I'm gonna throttle my parents.

[camwyn]

A lot. I told 'em about the train rides and places I wanted to stay in China. They keep harping on the 'get a tour' thing. Everyone they've talked to says to get on a tour, they say. An educational tour, a general tour, whatever. They don't like the idea of me having to get from one city to another on my own if I go with a single-city tour, either. I realize I don't speak the language and I've never been there before, but I don't want to use a tour service. They'll make me pay extra for being alone in hotels I didn't want and they'll march me through things at everyone else's pace and they'll visit things I might or might not want to visit. Dammit, what does it take to get through to them?

At least I have a few months to convince them I'll be fine. I mean, if I can show them travel bookings online in advance for inter-city travel, and proof that I'll have contact with someone who can speak English in the cities I'm visiting... I know people in Wuhan and Hong Kong. Beijing and Xi'an, no. I figure it can't be all that hard to get a guide or something in Beijing, and I plan on contacting HI by email about that. Xi'an probably has some guides too, since they've got the Assload of Soldiers. I have time to come up with something.

Comments

[colubra.livejournal.com]

My parents went on a Yangtse river cruise and visit to the soldiers @ Xi'an and and and, late last year. I begged out at the last minute (I was sure I'd've killed them after a couple weeks on this trip).
They're out of town currently; when they're back next month, should I ask them for contact info as far as local-to-a-city tourguide folks goes? They may have some suggestions, though they did the group tour thing (and from all reports had a wonderful time with the rest of the folks in the group).

[camwyn]

Local-to-a-city tourguide suggestions would be much welcomed, yes. If nothing else, it'd give my parents at least some sense of security.

Get 'em to call me.

[mtr1966.livejournal.com]

+86 1366 792 5140

As a last resort you can have them call me. I'm living in China and I arrived in the country not able to speak word one of the language. My mother came to visit me in China last summer, by which point I had learned very little Chinese. We travelled a lot, made hotel reservations and did a lot of things all between my very minor "phrasebook Chinese", the locals' willingness to help and a little bit of a sense of adventure.

Currently the Chinese government is pushing for English to be the second language of each and every citizen. Their accomplishments in this regard have been fairly spectacular, actually. If you stand somewhere and look helpless, it will take less than thirty minutes--in a backwater town, no less!--before someone will brave approaching you and asking, in massacred English, if they can help you. If you're patient you can do anything you like in China without knowing anything about the language.

Come with a good phrasebook. (Lonely Planet gets first place in my experience, with Rough Guide and Fingertip Chinese getting tied in second.) Come with a good guidebook. (There is only one for China: Lonely Planet. I know there are others, but there is only one if you get my drift....) Come with a sense of adventure. Then look and laugh as stupid, funny and downright weird things happen around you while you blunder your way through the country. Getting lost isn't that big a deal. I've seen some of my most interesting sights as a result of getting lost.

One safety tip, though: if you do the "take your own tour" thing, leave a few days slack in your schedule (three, say) for your departure day. If you're going to leave on, say, the 17th of the month, plan to get back to the city you're departing from on, say, the 14th.

Re: Get 'em to call me.

[camwyn]

I just bought the Lonely Planet guidebook today. I'd been going through the Frommer's book I bought originally, but frankly the LP one has so much more detail it isn't even funny. The fact that it was the first guidebook I'd seen yet that listed hostels in the 'low budget' category as well as places costing $40-$60 a night was what really won me over.

And as for the slack thing - no problem. I plan to leave from Hong Kong if at all possible. My experience visiting Vancouver Island back in summer of 2000 taught me a very valuable lesson: be in your departure city well ahead of the day you plan to leave. (I visited during a week the gov't was working on Highway 4, the only road across the island. My bus missed the ferry by 15 minutes. THat turned into a three hour delay. That got me to the airport 5 minutes before the plane took off. Allow me to say that Vancouver International Airport is a nice place to spend the night but I shouldn't like to do it again.)

I'll see what I can do in the meantime short of having them call you. I still have a while to wear them down.

Re: Get 'em to call me.

[lwood.livejournal.com]

I've seen some of my most interesting sights as a result of getting lost.

Sounds like fun!

-- Lorrie