And finally, here is the essential information and a few tips:

Visa: If you have a UK passport you will not need a visa for Hong Kong, but you will need one for mainland China.  You can get your visa up to 3 months before you travel, but are generally advised to do it only 1 month before you travel.  We found it very straightforward.  The Chinese embassy seems to have decided to put everyone through the Chinese Visa Application Service Center, (or at least I couldn’t find a way around it!)  This means that there is a surcharge but the process is a lot quicker and smoother.  A UK single entry visa is £30, plus the fee is £35.25 for a regular service - it goes up for express and postal service (yes you can download and post, but don’t forget this means posting your passport so we didn’t want to do that!) 

To apply you need your passport (with at least 6 months validity) and a colour passport photo (no smiling!) and a completed application form (download from the Chinese Visa Application Service Center.)  Go to the online appointment page choose an office in London or Manchester (you will need the passport numbers of anyone you are applying for as one person can deliver several applications) and just click through to find a good time.  I went at 9am and was out by about 9.20am.  They will look through the documents and tell you when you can pick up (I dropped off on Tuesday, they were ready on Friday.)  You pay the fees when you pick up by cash or debit card.

Adaptor: I could not get a straight answer from anyone about what adaptor to take to China, so just took a universal adaptor.  The bad news - it didn’t work.  The good news - it didn’t need to.  Every hotel (except the one in Tunxi) had cool plugs that seem to take every plug - and even if they don’t, the airports do - so you can actually recharge at the airport!

Flight time: If you can get a direct flight from London to Hong Kong it will take just under 12 hours.  Our total flight duration, with 45 minute stop was 13 hours 25 minutes, stopping in Helsinki. 

A direct flight from Beijing to London will be just over 10 hours going east, just over 11 hours going west (don’t ask me probably something to do with wind!), my flight from Beijing was 15 hours with a 3 and half hour stop in Helsinki (but I really enjoyed the spa during the stop over so can’t complain.)

Vaccinations: It really depends on where you are going in China.  Although you can use this very good website (see right) I would advise that you visit your GP surgery to make sure you are properly informed.

I had already had all of the jabs I needed; diphtheria; tetanus; hepatitis A; typhoid; but it was good to have a chat with the nurse about rabies and malaria.  If you are visiting very rural areas (not rural tourist areas) you may be advised to take special precautions for rabies.  Also you will need to refer to the current malaria map for China to see if you need to take malaria tablets during your trip.  Luckily we were only visiting very low risk areas, but were still advised to take a lot of care with our bug protection.  Please be aware that some bug spray is flammable (I had mine confiscated at Shanghai airport) so if you don’t pack carefully you could easily end up with no bug spray - and also causing an international incident if you have it in your bag when going to Tiananmen Square in Beijing!

Currency: Chinese yuan, available in the UK, and Hong Kong dollars also available in the UK.  We were also asked for US dollars from some tour guides, and we had a stop over in Helsinki, which is why I went on holiday for the first time ever with a total of 5 currencies in my purses (try to keep that straight!) 

Remember that China has a currency for which the highest denomination note is 100 yuan (about £10), and you will often be given change or even currency at the time of exchange in 10 yuan (about £1) or even 1 yuan (about 10p) notes - so you might want to take a tip from the taxi drivers who keep their money not in a wallet, but in bulldog clips.

Time zone: 7 hours ahead of London time when we travelled in September.

Drinking water: Be super careful in China.  Tap water is not safe to drink, but you can boil it for tea (it’s not salinated.)  Some hotels provide filtered water to save on plastic bottles.  Be careful when brushing your teeth to also use bottled or filtered water.

Snakes and bugs: I saw big flying bugs on the top of Huangshan that I have never seen in my life, and I don’t think that bug spray would have had any effect on them.  Try to get as much local info on bugs as you can.  Jungle Fever spray worked very well for me in Yangshuo and I didn’t get a single mosquito bite (some of this is also down to the hotels who did very well in keeping the mossies out of the rooms.)  I didn’t see any snakes but apparently they are around so be careful.  I also saw the most butterflies of my life in Yangshuo, so it is sometimes worth going to really buggy places!

Safety: The general consensus is that crime on tourists is restricted to petty theft - which was good to know being a solo female traveller!  I never felt intimidated or threatened by people; only by nature!  There are also the occasional rip offs; I’ll go into more detail in each area, most are pretty harmless and are to the tune of about 50p or at worse a couple of pounds, but be careful of anyone sending you in the wrong direction in the hope of helping another rickshaw driver pick up a fare later on.  Most of the people I met in China were honourable and honest, yes they will bargain hard and try to rip you off honestly, so I was a little disappointed with the wrong directions rip off, but I would say it really is not indicative or commonplace as far as my experience of China went (although of course generally people are more honourable when dealing with a solo female traveller.)

Credit cards: Sadly there is a lot of credit card crime originating from China, which makes many companies suspicious of any payments you make.  If you want to pay for things in advance, such as flights, you may need to call your credit card company or bank to authorise the payment.  Many companies in China prefer Paypal for deposits.  When you actually travel to China please make sure you advise your bank so that they can authorise any payments.  It’s well worth using a credit card in advance on a site such as Ctrip so that all the authorisations can go through, then if you need to book something while you are out there you shouldn’t have any problems.  I didn’t have any problems paying for hotels, spas etc. generally, but I did have my credit card refused in the hair salon at The Peninsular in Shanghai (despite the fact that I had already used it in the restaurant and bar) because they said they didn’t take UK credit cards.  If you can, try to make sure you have enough cash to cover your meal or spa, just in case.  When having massages I took the precaution of asking them to put the payment through in advance, so I could relax and enjoy my massage.

Internet keyboards: For some inexplicable reason sometimes you can be typing away and suddenly the keyboard goes Chinese again!  Ulp!  If you want to set it back then just press the Shift and Control keys together and the computer should toggle through the available options until you see English again.  This is very useful to know as sometimes the people working in internet cafes don’t know this either!