Tour Information
Note: The information presented here is an abbreviated version of our formal General Information for Tours to China in Winter. Its purpose is solely to give readers a sense of what might be involved if they take this tour. It should not be used as a replacement for the formal document which will be sent to all registrants, and whose contents supersedes any information contained here.
ENTERING CHINA: United States citizens need a passport valid for at least six months from date of departure and a tourist visa to enter China. Visas can be obtained at the Embassy of the People’s Republic of China or by using CIBT.
MAP AND COUNTRY INFORMATION: You can view maps of China in the University of Texas series here. You can adjust the size of the map by clicking in the lower right corner. You can review the U.S. Department of State background notes on China here.
CLIMATE: The weather in South China is typically quite sunny and dry from October to the end of January. Temperatures at Yancheng and Poyang Hu are likely to be cold, especially at night. It is likely to be slightly warmer at the sites that we will visit around Shanghai, and especially near Fuzhou. Early morning temperatures for much of the tour will normally be around 40°F, rising to a maximum of about 55 midday, and possibly as high as 62 near Fuzhou. However, it can be colder, especially in the hills near Wuyuan and near the coast at Yancheng NNR, and we should be prepared for early morning temperatures to occasionally drop into the low 20s F. It is important to remember that it can feel much colder when the wind is blowing. The humidity can be quite high, and there is a chance of early morning fog at Poyang Hu. There is also a chance of rain at some time during the tour, perhaps most likely around Poyang Hu. At about 2,400 meters (7,870 feet), Weining and Caohai is the coldest area that we’ll visit on the tour; daytime temperatures there are unlikely to rise much above freezing.
ALTITUDE: Virtually all of the tour will be spent at altitudes of less than 800 feet, and while we will be doing quite a lot of walking, especially around Poyang Hu, none will be particularly strenuous.
PACE OF TOUR AND DAILY ROUTINE: This is not a particularly strenuous tour. There is a reasonable amount of traveling, and a couple of the days are long and tiring. However, at this time of year the days are fairly short (the sun rises at about 7:00 am and sets at about 5:15 pm), and the time we can spend in the field is limited. Even so, we will leave our accommodation at about 5:45 am on a number of days, an hour or so before light, and on most days we’ll have picnic breakfasts in the field. It’s likely that we will also have a large number of picnic lunches in the field, but we will return to our accommodation for evening meals.
We try to make as many of our birding excursions as possible optional, so that if you find the pace too tiring it is possible to take some time off and relax. Essentially we aim to provide dawn-to-dusk birding for those who want it and as many opportunities as possible to opt out for those who wish to pursue other interests or simply relax.
HEALTH: At the current time no health certificates are required to enter either China or Hong Kong. The CDC recommends the following vaccines (see your doctor at least 4-6 weeks before your trip to allow time for shots to take effect): Hepatitis A or immune globulin (IG); typhoid, particularly if you are visiting developing countries in this region; and, as needed, booster doses for tetanus-diphtheria and measles. You can review the latest CDC advisories here.
Very few biting insects are active in South China in the winter, but there may be isolated concentrations of mosquitoes at one or two sites. We recommend bringing insect repellent.
Tap water is not safe in China. Bottled water and soft drinks are widely available.
ACCOMMODATION: Varied. We’ll spend the first three nights of the tour in a three-star hotel in Changle, close to birding in the Minjian Estuary. All rooms are clean and have private bathrooms with western toilets and showers. We’ll have our evening meals in the hotel restaurant. Our next hotel, again a three-star property, will be in Wuyuan; all the rooms are clean and warm, and have private bathrooms with western toilet and shower.
After Wuyuan we’ll transfer to a hotel near Poyang Hu NNR. The three-star hotel there has been recently refurbished; all the rooms are clean and warm, and each has a television and private bathroom including shower and western toilet. We’ll spend three nights here.
Moving north of Shanghai, we’ll spend a night in a comfortable four-star hotel in Nantong; this hotel, like the one we’ll use on our final night near Shanghai’s international airport, is of a high standard. After Nanton we continue north to Yancheng NNR. Here we’ll stay in the recently built reserve guesthouse; this is the lowest-standard lodging on the tour. Each of the reasonably appointed rooms has a room heater and private bath with western toilet and shower. It takes the room heaters an hour or so to bring the room up to a fairly comfortable temperature. The dining room is often cold. Note that there are only seven rooms here, and if our group is large, single accommodation may not be an option.
FOOD: Western food will be available only in our hotel in Shanghai. In the more remote areas, we will of course be eating Chinese food, which on the evidence of past visits is often excellent. Green tea and soft drinks, mineral water or beer are served with the main meals. Our ground agent will usually supply picnic breakfasts, which in the past have consisted of western cereals, milk, fruit (often bananas, oranges and apples), yoghurt, chocolate bars, instant coffee (normally with milk and sugar already included), tea, muffins, rice crackers, and biscuits. Picnic lunches are similar, often supplemented by boiled eggs, instant noodles, peanuts, or sometimes boiled potatoes. Where fresh bread is available, we will also have cheese and/or ham sandwiches.
The Chinese way of eating differs from the western way in that a selection of different dishes are shared by those sitting at the same table and chopsticks are used. Food is almost always plentiful. Outside Shanghai, few if any of the restaurants we’ll visit provide knives and fork, offering chopsticks, often disposable wooden ones, instead.
TRANSPORT: Transportation is by small bus, small boats, and three internal flights. Some of the minibus rides may last for up to six hours, but we will of course make regular stops along the way to stretch and to bird watch. While most road journeys will be made along sealed roads, in some areas the roads will be rougher. This is especially true of some of the minor roads around Wuyuan and Poyang Hu.
We will explore a variety of sites in Poyang Hu NNR by boat. Individual boat journeys might last for up to two hours; we will charter the entire boat and will normally keep it for the entire day. The flights that we will be taking on Chinese airlines are of an international standard.
SMOKING: Many Chinese men, and an increasing number of women, smoke heavily. We will not permit our drivers or locals guides to smoke in our vehicle or in close proximity to the group, but inquisitive strangers may come up to us and smoke nearby. While we can and will ask them not to smoke near us, we cannot keep them from doing so. Though we will eat most if not all of our sit-down meals in private dining rooms, very occasionally this is not possible, and we might have to eat in the common dining hall, where there might be smokers. This does not happen on every tour, but it can happen. None of the hotels that we stay in have designated non-smoking rooms, and our rooms may have been occupied by smoker. The bed linen will certainly be clean and unused, but cigarette odors in the bedrooms are fairly common. This has never proved to be a serious problem on any of our tours, but if you are hyper-sensitive to cigarette smoke it could be.
Smoking is not allowed in the vehicles or when the group is gathered for meals, checklists etc. If you are sharing a room with a non-smoker, please do not smoke in the room. If you smoke in the field, do so well away and downwind from the group. If any lodge, accommodation, or location where the group is staying or is gathered has a more restrictive smoking policy than the WINGS policy, the more restrictive policy will prevail.
GENERAL INFORMATION AND CONDITIONS OF WINGS & SUNBIRD TOURS: Please take a moment to read the WINGS General Information and Conditions. This section contains important information about how we conduct tours, e.g., what is included in the tour price, refund and cancellation policies, pace of the tours, and other information that will help you prepare for the tour.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: A more complete General Information for Tours to South China in Winter will be sent to each registrant on receipt of their booking. Final information with instructions for meeting the group, hotel addresses, etc., will be mailed about three weeks before trip departure. Other news will be communicated as necessary. If you have any questions, please contact us.
Updated: January 2010