14 Day Terracotta Warriors Itinerary – Shanghai, Xi’an, Luoyang, and more

Luoyang Guide

Name:  Lisa

E-mail:  [email protected]

Price:  3600 RMB total

• Guide 400 RMB x 3 days = 1200 RMB
• Van 2200 RMB
• Accommodation for driver and guide for one night 150 RMB x 2 persons = 300 RMB
• 100 RMB discount (she would not negotiate any lower)

TripAdvisor forum thread:  Lisa, An Excellent Tour Guide for Luoyang and Shaolin (I’ll be honest I looked pretty hard to find alternatives but Lisa’s really done an excellent job at being pretty much the only player in town.  Did she wipe out the competition some how? :O)

Pre-trip feedback:  Compared to Michael, Lisa was a little slower to respond and not as easy to communicate with.  We were also a bit puzzled by the need to pay for both a guide and a van but after doing some research it looks like that’s how most guides are in Luoyang.  Guides just do the talking but not the driving.  Strange that it varies so much from city to city.  In the end, we were able to negotiate something that worked for us but as you can see her prices are a lot higher than Michael in Xi’an.

Post-trip feedback:  As our first guide of the trip, I thought Lisa was pretty good throughout the trip.  She was quite knowledgeable about everywhere we went to and was incredibly accommodating in terms of our (really my) pace and what we wanted to see.  Typically before getting to each place she’d give us a detailed rundown of the history of the location and from there she’d answer any questions that we had.

Driver wise, he was quiet throughout but he efficiently got us from place to place, dropping us as close to the entrance as possible and picking us up on time.  One of the nice things was that our van was stocked with water although they had this strange tasting soda water that I just couldn’t get used to.  There was also never any expectation to pay for dinner as it felt like they much preferred eating on their own but we did end up treating them to a few meals.

Now where Lisa could’ve improved I thought was that often times while at a certain site, she wasn’t that great with being proactive about continuing the conversation about where we were at and diving a little deeper.  There was less from Lisa in terms of anecdotes and I even caught her a few times taking photos of info plaques to presumably memorize for later.  There were also a few times where there was definitely a small gap in English.  A lot of times I’d say something and she’d just look puzzled and that resulted in my parents jumping in to translate to English.  That’s not to say her English was bad but overall her command of the language was mainly just around her talking points along the tour.

Overall, I’d definitely recommend Lisa to anyone heading down to Luoyang and is looking for a private guide.

Photos of Lisa:

Xi’an Guide

Name:  Michael Yang

E-mail:  [email protected] or [email protected]

Phone number:  13991917258

Price:  1950 RMB total

• Day 1 (Terracotta Warriors day) 450 RMB
• Day 2 (Hua Shan mountain day) 800 RMB
• Day 3 (Explore country side and Yuanjia Cun) 700 RMB

TripAdvisor forum thread:  Tour guide Michael Yang (there are more if you search)

Pre-trip feedback:  Michael’s been really easy to communicate with via e-mail to coordinate everything.  His e-mails are clear.  What I love about Michael is that he understands that we don’t want to go to any tourist traps, shopping spots and how we want to eat at local authentic restaurants.  His pricing structure was also made a lot of sense for us as it seems that he is both the driver and the guide.

Post-trip feedback:  I thought Lisa was awesome until we got Michael in Xi’an.  For one, it just made that much more sense that he was driver and guide.  That meant we didn’t have to pay extra like we did in Luoyang.  Michael’s command of English was also way better.  We later found out that he actually taught English at a university in the city.  What really set Michael apart from Lisa was the fact that he was constantly aware of giving us the best experience throughout which was most prominent when we were at the Terracotta Warriors and he made sure we stayed away from the big hoards of tour groups and gave us proactive tips on not buying the warriors at the “official store”.

Comparing to Lisa, Michael was just a lot better at thoroughly explaining everything to us and in English all the way through.  I loved how he’d throw in anecdotes and fun stories in there too that really provided us better context of what we were seeing and experiencing.  Overall he just seemed that much more confident and knowledgable about EVERYTHING.

His style was definitely different as well.  Where Lisa was very laid back and relaxed, Michael was much more up tempo and more regimented in terms of really guiding us through each spot of a site step by step.  While strange at first, I ended up loving the fact that he’d always go “Hey William! Come over here.” and pull us aside to a specific area to give us an explanation and point out things that we’d never even notice.

Oh yeah and his car was stocked with regular water.  That was incredibly helpful because we could just drink from his stash and even after the day was over he’d give us a bunch to take back to the hotel.

There’s nothing more that I can say other than, Michael’s your guy in Xi’an.  He’s a fine gentleman and really knows how to provide quality guide service to his customers.  He books up quickly so I would recommend reaching out to him as soon as you have details locked down.

Photos of Michael:

Voice recording of Michael:  While I didn’t get to do this for Lisa, this little excerpt of his explanation inside the Terracotta Warriors museum gives you an idea of his excellent English.  (Sorry if the player widget below is a little wonky)