SHAN XI

Shanxi
theleading coal producing province

As everyone knows, Yunnan is the most diverse province in all China. That’s because of bellowing three reasons:

1. Yunnan has the largest ethnic groups in China.

2. Yunnan has splendors of landscapes & diversity of biodiversity because of its altitude fluctuated from 76m (the border between Yunnan Province and Vietnam) to 6700m (the border between Yunnan Province and Tibet Province)

3. Yunnan neighbor with Burma, Laos and Vietnam and it is the province with the second largest neighbor countries in China.

Except Beijing, Xian, Guilin and Shanghai such kinds of normal destinations in China, if the visitors want to visit some SPECIAL places, they would probably choose Yunnan as their destination. They are expecting to see the diverse ethnic minorities custom and culture, extraordinary landscape view. But China Adventure Specialist recommend you to consider visiting Guizhou firstly but not Yunnan province if you'd like to have the special experience of ethnic group residential area. Because although Yunnan has the largest ethnic minorities groups but most of their customs are not well preserved because of the developing of economy, their ethnic feature is not so evident. Most of them do not wear traditional custom anymore except some commercial reasons, and the traditional craftsmanship are losing gradually. And the ethnic group's festivals are not as solemn as in Guizhou Province. So if you'd like to experience bright ethnic minorities culture in China, Guizhou province is our first recommendation.

For the natural landscape, Yunnan has its own advantage but not means it is unrivaled. Each province has distinctive landscape, China Adventure Specialist would recommend you the real beautiful places which worthy for visiting in Yunnan but not very commercialized. Yunnan is one of the top 5 travel destinations in Chinese people's heart, so it becomes more and more commercialized in order to meet with more tourists'needs, that's why we are committed to find the less popular but nice places for you to visit in Yunnan. 

China Adventure Specialist selects bellowing classical Yunnan tours for your reference to plan for the trip to Yunnan. We want to create the new classical but not always follow thetraditional route of Kunming – Dali – Lijiang – Shangri-la. Some of our tours includes Dali, Lijiang and Shangri-la, but except that, we would like torecommend you more wonderful places in Yunnan and you would gain a quite extraordinary experience. Specially the route to Grand Canyon of Nujiang River which is the top one recommended itinerary we do in Yunnan Province.

Why Shanxi with such lots of cultural relics?
With the great wall bordering the north, the Gobi desert tothe Northwest and its distinctive geography, Shanxi occupied a strategicposition for nearly a thousand year. Shanxi is also one of the birthplacesof China civilization. Now Shanxi is theleading coal producing province in China, so you might feel the air here is notas fresh as other provinces. But the local government spent great effort toimprove the environment and air quality in recent years. So we still stronglyrecommend Shanxi to you to know more and deeply about Chinese culture.
Shanxi Province could bedivided into 3 parts. North, Middle and South. North Shanxi is the most famoustourist part at present which famous for its magnificent Buddhist culture andarchitecture featuring Yungang Grottoes, Hanging Temple, Huayan Temple andYingxian Wooden Pagoda, middle of Shanxi is famous for its merchant culture .The Culture of Shanxi Merchants is one of the commercialcultural systems in Chinese history, the representative scenic. sites are ChangFamily Courtyard and Pingyao Ancient Town. The South Shanxi is South Shanxi iswell known for its traditional Chinese ancestral roots culture and there arealso several well-worth sites like Feihong Tower in Guangsheng Temple, HongdongCounty, and the delicate fresco in Yongle Palace, Yuncheng City.
Yungang Grottoes
Huayan Temple
Hanging Temple
Nowit’s quite convenient to travel Shanxi Province, we newly opened the bullettrain between Beijing and Datong (2 hours and 20 mins duration), Datong toTaiyuan, Datong to Pingyao, Pingyao to Yuncheng and Yuncheng to Xian, all connectedwith bullet trains. But as we do not have local English speaking guide in eachplace, most of them from capital city Taiyuan, so we suggest you to use privatecar transfer when you traveling Shanxi Province but not taking bullet train.
Suggestionsfor tailor-made your Shanxi Tour

OurTravel Consultant Janet Chan spent 8 days to explore Shanxi Province inAug,2019. Traveling from north to south part and done the inspection to somenot so famous sites but found actually Shanxi Province is a land of treasures.Bellowing are our recommended trips after on-the-spot inspection.

Shanxi Travel Tips:
Thebellowing tips might helpful for you to plan your Guizhou Trip
Best time for traveling
The Temperature
Food in Shanxi
Hotel & Restaurants
Picture Taking in nearly all thecultural relics
Best time for traveling

As the main attractions in Shanxi Province aremostly cultural relics, so anytime in the year is ok for traveling. But ShanxiProvince locate in the northern part of China, so since from the end of Nov,the temperature would go down till the end of Feb. And the weather starts toget warm after the mid of March. Jul and Aug are hottest summer time, also thepeak traveling season due to the student summer vacation, but there are not toomany tourists in the culture relics all in all as the scenic spots in ShanxiProvince is not so famous in Chinese except Yungang Grottoes and HangingTemple.

Hukou Waterfall is one of the importantnatural scenic spot in Shanxi Province which is good time for traveling only inMay to Oct. But as Jul and Aug are raining season, the scenic spot mighttentatively close to tourists if water volume is too large. And tourists couldappreciate the blossom peach flower in Apr and May.

由线图:https://echarts.apache.org/examples/zh/index.html#chart-type-bar

The Temperature

Shanxi Province has a cold and dryclimate which is typical climate in northern China. The hottest two monthsare Jul and Aug, the highest temperature is around 30-33℃ (86-91℉) except some extremely hot dayswhich is unusually happened. The southern part (Linfen, Yuncheng) are hotterthan middle and northern part.

Food in Shanxi

Shanxi Cuisine features a wide varietyof wheaten food,hence the name the “land of wheaten food.” A saying goes like this: “Shanxiproduces a hundred kinds of wheaten food, and each kind offers a hundredtastes.”So you would definitely have chance to try wheaten food cook indifferent ways when you travel in Shanxi.

Hotel & Restaurants

Nicehotels are available in Taiyuan (Capital City), Datong and Pingyao Ancient Townas these are 3 famous tourist places in Shanxi Province. Linfen and Yunchengwithout many fancy options of hotels, but you also can find moderate Chinesestandard comfortable hotels.

Picture Taking in nearly all thecultural relics

PictureTaking is forbidden in most of the heritage sites in Shanxi Province because ofbellowing reasons:

  • Culturalrelic protection specially flash is forbidden
  • Religion.As taking picture for the gods in the temple or grottoes or architecture is akind of disrespect.
  • Copyright

So please bring your camera but keep most ofthe impression in the mind.