Touring Beijing
 

I am planning a trip to Beijing in october. my first time there...I am from Canada, and speak English and Cantonese...But not mandarin.

Would it be easy for me to tour the usual tourist sites by myself without knowing mandarin?

Or would it be better to join a tour. My base is from HK, so there are some tours include airfare,hotel and english tour for 4 days..Its about $6000HKD a person.
I could also use my airmiles to book airfare from HKG to PEK...and use my hotel points to book hotel stay..I have lots of both..
then sign up for a english tour...anyone tried this tour company before:
http://www.tour-beijing.com/coach_tours/

it looks so much cheaper than the ones from HK.....i could do the great wall and ming tomb for $30USD a person?

I could just pick 2-3 of those tours....

I booked a day trip tour of the Ming Tombs and the Great wall from my Hotel Concierge desk (I was staying at the Renaissance) and I believe that it cost me something like $45. The guide was knowledgeable, friendly, and spoke good English. I also booked, through the concierge, a Beijing city tour that covered the Temple of Heaven, Tienanmen Sq., Forbidden City, and Hutongs from the same tour provider and same cost.

You could probably book them cheaper with careful shopping, but I didn't care and didn't have the time to carefully shop around for different tours and different vendors.

I was with a group and we just took a cab down to a bus station and did a day trip out to the Great Wall at Badaling for $US15 each (photos below). It's easy enough to get around on the subway, as the stations are well marked. We used cabs quite a bit, and as long as you had the address written down by your hotel in Mandarin seemed to get by, and had trips of 5-10 miles around town for less than $US5. The Silk Market, for instance, is one of the locations we went to by cab, as was Workers Stadium for soccer (and Hooters across from it).

I think with some advance planning, and help from your hotel concierge or front desk, you'd be just fine.

Thanks..I am leaning more towards doing it on our own and perhaps hire a guide for the day tours versus booking a package with a HK tour agent.

now with hotels, which of the Marriotts in Beijing is more convenient for tourist/site seeing?

Marriott City Wall
JW Marriott
Renaissance Beijing Capital Hotel

The Renaissance is in Sanlutin district out by the 3rd ring road. It's a bit of a PITA to get to the sites in the center of Beijing, but cabs are certainly cheap enough - but the traffic makes the cab rides time consuming. But that neighborhood has lots of excellent dining and nightlife options for expats. In addition, it can be gotten on Priceline for less than half the direct booking rate - I paid around $115 a day including all fees and taxes above a $98 PL bid, (and it's a true 5* place) when booking direct would have cost me $240-250 all inclusive. The Ming tombs, Summer Palace, and Great Wall are all 25-60 KM outside the city, so all hotels are almost equally inconvenient - and you'll be on a tour bus to get to any of those places. The Hilton, Kempinski, Landmark, and Great Wall Sheraton are all in the same general area. Other than a slightly inconvenient location for sightseeing, I have nothing but good things to say about the Renaissance Beijing.

I can't speak for the other Marriott Properties.

I was in Beijing last October and we waited until we got there to book our tours through the hotel. It was very reasonable. I would also stay out by the 3rd ring road as there are plenty of excellent restaurants out there.

Yes. And vastly cheaper, and with reliable information brought from overseas far better informed than being fed a mixture of the officially approved line plus whatever it's thought will please you by a guide who will reliably overcharge you as well as take kick-backs on shopping, restaurants, etc.

The one-day no-frills bus tours from Xuanwu Men Bus Station (for instance) are worth taking, as they merely take you there, and several hours later bring you back without the shenanigans of shopping 'opportunities' provided on bus tours targeting foreigners. These are perfectly comfortable, and can cost a fifth or less of the tours peddled by concierges (who get a commission) and which usually involve a stop at some cloisonné factory with goods marked up ten to fifteen times). The problem with these is that they only run at weekends and usually only run until the middle of October: so it depends on your dates. A few, mostly to nearer Great Wall sites run year-round from the southwest corner of Tian'an Men Square. But then some of the Great Wall sites can be reached by public bus anyway.

As has been mentioned, for getting around town just use the metro (subway) for about US$30 a ride, whizzing under the sclerotic traffic; or just take taxis from point to point for about US$3 per trip. All you need is the characters for your destination written down. Even a half-decent guide book will tell you just about anything else you need to know, and historical and cultural information bought in the West is, sad to say, far more accurate than anything a guide can tell you.

Peter N-H
http://www.datasinica.com

Local guides
 

Many of the more popular sites, eg Forbidden City, Summer Palace, etc. have 'guides' that hang around the ticket window. They're easy to spot - young student type that speaks perfect English, or perfect German, or even perfect Mandarin. Usually costs you about RMB$200-300 and they somehow have entry tickets with them :)

Expect that sometime during the tour they'll take you into one of the kiosks where 'famous paintings', etc. are sold. Be polite, browse around for 5 minutes, "give them face" and then politely say 'no thank you' with a smile.

Last November, my wife and I visited Summer Palace with a friend who was American. We got two guides - one for him for English and one for my wife/I in Mandarin (we felt local language would give us more inside scoop) walking side by side. We had a blast!

I'd like to save the OP from paying a sum anything remotely like ¥200-300 for a guide, which is vastly out of scale for costs in China, and just one of several dubious practices taking place at the FC entrance.

Even when hired these people have nothing more to tell you, and nothing more accurate (so not accurate at all), than the English language audio guide, which is dramatically cheaper at ¥40 (¥100 deposit), and designed to start itself up and provide the right (or, at least, officially approved) information as each hall is entered.

A copy of 'The Forbidden City' by Geremie Barme will tell you vastly more and with vastly more accuracy and colour than either form of 'guide', and bought on Amazon costs the equivalent of under ¥100.

Peter N-H
http://www.datasinica.com

You can get a canto tour from HK low season for $1499 plus about $800 in tax HKD right now. 4 day, 3 nt. All those big travel agencies have it, Hong Thai, Wing On, etc. $1999 is the usual rate. Well below $6000, or even $3000 HKD.

Includes all air, hotel, transport, and food. Better than any deal you can find splitting it yourself I believe. I am planning on booking one for end of Oct.

5 Day / 4 Nts is only a few hundred more. Quite a good deal if you don't mind the cantonese and tour style. But if you're going to hit up all the tourists sites, I don't see why not.

And the answer is because if a price seems too good to be true in China, that's because it is. Look (and ask) carefully just how many shopping stops/factory stops/demonstration stops there will be, which are where the tour guide/tour company earn the money. Note that the relentless pace of these tour, mainly because all but the very top sights pay a kick-back to get the tour groups brought to them--the more sights the more kick-back. Note, too, that you may spend time in pointless waxworks or sideshows or re-enactments of this and that or other ersatz experiences en route to what you really want to see. And finally note that hotels and restaurants will usually be chosen on the basis of which is providing the best kick-back, not what best suits the tourist. Food and rooms may well turn out to be indifferent, and you may waste time busing from one hotel to eat at another.

When hidden overheads of various kinds are taken into account, travelling independently is usually indeed much cheaper than travelling with a tour group. In general the only significant saving is on the air ticket element, and for a tour out of Hong Kong there's not going to be much of that. At least they probably won't have the nerve to suggest to Hong Kongers that they tip.

There's nothing wrong with taking a tour, but the tourism industry in mainland China is possibly only beaten in its levels of corruption by the construction and mining industries. So people need to go in with their eyes and not their wallets wide open.

Peter N-H
http://www.datasinica.com

With all due respect, sorry to hear you have such a jaded view of China's tourism industry. I don't see the difference when compared to Chinese or Asians (Japanese) taking a tour of Europe, eg Italy or UK.

Another example, since you mentioned HK: Remember in the late '70's and early '80's when Taiwan opened up travel to their denizens to China? They all had to travel through HK and the locals made a lot of money during that period of time.

As far as the Forbidden City guides, 4 visitors in a group paying RMB40 per tape plus tickets works out to about the same as a 'personal guide'. IMHO

Equally with respect, I'm not sure I follow the arguments here.

If I'm 'jaded' does that make the facts of the case any different? A bit ad hominem, this? Sadly my conclusions are based on long study of the industry and I heartily wish the industry were more honest, but for now it seems best just to warn people that it isn't. Those dealing with organised China travel need to proceed with caution.

And if Chinese get ripped off when touring Europe (as they do, royally, by the Chinese tour companies that take them round) does that justify or excuse what happens in China itself, or mean that people shouldn't be warned?

Again I'm puzzled. How does that affect the current situation in China? Does it excuse or justify it? Isn't it merely further evidence that caution is necessary?

Right now tour groups from mainland China are often taken to Hong Kong entirely for free simply because each individual tourist is often carrying collected family funds and a long shopping list of foreign-made items that are much cheaper there. They are then fleeced enough with carefully controlled shopping for the tour company to turn a profit, and obviously Hong Kong shops play a role in this. But this again is just further evidence that the Chinese tourism industry should be given a wide berth, or only approached with the eyes wide open.

As I hoped to make clear, I wouldn't recommend either not least since the 'information' obtained has limited value and there doesn't seem much point in paying to be misled.

But if we're going to quibble, as a simply arithmetical point I'd have to disagree that ¥160 is 'about the same' as ¥200-300. If we're going to speak that loosely then isn't ¥300 'about' double ¥160?

And there's no time limit with the audio system (solid state and digital, not tape, incidentally) other than the opening hours of the site itself, leaving listeners to proceed entirely at their own pace, and with a still lower cost per hour. A decent investigation of the more interesting side turnings of the FC takes more than a couple of hours, it must be said. The complex will repay at least half a day of investigation. Note, too, that the audio system has sockets for two headphones on each unit, so the price for that is lower still.

But even then buying a decent book on the subject is still much better value for money.

Some may well prefer to take audio tours or guides, but each needs to be taken with caution, and with an understanding of exactly what's going on.

Peter N-H
http://www.datasinica.com

Sounds more like a value added commission.

If the site/sight is state owned then there should be a documented entrance fee. If the tour operator lies about the fee cost, they would probably just
pocket the money.

If the site/sight is privately owned then sales commission paid by the site/sight
to tour operator shouldn't be considered a "kick back", I don't think its illegal
nor would it be information that any business would be obligated to disclose to customers.

If mobility is not an issue, then touring Beijing on your own is the best. With the new and expanded subway system, you can reach most sights in the city by subway and bus. Farther afield, great wall and Ming Tomb etc..., you can join a bus tour (would not be my choice) or hire a private car for that. You can arrange all this while in Beijing.

Best to get acquainted with map of Beijing and subway map.

JW Marriott would be is my choice.