets within the country just a few days before departure (like 4 days). And, according to unverified data, only at the departure station.

Train schedules and prices for railway tickets can be seen on the portal TravelChinaGuide.com. Experienced travelers are advised to double-check the accuracy of the schedule on the official website of the Chinese railways huochepiao.com, since TravelChinaGuide may contain inaccuracies.

TravelChinaGuide website employees can buy train tickets for you and deliver them to a pre-agreed address. So I placed an order asking for travel documents to be purchased and sent to my hotel in Yangshuo (remember, tickets can only be redeemed four days before travel). But a day later, employees of this agency contacted me and informed me that my payment from the card was not going through and I should call the bank. The bank employee said that you can pay for tickets online if you just turn off the verification functionCCVcode bank card. He could not explain what such a procedure entails for the security of payments. In general, I wrote to my Chinese partners that I would cancel the order and rely on the will of God. I'll ask the hotel employees to buy us tickets. If it works, we’ll go to Shenzhen by train. But no, then take a night bus (in China you can travel between cities on a comfortable bus with lie-flat seats. However, the deck chairs are short, and sleeping is not very comfortable for tall people). Well, or, as a last resort, we’ll fly by plane or take a taxi.

Looking ahead, I will say that we were able to buy train tickets at the Guilin ticket office on our own without any problems.

I can give the following advice on planning an independent trip. Be sure to check that your travel dates to China do not fall on public holidays. Many travelers write that at this time it is extremely difficult to buy travel documents and find available hotel rooms.

Third. Hotel room reservations

Hotels for a trip to China by savages booked on the portal agoda.com. You can also use booking.com.

• I chose an inexpensive hostel to stay in Beijing 161 Hostel, located in the old town. Price per night – 1500 rubles. Our room had a shower, sink and toilet. If the room had amenities on the corridor, the price would be less than a thousand per night. Public places are kept perfectly clean. So, if you want to save money, book a cheaper room. The staff speaks reasonable English. There is internet. The metro stop is five minutes from the hotel. To Wanwujing Street and Forbidden City- just a stone's throw away.

Photo. Where to live in Beijing. Which hotel to choose. The white circle at the top right is the sign of our hostel 161 Hostel.

• In the village of Yangshuo we stayed at the four-star West Street Vista Hotel. The quality is so-so, tolerable. As it turns out, there are plenty of cheaper hotels around. The service at the hotel is “Soviet”.
• In Shanghai we spent one night at the New Asia Hotel. It is located near the metro, next to the famous Pudong area. You can live... Adjusted for Chinese service.

Another tip for those traveling around the country on their own. In Chinese hotels, it is customary to take a deposit in cash upon check-in. I don’t remember whether we always paid 200 yuan, or for 1 night. Therefore, before my vacation, I had to buy yuan in Yekaterinburg. Here you can exchange rubles for Chinese currency, for example, at Sberbank branches at the following addresses: st. Moskovskaya, 11 or st. Tveritina, 34. At the same time, I had to place the order in advance. The foreign currency arrived a week later. The course is unprofitable. That's why we only bought 600RMB so that you have something to pay for travel from Beijing Airport (Beijing Capital International Airport, BCIA) to the hotel and give a deposit for the first night.

In general, dollars were changed in Shanghai once at a hotel. We waited a long time for the employee to fill out all the paperwork. They say that if you change at a bank, you will have to wait even longer. And we withdrew Chinese money from ATMs several times - very convenient.

Fourth. Purchasing a medical insurance policy for travelers

Everything is clear here. Going to independent travel, if you don’t want problems, insure your health. We always take out a medical policy for 50 thousand dollars.

Insurance cost 620 rubles per person. Indirectly, this can serve as proof of the safety of tourists. So, to Mexico, an insurance policy cost 2,400 rubles.

From the crime scene, I only heard about such a scam for tourists. You walk around Beijing and turn your head around with your mouth open. Two pretty Chinese women come up and offer to be your guide in English. They say they want to practice their English. At some point, they offer to go to a cafe with traditional Chinese tea, but they don’t have any money. You agree to pay. They are going away. The waiter brings a bill for several thousand rubles... If you refuse to pay, goons appear...

Fifth. Obtaining a Chinese visa in Yekaterinburg

If you decide to travel to China on your own, you can apply for one of two types of L category tourist visa: individual or group. The second one costs half as much, but there are pitfalls. I highly recommend getting an individual visa.

The fact is that with a group visa, all group members must come to passport control at the same time. My wife and I witnessed the following scenes:

• At Koltsovo Airport in Yekaterinburg, passengers are turned away at the check-in counter: “Please wait until all members of your group have arrived.”
• At Beijing airport BeijingCapitalInternational Airport at passport control the whole group cannot go through the procedure, since two leaders are completely drunk and are yelling that they will not give 200 rubles for a photo: “We have already paid all the expenses!” The entire delegation of 15 people, exhausted from the seven-hour flight and dreaming of getting to the hotel as quickly as possible (it’s two o’clock in the morning), is forced to beg the ghouls not to mess around.

With our individual visa, we went through all the procedures without a hitch. What happens if one of these drunks is late for the flight?..

We obtained a visa to China without the help of travel agencies. There is nothing complicated.

• We go to the site Consulate General China in Yekaterinburg ekaterinburg.chineseconsulate.org/rus/lsyw and download the form. Let's fill it out.
• Paste a photo 3.5*4.5 cm.
• We arrive at the address: st. Tchaikovsky, 45 with a package of documents for obtaining a visa: application form, internal and foreign passports, copies of important pages of passports, copies of airline and hotel reservations, medical insurance and a certificate of employment in any form (position, salary) and in a good mood. You will have to stand in the cold for a while (they launch in batches).

We handed in our documents and received our passports and visas within a week.

I recommend that you carefully study the Vinsky independent travelers forum. In our time, it was possible to stay in some places for 24 hours (now 72 hours). Chinese cities. On the forum you will find out the latest news and details.

To travel as a savage in China, we received an individual tourist visa of category “L”. We also applied for the visa ourselves.

Sixth. Other travel arrangements

Readers often ask me whether it is possible to go to this or that country as savages without knowledge in English(I speak excellent English, I studied Spanish before going to Mexico, and I know a little German). I usually answer like this: “If everything goes without incident, then you can travel without a foreign language. But when problems arise, such as an accident in a rental car in Mexico, ignorance can lead to a lot of problems.”

Well, a trip to China on our own became our school for traveling without a language. In the vast majority of cases, the Chinese speak only their native dialect. I seriously prepared for the vacation. I took with me on vacation:

• A short Chinese-Russian dictionary with basic expressions (downloaded to the Internet). He was very helpful in dealing with taxi drivers, waiters and just passers-by. You point your finger at the hieroglyphs “how to get to the bus station” or “where the stop is” and they show you the direction with gestures.
• Photos of all hotels along our route and names and addresses in hieroglyphs.
• Subway maps for Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong.
• Detailed description of how to get to the desired attractions. For example, how to get on an excursion to the Summer Imperial Palace: “Line 4 in the Beijing subway. Get to Xiyuan Station. We exit to the surface through exit C2. Then we turn off and walk 500 meters or rent a pedicab for 5 yuan.”.

On the right page you can see Chinese train tickets (234 yuan each). In the relevant part of the review I will tell you how to “read” them.

By the way, lest we forget, in China the measure of food weight is “jin”, equal to approximately half a kilogram. Therefore, the price on the price tag is usually given for half a kilo. Keep in mind.

The weather in China during our vacation in November 2011 was excellent. In Beijing it is sunny and +15 degrees. In Yangshuo - sunny and plus 25. In Shanghai - cloudy, light rain and +15 Celsius.

The country has one time zone. The time is +2 hours ahead of the Ural time, i.e. Moscow - for 4 hours.

Seventh. Costs of traveling independently in China

So, having completed all the points for planning our vacation in China, described above, all I have to do is calculate the costs of traveling to the savages.

In the following table you can see the aggregated planned and actual expense items.

For the convenience of planning your budget and understanding how much money you need to take with you, how much is spent on food and excursions, I will provide more data for each day.

As you can see, I would make a good financier, since the planned and actual budget practically match exactly. Well, the final plan of our vacation looked like this.

About beach holidays in China

Among Russian tourists The most famous seaside resort is Hainan Island. And here the most popular beaches are Yalong Bay (亚龙湾) and Lihuitou. Best time to travel here – from November to May.

As I found out later, there are other resorts in China where you can go for beach holiday. For example, according to the reviews of our few tourists, very good beaches in the port city of Beihai (北海市, Beihaishi), located in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region of the People's Republic of China. This is 550 km south of Guilin, in the southeast of the country, slightly north of Hainan. The season is from April to November, when the sea water temperature is pleasant for swimming.

In the Shenzhen area (from where we got to Hong Kong) you can relax on the beaches of Dameisha (大梅沙) and Xiaomeisha Beach. The best time for vacation is from November to January.

Another place where you can spend a seaside holiday is the city of Xiamen (Xiamen Shi, 厦门市) in Fujian province.

Eighth. My first DSLR for vacation photography

If we talk about my photographic equipment, this report can be a good illustration of how the skills of a beginning photographer grow as they gain practical experience in photography. The fact is that until the fall of 2011, I only took photographs with a point-and-shoot camera. I have never held a mirror in my hands. And so, a week before the trip, I became the owner of a Nikon D5100 Kit 18-55mm VR SLR camera. So, as you read the report, you can evaluate my progress. In my opinion, by the end of the vacation, I almost turned into a professional photographer... 😉

Photo. On our third trip to China, we visited the city of Turfan (XUAR), in the vicinity of which we managed to climb mountains. Read the report - a lot of useful information! Shot on a Nikon D610 with a Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8 lens. Settings: 1/320, -0.67, 8.0, 110, 155.

The first chapter of the report describes what problems may arise if you have a Turkish visa in your foreign passport, provides a map and a description of the route, provides tips on buying a ticket for a Chinese train from Russia, and recommendations for preparing for traveling to China on your own.