I visited China for the first time in 2013, and since then, I have been returning to China every year and staying for two months at a time. We last visited China in April of 2019, and my wife and I traveled through 10 different provinces. Starting from the south in Xiamen, we slowly made our way through Fujian, Wuyishan, Anhui, Shanghai, Nanjing, Zhangjiajie, Chongqing, Chengdu, Xian, Luoyang, and Beijing.
We traveled for two months and moved from province to province. We did some planning in advance, but most of the bookings of the hotels and our transportation were made on the go. We were fortunate enough to use the highspeed rail system, which is so well-built, and the infrastructure allows for seamless travel from one place to the next. We end up flying to Zhangjiajie since there was not a convenient highspeed train ride. I am sure next time I go to visit in 2020, they would have it in place, and the train would be going there as well.
Traveling in China is never easy. Not speaking Mandarin fluently when visiting China could propose a lot of challenges, especially when you are visiting small and or remote places. Don’t expect people to know English. In fact, I was told that " Chinese is becoming the new world language and everybody should speak Chinese, not English!" Maybe this is what the future for us, still, I did not dare to argue with the driver who was taking us back to our hotel. Tired of a day of hiking in the Wulingyuan Scenic Area, Zhangjiajie, I just wanted to take some rest.
China offers a very diverse terrain with a lot of natural wonders, and it is great to visit and enjoy the glorious nature. My observation was that traveling in China is much overlooked, and most of the places that we visited, I was probably the only foreign tourist. I am adding a photo from the trip below. This is one of my favorite pictures that we took while in Zhangjiajie.
I will be sharing more stories from our trip to China this past Summer.
