Thorn Tree travel forum

1

For going to Tibet you do need a permit. The most easy places to get the permit with no tours attached are chengdu and Xining. Its also possible from beijing. In Beijing many travelagencies has the tendency to demand a tour saying its mandatory, dont believe them and go somewhere else.
From beijing you can either fly or take the train. Some people are managing to get tickets for the Lhasa train without a permit. Otherwise contact Leos Hostel at www.leohostel.com. They can usually arrange permits and tickets.
From Chengdu its very easy to arrange permits with no hassling about tours. Sims Cozy Guesthouse offers good lodging and reliable travelagency, www.gogosc.com. You can fly in or take the train.
From Xining its 24 hours by train. www.tibetanconnections.com at Lete Youthhostel can help you.
Prices for permits varies with the city and with the agency.
Ypou can also do a search on this branch, theres about a million posts about Tibet.

2

consider this a highlights, and know that i did not include some places in between assuming that weather may be bad depending on what time you are going to be in china.

go to a chinatown and buy plane tickets to hong kong, its usually cheapest and usually you can get singapore airlines, maybe the best in the world.

note: if you like to shop alot, maybe spend your 4 days in hk at the end of your vacation

hong kong 4 days - Macau 1-2 days - guangzhou 2-3 days - overnight train to guilin - guilin 2 days - yangshuo - 5 days - guilin: fly or train to kunming - 2 days .... there is more to this province than kunming, look in guide books to see if you like anything else....
- train or plane to 1 day - chengdu 3 days (including giant buddha) - option a - 7-10 day tibet tour, option b - fly to xian 3 days - train to luoyang - luoyang 3 days bus to kaifeng - kaifeng (may have to use zhengzhou) 2-3 days... mmm food - zhengzhou transport hub to beijing, plane or train - beijing 5 days - train to nanjing 1 day - nanjing - 3 days or more - yangzhou 1 day - suzhou 4 days (see tongli and zhouzhuang) - shanghai 2 days - hangzhou 3-4 days - back to shanghai - fly back home or hk

you will want to add a week or two so you dont have to rush (ie, add a day off from travel to relax or rest)

SKIP WUXI, extremely bad pollution, everything expensive

something witty

3

afrofish,

Do you want to do the whole trip overland? or are you willing to fly?

Do you want to spend your entire gap year in Asia? or is this just a part of your trip?

"Hang your chemistry and electricity! If you want to make a pile of money, invent something that will enable those Europeans to cut each other's throats with greater facility."