NO BEACH or POOL - where to go?!

[snagito]

Hi there! My husband has developed an allergy to sun! Some sort of Vitamin D deficiency. Anyway we are looking to go on a family holiday that isn't too far from HK - say maximum 3 hours flying time - and a place that is family friendly but has no beach or pool (ie: no tropical paradise). Where would you recommend? All suggestions gratefully welcomed.

[matemate]

- Lijiang (the Banyan Tree is nice there)
- ****shuo
- Shangri-la
- Chiang Mai
- Bali/Ubud

just some ideas off the top of my head

[snagito]

Thanks so much.
How about Taiwan - has anyone been with their kids?

[solidstars]

taipei is pretty child friendly, how old are your kids? the living mall has some pretty good children grounds and for age 3 and above and 'big boss' place where they dress up to be a doctor/nurse/etc or whatnot

[snagito]

4 and 2.
The Living mall sounds great!
What are good hotels to stay in with children in Taipei?

[Shenzhennifer]

I second ****shuo and Guilin. Very beautiful.
Chiang Mai if you can wait til Oct/Nov, also totally beautiful up in the north of Thailand, though if you don`t mind rain (not torrential in the early months of the rainy season which is coming up), the lack of sun might be nice for your hubbie. Less crowds too, and cheaper.

[sherwes]

Shenzhennifer, can you please provide some more details on travelling to ****shuo with children? My husband is really keen to go but I am concerned about the kids (2.5 yrs and 12 months). I heard that the way to see the area is by bike but that's not going to work with 2 babies in tow! Can you suggest any family friendly hotels and activities?

[Shenzhennifer]

Sherwes - I`m sorry, but I didn`t actually have my baby then... I guess I should have thought about that before I posted the suggestion. However, I was about 5 months pregnant and that with a perpetually lazy husband, didn`t make us very intrepid travellers there. The only ambitious part was our hotel, which was a good 15 min walk from ****shuo town.
What we did was tour around Guilin first. It`s a small and LOVELY Chinese town - very manageable with kids because it`s like a regular town - not too big, normal streets, riverside, large parks, etc. We stayed in a hostel then, actually, so not so family-friendly, I`m afraid.
****shuo town is much smaller, older and less convenient, due to the older streets and condition, from what I remember. but it`s also really tourist friendly and very very nice. The place we stayed at was called the Li River Retreat Hotel (something like that), but like I said, It was a bit of a trek from the town. There were other more centrally located hotels. I was disappointed that we couldn`t bike around, but we just walked around the town, took a boat trip on the Li River (what everyone pretty much goes there for) and had some nice food. It`s really laid back. I`m not sure how it would go with 2 young kids - depends on how intrepid you and your hubbie are. It might be tiring, but then again, it`s only a long weekend or so, right? It`s truly a stunning place and it might also be nice for them to see something completely different from here in HK.
I think that since Guilin and ****shuo are so touristy that all kinds of travelers and budgets would be accomodated.