Visit to China in April 2004

The purpose of my visit was mainly  to see a lot of birds.  According to information the diversity of birds is enormous , especially because China is a big country with a great variety of habitats.

I had planned the trip with a Chinese tour-operator, which I found through the Internet:   China highlights Travel. The whole organisation of the trip went smoothly. During the planning-phase I had always contact with the same person, who made all kind of suggestions and answered all my questions, which finally resulted in an interesting itinerary.

So far so good. What I really did not realize is, everything that had once been planned, could not later during the trip virtually  be changed. Not from reluctance, but to improvise by a Chinese tour-operator really does not exist. Absolutely nobody will take the risk that something will occur with a "foreigner". That makes travelling in China very safe, but also very limited. The whole trip was fantastic, but all attemps to change small details were extremely friendly accepted with words but in practice completely ignored.

 Do you have plans to do something similar, keep into account the following points: 
 
Avoid to eat in the typical tourists restaurants, but arrange (in advance) something more authentic.  
After a few days in China the sight of a parking lot filled with buses is already enough to let disappear your appetite.

It is not that all such restaurants are not good, but the food is as you would expect when cooking is done simultaneously for groups of a thousand people

There are really good restaurants, where really nice food can be eaten also meeting "all requierments"

Probably every day there will be scheduled a visit to a shop or factory to stimulate buying local treasures. Think about it and make up your mind. you want it or you don't

To visit shops and workshops is "stimulated" by the government and everybody involved get its benefits. There are certainly also places where wonderful things can be bought for relatively little money, but after a few days it starts to be annoying to be brought to those places and "spend" time. Before you book the trip be clear about what you want or not want. 

At all locations I was accompanied by a pre-booked guide. Normally they are students who want to earn some extra money by guiding tourists. They were all fluently in English or Spanish.  The only male-guide (see photo below) was actually a French guide, but for the opportunity to have an extra Spanish speaking client he had an intensive course Spanish. To explain all kind of interesting details he was able to speak Spanish quite will (probably learned by head), but when I asked him the most simple question he did not understand a word.

 
 
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