The Best of China

I thought I would do a small review of the best places we visited during our trip.

Best Cities (outside of Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong)


1. Lijiang (麗江)- If we were going on a vacation in China again, this would be where we go. We only spent time in the old town and not in the actual main city, but we had a great time here. The old town has been totally renovated and it still has the feel of an old town while being clean and modern. There is tons of shopping, food and nightlife all within walking distance. Everyone was also very helpful and laid back in the old town. It also helped that our favorite hostel in China was located here.

From 77 Days in China part 2

Downtown old town Lijiang

2. Chengdu (成都)- This automatically gets put near the top because you can hold a panda in Chengdu and where else in the world can you do that? While this is the biggest city on our list of favorites, it doesn't have that big city feel to it and you can really enjoy your time here. We had some very good food here, mainly in the touristy areas, but we also were disappointed by other food finding it to greasy for us.

From 77 Days in China part 2

View from our hostel, a mix of old and new in Chengdu

3. Dali (大理)- If we wanted to go on vacation and do nothing for a week, Dali would be at the top of our list of places to go. It is a very relaxing place full of beautiful scenery. We only got to see a portion of the tourist spots here and what we didn't get to see (the lake and hiking the mountain) seem like they would only make this city seem even better.

From 77 Days in China part 2

Pagodas in Dali

4. Shangri la (香格裡拉)- We were very unlucky that it rained our entire time in Shangri la, but even through the rain we could see how nice of a city this was. At times while you are here you could totally forget you are in China. The people are very nice here and we just wish we had better weather so we could see the surrounding areas

From 77 Days in China part 2

Temples in Shangri-la

5. Urumqi (烏魯木齊)- This is definitely different than any other of the cities listed. In the middle of the desert it was so different than any other city we had been to I had to add it to the list. The lamb here was some of the best food we had while we were in China. While the city seems to have its problems since the riots last year, we would have never even known how tense it was unless people told us.

From 77 Days in China part 2

Market in Urumqi

Best Scenic Towns

1. Lugu Hu Lake (瀘沽湖)- This was probably one of our favorite spots in China, even after having to walk through a mudslide when we got there. This was one of the few places in China that we went that really felt like you were within a tribal community, however it appears it will be changing very fast in the next couple years as there more and more hotels being built. While we were there though we could sit down at dinner and talk with tribal men that were still living the life like they always have and the influx of tourists had not changed the way that they had lived.

From 77 Days in China part 2

Lugu Hu Lake

From 77 Days in China part 2

The locals are what made this area so amazing

2. Yangzhou (陽朔)- The mountains rising out of seemingly nowhere along the rivers and in the town is like scenery that we have never seen anywhere before. The scenery on the bamboo boats along both the Li river and Yulong were both better then the scenery along the Yangtze that we saw from the hydrofoil boat ride.

From 77 Days in China part 2

Li river on the way to Yangzhou

3. Pingyao (平遙)- This entire town is just a scenic area of an old town. While parts of the town are renovated you can wonder outside the touristy area to where people still live and work. The town is full of museums and you can also walk along the the town walls.

From 77 Days in China part 2

Center of the city of old town Pingyao

4. Dunhaung (敦煌)- This may not be a special place that have been to other parts of the world with deserts, but having never been to a real sand desert, the areas surrounding Dunhuang were amazing places to see.

From 77 Days in China part 2

Charlotte hiking the desert in Dunhuang

5. Hangzhou (杭州)- While we did not feel the lake lived up to the hype, it still was a very nice place to spend a few days walking around.

From 77 Days in China part 2

Boats leaving the dock in Hangzhou

Best Scenic Parks

1. Huang Shan (黃山)- Yellow mountain definitely lived up to what we had heard about it. Unfortunately most of the time it is very foggy here, but if it clears up the hike is one of a kind, but takes a full day and you start at the top you end up hiking all the way down, back to the top and then back down again. It is strenuous but definitely worth it if the weather is right.

From 77 Days in China part 2

Scene from our hike down

2. Jiuzhaiguo (九寨溝)- This park is one of a kind. The color of the lakes make it something that just amazing. A benefit of this park is shuttle bus that bring you from one scenic spot to another. The buses have two benefits, first you don't have to hike the entire mountain and second if you leave the areas around the bus stops, even the busiest of tourist seasons you can escape from the Chinese tours by walking on the far side of the lakes.

From 77 Days in China part 2

The color of the water is like nowhere else

3. Zhangjiajie (張家界)- The scenery from the top of the mountain is amazing and one of a kind. They will make sure that you know this is what inspired Avatar . The only reason we didn't enjoy this park as much as the others is we decided to spend 2 days hiking up and down the mountain, which ended up feeling like a waste of time. Maybe it was because we just came from Huang Shan, but the hikes were through trees with very few scenic areas. If we had to do it again we might just make it a one day trip and take the elevator (yes they have a mountain elevator) to the top and back down.

From 77 Days in China part 2

They won't let you forget that this was the inspiration for the scenery in Avatar

4. Singing Sand Dune and Crescent Moon Lake (鳴沙山,月牙泉)- This was my first real sand desert and at the base there is a crescent moon lake which makes it even more beautiful. We rode camels, hiked the desert and took a sled down the sand.

From 77 Days in China part 2

View from the top of the sand dunes at crescent lake

5. Tiger Leaping Gorge (虎跳峽)- Besides being the scariest bus ride we took in China (which is saying a lot) we took a short hike down and back up (about a total of 3 hours) the hike was full of views and we ended up at the bottom right at the Yangtze and were able to get a scenic rock in the middle of the river which is full of rapids.

From 77 Days in China part 2

View from the bottom of Tiger Leaping gorge

Best Tourist Spots

1. Terracotta Warriors (兵馬俑)- If you are like us and get stuck on a fake tour don't believe them when they say the replicas are better than the original. The Terracotta warriors is simply a must see, there isn't much to say about it beside go see it.

From 77 Days in China part 2

Front view of the warriors

2. Great Wall (Jaiyuguan/Dunhuang and Beijing) (長城-- 嘉峪關, 陽關玉門關, 敦煌以及北京部分)- Seeing the great wall in multiple parts thousands of miles apart, built out of different materials and in different conditions really brought home just how amazing the feat was. While I did not get to spend much time on the wall near Beijing what I did see was amazing. I actually got to spend more time at the wall by Jaiyuguan and Dunhuang where there are areas there where you can walk up and see totally non renovated parts of the wall which is almost more amazing as well as other areas that you can hike along the wall.

From 77 Days in China part 2

Great Wall in Jaiyuguan

From 77 Days in China part 2

Rain soaked Great Wall outside Beijing

3. Forbidden City (紫禁城)- I think it is important to learn a lot of the history before coming here (or at least watch movie “the Last Emperor”), but knowing about history and seeing the Forbidden City is amazing. The audio guide here is also probably the best guide we had anywhere in China. Just watch out for your wallet!!

From 77 Days in China part 2

Forbidden City

4. Pandas in Chengdu (成都熊貓基地)- This has to be on here because there is no place in the world where you can see pandas like you can in here. In fact for a fee you can hold baby pandas, again something no other place would let you do. Of course this is only interesting if you like pandas.

From 77 Days in China part 2

Where else can you do this?

5. Jiaohe Town Relics (交河故城)- We weren't even planning on coming here until another traveler told us we should not miss this and we are glad we decided to go. Again like Jiuzhaiguo (九寨溝), the tours only go to limited areas so by walking slightly further you are on your own to discover a town that is 2000 years old. There are very few signs and any barriers they put up to stop you from getting into an area were made very well so they don't stand out, but most of the areas you can walk right into areas that used to be temples or even peoples homes. Unfortunately it was over 100 degrees when we were there so we could not spend all day walking around.

From 77 Days in China part 2

One of our favorite places to explore

Best Food

1. Lamb in Xinjiang (新疆的各式羊肉小吃)- Just about all of the lamb we had in Xinjiang was really really good. We had it grilled, in dumplings and in soup and every time we had it was very tasty. It was also a pleasant departure from the very greasy food we had gotten earlier on our trip.

From 77 Days in China part 2

Grilled lamb

2. Peking Duck (北京烤鴨)- Not much you can say about this classic dish, but you do have to go to the right store, even different branches of the same store prepared the duck different.

From 77 Days in China part 2

Peking duck

3. Dongpo Pork in Hangzhou (杭州的東坡肉)- This pork was one of a kind and it melted in your mouth when you ate it. It was very good, we just wish we had gotten 2 rather than split one

From 77 Days in China part 2

Amazing pork

4. Black Clay Yak Hotpot in Shangri-la (香格裡拉的枆牛肉黑陶鍋)- After being dissappointed in most of the food in Shangri-la (it was too salty for us), on our last day for lunch we had Yak hotpot and it was probably our favorite hotpot while we were in China.

From 77 Days in China part 2

Lamb in a black hot pot

5. Lamb Hotpot in Inner Mongolia (內蒙古的羊肉火鍋)- The best part of this was the lamb, it was cut very thin so you simple wash the lamb in the boiling water and its cooked and delicious. For some reason I dont think we took a picture of this!!

6. All kinds of handmade noodles in Shanxi Province (山西的各式手工麵)- Throughout our time in Pingyao we tried a lot of different types of noodles and all of them were very good

From 77 Days in China part 2

Multiple hand made noodles

7. Grilled meats in Sichuan (四川路邊的串烤)- Can't go wrong with grilled meat, especially when you add the Sichuan spice to them. The spice would totally numb your mouth, but it tasted so good

From 77 Days in China part 2

Grilled meats on sticks

8. Lanzhou Beef w/ Pull Noodles (蘭州牛肉拉麵)- I didn't actually have it, but Charlotte said it was very good

From 77 Days in China part 2

Beef w/ pulled noodles

9. Shaved Noodles- While the noodle soup we had did not have a lot of ingredients it really was perfectly made with amazingly similar noodles even though he was shaving them very fast.

From 77 Days in China part 2

Shaving the noodles

10. Desserts in Shanghai- We followed what it said was Bill Clintons favorite and it did not disappoint!

From 77 Days in China part 2

Clinton's favorites

Worst of China

1. Transportation- We spent so much time on this trip trying to figure out how to get from one place to another. Once we figured it out, we would spend hours on line at train stations or bus stations. At one point about half a day in each city trying to figure out how to get out of the city, it was worst because it was high season for travel so most trains were sold out.

2. Bathrooms- Our days would have to be planned around bathrooms, especially for Charlotte and specifically for times we were on buses and trains. If buses stopped for the bathroom it was normally a large field in the middle of the night or some outhouse that probably had never been cleaned

3. Chinese Tour Groups- If you ever travel in China avoid anytime Chinese are traveling, especially with Chinese tour groups. Also never take a Chinese tour group. They consist of yelling at their customers over microphone forcing them to buy things at different shops and any tourist site is immediately crowded as all groups go to the same spot at the same time and the guides just try and be louder than each other.

4. Everything is fake- Even bus stations can be fake in china. Food can be fake, just about everything is fake.

5. Very greasy food- We were very disappointed, especially in Sichuan food for being way too greasy. It got a little better when we made it to the Northwest and East, but in general the food was extremely to greasy in the south, southwest and central china.