Hi,
I've been reading through the China board FAQs, travel thread, etc. and have gotten a lot of valuable advice. Now, I would like to put out my draft itinerary and ask for advice, critiques, etc. We are 2 couples turning 60 who wanted to celebrate our 60th in China as water dragons in the year of the water dragon (we're not Chinese but thought this was as good an excuse to visit China as any
)
Oct. 8 - arrive in Beijing around 2 pm for 6 nights at Westin Financial District in 2 bdrm suite. Plan to visit forbidden city, a hutong, the ancient observatory, lamma temple, workers cultural palace, imperial college, summer palace, great wall over those 6 days.
Oct. 14&15 - fly to Xi'an and stay in Sheraton Xi'an to visit terra cotta warriors , city wall, muslim quarter, great mosque, big goose pagoda.
Oct. 16 - return to Beijing to take high speed train to Shanghai for 3 nights at either Le Meridien or Hyatt to see assorted museums and tea houses
Oct. 18 - high speed train to Hangzhou and stay in Hyatt for 2 nights to relax and enjoy the beauty.
Oct. 21 - fly to Guilin and stay for 2 nights in Sheraton to do a Li River tour and visit Dragon's Backbone rice terraces.
Oct. 23 - fly to Hong Kong and stay at IC for 4 nights to enjoy Hong Kong, maybe take a side trip to Macau.
Oct. 27 - return to Canada in evening.
I was not planning on hiring a guide for Beijing, Shanghai or Hong Kong but am wondering about getting one for Guilin. Any thoughts? I'd like to hire a private car to tour the Great Wall but was wondering if we could do 1 car for the 4 of us, all relatively average weight (for Canadian, not Americans
). Any thoughts about what I've included or not included would be greatly appreciated since I have enough time to make either minor or major modifications to my plans. Thank you in advance.