Chongqing Holidays

This Wendy Wu trip was a wonderful mix of experiencing both some of the most amazing natural scenery in the World and the hustle and bustle of Chinese city life.

Our prime reason for booking this tour was to visit places like Zhangjiajie and Jiuzhaigou and these places were indeed AMAZING! For us, however, we found that the two weeks were extremely "full-on", action packed with one visit after another after another, with very little opportunity to come up for air. We would have loved a little more down-time, with opportunities for us to opt out of some of the city visits to go and explore a little more for ourselves. For example, squeezing in visits to some of the extremely crowded places like Hongyu Dong in Chongqing after a long day was not a lot of fun.

We have come home with fantastic memories and photos, but also really exhausted, far more so than after our previous Wendy Wu "China Delights" holiday in October 2019.

The highlights:
1) EVERYTHING in Zhangjiajie, from the National Forest Park to the Glass Bridge and especially the visit to Tianmen Mountain - just breathtaking! LJ, our local guide was exemplary, guiding us as best he could through the crowds and queues around for the Qingming Festival. He was so informative, a great communicator and a real "people person", an absolute gem.
2) the visit and walk in the Black Mountain Valley was an unexpected delight. So tranquil and picturesque - a perfect day!
3) The simple breathtaking visit up to the astonishing Huanglong area, so high up in the mountains and just the most amazing sight to behold - and such a sense of achievement ascending to 3500 metres altitude!
4) The Dazu Rock Carvings were so interesting and awe-inspiring! I now need to read up on all the history and origins.
5) Inevitably, the pandas in Chengdu were just a joy to see.
6) All the meals were excellent (except the Farewell HotPot dinner in Chongqing which was arranged for 4:30 pm, far far too early to enjoy, particularly as we had tucked into a good lunch just a few hours before with no knowlege that dinner would be so early! Such a shame, as we would have loved to indulge fully in this special meal).

We also particularly enjoyed the odd occasions where we had time to go off and explore by ourselves, away from the organised schedule and experience the sights and sounds in our own time, in a more relaxed manner. These included:
- travelling on the subway over to Orange Island in Changsha, and then trying some of the street food
- our scheduled free evening in Chengdu after the panda visit, strolling along the riverside and trying food at one of the street food restaurants.
- an early morning hour's stroll around the little city park below our hotel in Chongqing, at Louis' suggestion. Such a peaceful start to the day, watching groups and individuals doing their early morning exercise, inspiring us to do some of our own stretching exercises by the lily ponds!
- The scheduled free evening stroll around Fenghuang, taking in all the beautiful illuminated sights and sounds along the river. A really vibrant and colourful scene.
- it was just great fun interacting with Chinese people, trying to talk some mandarin with them, and enjoying their requests to have photos taken with us westerners! We found them so helpful and friendly when trying to master Alipay, or buy tickets for the metro or select food in the street food restaurants.

The downsides:
We felt that the tour was just a bit too relentless, with too much being squeezed into absolutely every day. There were moments when we were too exhausted to appreciate everything. It would have been preferable to have some of the visits, particularly in the cities, as optional extras that you could either partake in or opt out of. Being jostled by crowds and crowds of people, trying to "follow the flag" and not lose the group were not our idea of fun, or time well spent. Maybe the tour could be a extended by a couple of days to allow for a bit of "recovery time" between places and activities.

Specific suggestions:
- maybe have an opportunity to see the night life of Chongqing from a river boat cruise (rather like the experience in Shanghai), rather than in the thick of the crowds?
- maybe in the Nine Villages Valley have a private shuttle bus for the Wendy Wu Group to take us from lake to lake, rather than having to join the manic jostling for a place on the shuttle buses with everyone else. This was exhausting! A private mini-bus would also give us more flexibility on timings and walks we could do between lakes?

Finally, a word for Louis, our Wendy Wu national ******. He was wonderful, quietly efficient and friendly and patient and very very knowledgeable. Our group of travelling companions were great fun. A group of strong and very individual personalities who all gelled very well together right from the start.

Thank you Wendy Wu for such a wonderful trip. Now the task of sorting through all the photos ....

Service rating : Grace was very helpful, patient and informative and a lovely lady to spend time with. She handled the whole tour very professionally and made it a lot of fun too.
Product : A very good tour visiting all the main sights you could want to see plus a few extras. Day 16/17 however could have been arranged better. instead of staying in Dali for the night and getting up at 4am the following morning, it would have been better to drive the 5 hours back to Guilin after dinner, and stay there for the night before flying to Yangshuo the following day, maybe on an earlier flight as extra time in Yangshuo would have been better than getting up so early and risking missing the flight and everyone being so tired. Or have an extra day in Dali and leave the following evening would have been far more relaxed and enjoyable. All other transfers were very smooth and well organised, although maybe we could have caught a train from Chongqing to Chengdu, as it was quite a long drive. My only other minor issue was the coach for the last six days in Hangzhou, Souzhou and Shanghai. There was not enough leg room unless you were shorter than 5 foot! Luckily the coach was not full so we could have two seats each, but we did have to sit sideways as it was not possible to put our legs in front of us, so it was quite uncomfortable.
The hotels were good quality and the beds firm but comfortable. I would like to have known they included hairdryers and kettles in every hotel, and I would have left mine at home and put in an extra pair of trousers instead.
The food was quite good, and usually plenty to go around, but it did get a little repetitive, however there were usually supermarkets close by to get extra snacks/drinks if you needed them. One evening four of us did not have dinner with the group and found a hot pot restaurant, which was a great experience. Especially as no one spoke any English, but we got by. Overall we had a fabulous holiday and met some great people from UK, Australia, New Zealand and USA. I wasn't expecting such a mix of people, but it worked out well and we have great new friends to go and visit now. Overall and excellent experience for my 50th birthday. Thanks especially to Grace and all the local guides.

Service rating : Our guide Marissa was brilliant. She was so calm,capable and caring. She sorted out any problems swiftly and she also had a great sense of humour and a good singing voice! We could not fault her. We truly felt like 'her family'.
Product : We thoroughly enjoyed the tour, we packed in so much. The experiences, the sights, sounds and smells all exceeded our expectations. The local guides enhanced the experience with their personal stories and local knowledge. Just two small negatives : On occasion we were at a loose end on 'The Yangtze River Cruise' but to be fair we were there to relax before restarting the busy schedule. On certain trips we would have preferred a packed lunch to enable us to spend more time at the site e.g. Chongqing Zoo and The Great Wall. This was truly a great tour, to be recommended.