Travel - China

These China Travel Tips, Survival Techniques, will help you get around and make your trip to China easier, so you will be able to experience the real China with a little less stress.

China is an odd beast that needs to be respected; the major cities, Beijing, Shanghai and Xi'an all have their own personalities.

Some complex situations that you think would be an organizational disaster turn out to be great and you wonder afterward what all the fuss and worry was about. Then the simplest of tasks can turn out to be a major calamity. This is when you have what we call here a "China day". These days come and go and are part of the experience of everyday travel in China.

One needs to have an open mind when travelling China. It is a place with thousands of years of history and culture that is trying overnight to adapt to Western ways of living.
You need to have a very open mind when you Travel in China. I have listed below a few China Travel Tips that will make life that wee bit more bearable on your Travel China experience.

China Travel Tips - Toilets

I do not wish to scare you. However, of all the China Travel Tips in all the other web sites I have read, this is a topic not often mentioned, but it is very important to us all.

• Never expect a clean toilet 100% of the time.
• Come prepared: carry some tissue.
• You may have to use a squat toilet, again if you know this before hand it is not a shock. If you don't know how to use a squat toilet, try the following experiment at home.
  While holding onto something for support with both hands, lower your body down into a low squat position, so that the cheeks of your bottom are almost touching your heels or the back of your calf. Now, let go with your hands. See if you can stay in this position for at least 1 minute. If you fall backwards or you cannot get up, then a squat toilet could be a problem for you! Practice, you will be happy you did...
• If you see a clean toilet, Go! it may not come again for a while.
• There are many public toilets around the cities, usually the ones you pay for are OK, (RMB 0.5); the others best to stay away from if you can. You will soon notice them as you walk around the cities.
• Be warned that public buildings like bus and train stations are usually what I class as "tough toilets", however if gotta go you gotta go.
• Outside of the major cities, the toilet systems are old and/or have very narrow plumbing/pipes thus get blocked easily. In these cases a small basket is usually beside the toilet, this is for your used toilet paper.
• One of the best China Travel Toilet Tips I can give you, is use hotel lobby toilets; these are everywhere and are always clean. Still they may not always have toilet paper. It depends on the class of hotel that you are using.

So outside of the major cities conditions can be tough. But most of the time everything will be fine, especially if you book a tour; everything will have been checked out beforehand. However even the best plans can go wrong. So be prepared, the toilets in the smaller cities, towns and villages can be scary.

China Travel Tips - Food

The Chinese cuisine is delicious and the variety is overwhelming.

• Most of the time you get to choose what you eat, or you can recognize what you're eating, however sometimes you do not get a choice. Carry a chocolate bar or something; this will keep you going until some food that you can recognize turns up.
• Drink bottled or boiled water, as the tap water is NOT safe to drink; this is for the whole of China. Even boiled water, while sterilised can contain a lot of minerals and iron deposits that you probably do not want in your system. The safest bet is to drink bottled water. Tap water in most big cities is OK for brushing teeth.
• Each province or city has its own local beer. The beers come in half liter bottles, are perfectly safe to drink and usually cost no more than RMB 5-10.
• Most Chinese people have a great habit of being very noisy when they eat and lunch and dinner times can be a wonderfully noisy celebration where food tends to go in all directions; its just part of being in China.
• People also smoke at the table while everyone is eating. No-smoking is unheard of, only in some western restaurants (mostly in 5-star hotels) you can get a table in a no-smoking area.
• If you get stuck what to order, as most of the menu's are in Chinese, just look at the table next to you and point to the dish you fancy and ask how much it is. This system works really well and no one seems to mind.

I have a basic menu that will help you order safe food (no cat or dog). This will help you to visit a larger selection of restaurants, not just the tourist ones with high prices. You can carry it with you and use it in the local restaurants where most will be able to serve what is on it. These local places are very cheap and the food it great!

China Travel Tips - Taxis

Taxis are an experience that can have you griping the seat and gasping for breath. However, as soon as you get used to it, after the first few rides, you're an old hand!

• The taxis in Shanghai and Beijing are, overall, quite good. Try to get the Blue, Blue'ish Turquoise, Gold and White taxis in Shanghai and the Hyundai taxis in Beijing, these are the best. The others are OK, just older and a rougher ride (the others also may have faulty metres). Almost none of the drivers can speak English.
• Carry your hotel or accommodation business card with you, written in English, pinyin and Chinese characters, this helps if you get lost walking around town.
• In all the taxis around the country you will see the drivers name and taxi registration number in plain sight. If you have any problem, or if you think you have been over charged or something, just take this number down, make a big fuss about it, and the driver then should wake up and fix whatever problem you have. Also a good idea is to take the receipt. This has all the trip details on it and you can ring the taxi company (or let someone else ring) if you want to take things further or if you've left something in the taxi.

China Travel Tips - Shopping

China is a shopper's paradise, Markets, Bargains, Top Labels... anything and everything if you have the time.

• With clothes, the larger (Western) sizes can be quite hard to find, however in the major cities where you get a lot of tourist traffic, you can find them.
• Electrical gear, DVD's, Cameras, stuff like that is not worth the hassle in China if you are just visiting. Hong Kong is still the best place for this.
• Store hours in the major cities are generally from 10am to 10pm, 7 days a week.
• Visa card is still the best card to carry, with ATM's in good supply all with PLUS access etc.There is usually a surcharge for use of VISA, MasterCard or other brands of credit cards.
• Bargain! Wait with your purchase if you can, look around to get a feel for the prices. The Chinese are VERY experienced at selling and know that we halve the opening price when bargaining. In the markets go for 25% of what they first ask; go so low that they let you walk away. This will give you an idea of the bottom price. The resulting end-price will probably be around 40% to 50% of where they started.Whatever the market people say, they are used to pushing and haggling for best prices. Do not worry about being too hard, they are used to it and will not sell you an item unless they make a profit. Don't be concerned with the apparently hurt body language when you go low - it's all part of the game. As soon as they have wrapped up your first purchase, they will try to sell you something more. Remember to keep smiling and having fun while bargaining.

China Travel Tips - Medical

• Most hotels will have a doctor that you can see. In the major hotels English will be spoken. In major cities you will find also many foreign (private) clinics, where English is spoken too.
• Always take a small first aid kit, cold remedy, headache tablets at the very least. WATSONS is a very large chain chemist, present in the major cities. Most of the remedies, tablets etc, that you may require should be in these shops.
• There is a great network of pharmacies; these are indicated by a Green Cross. There will always be a 24 hr Green Cross pharmacy in the city you are in. It is handy to carry a Phrase book, as no one will speak English, however you will end up with something that will help. You will find that many more medicines in China are OTC (over the counter).
• Most of the mass produced packet type medicines have on the packaging on one side Chinese and on the other side English. Have a good look, turn the pack over, it gives you a lot more confidence knowing you can read the package.
• If you have a specific medical issue, take records, most of the Doctors will have OK written / reading English, even though their oral English will be poor.

China Travel Tips - Telecommunication

This is tough stuff, using the phone is easy, as you would at home, however the person picking it up will not speak English or have very broken English... the Major Hotels will all be ok.

• What is worth doing is buying a Chinese (China Mobile or China Unicom) SIM card. The card costs around RMB 100 and gets you RMB 50 in calls; the SIM card will go into all major brand phones and works fine. By doing this, people in and outside of China can reach you (if there is an emergency). Also you can use SMS (short message service). And you will be able to call your tourist guide, hotel, etc, if you have any major problems... It's a cheap way to keep in touch!
• Most hotels in the cities nowadays have (broadband) internet in the rooms, free for the guests. In smaller towns there will be plenty of internet cafes where you can keep in touch with people back home.
  Just look for the Chinese characters "网吧 or 上网".
• If you want to watch TV, most the major hotels will have satelite/cable. If you are in the smaller places, the national channel CCTV 9 is the English channel. Over the last couple of years it has gotten a lot better, with some great China Travel Tips programs, news and views on people and places around China.