Our trip begins with a flight from Chicago to Ho Chi Minh City, VN. We left mid Sept. came back first week of Oct. and only paid $1010 (visa is extra: I had gotten my 3 years visa to VN for $150 last year or so that means I can come in and out of VN as much as I'd like for 3 years... which is PERFECT since I always book my tours to other countries from VN so I have no problem going in and out of the countries during my vacations) for each of our ticket and that's a round trip and yes that's pretty cheap, some of our friends looked into flying out in Nov. and Dec. and prices are around $1700 or $1800 per round-trip tickets.
So once got to VN I booked my 7 days China tour through Viet Travel.
http://www.vietravel-vn.com/vn.aspx (their website is in Vietnamese but you can either use google to translate them but I don't recommended since most of tours are missing once it gets translated, or you can click on the England flag and it should take you to an English page... but I still have problems trying to find English info on my China tours... so I think it's best just email them!) We booked them last year for our Thailand trip and was very pleased with their services so we are now returning customers!
Price listed online for the tours comes out to about $800 person but with taxes, fees, and China's visa we end up paying $2300 for both of us.
With that price it's pretty much like an all inclusive deals, round trip airfares to and from VN, 3-4 stars hotels stays for all the nights there, transportation to all the different cities and tour sites, almost all meals are covered usually with continental breakfasts, lunches and dinners are often at restaurants, and of course entrance fees for all the places we tours. And usually there's a tour guide that come along with you for the duration of the tour, and then another tour guide at the city you visit... they might be the same person or different depending on how far your trip stretch. Oh and another thing, we are responsible for the local tour guide and bus driver tips, as for our trip to China it's a set 20 Chinese Yuan per day so since paid as a couple we paid a total of 140 Chinese Yuan for a 7 days trip which is about $24. Which is not bad ... and they split with each other. As for the original tour guide it's an extra $20 from the both of us. They don't require it but it's kind of obvious. So there... don't be surprise when they ask for it! =0) But overall I THINK IT'S WORTH EVERY PENNY!
The cities we covered during our trip is Beijing, Shanghai, Suzhou, and Hangzhou.
