As someone whose first job out of college involved writing for a China-related website, I have a soft spot for writers interested in China. In many ways, China remains a misunderstood place, one whose complexities can only be truly understood and conveyed by those who have  been there. In that spirit, WildChina is excited to officially invite international writers, bloggers and radio / TV hosts to apply to participate in hosted press trips to China this fall.

We’re looking for unique voices that are in sync with the WildChina brand image: premium quality, attentive service and an adventurous spirit. If you produce multimedia content for a luxury adventure travel audience, all the better.

On these press trips, we invite you to experience China the way that our guests do: sipping tea with village elders or shooting hoops with local school kids on a dirt court. This fall, we’ll focus on two trips to southwest China’s Guizhou and Yunnan provinces (you may join just the Guizhou portion, just the Yunnan portion, or both):

a. The Richest Mosaic: Discovering Hidden Minorities of Guizhou (Nov. 6-9, 2010)

 We like to think of Guizhou as China’s best-kept secret. A remote province that is still relatively untouched by modern tourism, Guizhou is a must if you want to experience rich ethnic minority culture. On this trip, you’ll hike along ridges of terraced rice paddies from village to village and learn ethnic traditions and craftsmanship.

Curious what Guizhou is like? See for yourself — two of WildChina’s best guides, Billy and Xiao, are featured on our new Vimeo channel, showing what they love most about their home province.

For this press trip, WildChina will provide a car, driver and services of local, English-speaking guides; hotel accommodations; admission fees and activity expenses; meals and drinking water; opportunities to interview village heads and local craftsmen; and free time to explore and conduct interviews on your own.  Please note: you will need to arrange your own international / domestic air to the starting point (Guiyang) and from the ending point (Guiyang).

b. The Ancient Tea & Horse Caravan Road: An Expedition with Jeff Fuchs (Nov. 10-16, 2010)

Yunnan is another one of our favorites, given its stunning natural landscapes and cultural diversity. We’re particularly excited to offer a press trip for our newest journey, one that retraces part of a legendary trade route that remains little known to Western audiences. The Ancient Tea & Horse Caravan Road was a vital route along which Chinese tea was traded for Tibetan horses. On this trip, you’ll travel from Yunnan’s subtropical south in Xishuangbanna, the source of all tea, before heading north up the Road to a former trading post, Shaxi, and further north to Lijiang, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, finally ending in the mountainous Tibetan region of Shangri-La. Along the way, you’ll sample teas at their origin and study the trail’s impact on ethnic minority villagers.

What makes this trip particularly special is the access you’ll have to Jeff Fuchs, the first Westerner to have ever traveled the entire 5,000-kilometer (3,100-mile) route and author of The Ancient Tea Horse Road. Jeff’s passion for exploring off-the-beaten-path locales and local culture is right up our alley, and we’re pleased that he will lead this press trip in addition to the journeys we’re offering our guests.

For this press trip, WildChina will provide an economy-class air ticket from Xishuangbanna to Dali; a car, driver and services of Jeff Fuchs and local English-speaking guides; hotel accommodations; admission fees, activity expenses and presentations; meals and drinking water; opportunities to interview Jeff; and free time to explore and conduct interviews on your own. Please note: you will need to arrange your own international / domestic air to the starting point (Xishuangbanna) and from the ending point (Shangri-La).

For more information on either trip, see WildChina’s Press Trips page. To apply, please submit samples of your recent clips (within the past 6 months) and information about your outlet to Anita Narayan at anita.narayan@wildchina.com.

Inspired by Guizhou‘s Miao minority villages in which we recently organized homestays – more on that later – we’re pleased to introduce two of our top guides in Guizhou on WildChina’s new Vimeo channel.

See for yourself why Billy and Xiao are fantastic guides, and what they love most about their home province.

Billy:

Meet the WildChina Guides: Billy in Guizhou from WildChina Travel on Vimeo.

Xiao:

Meet the WildChina Guides: Xiao in Guizhou from WildChina Travel on Vimeo.

What do you think? Tell us on Twitter.

As China’s best luxury tour operator with a focus on customized, off-the-beaten-path tours to China, WildChina specializes in making family trips to China exciting, memorable, and hassle-free for both children and parents.

This morning at the WildChina Beijing office, we read Eva Vasquez’s excellent CNN article on luxury family travel with great interest, as this type of travel to China is increasingly common. Vasquez’s practical advice – from determining appropriate activities for your family and choosing how much to plan, to involving children in decision-making and more – helps traveling families decide how to make the most of our their experience.

Make a visit to Shaolin, Henan fun for the whole family: enjoy an afternoon kungfu demonstration together.

WildChina similarly subscribes to many of the ideas Vasquez writes of in her article. For example, for our Classic China Family Vacation: Beijing, Xi’an, Guilin & Shanghai, we make sure to choose hotels in these metropolitan cities with kid-friendly pools. Pint-sized travelers on our Cultural Family Vacation: Beijing, Henan, Xi’an, Yunnan & Shanghai can delight in hands-on activities to help them learn about traditional Chinese culture.

What are other important points to keep in mind for a luxury family trip specifically to China? Barbara Henderson, WildChina’s Director of Private Journeys, has a few key tips for successful luxury family travel in China:

1. Inquire about “wow” moments just for the kids. Rather than simply including your children on your family trip, ask for child-friendly activities to keep them entertained and engaged. Activities like kite-making, kungfu lessons and calligraphy will make China more accessible and interesting for them.

2. With young children, bring your own carseat and stroller. You can buy these in China, but they might not be up to the safety standards that you are used to. Keep your trip worry-free by bringing the products you trust.

3. Let guides know if your child is a picky eater. Some children are incredibly adventurous when it comes to Chinese (or other) food, whereas some prefer to eat macaroni and cheese exclusively. No one wants a hungry child and upset child if they refuse food at every meal, so be clear to arrange options and alternatives accordingly.

4. Educate your children on China’s culture and history. They’ll get the most out of their China trip if they have some concept of China beforehand. Read up on specific historic sites, monuments, and/or destinations you will visit, so that children can connect stories with the real thing once you arrive.

5. Want a special evening out? Arrange babysitters with your tour operator. See what your guides have to say about hired help for an evening where you are staying. Rather than just hiring someone to watch television, your tour operator might be able to find fun ways to engage your child while you enjoy a special performance or nice dinner out.

Want more tips for travel in China? Email us at info@wildchina.com, or send us a tweet @WildChina.

After Wednesday night’s festivities on the grasslands, I wasn’t sure that anything could top our bonfire / singing / storytelling experience. However, Thursday proved to be equally eye-opening, with more hands-on activities and more unique perspectives on local life.

We began the morning with a Naadam Festival demonstration by the local nomadic men, as the real games begin in mid-July. As I discussed in a previous blog post, Naadam, which literally means “games” in Mongolian, is a summertime event comprised of traditional Mongolian wrestling, archery, and horse racing.

To begin, a group of ten riders raced at lightning speed along the grasslands, displaying their incredible horsemanship skills. Later, we witnessed a Mongolian wrestling competition, in which the goal is to get an opponent’s body part (other than his feet) to touch the ground. Our guests delighted when they were handed the uniform to take part! Slowly but surely, a few pairs donned traditional garb to challenge one another to friendly matches in true Mongolian style.

Our hands-on day didn’t stop there. For lunch, we drove another 30 minutes to a smaller yurt community that was managed by a single family. There, in a larger yurt, we sat around tables learning how to make Mongolian dumplings. Helping our guests manipulate the dumpling dough to create the perfect shape was a fun challenge. While some found it to be an easier task than others, the process was enjoyed by all.

Crafting Mongolian dumplings in the sun.

The homemade lunch on which we dined from the local family was incredible. Before we even began eating, I felt so lucky that this family had invited the guides and drivers into their own dining room for this lunch. It was one thing to eat their freshly-prepared food, but another to consume it where they usually have their own meals.

As for the food itself, the freshest eggs and lamb graced our table, and made even the most standard of Chinese dishes – such as egg and tomato – that much more delicious. Potato noodles, lamb stew, lamb dumplings, bitter melon, and other local specialties graced our table that afternoon. This meal reaffirmed for me that Chinese home cooking is truly the best in China. Regional classics with a family touch, in my experience, has a taste that no restaurant can replicate.

On our second-to-last day in Inner Mongolia, as I sat with my fellow guides and drivers, I felt like a part of a Chinese family at an intimate home gathering.

Stay tuned for more of my stories from Inner Mongolia on the WildChina blog.

As night fell on the grasslands after our afternoon of yurt building, Shirley, my fellow local guides, our guides and I left our nomadic accommodations for nighttime revelry, Inner Mongolia-style.

The sun sets over the Xilamuren Grasslands before nighttime festivities begin.

In the communal area bordered by yurts, we gathered around a bonfire to watch traditional Mongolian dance and throat singing. In Mongolian tradition, throat singing, or “khoomii,” is characterized by replacing all musical instruments with vocals, so that the voice emulates the sound of such instruments. Ranging from very low notes to higher octaves, throat singing is incredibly relaxing (in my opinion). On the quiet grasslands, our small huddle of eager listeners around the singers was an intimate and unique way to listen to this seldom-heard style of music. (Beijingers, you may be familiar with throat singing after watching Beijing-based Mongolian folk band Hanggai Band perform either at Amilal or a music event around the city.)

Once the bonfire had died out and the singers retired for the night, we retreated to a large, communal yurt for an hour of storytelling. Seated on the floor, our guests listened to grand tales of Genghis Khan, the great Mongol leader, and his adventures and conquests. While Genghis Khan has his fair share of misdoings, his tales also promote universally-applicable morality and life lessons. They were greatly enjoyed by our guests.

Stories told, we gathered our belongings and returned to our respective yurts. Shirley and I discussed the following days’ plans with our local Inner Mongolian guides and chatted for a bit. Our Inner Mongolian guides were easygoing and interesting to talk to – after enjoying their company for the past few days and learning more about their lives in this northern province, I didn’t want to go to sleep! But, after half an hour, Shirley and I left their yurt, ready to prepare ourselves with numerous blankets for a cold night in the grasslands. Thursday, we knew, would be warmer.

Stay tuned for more of my stories from Inner Mongolia on the WildChina blog.

In my last post on Inner Mongolia, I discussed Shirley’s and my arrival to Inner Mongolia’s grasslands. After arriving, we took our guests to build yurts – traditional nomadic housing with a circular wooden frame and burlap/felt covering.

Yurt building, I learned last Wednesday, is easier than one might think. After all, a yurt had to be quickly constructed and disassembled according to nomads’ cattle, horses, and lambs. Mongolians had to be prepared to move at the drop of a hat if sustenance for their animals, their main source of food, was no longer available.

At around 4 pm that afternoon, Shirley and I divided our guests into three teams to build yurt frames. The first step required teams to stretch out a few latticed wooden siding, which was curved to make the circular shape of the yurt. Once these wooden frames were stretched out, a few nomads instructed our guests on how to tie these sections together. By looping thin rope from the top to the bottom of the sections, the guests ensured that the yurt frame would be sturdy. (This is important for keeping warm during the night, when temperatures drop significantly and wind chill on the grasslands increases.) After finishing this, the guests tied the door frame to the last two untied sections of the frame, completing the circular shape and entrance of the yurt.

Components of a Mongolian yurt.

A row of completed yurts in our community on the Xilamuren Grasslands.

The next section of the yurt required a lot of coordination and teamwork between the nomads and our guests. Going through the door frame, a nomad stood on a short ladder and held up a circular wooden yurt top, known as a “crown”, which would hold the support roof poles in its slots. As he held the crown, our guests took red and yellow poles, secured them in the top’s slots, and then secured them to the latticed frame.

We finished the entire frame in about 30 minutes. While nomads could easily put these up in about 10, our first try at constructing nomadic housing wasn’t bad.

Yurt building successfully finished, we retired to our nomadic housing for some rest before the night’s festivities.

Stay tuned for more of my stories from Inner Mongolia on the WildChina blog.

WildChina’s Beijing office will be closed on Monday, June 14 for China’s national Dragon Boat Festival holiday. The US office will be open as usual.

What is Dragon Boat Festival? Known in Chinese as “端午节” (Duanwu jie), the occurs to race dragon boats – a traditional teak wood boat – as well as drink traditional wine and and eat “粽子” (zongzi) rice dumplings. Many Chinese on the Mainland, as well as in Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan, engage in day-long boat races to commemorate the occasion.

(courtesy BBC / AP)

For inquiries and assistance, please call our toll-free number, 1-888-902-8808, or email info@wildchina.com.

Happy Dragon Boat Festival to our friends and fellow travelers in China, as well as to those celebrating abroad!

In my next installment of On the Road in Inner Mongolia, I am taking you through my day in Baotou and the surrounding area. As I mentioned in my last On the Road in Inner Mongolia post, Shirley and I awoke in Baotou early Tuesday morning to begin our trip after our trip on an overnight train from Beijing.

After getting off the train, we headed to a local hotel. A hot breakfast was an excellent start today after a long (though comfortable) night on the train. Fed and energetic, we went to learn traditional Mongolian dancing.

At 10 am, we watched eagerly as a group of four Mongolian women gave us and our group a personal demonstration, which entailed dividing us into four smaller groups to practice the moves shown to us. The dance sequence was characterized by slow and methodical but sharp shoulder movements, sways and leans from side to side, and delicate hand gestures. The dancers donned long blue and red dresses with silver accents, as well as elegant traditional Mongolian headpieces. While our level of Mongolian dancing proficiency was far from that of our instructors, we nevertheless enjoyed practicing and performing a small slice of Mongolian tradition.

One of our teachers shows us the proper technique for a traditional Mongolian pose.

Dancing and a homestyle Chinese lunch was proceeded by an afternoon at Kubuqi Desert (库布其沙漠), the third largest in Inner Mongolia, which is situated in the northern part of the province. After a 1.5 hour drive, we arrived at Xiang Sha Wan (响沙湾), one of the few areas of the desert that is accessible to visitors. Taking a cable car across the desert’s canyon that was formerly a river bed (it has since dried up), Shirley and I enjoyed a panoramic view of the (seemingly) endless expanse of sand.

After traversing the river bed, Shirley, our local tour guides Charity and Iris, and I took our group to ride camels. I had never ridden a camel before, and it was certainly an adrenaline rush. While the ride was bumpy at first, I eventually got used to the rhythm of the camel’s stride.

Besides the trail of us riding camels in the sand, the desert exuded an incredible sense of calm. Though we were in a tourist-friendly spot, the perspective atop a camel was one of stillness and isolation. It was a time during the trip that we could access, in some way, a sense of nomadic life in Inner Mongolia.

A full day of activity and exploration left us satisfied but tired. We retired early to bed, in anticipation of the next day’s activities.

Stay tuned for more of my stories from Inner Mongolia on the WildChina blog.

Dear readers,

Welcome to On the Road in Inner Mongolia, part of WildChina’s “On the Road” collection of blog posts. I am just back from my trip to Baotou, Hohhot, and the Xilamuren Grasslands (more on these later), and hope to give you a glimpse at how we at WildChina experience China differently in this province, as well as all over China, through the day-to-day activities on my trip. In addition to my blog posts, I will be posting multimedia updates to show you where I’ve gone and what I’ve done. Enjoy!

Now, onto my travels:

On Day 1 of my journey with my colleague and Beijing guide Shirley, we boarded an evening train at Beijing’s South Railway Station to Baotou, Inner Mongolia.

Trains in China, as I have discussed in a previous blog post, are an integral part of Chinese travel. They are cheap, convenient, far-reaching, and generators of social interaction. Our 13-hour ride was a great start to our week of travel together.

At around 8 pm, Shirley and I settled into our hard sleeper beds – thin bunks that are 6 to a section – for the evening. As the night went on, we chatted in English and Chinese about our backgrounds and our work at WildChina – she, a longtime guide, and I, the Beijing office marketing associate.

Hard sleeper living: 6 beds to a section, with a hot water jug and small table.

My one-on-one time with Shirley in the confines of the train car enabled us to build both a strong personal and guiding relationship before arriving in Inner Mongolia. As travel in China can at times be unpredictable and difficult, guide chemistry is crucial to leading a successful trip through delegation of tasks, staying flexible according to clients’ needs, and problem-solving when necessary. Shirley has worked with us for a few years now; she has great perspective on travel and a magnetic, easygoing personality. I was sure she would make a very personable co-leader.

At 6 am the next morning, Tuesday, June 7, Shirley and I woke up on the train in Baotou, ready to lead our week-long trip.

Stay tuned for more of my stories from Inner Mongolia on the WildChina blog.

In Navigating China with a Group, Part 1, I discussed how WildChina effectively leads groups of travelers through China. What are best practices for travelers in these groups? Here are pointers from WildChina’s Sherry Dou, Director of Group Journeys, on how to be a great group traveler in China:

If you lose your group in Yunnan's Yubeng Valley, wait for your guide to find you.

1. Be on time: This may seem like obvious advice, but especially in a country where timing can be a bit chaotic, being on time for group activities in China is truly important. If the group is ready to go when it needs to be, timing changes are easier to overcome.

2. Listen closely to guide briefings: Some of your guides‘ information will be exciting details on your next destination; some will be less-than-thrilling logistical nitty gritty. Regardless, be a savvy and safe traveler: your best service to yourself on a group trip will be heeding your guide’s advice.

3. Make your dietary restrictions and allergies known: China has a wide variety of delicious cuisines. Depending on where your group travels, you may have more limited access to the foods you usually eat, and local communities may not be familiar with allergies and dietary restrictions common in your home country. Make these clear to your guide early on, so that separate preparations can be made for you at group meals.

4. If you’re lost, stay put: Did you veer off from your fellow travelers in Yubeng Village on WildChina’s Heart of Shangri-La journey? Stay where you are. Your guides know the areas to which you travel inside and out, whereas you’ve just arrived. Your guide can retrace your steps and reconnect you to the group.