King Wing Hot Spring International Hotel, Beijing

Advantages: Frenzied energy of chaotic city, many worldclass tourist attractions, delicious food, incredibly safe & ridiculously cheap.
Disadvantages: Gruesome pollution, occasional racism targeting foreigners & lack of freedom for those who take an organised tour (not recommmended).

...simple. Book air tickets (I would recommend www.cheapflights.com as the ultimate booking resource), choose a hostel or hotel with an address from a guide book (I would recommend the Lonely Planet as usual, but the Rough Guide’s Beijing specific guide has some good day trips detailed that the Lonely Planet does not have) and saunter along to the Chinese embassy at 49-51 Portland Place, London W1N 4JL. There is also a consulate of some kind in Manchester where you can apply for visas. The new visa is a decent full-page affair with a print of the Great Wall. If you get a long term or working visa you’ll also get a rather fancy hologram. It should cost 30 pounds I think. A note on money before anything else. The Chinese currency is the RMB and there’s about 13 RMB to the pound. Given how cheap China is, and the fact the prices you pay... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful

Advantages: To Have Been There
Disadvantages: No Wild Birds

...on this bustling food street and we weren't really shocked at the skewers of scorpions – after all we eat prawns don't we? So what was our itinery for the sixteen night visit to China? Our holiday was booked with Voyagers Jules Verne and charmingly named 'The Original Yangtze Cruise' as eight nights of our sixteen were to be spent sailing up the vast Yangtze River to include the new Three Gorges Dam and the Three Gorges as they are now before the dam is completed in 2009 and drowns another eighty metres of the mountains that make this part of the Yangtze River so recognisable. The remaining eight nights were to be spent in five star hotels in the cities of Beijing, Shanghai, and Xian with internal flights between Beijing and Shanghai and after our river cruise a flight from the river port of Chongqing in the Western provinces to Xian to visit... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful

Advantages: Near lots of tourist sites
Disadvantages: Very Busy

...Beijing is a very different to the all the other cities in the rest of the world. It has changed alot since the end or the Miao reign and has been influenced by western culture a lot. There are still alot of bycles around but not as many as there used to be. No longer are there the comunal toilets where you all share, there are now sperated tolets although some of the Chineese do not shut the toilet doors becuase they like the htought of comunal toilets. Beijing is a very hot place in the summer so keep to the shade. The driving is also very manic, you have do dodge the cars.... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average not helpful