lly01

My husband and I will be in Nanjing, China in mid-October for business (our first trip). Afterwards, we'd like to tour for maybe 6-7 days. Can someone suggest a reputable tour company (in English). It doesn't have to be a private tour.

If I can only see a couple of highlights, I was thinking the Great Wall (Beijing) and Terra Cotta Warriors (Xian)....what do you suggest?

Chinaren

Hi,
6-7 days is enough for Beijing and Xian tour.

Day 1: Nanjing fly to Xian, Belltower hotel. LaosunJia Jiaozi for dinner, Tang dynasty show or Puppet shade show at night.

Day2ian,Terra cotta, Ancient Wall, Big Pagoda with water fountain. Tang dynasty show or Puppet shade show at night.

Day3ian to Beijing, Xian: Huiming Street, Hanyang, night to visit Wangfujin street.

Day4eijing:Great Wall-Mutianyu section, Sacred road, Peking duck for dinner and Kungfu show or Peking opera at night.

Day 5: Beijing, Tian'anmen square, temple of heaven, forbidden city and summer palace.show at night.

Day6： Beijing, Hutong rickshaw or leave directly.
hotel in Beijing recommend park plaza.

There are flights between nanjing and Xian.

Wish you a nice trip.

Chinaren

Hi,
6-7 days is enough for Beijing and Xian tour.

Day 1: Nanjing fly to Xian, Belltower hotel. LaosunJia Jiaozi for dinner, Tang dynasty show or Puppet shade show at night.

Day2ian,Terra cotta, Ancient Wall, Big Pagoda with water fountain. Tang dynasty show or Puppet shade show at night.

Day3ian to Beijing, Xian: Huiming Street, Hanyang, night to visit Wangfujin street.

Day4eijing:Great Wall-Mutianyu section, Sacred road, Peking duck for dinner and Kungfu show or Peking opera at night.

Day 5: Beijing, Tian'anmen square, temple of heaven, forbidden city and summer palace.show at night.

Day6： Beijing, Hutong rickshaw or leave directly.
hotel in Beijing recommend park plaza.

There are flights between nanjing and Xian.

Wish you a nice trip.

Repute tour company in China could be Chinahighlights.com or travelchinaguide.com. Try them and see which is more professional. Both of them could arrange a China tour. Chinahighlights.com could tailor make various tours.
Depends on your choice.

PeterN_H

The poster frequently posts to praise these companies, and has failed to deny suggestions that he may have some commercial connection with them. Note the detail in the itinerary, either pasted in directly from other materials, or written by someone with too detailed a knowledge of itineraries to be a disinterested party. Caveat emptor.

You'll find detailed discussions here of why booking on-line with Chinese tour companies is a bad idea, and some criteria to use when selecting a tour company. See this recent thread, for instanc::

http://www.fodors.com/forums/threads...p;tid=35153415

Peter N-H

PeterN_H

You may prefer to take a tour regardless of the drawbacks (although probably not the tourist-trap-saturated programme suggested above), but consider that you can easily buy air tickets to Xi'an while in Nanjing (and for a great deal less than booking them in advance from overseas), arrange a one-day tour from your hotel reception while there (if you really feel you need one) but otherwise can easily reach the Terracotta Warriors by public bus and spend as long as you like there. Other main sights in Xi'an itself are easily reached on foot or by taxi.

Similarly while in Xi'an you can buy air tickets to Beijing, or an overnight train. You'll find discussions on how to reach various Great Wall sites and the cost of doing so under various threads on this site if you use the search box. There are assorted one-day tours or again ordinary public buses. The rest of Beijing is easily tackled using the metro system and taxis.

Many a guide book will tell you how to do all this for yourselves, without the overcharging, shopping stops, and false historical and cultural information that come with tours. A little reading before rushing to make a booking?

Peter N-H

lly01

Hi Everyone,
Many thanks to those who responded to this post, and for those who had provided info about guides in other posts.

My husband and I ended up waiting until we arrived in Xi'an to get a guide (Kathy) that was recommended by the Sofitel Hotel. That turned out to be a mistake, as she tried to change the agreed upon price midway through the tour. If I had it to do over again, I would get the name of a specific guide from a "Fodorite", and book the guide before I left home.

For our guide in Beijing, I followed the advice of "Fodorites" and contacted Violet (Ling Hui Lan) in advance via email. She worked out just perfectly!!...thank you for suggesting her in some of the other posts. She, along with Kong Lin (also from Fodors postings), guided us. They know all the right places, restaurants, etc. They didn't take us to the touristy places unless we wanted to go, which we appreciated. They know great vendors at the silk and pearl markets too...we requested to go to both. The markets would have been way too overwhelming for me to sort through by myself....vendor after vendor, floor after floor.

Anybody who wants Violet or Kong Lin's contact info is free to email me.

Again...THANK YOU for your suggestions!

lly01

I mentioned that you could contact me for Violet's and Kong Lin's email. I'll just list them here:

Violet:
[email protected]

Kong Lin:
[email protected]

wiselindag

I'm glad you had a good experience with Violet and Kong Lin. They are delightful people and excellent guides. Although I haven't seen them since last April, we're still in touch and I think of them often. In fact, I just mentioned the story of our visit to the Silk Market to someone during Thanksgiving Dinner. Violet, who brought us to the section of the market where we met exactly the right vendors for a good experience, laughed through our entire visit. Whenever we were together, it felt like we were hanging out with a friend.

crispylips

Just to provide some completely conflict of interest free feedback for future readers of this post, I have used TravelChinaGuide on two previous trips to China.

Both trips were booked directly with them and both trips had a number of destinations with a number of different guides. The guides did differ in quality from city to city but overall the quality of thee trips was great.