China is a very big country, and a trip there could be daunting even to the best travellers out there.
Here are simple tips you can follow to make your China trip easier.
- Chinese hotels match the beds of the rooms according to the number of people. Get the right room with the right capacity, instead of booking two rooms.
- Don’t give bigger bills than the appropriate amount of the product or service you will be paying for.
- Get the right language app, like the Pleco, which translates the message through optical character recognition. You can buy it for US$14.95.
- Buy hand made souvenirs.
- Get the Inner Mongolia Guide RMB 78 for US$12.50 and the eBook RMB 45 for US$7 for a tour guide that will lead you to better alternatives than the usual tourists destinations in China.
- Say mifan mashang, which means “rice right away’ if you want to order rice.
- Bring your own toilet paper, because restrooms in China usually don’t have toilet papers.
- Bring your favourite cereal and a box of milk if you are a picky eater to have a happy breakfast.
- Unlike what the media depicts, China is actually one of the safest places to travel in the world.
- Sometimes it is difficult to tell when is the best time to appropriately give gifts to people in rural China. A picture from a Polaroid camera is one of the most appropriate on-the-spot gifts.
- Outside areas are public places from alleys to lanes. These places usually give you the most wonderful sights.
- Chinese people talk loud, but this doesn’t mean they are angry, so relax.
- Look for high school students to help you with the translation of the various arrays of the Mandarin dialects.
- Learn the landmarks like the “ai fei’er tie ta,” “zi you nu shen xiang” and “da bao jiao.”
- Go to the backstreets and taste the noodles or the dumplings, to have a taste of authentic China.
