The highlights were, of course, the Great Wall outside Beijing, the Terracotta Warriors at Xi'an, the panda reserve at Chengdu and the famous Shanghai skyline. However, we saw and did so much more than this - for me just as interesting and enjoyable was witnessing the Saturday morning activities at the Temple of Heaven, where the locals took part in Tai Chi, games of dominoes, crochet, badminton and dancing; while the Tang Dynasty show and Shanghai acrobats were amazing and real holiday highlights. The face changing show at Chengdu was not part of the itinerary, but Bobby our local guide offered to organise it for us and to be honest, it was not that great - the actual face changing act was well done, but it only comprised five minutes at the end of a rather tedious evening! We also experienced a wide variety of activities including a calligraphy lesson and some dumpling making! So all in all the programme was extremely interesting and we learnt so much about life in China, past and present from the very informative local guides.

The food was western buffet style at breakfast and a range of local dishes at lunch and dinner, typically ten or twelve dishes served on a lazy susan for us all to share. Dishes consisted of some that were familiar from any Chinese restaurant at home and some that were not! There were a number of vegetable dishes served at every meal and usually a couple of those served were spicy, with the food in Chengdu (Sichuan Province) being the spiciest. I personally preferred the food in Shanghai for flavour and variety. All the hotels were very good, with the ones in Beijing and Shanghai being the best. Wi-fi was was available at them all, with it being free in the foyer in Shanghai but only at a cost in the rooms there. All the hotels except Chengdu had western or international style sockets - so if you need to charge phones etc daily I'd recommend you get some Chinese adaptors from Amazon.

We had a small group of fifteen - four of whom continued on to do the Yangtze Gorge add-on. It was the youngest JY group I've ever experienced, with over a third of the group being in their 30s or 40s. I travelled with a friend of mine, Trish, and there were two other friends travelling together but everyone mixed extremely well and there were no cliques. Branwen Edwards, our tour manager, was exceptional - always kind, considerate, helpful and very well organised. She helped to make this tour really special and went out of her way to ensure that everyone was enjoying themselves. Our four local guides were all good, with Allan in Beijing being the best.

The itinerary was well thought out and, in my opinion, just the right amount of time was allocated to each place of interest. The only suggestion I would make is that the day trip to Leshan and the giant buddha while at Chengdu was a little underwhelming, so perhaps the folks at JY might consider cutting this excursion and giving more time to the panda centre instead. If this were done, the flight to Shanghai could be in the morning rather than the afternoon, allowing the possibility of a day trip into the surrounding countryside (two of our group did this the last day in Shanghai and had a very enjoyable day - almost resulting in missing the flight home, but that's another story!!).

If any prospective travellers have any questions, I'd be happy to answer them. In the meantime, I'm going to sort out my washing and all the photos I took. Memories of this excellent tour will live long in my memory.

Best wishes,

Bob

Lovely review as usual. This is one tour I really want to do in the future. Hopefully in the next couple of years. Did you do the Yangtze Gorge add-on?

Jaya

So glad you have had a great time, thanks for the comprehensive review I am sure it will help those that have there eye on this tour. I look forward to seeing the photo's

Now get back to the boring chore of the washing,

Cindy

Thanks for your comments - I didn't do the add-on but I'm sure those who did are having a memorable time!

Cheers,

Bob

What do you have planned next?

Mike

I've just come back from the 7th Sept departure Inspirational China tour, so was following the same itinerary as you, just four days behind. I agree that Allan was the best of the local guides (not that any of them were bad), I asked him if he remembered you and he said that you'd mentioned I'd be in the following tour group. Our other guides were Mervin (Xian), Suzy (Chengdu) and Summer (Shanghai) - I presume you had the same?

I do have to disagree with you regarding the evening variety show, which included the 'face changing' routine. I attended this and found it to be quite fun throughout, and especially enjoyed the shadow theatre act. I also enjoyed the opportunity to look at the make-up and costume area prior to the start of the show. But hey-ho, I suppose it's all down to individual tastes.

I only got back yesterday and am still very tired with lots to sort out, but I'll post my own review on here in due course once I get back up to speed. Suffice to say I thought it was a really excellent holiday all round, and I was also blessed with good weather and a cracking bunch of people in my group.

Dave

I'm glad you enjoyed your China tour as well - it was a full on experience wasn't it?! We had Allan in Beijing, Choo in Xi'an, Bobby in Chengdu and Mindy in Shanghai. The variety show wasn't really terrible in my opinion, just no where as good as either the Tang Dynasty show or the Shanghai acrobats - the acrobats were absolutely stunning and definitely one of the greatest highlights of my holiday. Glad you had such good weather, our was a bit mixed but not as bad as the forecast, for which I am very grateful!

I've just one or two other random travel tips to share - it was easy to change money at all the hotels so don't worry about bringing yuan. We visited a jade factory, pearl factory and silk factory at different stages of the tour, where the quality of each was top rate but obviously you pay accordingly. Some folks have worried about security checks etc (see the Share your travel tips forum) but at no time were we quizzed about medicines or anything like that, so don't worry about taking your prescription meds with you. As all the meals were included, you only had to pay for drinks, souvenirs and other bits and pieces. I probably spent the equivalent of around £200 and put a couple of purchases on credit card. At each meal, you were served a complementary drink of either water, soft drink or beer. Beer was cheap; wine was not! The Chinese brand Great Wall was decent and cost around £25 a bottle; international wines cost from around £35 a bottle. In the hotels, two complementary bottles of water were supplied each day and it could also be bought on the coach at a very reasonable price. Think that covers most things!

Cheers,

Bob

Hi Dave,

I'm glad you enjoyed your China tour as well - it was a full on experience wasn't it?! We had Allan in Beijing, Choo in Xi'an, Bobby in Chengdu and Mindy in Shanghai. The variety show wasn't really terrible in my opinion, just no where as good as either the Tang Dynasty show or the Shanghai acrobats - the acrobats were absolutely stunning and definitely one of the greatest highlights of my holiday. Glad you had such good weather, our was a bit mixed but not as bad as the forecast, for which I am very grateful!

I've just one or two other random travel tips to share - it was easy to change money at all the hotels so don't worry about bringing yuan. We visited a jade factory, pearl factory and silk factory at different stages of the tour, where the quality of each was top rate but obviously you pay accordingly. Some folks have worried about security checks etc (see the Share your travel tips forum) but at no time were we quizzed about medicines or anything like that, so don't worry about taking your prescription meds with you. As all the meals were included, you only had to pay for drinks, souvenirs and other bits and pieces. I probably spent the equivalent of around £200 and put a couple of purchases on credit card. At each meal, you were served a complementary drink of either water, soft drink or beer. Beer was cheap; wine was not! The Chinese brand Great Wall was decent and cost around £25 a bottle; international wines cost from around £35 a bottle. In the hotels, two complementary bottles of water were supplied each day and it could also be bought on the coach at a very reasonable price. Think that covers most things!

Cheers,

Bob

Yes, it was [undefined=undefined]very[/undefined] full-on! I did all the optionals, so had practically no free time at all. The odd hour I got here and there was needed to shower and change, there was no time to wander off and do my own thing unless I skipped part of the itinerary. Having said that, we did find time after dinner in Beijing on a couple of nights to go for drinks up on the 80th floor of the China World Tower, which was right opposite the hotel.

I agree, the acrobat show was superb.

We were very lucky with our weather - only one day was a wash-out, and that was when we went to see the terracotta army which was, of course, all indoors. We had one or two other brief showers, but again, they seemed to fall exactly at the right time, for example just as we were leaving the panda centre. For all the important outdoor excursions - Forbidden City, Great Wall, welcome in Xian, Huangpu river cruise, etc - it stayed completely dry for us.

As an additional note regarding your tip about the security checks, I would warn any smokers who are planning to travel to China that the Chinese are very fussy about cigarette lighters being taken into tourist areas, or taken onto aircraft. One lady in our group didn't have a lighter, but she had some kind of small zapper device to treat insect bites - at the Forbidden City the officials stopped her for about 5 minutes, making her turn her bag out, because they thought it was some kind of lighter.

Regards

Dave

You have both made me even more excited about our departure - 2 weeks tomorrow.

One quick question (either for you or Tim/JY). I noted what you said about Airport security being relaxed about medication, but also what you said about lighters. I'm not a smoker so no worries there, but was wondering are you aware if anyone in your respective groups had problems transporting syringes in their hand luggage?

Unfortunately, I have to travel with pre-loaded sterile syringe packs that I need daily, so I don't dare put them in my checked baggage in case my bag goes astray. I carry a certificate from my doctor and a copy of the prescription and have never had any significant problems all over the world either on six previous JY trips or travelling for business. But, China is completely new to me - any thoughts?

Thanks again Gentlemen

Mandy

I'd say if you have the cert and prescription you should be fine - the security checks were pretty straightforward although cameras had to be taken out of hand luggage and everyone had to stand still and be "swiped," but nothing out of the ordinary. One woman on our tour had her checked baggage searched as security highlighted an issue - she had a lighter as well and didn't know it was there!

I obviously can't say for sure but I do hope you'll be fine if you have had no problems elsewhere.

Cheers,

Bob

Thanks Bob and Dave

You have both made me even more excited about our departure - 2 weeks tomorrow.

One quick question (either for you or Tim/JY). I noted what you said about Airport security being relaxed about medication, but also what you said about lighters. I'm not a smoker so no worries there, but was wondering are you aware if anyone in your respective groups had problems transporting syringes in their hand luggage?

Unfortunately, I have to travel with pre-loaded sterile syringe packs that I need daily, so I don't dare put them in my checked baggage in case my bag goes astray. I carry a certificate from my doctor and a copy of the prescription and have never had any significant problems all over the world either on six previous JY trips or travelling for business. But, China is completely new to me - any thoughts?

Thanks again Gentlemen

Mandy

Hi Mandy

It wasn't an issue that came up during my trip, so I can't be 100% certain, but I'd agree with what Bob says above. Some checks required iPads, cameras and batteries to be removed from bags and scanned separately, some checks were happy to scan the bag with everything in it. Sometimes they wanted umbrellas out, too! But I didn't see any signs about syringes. As Bob says, I'm sure if you have documentation with you, the syringe shouldn't be a problem as it must be an issue that comes up frequently at airport checks.

There are sometimes security checks at certain tourist sites, but sometimes they were happy just to wave everyone through when they realised we were in a tour group. At Tiananmen Square, they were actually more fussy about checking the locals than they were about us foreigners! The checks aren't an ordeal - throughout the trip I had a bag with me to carry my camera, camcorder and batteries, but there was never a point where I felt it was becoming a hindrance. And unlike some places, the security officials were actually quite pleasant for the most part.

Also, lots of people say to bring anti-bacterial hand gel and use it before eating etc. In theory this is good advice, but because there are three internal flights on this tour, you would be regularly having to take the gel out of your hand luggage/rucksack and putting it into your main luggage for the flights and then having to remember to take it back out again! Much better is to take a couple of packs of hand-wipes, which can be kept in your rucksack/hand luggage the whole time. We usually went to a restaurant for lunch (and occasionally for dinner) straight from sight-seeing, so there was usually no time to wash hands etc so the hand-wipes came in very handy!

Cheers,

Bob

Thanks again

Mandy

Best wishes,

Bob

As JY Will won't grant my ultimate wish for a trip to Easter Island, I'm thinking about the Walking in Nepal trip for next time.....or maybe Iceland......or maybe back to Canada.Oh, so many choices, so few annual leave days:s

All the best

Mandy

Cheers,

Bob

I've been reading your blog about Vietnam with great interest I'm thinking of doing this next year hope you don't mind just 1 question about the food as I'm a vegetarian would there be plenty of variety or should I take extra supplies with me

Thanks Sally

The Vietnam tour was a year and a half ago, so the memory is getting hazy at this stage! As far as I remember there were a couple of veggie dishes served at each meal, but if you mention it when you book and also to the tour manager when you meet him/her I am sure the restaurants will be able to accommodate you - I have a vague recollection that there was a vegetarian on our tour and she was given some extra dishes just for her, but I might be mixing this up with another tour!

Hope this helps in some way,

Bob