Recommendations for China?

Hello,

Im planning on spending 6 months travelling round SOuth East Asia starting in Hong Kong at the end of April but need some help with my route......

We plan going from Hong Kong to Hanoi via train but as we have to get a Chinese Visa we would like to spend some time in CHina without having to go to far away from the route between the two. Does anyone have any reccomendations of places to see near Nanning or Guangzhou?

All help will be greatly received!

Thanks

Yangshuo and Guilin are fairly standard replies, but both definitely worth a visit. There are direct buses from HK, Macau and Zhuhai so they are easy to get to. You can then bus or train it to Nanning and then Vietnam.

If you want to spend more time, you can go further west to Kunming - a cool city - from where you can go up to Dali/Lijiang/Tiger Leaping Gorge etc. You can then come back to Kunming and go direct to Hekou and cross the Vietnamese border from there to Lao Cai.

Maybe Guangzhou will be one of your choices...But actually guangzhou is more or less like hongkong...guangzhou's trip is cheaper than hongkong but also worth travelling...For here is the origin of southchina culture...

From HK, if its your first time in China and probably the last

In Guandong, you may skip its capital, Shenzhen is worth a visit.

GUILIN is iconoclastic! Its a must for a China tour.
from there you can conveniently hit Nanning, a very clean and modern looking city with a charming river. But if you've been travelling in China for too long, its nothing impressive. It has a nice BARBEQUE night market though, with lots of seafood.

My mom went to Fujian (northeast of Guangdong) and enjoyed it. Scenery around Wuyi Mountains is lovely, and you can take a raft trip down the river too. To the north of Guangzhou is Hunan, which is the birthplace of Mao Zedong and is also known for the quality of its artistic and handmade crafts. Hunan cuisine is pretty famous, especially if you like spicy stuff.

Oops, just realised the OP posted this in March!

[ Edit: Edited on Dec 29, 2008, at 1:22 PM by summer910 ]