Survival China Travel Tips And Tricks
By: John Mckenna
These China Travel Tips will help you get around and make your
trip to China easier, so you will be able to experience the real
China with a little less stress.
China is an odd beast that needs to be respected; the major
cities, Beijing, Shanghai,
and Xian, all have their own personalities.
Some complex situations that you think would be an organizational
disaster turn out to be great and you wonder afterward what all the fuss
and worry was about. Then the simplest of tasks can turn out to be a
major calamity.
This is when you have what we call here a "China day". |
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China Travel Tips
Be Toilet Wise
Never expect a clean toilet 100% of
the time.
Be prepared; Carry some tissue.
You may have to use a squat toilet, again if you know this before hand
it is not a shock. If you dont know how to use a squat toilet, try the
following experiment at home.
While holding onto something for support with both hands, lower your
body down into a low squat position, so that the cheeks of your bottom
is almost touching your heels or the back of your calf. Now, let go with
your hands. See if you stay in this position for at least 1 minute. If
you fall backwards or you cannot get up, then a squat toilet could be a
problem for you! Practice, you will be happy you did.
If you see a clean toilet, Go
it may not come again for a while.
There are many public toilets around the cities, usually the ones you
pay for are OK, (RMB .5), the others best to stay away from if you can.
You will soon notice them as you walk around the cities.
Be warned that public areas like bus and train stations are usually
what I class as "tough toilets", however if gotta go you gotta go.
Outside of the major cities, the toilet systems are old or have very
narrow plumbing /pipes and get blocked easily. In these cases a small
basket is usually beside the toilet, this is for your used toilet paper.
One of the best China Travel toilet Tips I can give you, is use hotel
lobby toilets; these are everywhere and are always clean. Still they may
not always have toilet paper. It depends on the class of hotel that you
are using.
I do not wish to scare you. However, of all the China Travel Tips in all
the other web sites I have read, this is a topic not often mentioned,
but it is very important to us all.
So outside of the major cities conditions can be tough. But most of the
time everything will be fine, especially if you book a tour; everything
will have been checked out before hand. However even the best laid plans
can go wrong, so be prepared, the toilets in the smaller cities, towns
and villages can be scary.
China Travel Tips
The Food
The food is great and the variety is overwhelming. Most of the time
you get to choose what you eat, or you can recognize what youre eating,
however sometimes you do not get a choice. Carry a chocolate bar or
something; this will keep you going until some food that you can
recognize turns up. Drink bottled or boiled water, as the tap water is
NOT safe to drink, this is for the whole of China. Even boiled water,
while sterilised can contain a lot of minerals and iron deposits that
you probably do not want in your system. The safest bet is to drink
bottle water. Tap water in most big cities is OK for brushing teeth.
Eating habits - Most Chinese people have a great habit of being very
noisy when they eat and lunch and dinner times can be a wonderfully
noisy celebration, food tends to go in all directions, its just part of
being in China.
Hotel info
People also smoke at the table while everyone is eating, so some
restaurants get very loud and smoky.
If you get stuck what to order as most of the menus are in Chinese
just look at the table next to you and point to the dish you fancy and
ask how much it is, this system works really well and know seems to
mind.
I have a basic menu that will help you order safe food, (no Cats or
Dog) this will enable you to visit a larger selection of restaurants,
not just the tourist ones with high prices. You can carry it with you
and use it in the local restaurants where most will be able to serve
what is on it. This way you will know what you are eating.
These local places are very cheap and the food it great. Contact me if
you would like me to send it to you.
China Travel Tips Continues....... |