The train ticket thing isn't new. Has been an issue before Chinese New Year for a while.

The counterfeit 100RMB bills had probably been around for a while (i.e. months), but only recently became huge news in Hong Kong.

My travel buddy got fake 100RMB notes a couple years ago from the bellboy at a Guangzhou hotel. He couldn't pass them anywhere in China so ended up
BofA in the SF Valley changed them.:p

One time several years ago I saw two guys on a motorcycle swoop in and
grab a briefcase from a pedestrian. Needless to say I wouldn't go to Guangzhou
unless I had business there.

Peter_N-H, can you give me some more info on that side trip?

my understanding is that motorcycles are banned from GZ city centre for exactly that reason, no doubt someone here can confirm. It is one of the more lawless Chinese cities but, so long as you follow the usual common sense rules of protecting your vauables and not looking too much like a lost tourist, there should be no problem

regarding tips, Peter N-H makes a good one regarding Museum of the Wetern Han Dynasty Mausoleum . The artifacts arevery nicely presented and it is surprisingly uncrowded. The park with the 5 Rams statue is nearby (I think) and there are some great restaurants in the area

nickyboy

Here's a by now out-of-date description (about five years old) and suggested plan, but check all prices and frequencies for public transport (conversions are given on a rather higher exchange rate than currently exists).

Much of southern Guangdong is a sprawl of untidy and often grim manufacturing, where sweated labor produces the world’s toys. But Kaiping, 136km (85 miles) southwest of Guangzhou, 164km (102 miles) from the Macau border, and also reachable by sea directly from Hong Kong, is China at its most bucolic. Peasants in conical straw hats bend over their plants, and position hand-powered threshing machines on shoulder poles, much as in other provinces. But here they often toil beneath the gaze of extraordinary towers called diaolou, which are partly Portuguese Gothic, like Citizen Kane’s Xanadu broken into nearly 2,000 fragments and sprinkled across the county. Some squat brick fortresses dating back to the 17th century were intended as places of refuge for whole villages. But more alien watchtowers were mostly built by Chinese who traveled out through the treaty ports and returned wealthy in the late 19th and early 20th centuries to buy land, build a house, and marry. Simple concrete towers were merely lookout points intended to provide warning of approaching bandits, but by the 1920s these had evolved into massive fortified residences up to nine stories high, sprouting turrets and loopholes, balconies and cupolas, borrowed from half-understood European styles encountered everywhere from Macau to Manila. Of around 3,000 originals, 1,833 still stand, towering over almost every village. A representative sample can be visited in a day by taxi, or Kaiping town can used as a base for exploring by public transport and on foot.

There are around 50 buses daily to Kaiping from Guangzhou (about 2 hr.; last bus back at 6pm; ¥30/$3.75).

The oldest surviving diaolou is the Yinglong Lou at San Men Li, 15 minutes west on the main road and passed by many local buses. A narrow pine-lined path leads to the village, and the tower is through a narrow passage between ancient houses. It’s a three-story solid brick place of refuge, the lower two reddish stories built sometime between 1436 and 1449, and the upper gray one added in 1919. The villagers suffered serious flooding in 1884 and 1908, took refuge in the upper stories, and survived. Their descendants are pleased by your interest and very proud that they kept their diaolou when everyone else knocked theirs down (brick can be recycled for other uses—concrete cannot, so most survivors are of later date); they may unlock the tower so you can climb the bare interior.

The largest single collection of diaolou is at Zili Cun. Almost any bus passing San Men Li will drop you at the right-hand turn towards Tangkou, where there’s a convenience store and some small restaurants. Motorbikes here will take you to Zìlì Cun, turning right again where there’s a gas station after 4km (2 1/2 miles), and then going through Tangkou. Most buses from Kaiping drop you at the gas station (every 20 min.; ¥4/50¢), from where it’s a 5-minute walk into Tángkou and a 45-minute walk beyond that on a country lane which swings left into Zìlì Cun at the last moment. Or you can stay on the bus until a closer stop, when you’ll be pointed vaguely across the paddies and duck ponds to a visible cluster of towers. Taxis from Kaiping charge about ¥70 ($8.75) per hour. They can also take you to Zili Cun and wait for 1 hour for ¥80 ($10).

The 15 towers close together here, like a miniature city, are scheduled to be the first developed for tourism—a new road big enough to take tour buses is being built. This is a very impressive group of towers, with little stone paths weaving through the marshy ground on which they stand; the marsh no doubt contributes to the slight lean some of them display. Wooden signs indicate a viewing route, but you won’t exactly be elbowing your way through hordes of other visitors, although there’s sometimes a pause as a gaggle of ducks crosses from one damp patch to another. Villagers chop sugar cane, geese seek shade beneath banana palms, and crabs cluster beneath bridges. Most of the towers are three or four stories high, made of concrete, their top stories decked with arches and balustrades, ornamental urns, and turreted corners. Perhaps the most elegant is the taller Mingshi Lou, on the right towards the rear of the village. There are plans to open this as a museum, as it retains late-Qing furnishings and a top-floor ancestral shrine. The last bus back from the Tangkou turning is at 6pm.

Further southwest, about 35 minutes from Kaiping on buses heading to Chikan (¥4/50¢), Xiabian Cun has a rather different tower, the five-story Shì Lou of 1924, to the left as you enter the village. Cement, unknown in mainland China, had to be imported from Hong Kong at considerable expense, and the ingenious alternative was to make a tower of rammed earth, sugar, lime, and sticky rice. The clayey red soil has left its warm color in the pink-ochre walls, and the pits left by its extraction are now fishponds beside a row of ancient housing. Limited supplies of cement were reserved for the tower’s top, with its balcony, pepper-potted corners, and domed pavilion.

Further southwest at Xiagang, 50 minutes and ¥4 (50¢) from Kaiping, are perhaps the oddest tower and the most impressive tower of all. Motorbikes meet buses, but it’s much more enjoyable to do this on foot. The first tower is about a 2.5km (1 1/2-mile) walk. Cross the river bridge with views of river-going vessels, homes to their owners, with firewood stacked on their decks, and turn left onto Dong Long Lu (East Dragon St.). After a short distance, the path passes a gate and shrinks to a track before reaching the unspoiled and friendly little village of Dong Xi Cun. The third narrow alley between the traditional houses leads to a vast European-influenced mansion, whose owners went back overseas again and are now said by the villagers to be in San Francisco. Carry straight on and descend to a decent, metalled road. Turn left, making a note of where to turn off on your return. Passing the occasional armchair grave, water buffalo wallowing in the paddies, rice and buffalo dung laid out to dry on the road, you reach the first major village on the left; the village of Nan Xing Li is beyond this one on the right.

Here’s China’s answer to Italy’s Torre di Pisa, a slender six-story concrete finger called the Nan Xing Xie Lou (Leaning Tower of Nan Xing), 2m (5 1/2 ft.) in height and inclined severely but very photogenically to one side. It is reflected attractively in the village pond. The tower’s top is out of alignment, with an annual lean increase of 2cm ( 4/5 in.)—so though it has survived since 1902, you’d better see it while you can. Even when just completed, it was already leaning so far the watchman had to put bricks under one side of his bed.

Returning to Xiagang, turn right and recross the bridge, then turn left and walk straight out the other side of town; the narrow road wriggles between other diaolou en route. Once you’re in the fields, fork left. There are optional diversions into other villages, but swing left at a junction with a modern pavilion, and the Ruishi Lou in Jin Jiang Li will shortly appear on the right across the waterlogged fields. The road leads past it to the village entrance and across the open area at the entrance, where people shoo pigeons away from drying rice. Any narrow alley between the ancient houses where shoeless children scurry among the chickens will take you to the tower’s base. This is perhaps the most magnificent diaolou of all, built by a man who ran a bank and herbal medicine store in Hong Kong. Completed in 1925, it took 3 years to construct using local labor but imported materials. The nine-story tower dominates the village, with its corners and windows decorated from top to bottom, a gallery with domed corners running around all four sides, and a two-story octagonal folly at the top. Nearly as elaborate, the neighboring Shengfeng Lou, completed in 1925 by a returnee from the U.S., has bizarre columns running up two stories of elevated galleries. A motorbike ride out to this village and back will cost around ¥4 (50¢), and to the two sites about ¥10 ($1.25).

There’s much pleasure to be had just by rambling at will through the countryside, heading towards any toothy towers visible on the skyline. Few are still occupied, but many are used for storage, and sometimes the remarkably friendly local people, seeing your curiosity, will invite you to inspect the tower and climb to the roof for a panoramic view of the countryside.

Taxis in Kaiping are mostly Jettas or Santanas with a ¥5 (65¢) flagfall which includes 2km (1 1/4 miles), then a fare of ¥2 (25¢) per kilometer. From 11pm to 5am, flagfall is ¥6 (75¢). Rentals for trips out of town should not involve the meter, however. Bargain down from the first asking price of ¥70 ($8.75) per hour, especially if you plan to be out for a few hours. The first price for Tangkou, a 1-hour wait, and return is ¥80 ($10). Buses to Tangkou, Xiagang, and Chikan leave from two green-arched parking bays at the rear of the bus station. The left is for Tangkou and the right for the other towns; there are about one to three buses an hour between about 6:30am and 5:30pm.

Peter N-H
China

While the Holiday Inn is in a more central location, I recommend to stay at the Ritz Carlton. It's an outstanding hotel and the small difference in the room rate gets you service and a hotel several classes above the Holiday Inn!

Canton Fair
 

I'm actually thinking of going to the Canton fair in April of this year. I'm thinking of staying at the Hyatt, and am wondering if that's a good idea. Any other info on the Canton Fair would be appreciated. The info on the official site is a bit sparse, and I can never get it to register me for getting invitations and such.

I had originally though of just commuting every day to the fair, but that doesn't sound like much fun.

Guangzhou is definitely worth a couple of days. It's a very interesting mix of a city (old/new, rich/poor, Chinese/Foreign Asian/Western), and I just enjoy the energy of it (it feels more natural than the HKG equivalent).

Not sure about what hotel prices look like during the fair, but I was there last week and the foreign chain-hotels looked a bit overpriced to me, so I tried the Garden Hotel. Booked what they call an "Executive Suite", which was a phenomenal room (92 sq. m., floor-to-ceiling windows even in the bathroom, 3 LCD TVs, a host of L'Occitane amenities etc etc etc), and only cost me 1286 RMB including a massage treatment, a great breakfast, and 500 airline miles!

should be able to register online here:http://invitation.cantonfair.org.cn/...ndcompany.aspx

usually they mail the invitation card to you.

Since the venue was consolidated now to the one location should be quicker to see everything. Also with economic climate hotels "should" be cheaper
than before.

If you have a foreign passport and business card you don't need to pre-register but they will "try" to charge you an entrance fee.

As far as where to stay, its definately more convenient to stay in Guangzhou if the hotels are not so grossly inflated as before. If not could commute from Dongguan or Shenzhen.

That room used to be over 1000USD per nite during fair time. Now that the
old complex is closed maybe its less money.

map showing location of the single venue starting last fall:
http://www.cantonfair.org.cn/en/atte...tion/map.shtml

I'd avoid ShiFu HI. Just stayed there for few days. There is a pet market right outside of the hotel. With all the news reports about the bird flu, I'd not want to stay anywhere close to live animals.

Thanks for the response. I have tried to register before, but it always errors out after the page where you enter Mangers name. I'll try using a different browser. I was originally going to book the Intercontinental in Shenzhen, but then looking at the map figured it would be way too much of a pain.

Shangrila in Guangzhou would be nice and real close.
Canton Fair Early Bird Special
RMB 2,580
with 15%extra charges that's about $430 a night.

Shenzhen IC maybe $125/night.

Try Dongguan Sheraton.

For the Fair over the years I stayed in the Holiday Inn City Centre (became very expensive but good for bars), Tianlun (pretty good and handy for train station) but for the last few (up to '06) I stayed at Grand International

It was pretty good and had a shuttle to and from Pa Zhou (if you don't have a shuttle and it's rainy, getting a taxi there and back can be a pain).

The prices may have come down a bit but I was paying 2000 RMB/night inc breakfast. Last year it was quiet due to visa restrictions. This year the global downturn will maybe have an impact but the rate hike was always incredible. The normal price for the Grand International was about 500 RMB ourside Fair time. I searched for good standard hotels in Fair time but could never find anything less than 2000 RMB/night

You only need the invitation if you don't have a Chinese visa. They definitely don't try to charge for entry. Up to 2005 (I think) it genuinely was 100RMB but since then the entry was free. Just take some passport photos (they can be obtained at registration but there is alwasy a queue)

PM me if you want more info

nickyboy

I went ahead and got a deluxe room at the ShiFu HI. I see its about 120RMB for the taxi-ride to the airport (similar to Shanghai) is that about accurate?


Also, has anyone had any experience with a FC/Business Class lounge in CAN?