China may be one of the world's best bargains for U.S. travelers

 

The Moon & Chalice boutique hotel, Kunming

China is one of the best value countries in the world for U.S. travelers.

My husband, Tom, and I are wrapping up three weeks of independent travel in five cities, not luxury travel but travel at a high standard - boutique or high-rise hotels, sit-down dinners, first-class train travel, a few day trips with private guides - for a rough cost of $2,500 each not including our visa and air fare to and from Seattle.

Hardly anyone thinks about taking a vacation to China the way they do to Thailand. Japan or Vietnam, but why not? It‘s easier than ever, given most everything can be booked and paid for online, or by using apps while there. Train and subway transportation beats anything in Europe, let alone the U.S. Ride shares (like Uber but called DIDI) appear in minutes after being ordered.

There is a significant language barrier outside the main tourist areas, but local English-speaking guides are easy to find and important signs and announcements are in English. Gestures, smiles, a few basic Chinese words and translation apps can fill in the rest.

Unless you love the idea of following a group of 30 trailing behind a guide carrying a flag, I can see no reason not to come here on your own, the way you might think about traveling to Japan, Thailand, Vietnam or South Korea.

Here's rough break-down on our costs.

Hotels:

We stayed in six hotels in Shanghai, Chendgu, Chongqing, Dali and Kunming. Prices ranged from a high of $140 with breakfast for a junior suite in a historic inn in Shanghai to $55 for a modern room in a boutique hotel in Dali.  

Raffles City, home to three hotels in Chongqing

The living room in our  Raffles suite

The best value was our room on the 42nd floor of the Ascott Raffles City in Chongqing, a five-star quality apartment hotel on the 20th floor of a building housing two other hotels and a shopping mall overlooking the Yangtze River.  We paid $115 per night for an apartment with, kitchen, washer-dryer and free Western and Chinese buffet breakfast. 

Breakfast the Wenjun Courtyard Hotel

The second-best value was a $100-per-night suite in the Wenjun Courtyard Hotel in a historic section of Chengdu. The hotel offered free airport pick-up, free laundry service, a free buffet breakfast, and free hot milk delivered to your room between 8 p.m. and 11 p.m.

Most unusual was the Moon & Chalice boutique hotel in Kunming, a university town near the border with Vietnam. Our $115 a night executive suite overlooked the night action in Old Kunming.when the lights come on and the street vendors hawk everything from tofu to cakes flavored with rose petals. The hotel was built after World War II in a European style to commemorate the Allied forces defeat of the Japanese which occupied China.

The view outside our hotel in Kunming

I booked all the hotels except one at refundable rates on Booking.com which did a good job at providing me with all the info I needed including Chinese translations of the locations for DIDI or taxi drivers.

Transportation:

With the exception of one flight between Shanghai and Chengdu in Central China, we traveled between cities by high-speed train with tickets purchased online from Trip.com, a Chinese -owned booking site.

Train tickets in China cannot be purchased more than 15 days ahead of departure, but they can be reserved on Trip.com which will buy them on the date you select, or issue a refund if they are not available. Since we were not traveling at a busy time, we opted to buy tickets within the 15-day window on the web site, traveling first class on all but one of the legs for a total of $850 for two.

Subway travel ran around 40 cents per ride in most cities, with three-day unlimited ride passes available for around $6.50. China’s big-city subway systems are clean, efficient and well-signed. There‘s full employment in China, so we saw workers out early and late,  polishing the handrails and mopping the floors. 

DIDI, China‘s ride share system similar to Uber, is super-efficient with electric cars usually arriving within minutes. Fares range from around $1.50 for local trip around town to $12-$15 for longer trips 

Meals:

Street food is everywhere. The Chinese eat and snack at all times of the day or night. We did our share of this, but preferred more relaxing sit-down meals in a restaurant in the evening.

Fresh tofu for sale in Kunming

Dinner in Dali, home to Bai minority group

Our most expensive meal for two was $34 in a beautiful courtyard restaurant in Dali. Dail is home to the Bai, one of 50 ethnic minority groups in China. We ordered a Bai dish of pork with plums, a five-flower salad and fried rice with mushrooms. Our least expensive meal was $6 for two at a vegetarian restaurant in Kunming. Everyone gets a plate, bowl and chopsticks when paying at the register, then helps themselves to a buffet of about three dozen items, plus soups, fruit and sweets. 

Lunch in Kunming with our guide and new walking tour friends

Best value: A meal for five members of a GuruWalk walking tour group we met in Kunming. We ate at a Dai restaurant near Yunnan University. The Dai people are an ethnic minority group with ties to Laos and Thailand. We shared eight dishes including pumpkin cakes, rice with pineapple, pork belly, chicken, noodles with beef, mushrooms and two kinds of potatoes. Total bill: $33.

A few restaurants specialize in Western food. We tried a few when we needed a break from trying to translate Chinese menus. A steak dinner with all the trimmings was $24 for two. inside a shopping mall in Chengdu. The bill for a tuna pizza, salad and drinks was $22 at Salvador’s, a favorite among Chinese people in Kunming, 

Coffee in Chongqing

Coffee has taken China by storm. A few years ago there was only Starbucks. Then the local chain Luckin came along, followed by several other local chains and hundreds of independent storefront shops with cozy seating and large menus of exotic coffee and tea drinks. A standard drip is around $1.50. Fancier drinks, such as lattes, are around $3.50, high compared to food prices, but considered a necessary luxury.

Guides:

We relied on English-speaking local guides from FreeTour.com and GuruWalk.com for six walking tours around Shanghai, Chengdu, Chongqing and Kunming. The guides are well-educated English-speaking men and women anxious to share what they love about their city with travelers. They rely on tips which average about $15 per person, sometimes more. 

The group size depends on who signs up. Our Shanghai walk drew eight people, but three times we were the only ones to show up which meant we had a personal tour.  More than the sites visited on the walks themselves, we greatly enjoyed spending a few hours with a local person, learning about them and their families and sharing things about us and life in the United States. 

Getting ready for a bike ride in Chengdu

Our evening with Siri Yang, 33, a guide for GuruWalk in Chengdu, began by meeting at a subway stop next to a night market in the downtown financial district.

After sampling food from the street stalls, Siri unlocked three blue city bikes available for a few cents per minute. We road along a paved path skirting the Jinjiang riverfront. It was there where we got our first glimpse of the Chengdu Twin Towers, a pair of 720-feet-tall skyscrapers that light up at night like giant media screens.

Tea in Chengdu with Luna Lu

Luna Lu, 33, a guide for FreeTour.com, introduced us to Chengdu on our first morning in town. We walked with her People’s Park, a gathering spot since 1911, offering a peaceful escape from the traffic and crowds outside. Luna studied in Indiana and lived in New York before returning to Chengdu to start her own tour company. Like a half-dozen or so young people we met, marriage and children are not in the cards to the regret of the government which has lifted its one child policy. “Now they encourage you to have children,” Luna said. But economics and a sense of not wanting to be tied down are getting the way.  Total cost for our six walks was around $225.

Much more expensive were day trips by car to far-off sites we booked through GetYourGuide, a third-party booking service which lists tours offered by various local travel agencies. GetYourGuide charges your credit card, (all bookings refundable up to one day in advance) and provides you all the information on the itinerary and pick-up times. 

Leshan Buddha near Chengdu

Dongchuan Red Lands near Kunming

We spent around $885 on four private excursions, including a high-tech tour of Shanghai, a car trip in Chengdu to see the Leshan Buddha, and an all-day car rip to the Dongchuan Red Lands, two hours by car from Kunming. Three out of the four were good value, but the fourth fell short due to a poor English-speaking guide.

Face-changing opera performance

We did many close-in excursions on our own, including riding the subway to the entrance of Chengdu‘s Panda breeding research center where admission for seniors was free. Those over 60 who show their passport get free or reduced admission at most museums and cultural attractions. 

Tickets to a performance at a small theater in Chongqing were $12.50 each, including tea and a small bowl of sunflower seeds. It was our chance to catch a glimpse of Chinese face-changing opera in which the performers switch painted masks in the blink of an eye using hidden silk threads, fans, head turns, or body movements.

How to pay 

We withdrew a little cash in Chinese Yuan from a bank machine in Shanghai, but ended up not needing any.

Everyone pays for everything with a digital payment system called Alipay.  We downloaded the app on our phones before leaving Seattle, tied two credit cards to the account and notified our banks. WeChat also can be used for payments as well as conversations akin to using WhatsApp. 

Everyone, from the smallest street vendor, to DIDI ride share drivers and restaurants take AliPay for any amount. There‘s no tipping in China, so the price posted is the price you pay, and AliPay keeps track of all your charges on its app. There‘s a 3 percent service charge for payments over 200 Yuan (about $30), so people often ask the vendor to spit the bill into two separate charges. 

Two things to never leave home without in China: Your passport and your phone.

The Chinese government keeps track of who you are, whether through facial recognition when entering or leaving the subway, to knowing it was really you who bought a theater ticket or train ticket in advance. Your passport is your proof. Your phone is your wallet. Hang onto them both.

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Chengdu, China: Where the past meets the future

The Chengdu Twin Towers

How do you picture a 2,500-year-old city of 24 million people in the center of China, some call the “chill city” for its parks, lakes tea gardens and cuddly pandas? If the above photo startles you, that’s understandable. Chengdu, like most big Chinese cities, has multiple personalities. Depending on your mood, you could be sipping a latte under the flashing lights of towering skyscrapers, or you could be joining the local women in People‘s Park for morning tai chi. 

People‘s Park

Morning tai chi - everyone welcome

After last visiting China 17 and 20 years ago, Tom and I have returned to see what‘s new as well as savor the traditional culture that never fails to surprise. It means that one night we might be biking in a bike lane next to four lanes of traffic to see the financial district lit up like Disneyland, while the next day, we might be watching street vendors “selling” shoulder massages and ear-cleaning services to locals relaxing over tea in an urban park.

Massage and tea in People‘s Park

People call Chengdu the most relaxed city in China, said Luna Lu, 33, a guide for FreeTour.com, as we walked with her our first morning in People’s Park, a gathering spot since 1911, offering a peaceful escape from the traffic and crowds outside. Luna studied in Indiana and lived in New York before returning to Chengdu to start her own tour company. Like a half-dozen or so young people we met, marriage and children are not in the cards to the regret of the government which has lifted its one child policy. “Now they encourage you to have children,” Luna said. But economics and a sense of not wanting to be tied down are getting the way.  Thus the reason we stop in the park’s Romance Garden which she describes as an off-line Tinder site for eligible young men and women. 

Romance Corner, girls section, People‘s Park

Parents post their childrens’ resumes in hopes of finding a suitable match. In reality, Luna told us, it’s mostly wishful thinking in that most young people prefer to find their own partners.

Tea and snacks with Luna Lu at the Great Banner Teahouse

Taking a break at the Great Banner Teahouse, we tried some traditional snacks - sweet water noodles, tofu with fermented rice, soup dumplings and sticky rice with peanuts. People who want to save money are welcome to bring their own picnic to a teahouse, Luna told us, and sit for hours drinking tea refreshed with jugs of hot water. Later we walked together to the Qingyang Palace, known as the Number One Taoist Temple, the oldest and largest Taoist temple in Chengdu, part of a serene complex rebuilt in the Qing Dynasty.

Taoist temple

The temple was a short walk from our hotel, the Wenjun Courtyard Hotel, located in the Qingyang historical area on what the Chinese call an “ancient street,” a street built to look as did hundreds of years ago before the area was flattened by war and grey high-rises sprung up all around it. Breakfast and dinner were served in a courtyard decorated with red paper lamps. Each each room sits on a balcony with a table decorated with flowers and little lamps. The $100 per night rate included a free upgrade to a suite, free airport pick up, free laundry and free breakfast.

Breakfast in the Wenjun courtyard

Later that evening, we experienced a completely different side of Chengdu when we met Siri Yang, 33, a freelance guide for GuruWalk.com. Like FreeTour, it’s a tip-based guide service where English-speaking locals create two to three- hour walks. They might include a small group or just one or two travelers, depending on who signs up. We were the only ones to book with both Luna and Siri, so we ended up with private tours. 

Our evening with Siri began by meeting at a with a subway stop next to a night market in the downtown financial district that attracts an after-work crowd of young professionals

A night market on a street that closes to cars in the evening

Enjoying bao buns

Bao dumplings filled with pork or veggies (8 for $2) were are favorites among the foods hawked from brightly-lit stalls set up under the flashing lights of blinking skyscrapers in an area called Jiaozi Park. Translated, it means Paper Money, a nod to the 11th century when Chengdu was the birthplace of the world’s first paper money.

After the market, Siri unlocked three blue city bikes available for a few cents per minute. We road along a paved path skirting the Jinjiang riverfront. It was there where we got our first glimpse of the Chengdu Twin Towers, a pair of 720-feet-tall skyscrapers that light up at night like giant media screens.

Siri pays and unlocks city bikes using AliPay, China’ digital payment system

The Chengdu Twin towers

Parking the bikes, we walked along the Nine Leaf Lotus pedestrian bridge, part of a park that seems to be floating on water as the bridge incorporates nine lotus leaf-inspired platforms to connect two halves of a green belt divided by the river, linking the riverbanks to city streets, a flying-saucer-shaped bar, a library and theater.

The finale of the evening came as we picked up a new set of bikes, and road in a bike lane next to a four-lane highway to the New Century Global Center, a massive city within a building, housing a huge shopping mall, offices and residences. This is the best place to view the Chengdu Bamboo Fountain, six giant bamboo-shaped columns where water cascades downwards from the top to mimic falling rain on natural bamboo stalks. Bamboo is significant because Chengdu hosts one of the world’s largest habitats for giant pandas, and they survive mainly on the plant. 

Chengdu Bamboo Fountain

After dark, the towers light up with color-changing LED displays that change every few minutes. Water, light and technology come together in a futuristic display, the perfect end to an evening exploring Chengdu’s ever-changing faces.

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Exploring the “New China” First stop: Shanghai

Friendly robot waiter

The sound of a bell from a delivery cart breaks the silence as we walk out of our hotel in Shanghai on a Sunday morning. 

Cars, motorbikes, buses and bikes whiz by, but there‘s barely any traffic noise. Nearly all are electric.

Rush hour near the Bund in Shanghai

Later that afternoon, Tom and I visit a showroom for Nio, a high-end Chinese  EV car company where we’re invited to sit inside a $80,000 SUV that allows the driver to let go of the steering wheel, move to a reclining seat in the back, relax with a massage, and watch a movie while the car navigates itself. 

Back seat drivers

The $80,000 Nio EV

Searching for a bathroom while we are out and about, we decide to try a hotel with a third-floor restaurant. Getting off the elevator, we see robot sporting a bow tie delivering a meal to someone‘s room. A few minutes later, we see “him” again as he rolls back to the kitchen.

For dinner, we order a pizza by down loading a QR code, placing the order on our phone and paying for it with an app called AliPay, the digital replacement for cash for everything from an apple to a hotel bill.

We have come to China for the first time in 20 years to see what’s new in what some consider the country of the future. 

After a brief re-visit to Shanghai, we will move onto Chengdu in Southwest China, then travel by bullet train to Chongqing, Seattle‘s sister city; and finally onto Kunming near the Vietnamese border. 

In the meantime, one deviation from our plan to focus on the “New China” is our choice of a hotel in the French Concession, a century-old  area of leafy streets and colonial-style homes built in the late 19th and early 20th centuries when by Europeans who occupied Shanghai after the  first Opium War of 1842.

The Old House Inn

We found the Old House Inn almost exactly as we remembered it when we stayed here 20 years ago. The building, on a back lane too narrow for a taxi to navigate, dates to the 1920s. Creaking wooden floors give away the building’s age (We had to climb four flights to reach our room), but important features such as the bathrooms have been updated, and the owners took care to decorate the rooms with Chinese antiques and lacquered furniture. 

The surprise was finding an Italian restaurant called Bella Napoli on the first floor. We ate breakfast each morning surrounded by posters of the Italian countryside as we dug into platters of buffalo mozzarella and tomatoes along with eggs, coffee and croissants. 

Pudong at night

Nightime on the Bund 

The Huangpu River divides Shanghai into two parts, Pudong or modern Shanghai on one side, and Puxi, Old Shanghai, including the French Concession on the other. Pudong is known for its massive skyscrapers with night time light shows starting after sun set, while the most famous landmark on the other side is the Bund, a semi-circle of more than 50 waterfront buildings of different European architectural styles built by Western banks and trading companies.

Squeezing pomegranates street side

Fancy coffees: Starbucks not

In reality, old and new Shanghai intersect at every turn. On our walk to the subway in the morning, we pass soup dumpling shops, hair salons, bakeries and a woman squeezing fresh pomegranate juice on the sidewalk. There‘s a recycling operation in our alley where carts piled high with flattened cardboard sometime block the entrance.  Two blocks away there are gentrified streets lined with wine bars, sushi restaurants and minimalist coffee shops selling $7 lattes. And of course, Starbucks.

To get the lay of the land, we signed up for a walking tour of the French Concession area with FreetoursChina.com, a tip-based guide service; an evening food tour with a similar group called GuruWalk; and a paid high-tech tour that included the visit to the EV showroom, a ride in a driverless taxi and a visit to a store in a shopping mall with dancing robots on display. 

Deina with FreeTours China leads a walk through the French Concession. The city bike next to her says “Thank you” when you use the AliPay app to pay for a ride.

The Prada store: Good shopping but bad vibes

Our tour with Deina, a guide with FreeToursChina, met in front of a Uniqlo store across from a good stall selling sticky rice cakes. 

Photo shoot in the French Club

On our three-hour walk with a dozen travelers from Spain, the UK, Serbia and Mexico, we witnessed a wedding shoot in the French Club, an elegant mansion built in the 1920, and explored a neighborhood of European-style houses, formerly single-family homes, now housing for five or six families. Along the way, Deiina pointed out a skyscraper housing a Prada store known locally for bad feng shui (energy) because of the number of people who have committed suicide by jumping off. 

Bill serves Soup dumplings 

Tom mastered the art of eating soup dumplings

Bill from GuruWalk.com introduced us to soup dumplings while walking us through some traditional neighborhoods, not-yet-gentrified with Starbucks stores or designer boutiques. The dumplings - veggie, pork or egg- are filled with a pork skin soup. The way to eat them without squirting hot soup all over the table, he explained, is to pierce them with a small hole, then suck out the soup before eating the dumpling itself. 

I normally tune out when the conversation turns to electric cars, but I found myself fascinated by a tour of the Nio showroom with our guide Sean from a travel agency called China in Sight.

“A car is not just a car anymore,” Sean told us as he demonstrated a seat back massage function with 22 massage points; three video screens for watching movies; a refrigerator; and a surround sound stereo system.

“Self-driving” EVs in China are authorized for what’s called Level 2 autopilot driving, meaning the driver can take his or hands off the wheel briefly, but must keep eyes on the road. The $80,000 SUV he showed us has Level 3 capabilities that once approved, allow the autopilot to go a step further and take over total navigation. 

Robot  taxis are still being tested in Shanghai in restricted areas. We went with Sean on the subway to the test area where he used an app to call a driverless Lexus for a 12-minute trip to the Shanghai Museum of Art. The “driver” was polite but firm about telling us to buckle our seat belts. Unlike real drivers, it kept to the speed limit on a three-lane highway. Upon delivering us to our destination, it warned us to watch out for traffic on the side of the road.

Rooftop ornament indicates to other drivers that this is a self-driving taxi

We ended the day with a visit to a shopping mall where a company called Robots and Pets demonstrates the capabilities of mechanical robots to dance, carry heavy loads and do Bruce Lee impressions.

Their robo dog sells for around $2,000. He can carry 33 pounds on his back. Search and rescue teams in China use them for missions too dangerous for actual humans.

The Maglev bound for Pudong

On to Chengdu, but first a ride back to the airport in Pudong on the high-speed Meglev which we missed on our first trip here. The technology is “old.” The Meglev began running in 2002, but it’s a thrill ride nonetheless as it levitates over “tracks,” traveling at 186 miles per hour.

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