Dream Trips China
by Candyce H. Stapen
In August the Olympic Games debut in China. Despite the hoopla, summer is much too hot to visit China. Take your family in May, early June or in the fall to visit this fascinating country. Airfares—outside of the time period around the Olympic games—range from $800 to $1,100, not too much more than a high-season ticket to Europe. But once you arrive, China, with the Yuan about 7.52 to the dollar, is eminently affordable. Luxury hotels cost much less than comparable places stateside and a good meal for four costs about $20 total. See the Forbidden City, tour ancient gardens, raft on the river, hike terraced rice fields, and shop for bargains. A China visit is a trip you and your family will long remember. Here’s a primer of some typical and off-the-beaten path sites to see.
The Big Cities
Shanghai: Sweeping Views
 Westernized Shanghai is our favorite large Chinese city. On a scenic 90-minute cruise of the Huángpu River, we gain an overview, realizing how far the city sprawls, how relentless the construction is and how high Pudong’s skyscrapers rise, including the Oriental Pearl TV Tower, among Shanghai’s tallest structures. For more great views, in the evening take your teens and twentysomethings to Cloud 9, at the Hyatt Shanghai. Along with drinks, tapas and table-side magic tricks, the 87th floor lounge sports a near circle of windows, offering spectacular, sweeping views of the lit-up city.
It’s worth watching China’s renowned acrobats tumble, jump and juggle as well as perform impossible balancing acts at the Shanghai Center Theatre. Even our blasé children liked the quirky acts carrying tiers of filled wine glasses and forming six-deck-high human pyramids. At the off-the-beaten path Children’s Museum, (sometimes called the Children’s Palace), a facility that teaches youngsters music, painting and dance, we happened to arrive on performance day. Along with camcorder and camera-wielding moms and dads, we applauded the kids in tutus, sat in a class of four-year-olds playing the Zhuang runa, a kind of lute, and watched eight-year-olds practice calligraphy.
Xintiandi, meaning “new heaven and earth,” consists of several blocks of Western outdoor cafes and boutiques. This East-meets-West pedestrian area, a harbinger of things to come, offers good people-watching, but mostly mediocre restaurants.
For more traditional attractions, visit the Yu Yuan Gardens. Often crowded, the gardens display classic Chinese elements. Afterwards, bargain at the adjacent market. Allow several hours to wander through the Shanghai Museum. The manageable-size galleries display outstanding collections of jade, Ming and Qing furniture, porcelain and coins.
Beijing
 A clock outside the Chinese National Museum across the street from Tiananmen Square counts the days and minutes to the opening of the August 2008 Olympics. A larger-than-life photo of Chairman Mao hangs across the street. White vans of police continuously cruise the crowd and laws forbidding sitting, ball playing, Frisbee throwing and lots more make the vast stretch of concrete seem oppressive. At the Forbidden City, a 7.75-million-square-foot complex, many of the pavilions were being renovated for the games. Despite being unable to tour certain buildings undergoing renovation, the vast size of this ancient compound and the intricate carvings on the pavilions impressed us.
The Summer Palace rises along Kunming Lake in the western hills seven miles north of the city. Legend has it that empress dowager Cíxi built the half-mile long covered corridor so that she could admire the lake even during the rain. The elaborately painted beams and pillars depict scenes from Chinese history. The most awe-inspiring site for us: the Great Wall. Wisely, Asia Transpacific Journeys took us to the Mutianyu section, 50 miles northeast of the city. Although this area has cable car access to the top, fewer people visit here than at other areas near Beijing. For brief stretches we were sometimes the only ones walking the ancient stones, admiring how the wall snakes up and down the Yan Mountains.
The Countryside
Yangshuo: Water Show
 Even with a population of 300,000, Yangshuo, 40 miles south of Guilin, is considered “the country”. Once a backpacker’s haven, Yangshuo draws more typical tourists who come for the scenic rafting, bike riding and hiking. As our guide poles the bamboo raft down the Yulong River, we pass the region’s Karst Mountains, each shaped like an upside down “U.” On our bike trip to the dam, we pedal through tiny villages, past rice fields turning yellow for harvest.
Don’t miss the evening outdoor spectacle “Impression, Sanjie Liu.” The extravaganza conducted on water against a background of dramatically lit karst mountains sports a cast of 600, many of whom portray the region’s minorities. The tale features music and song—you more or less understand what’s happening even without knowing the language. The costumes and stagecraft impress. Yi Mo Zhang, the director, is collaborating with Steven Spielberg to create what should be dazzling opening ceremonies for the Olympics.
Longji Terraces in the Longsheng area
For hundreds of years the Zhuang and Yao people have built mud banks into the side of the mountains to create the Longji rice fields known as the Dragon Spine Rice Terraces. To reach the village of Ping An, we walked 30 minutes uphill; sherpas—tiny women with large woven baskets on their backs—met us at the bottom of the mountain and insisted on carrying our luggage uphill. From the deck of the Li An Lodge we watched farmers till the soil with water buffalos and carefully plant seedlings by hand. On hikes we encountered local women, known for their beautiful long hair, and admired the views of the mountain-high terraces. Li An Lodge and Ping An proved to be one of the most magical places we visited.
*****
– Candyce H. Stapen is the author of
27 books, including National Geographic Guide to Caribbean Family
Vacations.
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