Qufu Travel Forum

I will be traveling for 2 months in china : yangshuo, yunnan, xian, pinyao,beijing, shanghai, putuoshan, hangzhou, suzhou and...
2 of teh following three : datong or chengde or qufu.
If you have been to all three and could choose only two, which ones would they be? please help!!! thank you

Hi, I've been to all places that you mentioned. If you go to Datong, you can only see the Sleeping Buddha and Nine Dragon Wall, which you can find them in Beijing. And for Qufu, it's worth to go! You can see the place of the greatest 'Guru' in this world, The Confucians. Don't forget to visit the local restaurant to try Qufu's special food. If you still have time, climb the Tai Shan! The scene is wonderful up there...

Why don't you go to all three places? Chengde is only 2-3 hours from Beijing. Datong 14 hours by train from Beijing.
But if you don't have enough time, I choose Chengde and Qufu.
Have a nice trip to China... :)

I spent two months in China last fall. One of the big issues with China is the size...with an itinerary like that you'd better be flying. You will spend vast amounts of time on the train otherwise. Also, Yunnan isn't a stop. It's a lot of stops. Lijiang, Tiger Leaping Gorge, down to Jinghong...some folks like Dali, plus Kunming and that's only the big name stuff. I'm a pretty fast-paced traveller and I'm not sure I'd attempt all those places listed without a few flights. Just a thought.

I'd cut Putuoshan.
Datong is only 6 hours from Pingyao by bus. Somebody forgot to mention that Datong has large Buddhist statues carved into caves and a temple built into the side of a cliff. You won't find that in Beijing!
Chengde is an easy 2 day trip from Beijing. Plan on 4 days in Beijing plus the Chengde excursion then continue by train to Datong.
Qufu is going to be tricky. It's a southeast trip from Beijing so you might want to consider taking the flight from Xi'an to Jinan (Shandong) and then continuing to Qufu from there.
After Qufu you can go south through Xuzhou on to Shanghai and then visit Suzhou, Tongli and Hangzhou after a couple days in the big city.
Skip Putuoshan and take the flight from Hangzhou to Kunming and do your Yunnan thing. It's possible to do Stone Forest, Dali, and Lijiang in 8 days if you follow the 3-2-3 schedule. (3 days Kunming, 2 days Dali, 3 days Lijiang)
Save Yangshuo for last and then I don't know where you plan to go home from. It's easy to hop on a cheap flight from Guilin to Hong Kong.
If you must return to Beijing then you'll need a different route: Fly to Kunming from Xi'an and then do Yangshuo followed by Shanghai area and then up to Qufu and back to Beijing.