From palaces to peaks, 10 reasons to return to China for a holiday this year

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BEIJING – China reopened its borders on Jan 8 after dismantling zero-Covid restrictions that isolated the country for three years.

 

Travellers will no longer be subject to quarantine and will need only a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test taken 48 hours pre-flight to enter China. The Embassy of the People’s Republic of China in Singapore has spelt out the requirements on its website.

 

While analysts do not expect travel to China to quickly return to pre-pandemic levels due to factors such as a dearth of international flights, leisure travel and business missions are poised to restart.

 

In this scenario, Singaporeans thinking of visiting one of the last destinations to reopen can start planning.

 

China is ranked among the world’s most diverse and extraordinary destinations.

 

Palaces and peaks, national parks and coastal forts, millennia-old canal towns and portals to the universe – the country is a very deep well of experiences for the globetrotter.

 

Here are 10 reasons to return to China in 2023.

 

1. Ancient water town, Shanghai

 

On the fringes of Shanghai is a cluster of water towns criss-crossed by canals and bridges. But you can also go to pretty Qibao, which is much nearer, just 15km south-west of Shanghai’s main tourist district of Huangpu.

 

More than 1,000 years old, the Qibao community is centred on two intersecting canals, which visitors can cross with a dozen stone bridges.

 

Although Qibao is now more touristy, it is still photogenic with laneways of weathered shophouses and arched bridges, their images reflecting off the calm surface of the canals. Take in all this beauty on a 30-minute row-boat ride along the canals for around $20.

 

2. Mountainous perfection in Sichuan

 

China’s huge number of cities steal some focus from its wilderness. On the eastern fringe of the Tibetan Plateau is a trove of peaks, forests and waterways as gorgeous as any natural landscape I have encountered.

 

Roughly the same size as Singapore, the Jiuzhaigou National Park sprawls through three linked valleys that are accented by 100-plus lakes and waterfalls. It was settled by Tibetan tribes more than two millennia ago. 

 

About 1,000 Tibetan and Qiang people still live in the nine villages within this park, sharing the terrain with more than 200 species of birds. They intrigue the steady stream of tourists who follow the wooden boardwalks that stretch more than 30km through the valley, passing its most scenic spots.

 

Despite being a remote place, it is relatively easy to access. Tourists can take a 45-minute flight from Chengdu into Jiuzhai Huanglong Airport, before catching a 90-minute bus ride to the park.

 

3. Coastal Fortress, Xiamen

 

Dozens of gigantic cannons face the South China Sea, placed there to repel the advances of British naval forces that harrassed China in the 1800s.

 

As China launched a long campaign to banish European colonial occupiers, it built what remains one of the largest coastal defensive structures in all of Asia, the Hulishan Fortress.

 

With soaring walls and turrets, this fort and its deep bunkers were the pride of the Chinese military. The fortress, long decommissioned, is now a museum. 

 

With more than 50 antiquated cannons, some as old as 600 years, the fortress remains in top condition and is open to visitors who can explore the nooks of the complex and admire the ocean views.

 

It is worth pairing your visit to the fortress with a jaunt to the nearby Xiamen Botanical Garden, an enormous hillside site filled with 6,000 plant species.

 

4. A glimpse of old China, Kunming

 

This is the China I had hoped for, but hardly expected to find in the Singapore-size metropolis of Kunming.

 

Monks kneel before an ancient Buddhist temple. Old women play mahjong beneath a 600-year-old pagoda. Children run down cobblestone streets through a neighbourhood that looks like it has not changed in centuries.

 

Chinese cities have become so modern, with historic zones bulldozed in the heady rush into the future, that it is not so easy to find authentic old neighbourhoods. 

 

That is why Guandu thrills me. Dating back more than 1,000 years, it is a slice of old China in an urban world.

 

5. On the trail of a quixotic emperor, Beijing

 

He controlled China for 45 years, harnessed the power of the sun and moon, established imperial rituals that persisted for centuries and had a chance to lead this empire to glory.

 

Instead, in the mid-1500s, Emperor Jiajing descended into something like madness. He abandoned the Forbidden City and lived as a recluse. Even as China was besieged by Japanese pirates and Mongol hordes, Jiajing stayed largely silent, communicating through his eunuchs.

 

He ignored those external threats, instead spiralling into a bizarre quest for everlasting life as he tested elixirs, one of which poisoned and killed him. 

 

Today, travellers can follow the trail of Jiajing, whose fingerprints remain all over China. These include Beijing’s spectacular Heaven, Sun, Moon and Earth temples, which he built to communicate with Taoist gods, something that became an imperial ritual.

 

6. A city of tribes, Dali

 

It is in a spectacular location, wedged between mountains and lakes on the road to Tibet. While many other Chinese cities have modernised at lightning speed, Dali remains deeply connected to its roots. This is exemplified by its Old Town, an enclave from the past with cobblestone streets lined by mansions and temples.

 

Isolated in the deep south-west of China, scenic Dali and its surrounding towns are home to more than 20 tribes or ethnic minorities.

 

Among them are the Bai people garbed in their elegant Tonghua clothing, with the women donning elaborate headdresses for special days.

 

7. The other Great Wall, Xi’an

 

Xi’an was one of the world’s biggest cities some 600 years ago. To protect this national treasure from invaders, the Chinese built one of the largest city walls known to the world.

 

Central Xi’an remains enclosed by this wall that is 14km around. It is possibly China’s best-preserved city wall and visitors are allowed to walk along the top for great views across Xi’an.

 

The city is so ancient that the wall is the most recent of several that have kept it safe over 3,000 years, during which it was the capital of China in several dynasties.

 

8. A lake that inspired Marco Polo, Hangzhou

 

Chinese travellers have always been lured by the mythical beauty of Hangzhou’s West Lake, which is flanked by hills. It is a scene depicted in art over the centuries.

 

This lake, and the lush ridges surrounding it on three sides, inspired Italian explorer Marco Polo to praise Hangzhou as a “city of heaven”. He also thought it was “beyond dispute the finest and the noblest in the world”.

 

As the warm evening light bounces off the lake’s surface and illuminated the manicured courtyard of a temple, I can imagine why Marco Polo was beguiled. Ringed by gardens, teahouses and stone-paved squares patronised by painters and dancers, West Lake has entranced people for a long time.

 

9. Porcelain Tower reborn, Nanjing

 

It has long featured on lists of the Ancient Wonders of the World, alongside Britain’s Stonehenge, Italy’s Colosseum and Turkey’s Hagia Sophia. Now, more than 150 years after it was destroyed by rebels, Nanjing’s Porcelain Pagoda has been rebuilt, and is flanked by a futuristic Buddhism Museum.

 

Standing at about 80m tall when it was built in the early 1400s, the nine-storey Porcelain Pagoda was then one of the world’s tallest structures. In 2015, a steel replica called the Porcelain Tower of Nanjing opened in the same area as the original, on the southern bank of the Yangtze River.

 

From its viewing platforms, the Yangtze and Qinhuai rivers that shaped the city’s culture and commerce can be seen. New and old neighbourhoods that convey the layered history of the city are also visible.

 

10. Portal to the universe, Beijing

 

The rulers of the Ming Dynasty installed in Beijing a cutting-edge facility to help their mighty empire decode the secrets etched in the skies.

 

The Beijing Ancient Observatory, a stone structure built 600 years ago, was fitted with scientific instruments for researchers to measure and study the observable universe.

 

Many of these old tools remain atop this building in downtown Beijing. No longer a place of academic pursuit, it is now an open-air museum of sorts.

 

I am drawn to its metallic armillary sphere, used to mimic the movements of celestial bodies around the Earth. Inside the observatory’s petite museum, there is evidence of China having studied the skies up to 5,000 years ago in the form of ceramics decorated by stars.

 

• The writer is an Australian journalist and photographer who is besotted by China, which he counts among the world’s most compelling and underplayed destinations. He is planning his 12th visit.

 

 

Source: The Straits Times © Singapore Press Holdings Limited. Reproduced with permission.

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