I would like to explore this part of Guangdong in late November. Am particularly interested in the cuisine and the historical sights. Will be flying there from Guangzhou and doing this trip solo. Can speak Chinese, but not the local dialects. Have 4 or 5 days to spend and was wondering how best to divide my time between Shantou and Chaozhou.
Which place is more interesting? It will be my first time in that part of the province, though I'm an experienced China traveler. Anyone been to both Shantou and Chaozhou? Which place did you like better? We have visited Shantou , sorry to say it wasn't much to us, and will not return. To us it is a big Chinese city without much attractiveness or beauty, drivers honk constantly, big wide long boulevards with few people.
Girls in night market were pretty, tiny and friendly. Young lady in front of us at airport taxi line got into taxi, said Chaozhou , taxi took off, from that, my guess it is not far, just a region in Shantou, where many overseas Chinese came from. We stayed at Meritus Hotel, which should be the best in Shantou , on Executive Club level, we were the only guests on this level. At night, there are many prostitutes in the lobby, elevator lobby and inside elevator soliciting business, very aggressive, annoying, wouldn't leave me alone.
We asked many people and in the hotel, is there some places for us to go tour around? It is a big ugly mall with a big Walmart with a lot of ugly people and very few but awful restaurants. In some hotels we were at, restaurants seem always empty, even most basic Chaozhou foods were terrible, service was just as bad to match. Hard to get a taxi, roads were empty, did not see more than 10 cars from airport to hotel at midday weekday, driver drove like crazy, constantly honking at nothing, but it was automatically by the meter.
They have very long blocks with no break and no crosswalk, we searched and found night market which is in older part of town, but failed to find anything with character. We tried but failed. I always have a feeling, we just missed the whole best part of the city. Shantou doesn't sound very encouraging. I've read that lots of Overseas Chinese go there and to nearby Chaozhou to look for roots. Will report back after I check it out.
