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Beijing Blues
Hey guys, so as you can probably figure from the title... I am not a fan of Beijing. We have come across some really lovely people (particularly at the hotel) however, the people that will forever stay in our memories from our 1 day in Beijing are ones that I would actually really rather never have met. The first was a poor dude with ugly shoes who caught us in a moment of need. We had just come out from visiting the Forbidden City which was pretty cool (although my camcorder ran out of batteries after about 2 minutes of footage in there- doh!) and were trying to make our way to the old Beijing 'People's Square' Tiananmen Square and were a little confused. Beijing is really not tourist friendly city. Not only is nothing in english anywhere... nothing is in pinyin either (roman numerals). So, unless you can read chinese characters you pretty much require a tour guide... but in our case our 'saviour' was a rickshaw driver. A rickshaw is basically a bike with a bit on the back that sits passengers. As Rich and I headed down a random street with no particular plan mr rickshaw man pulled up and asked "Tiananmen Square".... I obviously thought it was fate and after Rich confirmed the price of 30 Yuan we jumped on. The ride itself was absolutely terrifying as mr rickshaw clearly thought that he was quite capable of winning a head to head fight with a bus..... however that was not the problem- the driving part was actually hilarious. The problems started when mr rickshaw clearly got tired and stopped at a random little park. He pretended he was doing us a favour as he said we should take some pictures of some statues of some mens heads (have no idea who they are or why they are important). At first we thought that we were at the place where he was dropping us off so Rich went to pay him 30 Yuan. Mr rickshaw said no, no we carry on but once again confirmed the price of 30 Yuan (you can see where this is going!). Mr rickshaw finally dropped us off in an alleyway next to a back gate entrance to Tiananmen park. Rich went to pay and Mr rickshaw said 'no,no,no'. I, having faith in the human kind and thought that he meant that Rich may have given him too much until mr rickshaw exclaimed '300 Yuan!, I work hard!'. Rich flared and said no way as we had checked with him twice. Mr Rickshaw proceeded to get agitated and take out a little book of his prices (which he had never actually shown us when we had asked the price before). He claimed that he had given us a tour (the random heads... ) and that he had had to work hard as we were heavy. He said this whilst pointing at me at which point I decided that he wasn't getting paid at all and walked into the park. Rich decided to stay and argue and it got pretty heated as the man wouldn't let him go without paying. My heart was going so fast and I was so angry that this con artist was ruining our first day in China. Rich eventually threw a 100 Yuan note at him and left (for a 10 minute ride... put in perspective we had only paid 80 Yuan for a 45 minute taxi journey). Soooo yeah, he was an arse hole and when the first Chinese person that you really deal with is that much of an arse hole it puts a dampner on things. To top it off, it turned out that he actually hadn't dropped us off at Tiananmen Square itself and that we had actually been closer to it when he had picked us up!!!!!! We have a lot to learn!
Just to go back a little.... I have to tell you about my first experience of a chinese toilet. One word.....grim! I had put the inevitable off for as long as possible but after a few hours I really had to peee! I took a deep breath and headed into the public loos. They were busy... really busy and there was no polite queuing- there was mayhem. Women were clinging onto the cubicle doors to make sure that no-one else could jump in there before them- there was more rugby tackling from Granny's and general violence. The chinese.... women in particular have to be first at everything- everything is a fight to be number one. Me being british, was pretty rubbish at the whole pushing and shoving thing. I finally pushed through and claimed my stakes on a cubicle door... waiting for that moment when the door would open and I would have to fight 5 experienced queue jumpers to get in that door. The door finally opened just as I got distracted by some lady trying to physically force an occupied cubicle open- I had missed my chance. Very very luckily a nice lady took pity on me and got me in a cubicle... what a star! However, there was still the problem of actually using a squat toilet. There was human faeces on the outside of the squat... in less polite terms- there was s***...everywhere. I panicked... where was I supposed to put my coat and bag.... can't put it in the s***.... shiiiiit. In the end I had to just put my jacket on, keep my bag on my shoulder, pray and pee. Luckily... all went ok. The most horrible thing of all was the open bin filled with all the used toilet paper as apparently you can't flush it- I gagged.... alot, but made it out alive. Don't think I will ever get used to that. Anti-bac gel handwash is most definitly going to be my best friend here in China!
Sooooo... after only about 4 hours doing the touristy thing me and Rich were crippled by our jet legged, poor from the con artist and fed up of having to have our belongings go through security everytime we crossed a rode (have Mao to thank for that! they seem convinced someone may want to do his square harm- would never guess why! (google Mao if you don't get the sarcasm (especially you Carla lol). So, hail a taxi, give taxi driver the name of the hotel in chinese characters and sit back and relax... simple plans ay! Took us about an hour to actually find an empty cab. 2 cab drivers we parted ways with as they had wanted 150 Yuan for the same journey that he had paid 80 for that morning. Eventually Rich got a lady cab driver to do the journey for 130 (tight b******s). The lady checked the address, nodded and we got in. After and hour of driving I didn't recognise where we were, I was concerned. My concerns were justified as the driver turned around and we presume asked us how to get to our hotel (we can only guess from her hand actions). We tried to hand gesture her back that she was the cab driver and that she should know. We didn't have a clue as the only time we had driven to our hotel was at 2am in the morning in the pitch black. We continued to drive around and around with the driver stopping every so often, getting out the car and asking for directions. We would see the nice person point confidently in one direction for our driver to then get in the car and drive in the complete opposite direction. We finally got to a place that Rich and I recognised and the driver turned around and typed 180 into her calculater. We said no as we had already agreed on 130 and it wasn't our fault that she was lost. She motioned that she had driven round and round and we explained again that it wasn't our fault that she was the worlds s***tiest taxi driver. She huffed and we settled back down until she then asked yet another person for directions, ignored them and started driving in the opposite direction to which we were pretty positive our hotel was. The car stopped in traffic- we threw a 100 Yuan note at her as she had spent 2 hours with us and made a runner. Turns out our hotel was only 5 minutes walk down the road... in the opposite direction to which she was taking us. Rich was pretty made and I was a little upset that we had encountered yet another arse hole.... but on the bright side- today was certainly not boring. Not a great intro to China but at least now we are prepared for what lays ahead!
A little bit drained but excited to head down south to the much calmer, smaller province of Guizhou! Might be gone a while now- don't know yet if our apartment has internet or not!!
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