Chinese Adventure

Arrive at the airport in Beijing, where you will be met by your Chinese guide who will help you transfer to your western-style hotel, where you will stay for the next four nights. D International Hotel (4-star)

NOTE: If you are participating in the Tibet pre-tour Program, arrive in time to join the group arriving from the United States for dinner.

After a buffet breakfast at your hotel (Western and Chinese choices), begin your exploration of Beijing with a delightful excursion to the famous Summer Palace (Yihe Yuan), one of China's four most beautiful garden complexes.

NOTE: A Chinese garden is properly composed of buildings, rocks, water and plant materials, designed to complement each other, rather than the western sense of a garden being primarily or exclusively live plant materials.

Here, at the Summer Palace, cruise across Kunming Lake to see the 17-arch bridge, The Marble Boat, built by the infamous Empress Cixi with money intended for the royal navy.  Enjoy a guided visit to some of the many elaborate ceremonial halls, pavilions, gardens and the 700-meter Long Corridor, decorated with thousands of paintings.  Learn the history of this site, along with the imperial family intrigue associated with it.  After lunch, visit one of the architectural wonders of the world, the colorful Temple of Heaven (Tiantan), meticulously built without any nails.  Climb the steps to the Altar of Heaven and visit the other related buildings in the complex. Enjoy the surrounding park and try the Echo Wall and the Triple Echo Stones.  Learn about the royal traditions carried out here for centuries.  Return to your hotel for a rest before dinner in a local restaurant.  B/L/D International Hotel (4-star)

After breakfast, board your bus for an excursion to the northwest of Beijing to visit The Great Wall, the only manmade structure that can be seen from outer space.  Learn about its construction, begun in the 7th c. B.C., and its extensive history.  After lunch at Badaling, return to Beijing, stopping en route to visit the "spirit walk" or Ming Alley of Animals (see note).  Stop at a cloisonne workshop, where you will be able to watch the talented workers create beautiful objects. After an early dinner, visit an old Teahouse for traditional Chinese entertainment, once performed outdoors in the market places.  Enjoy tea and typical Chinese snacks.  B/L/D International Hotel (4-star).

Depart for Beijing airport and your flight to Zhengzhou, the closest airport to the famous, fascinating archaeological site of Luoyang. 

NOTE: Along with nearby Xian (which you will visit a few days from now), this region was once the capital of the vast country of China, dominating the military, economic and cultural affairs of all of Asia for more than 2000 years (from the 11^th century B.C. until the 10^th century AD). Additionally, this fertile area of the middle Yellow River (Huang He) region, known as the Wei Valley, is recognized as the cradle of early Chinese civilization, long the crossroads between Western and Eastern China.  Since the Han Dynasty (25 - 220 A.D.), this has also been an educational center, drawing scholars and intellectuals from all over China; paper and the early compass were invented and great astronomical discoveries have been made here. Buddhism was first introduced to China here almost 2000 years ago and there were once more than 1000 temples in the town of Luoyang!

En route from the airport to Luoyang, stop for lunch in Shaolin. After lunch, visit renowned Shaolin Monastery/Temple, home of China's martial arts tradition and its most important school, where you will watch a demonstration of wushu (traditional martial arts).  Continue on towards Luoyang, making one more interesting stop at White Horse Temple (Bai Ma Si), site of the first Buddhist Temples built in China almost 2000 years ago.  Here you will visit four beautiful temple halls plus a stairway that leads up to the Cool Terrace, a cobbled courtyard and a lotus pond.  In the first temple, you will see the Maitreya Buddha; in the second, a magnificent gilded Sakyamuni Buddha and a Guanyin Buddha; in the third, 18 lohans or disciples of Buddha; and in the last, the meeting room of the monks.  Arrive at your lovely hotel in Luoyang. Check into your room and unpack before dinner at the hotel.  In the evening, enjoy a stroll through a nearby night market, filled with local people selling wares which may vary from farm produce to delicate, carved jade or wooden figures, antique and reproduction artifacts and much more that will delight your imagination.  B/L/D  Jin An Peony Hotel (4-star)

After breakfast, depart for a drive through the surrounding countryside to 7,000-year-old Banpo Neolithic Village, with amazingly complete remains uncovered during an archeological excavation in the area.  See a great many ceramics, dwellings, gravesites and other artifacts in the village and adjoining museum, and learn about the highly advanced civilization that existed here.  Continue on through this amazing valley to the great Terracotta Army of life-sized soldiers, each unique and thought to represent a real soldier in the emperor's army. 

You will see hundreds of the estimated 8,000+ figures, along with lifesize figures of horses and chariots, buried in the tomb of the first Qin emperor who ruled China from 221 to 209 B.C. There are three "pits" which have been excavated and placed on view to the public, along with a small museum that includes two wonderful bronze chariots that were found at the site.  A local expert will give you an explanation of the history of the area, other tombs nearby, and further archaeological discoveries in the region. Lunch en route.  Upon your return to Xian, visit the Xian Foreign Language University where many Chinese students of English will be interested in talking with you and practicing their English language skills with you.  There will be a demonstration of the making of jiaozi (dumplings) and an opportunity for you to try your hand at this traditional skill, before dinner with some students in the University dining room.  Return to your hotel in Xian.  B/L/D Xian Ana Castle Hotel (4-star)

After breakfast, board a boat for the trip of a lifetime, a cruise down the exquisitely beautiful Li River.  Considered one of the world's great travel experiences, you will float down the placid river, passing uniquely eroded limestone hills, peasants and their thatched roof huts, water buffalo wallowing in the shallows and fisherman poling their flat-bottomed boats while their cormorants sit patiently on the bow.  After some free time to stroll through Yangshuo Market, near the dock where you disembark from the river cruise, return to Guilin by bus, passing rice paddies, fishponds, tranquil farms and lovely views of the mountains rising out of the mist.  B/L/D  Royal Garden Hotel (4-star)

This morning board a plane at Guilin's lovely new airport for your flight to Shanghai, China's most cosmopolitan city, where you will board a private bus which will take you on to Suzhou. Called "the Venice of the East," Suzhou is laced with intertwining canals that pass through the old neighborhoods and under the picturesque high-arched "moon bridges" so often seen in Chinese paintings.  Check into your hotel, then enjoy guided tours of two of the four most famous gardens in China - The Lingering Garden (Liu yuan), an enchanting series of charming garden pavilions, courtyards, ponds, rocky promontories, plants and trees (and featuring some of the famous Lake Taihu rocks) and The Humble Administrator's Garden, so called because a disgraced 16th c. bureaucrat retired here and devoted the rest of his life to designing and building the most beautiful garden he could imagine.  This is a different style of garden than the others you will have seen, since it has more open spaces, more water, islands, bridges and much effort has been made to recreate the scenery of southern China.  Each turn in the path offers a delightful new view. Dinner in a local restaurant.  B/L/D Bamboo Grove Hotel (4-star)

NOTE: A "Chinese garden" is seen as a rather grander construction than we might imagine, as it should have four main elements: interesting rocks, water, beautiful buildings and of course, plants. Garden planning is a centuries-old skill expected of philosophers and those of great intellectual prowess, who design their gardens with many layers of meaning and symbolism built into the lovely combination of the four essential elements.