Lots of
amazingly cheap deals are currently being offered for tours to China.
Are those deals too good to be true? No, they are not. I did one last year and it was fine.
How can they
run these tours at such low prices? A
tour guide in Beijing told me that the Chinese government subsidies the cost to
promote tourism.
What is the
Chinese government up to? Who knows but
you will be well looked after on your trip and come home safely.
Last year my
friend Maggie and I saw one of these trips advertised and we were very tempted
but the price being so low worked as a deterrent.
We thought
there must be a catch.
Return
airfares, accommodation, the Great Wall, Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden City, panda
bears, and a three-night cruise on the Yangtze through the Three Gorges.
It sounded
fabulous, but the price was so cheap that we thought maybe it was scam and
they’d harvest our organs.
We also wondered
if we’d have to turn tricks then decided as we are in our sixties that would be
a case of more fool them.
We also assumed
that our cabin on the cruise would be down in the boiler room, but it wasn’t.
Sadly, Maggie
became ill and I travelled by myself and although I was worried about Maggie it
was a brilliant trip.
The only catch
is that tour groups are taken to government businesses to spend money on items
such as pearls and jade. That's okay - who wants
to go home without pearls and jade.
If you are
thinking of doing one of these cheap China trips, grab the opportunity and pack
your bags.
Sounds like fun! In fact, your trip had inspired me to go on one of my own - partly in a tour, and partly lone traveller. I was anxious, but, as you said, the Chinese government is right into promoting tourism as an industry at the moment. They're trying to get their own people to be tourists in their own country, but they're also doubling up by making things easier for foreigners. So - lots more signs in English than there were ten years ago (when I first went), and nearly every school kid is learning some English so it's possible to ask for assistance. I had no problems using the metro trains on my own in several of the cities. They've been spending up big on improving access to tourist sites, developing tourist sites, and conserving sites with tourist potential. The standard of facilities and hygiene in most places might surprise some Westerners.
ReplyDeleteI was bemused by the way piped music found its way into the most unlikely places, like the painted hills in Zhangye Danxia Landform Geological Park, but that I think is because the growing number of Chinese tourists seek a different type of entertainment.