Ideas for China (Hainan) in April

mahamageehad

Hi clever people of the travel forum!

Myself and the boyfriend have been invited to a wedding in China in April. It's too early to be booked anything yet, but as we're starting to plan I thought I'd see if you guys have any advice!

The wedding is on the first weekend of April in Sanya, Hainan. As it's pretty far to travel, we want to take 2 weeks or maybe 3 and do some travelling. I'm not sure if anyone here is familiar with the area, but I'd appreciate all advice!

We will be flying there from Frankfurt. Currently I'm not sure where we'll be flying into - could be Shanghai, Hanoi or Hong Kong depending on prices. Ideally we'd spent 5 - 7 days exploring somewhere first, then head to Hainan for 3 days for the wedding. I know that the easiest options are train or plane, but again that depends on our start location! Most likely after the wedding we will visit the couple in Shanghai for a few days and likely fly back from there.

I've never been on that side of the world, so I'd happy to take all advice from you guys! I want to get the most bang for my buck so to speak, while not been too rushed or stressed. I guess if we want to hit a few countries, do we need to worry about visas? Do we also need to worry about shots? Sorry for all the questions, I can google all the details later, for now I'm looking for personal experiences! Thanks!

dwayneshintzy

If you've not been to China before, you'll more than likely only be able to get a single-entry visa. Meaning that you won't be able to fly to China, leave, and then fly back in for the wedding (if that's what you had planned).

Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos also require visas for Irish citizens. Hong Kong, Thailand, Singapore, Philippines, South Korea and Japan don't.

mahamageehad

dwayneshintzy wrote: »

If you've not been to China before, you'll more than likely only be able to get a single-entry visa. Meaning that you won't be able to fly to China, leave, and then fly back in for the wedding (if that's what you had planned).

Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos also require visas for Irish citizens. Hong Kong, Thailand, Singapore, Philippines, South Korea and Japan don't.

Brilliant, thank you. Great information to have. I haven't been to China or Asia so it's all a bit new to me.

dwayneshintzy

Plenty to see and do in HK, and there's usually cheap(ish) return flights that can be got from Dublin. One travel possibility is a few days/week in HK, then a train to Guangzhou. You can then travel around inside China, bullet train, flights, whatever. Guilin, Yangshuo, Kunming, Lijiang, Dali are all in the west of China and are great places to visit. Alternatively you could get from Guangzhou to Beijing/Shanghai quite easily.

nailer54321

Why don't you travel to main land China first then on to hainan, I was never in hainan but I went further south to sanya, beautiful place, can get very warm there. U would suggest to travel to mainland China and make your way to hainan,, plenty of flights. Then come home from Hong Kong, this way you only need a single enter visa.

mahamageehad

@nailer54321, Isn't Sanya on Hainan? That's where the wedding is. Thanks to @dwayneshintzy I have been looking up visas and a single entry visa does sound like the best. We have to spend at least 3 days in Sanya, and I guess maybe 4 in Shanghai. Would you recommend doing some extra travel around Hainan or maybe Guangzhou (that's where the train gets in from Hainan). The boyfriend is mad to fly to Singapore first as he thinks it's the foodie capital of the world. There are so many places in SE Asia that I want to visit, I just don't want to overload this trip!

How about flying to Singapore and spending a week, maybe catch a boat to one of the surrounding islands? Then fly from Singapore to Guangzhou and spend 4 days there. Take the overnight train to Sanya. Then we've 4 days there for the wedding. That leaves us with 5 - 6 days for Shanghai. Does that sound reasonable?

Also, anyone have any advice on if we'd need vaccines for such a short trip? We do tend to go off the beaten track and eat all the local food etc. I got a Tetanus and Hep B booster before visiting the Dominican earlier this year. Other than that I have the standard vaccines.

dwayneshintzy

Food in Singapore is great, but I wouldn't say any better than Hong Kong. And as for the cities themselves, I much prefer HK. With Singapore, it's very Western and you barely feel like you're in Asia; it's very safe, and there are some great gardens, sights, etc., but it can all feel a bit sterile (similar to Dubai). If you're planning on going to Guangzhou, then HK is also a better bet as the train from Hung Hom Station in Kowloon is frequent, fast and fairly cheap.

Hong Kong has plenty to offer; food can be great (and definitely interesting), there's many great hikes and natural parks (Lion's Rock, Tai Mo Shan), the skyline view in Victoria Harbour is amazing, some class architecture, just the general vibrancy and busyness of the place.

I'd also say 4 days in Guangzhou sounds a bit much, especially if you have so many other options. There's some nice things there, but I've been a few times and found it a bit soulless (lots of convention centres). One thing I would definitely recommend when you're there is to hike up Mt. Xiqiao in Foshan (Foshan is an adjacent city connected to Guangzhou by metro). It's one of the largest Buddhist statues in the world (the statue is of the goddess Guanyin), and it's amazing;

mahamageehad

Brill, you've defo sold me on Hong Kong! The statue also looks amazing, defo adding that to my list. I'll look at reducing time in Guangzhou too. Thanks a million for all your help! Off to Amazon to buy a guidebook or two!

killbillvol2

I'd agree with the other poster that HK is a better option than Singapore. So are KL and Bangkok but you'd be better off limiting your travel to China and HK in your time frame.

Personally, I think Guangzhou is much more interesting than HK but for a first trip HK is a great introduction.

As to vaccines, Typhoid might be a good idea if you haven't got it already but otherwise you're covered.

If you've never been to that part of the world you're in for an astonishing experience. Nothing here will prepare you for it. Enjoy!

nailer54321

Sanya is much further south, would recommend a visit if you have the time.

killbillvol2

nailer54321 wrote: »

Why don't you travel to main land China first then on to hainan, I was never in hainan but I went further south to sanya, beautiful place, can get very warm there. U would suggest to travel to mainland China and make your way to hainan,, plenty of flights. Then come home from Hong Kong, this way you only need a single enter visa.

nailer54321 wrote: »

Sanya is much further south, would recommend a visit if you have the time.

Hainan is an island. Sanya is on it.

Batgurl

+1 for HK although flights from Frankfurt to Guangzhou or Shanghai are probably cheaper. If you do go for HK, a ferry trip to Macau is a must if you boyfriend is a foodie. The Asian-Portuguese food is very under-rated!

mahamageehad

Bumping this thread as I'm heading to China in 2 weeks now and I wanted to thank all the Boardsies for the advice! I took your advice and I'm starting in Hong Kong rather than Guangzhou. I've dropped Guangzhou completely and we're flying from Hong Kong to Haikou on Hainan. We'll take the train from there to Sanya for the wedding, then we're flying to Shanghai for 6 days.