I am travelling south from Beijing back to hong Kong in October. Does anyone have any advice on routes? I am thinking of going west as opposed to down the east (Shanghai etc) probably down to Kumming and then back across via Vietnam. Has anyone done this? Or have alternatives that were successful? Thanks for your help. Also, I am going to Mongolia for 2 months so any advice on must-see's would be appreciated. Pip
Reply to this Hey there,
I'm in China at the mo - having travelled up the east coast to Beijing and now going down the west side, I'd defo say go west. Depending on how long you've got and what the weather is like at that time you can get the overnight sleeper down to X'ian, then spend a week or so doing the back routes to Chengdu, see the panda's, go horse treking in Songpan, see parts of western Sichuan (about as Tibet like as you can get without going to Tibet), then down through lijiang and dali which have pretty but touristy old towns. This way you can see smaller places.... by China standards!!! Most of the west coast that I saw involved big cities (5-13mill people, infact the chinese probably think of 5 mill as small!). It was good but if you're into scenery and minorities I'd go west. And if you have time go to Yangsho and Ping 'an to.
Wendy
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