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 | |  |  | Tour Scams: The No. 2 Travelling Bus - Great Wall / Ming Tombs | Tip Rating:    |  |  | |  |
I had some friends coming to visit me so I thought I'd take them to the Great Wall. The No. 2 Travelling Bus also included the Ming Tombs, which my friend wanted to visit, so that was ok. So we arrived at the bus stop (near the main Beijing Railway Station) and chose the 'luxurious' bus to travel on for 50yuan round trip. At 9.30am we all chugged away on our sixteen seater minibus! All of a sudden, the tour guide switched on his microphone and shouted all of Beijing's history down it! This carried on for an hour!
We arrived at our first destination...a desolate area of land with no-one in sight. He may as well have shouted down the microphone 'WELCOME TO THE FIRST SCAM OF THIS TOUR'! Everyone paid their 45yuan entrance fee and marched in. We refused to pay as we had no idea what it was as it was behind tall locked gates! After 10mins and out of pure insanity (or because the guide told us we could not wait in the bus if we didnt enter!), we paid the 'shark' and went in. We were presented with an english speaking guide, who deserted us after a couple of mins because she didnt, as it turns out, speak ANY English at all! We were told to peer into shop fronts which werent in fact real shops anyway, just models and then hurried along to the main event!
We did eventually make it to the Wall, but only after stopping at a dried fruit wholesale store, an uninteresting part of the Ming Tombs, a highly overpriced canteen, and a jade factory four hours later!
At the first stop we went to, I really think you should stick to your guns. There is NOTHING of any value behind those tall gates, it is a complete rip-off and 'the show' was the only interesting part out of it all! Well not interesting, but different...
A show, put on by the local bandits, outcasts, and just plain weirdos from that area consisted of knife swallowing, cigarette burning on the tongue, lifting bricks up just using his ear, and producing a mini silver ball once swallowed, from any hole of the man's body..lucky for us, he chose his eyeball!REALLY disgusting! And on top of that, we were made as foreigners(not the Chinese)to make a contribution afterwards!
Take your own snack food! The canteen food looked awful and really was just leftovers from every restaurant in that neighbourhood I think! We refused to pay 20yuan to eat there, thinking we would wait for the Great Wall and buy a snack there. Remember...they want commission, so dont let them push you into anything you dont want to do. Of course, they took us to a part of the Wall that very few tourists visit, so there was only one shop selling crisps, so that was our lunch!
Well, like my friends and I, we just had to laugh about it. Not necessarily at the time, because it was one of Beijing's coldest days, and we were in pain, but afterwards over a nice hot meal, yes!
You'll have fun when you get to the Wall, and it really will make the rest of the day fade into insignificance. There are plenty of lovely photos to take at the Wall and you'll have fun running or walking around this great area of land steeped in history!
Afterall as quoted by Mao Zedong.."you are not a man unless youve climbed The Great Wall"! Leave a Comment
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