Travel: China - Beijing

[megatron]

starlight1968sg:

Anybody joined a local day tour (from a travel agency in Beijing) to Great wall?


Anyway visited Beijing Zoo to see the Panda?

I joined a local day tour when I was there. The tour guide was good and she was able to tell us the history and stories of the places we visited (Great wall at Ba da ling). But as usual they bring you to all types of shops (selling jade, sweets, chinese medicine etc).
The lunch was really bad.
We were brought to this room with people from all different tour groups to have our lunch.
You have to join a table (about 10 pax), then then they start to serve the food (with no server spoon!)
The food was terrible, fried vegetables, steam fish (a small one to be shared by 10 pax), some man tou.

[starlight1968sg]

megatron:

I joined a local day tour when I was there. The tour guide was good and she was able to tell us the history and stories of the places we visited (Great wall at Ba da ling). But as usual they bring you to all types of shops (selling jade, sweets, chinese medicine etc).

The lunch was really bad.
We were brought to this room with people from all different tour groups to have our lunch.
You have to join a table (about 10 pax), then then they start to serve the food (with no server spoon!)
The food was terrible, fried vegetables, steam fish (a small one to be shared by 10 pax), some man tou.

Thanks for sharing.
After reading many interesting stories, we have decided to go to The Great Wall on our own. Hope we will not encounter much problems. The only issue is we are unlikely to cover the Ming's Tombs.

[verykiasu2010]

starlight1968sg:

megatron:

I joined a local day tour when I was there. The tour guide was good and she was able to tell us the history and stories of the places we visited (Great wall at Ba da ling). But as usual they bring you to all types of shops (selling jade, sweets, chinese medicine etc).

The lunch was really bad.
We were brought to this room with people from all different tour groups to have our lunch.
You have to join a table (about 10 pax), then then they start to serve the food (with no server spoon!)
The food was terrible, fried vegetables, steam fish (a small one to be shared by 10 pax), some man tou.

Thanks for sharing.
After reading many interesting stories, we have decided to go to The Great Wall on our own. Hope we will not encounter much problems. The only issue is we are unlikely to cover the Ming's Tombs.

rest assured that you will not encounter problems going to The Great Wall on your own.

sure problems : hunger, nature's call, souvenirs - buy or not .......but they have fast food KFC, reasonably well kept toilets, etc so no worry

[starlight1968sg]

Thanks verykiasu2010.

We are preparing a packed lunch to settle our hunger. Just hope that we can still tolerate the toilets

[hquek]

Didn’t quite catch the initial question, but I hired a driver for the day. Think it cost 600RMB or so. We visited the Great Wall - think it’s the Mutianyu side (someone told us the usual spot is overrun with tourist). Then he drove us on to the Ming tombs (only visited the main one).


Finally on the way back, we asked him to help us find an orchard to pick fruits. He talked to a farmer on the wayside and we went to his farm. Very tiny place but there were shorty peach trees all brimming with fruits. Each fruit was covered by brown paper. Kids had loads of fun picking those. The peaches we picked were charged by kg - much more expensive than supermarket; but all the fruits were sweet…even a green one I picked by mistake.

Let me know if you want his contact. He was introduced by friend of friend. quite ok guy.

[starlight1968sg]

Today I went to DeShengMen to look for bus 919. OMG, there are so many buses 919. All said express with bus fare RMB12 and all are light green and white. Some said the journey was 1.5hr, others said 3hr. Which is the right bus 919 to take?

[galgal]

I'm going to beijing in Mid Dec, thinking to go to ski resort for 2 nights stay. Anyone been to ski resort? Which ski resort is nice to stay for 2 nights, we do not know how to ski at all.

[starlight1968sg]

For info:

The public bus 919 to Badaling Great Wall is gradually being replaced by bus 877 which is also a public bus and bus fare is 12 yuan but with Yi Ka Dong (similar to our ezlink card), the fare is only 4.80 yuan.
The journey is about an hour plus and there are hardly any stops during the journey to Badaling.
We alighted at Xiong Le Gu (where we saw sunbears). The ticket inclusive of sliding car ride is 60 yuan. We didnt take the sliding car. But we walked for a short distance (about 15min) and reached another entrance where we paid 45 yuan to enter. We missed the museum and climbed from the base to the highest point ("level" 10 ?). The sliding car brought tourists to "level" 4 and we saw cable cars too.
We started climbing at 10.30am and left around 2.30pm, inclusive of a few breaks for our legs, take pic plus take a sip of water plus eat buns.

[Dnls_mum]

verykiasu2010:

starlight1968sg:

[quote=\"megatron\"] I joined a local day tour when I was there. The tour guide was good and she was able to tell us the history and stories of the places we visited (Great wall at Ba da ling). But as usual they bring you to all types of shops (selling jade, sweets, chinese medicine etc).

The lunch was really bad.
We were brought to this room with people from all different tour groups to have our lunch.
You have to join a table (about 10 pax), then then they start to serve the food (with no server spoon!)
The food was terrible, fried vegetables, steam fish (a small one to be shared by 10 pax), some man tou.

Thanks for sharing.
After reading many interesting stories, we have decided to go to The Great Wall on our own. Hope we will not encounter much problems. The only issue is we are unlikely to cover the Ming's Tombs.

rest assured that you will not encounter problems going to The Great Wall on your own.

sure problems : hunger, nature's call, souvenirs - buy or not .......but they have fast food KFC, reasonably well kept toilets, etc so no worry[/quote]Very easy to go to Great Wall on your own. Just arrange for a cab driver to take you there and wait for you to bring you back. Negotiate a price first and don't pay the guy until you are back. In fact, I recommend going to Mutianyu rather than Badaling. More authentic. Less people and group tours. Mainly FIT. Take a cable car up and walk down. Very easy.
Have fun!

[hippopo]

Hi,


We booked a taxi to Mu Tian Yu with my 3yrs and 5 yrs kids. Set off before morning peak and we reached there at 8.30am. As it is winter, there isn’t any crowd. We took cable ride up and walked for 2 hours. It was a slow stroll, up and down. Then we descend via the slide. The kids enjoyed themselves tremedously. Just make sure you layer the clothes and bring thermo flask.

The driver took us to PlayHouse by the Park after Mu Tian Yu. It was owned by Singaporeans. They sell Italian food, have clean toilets and heater.

As the package is until 5pm, he brought us to Bird’s Nest and Shui Li Fang.