Tour Scams, Beijing

Great Wall Tours and the Forbidden City can be a rip off

Unique Suggestions: Use a reputable guide or a hostel and avoid the big companies

Fun Alternatives: Hi I just recently travelled through China and obviously while in Beijing I wanted to go to places like the Great Wall and the Forbidden City. I soon found out that a lot of the tour companies seriously rip you off or give you seriously dodgy tours.

A good recommendation I have is get in touch with a guy i met whilst out there. His names Zak and he's an English guy living in Beijing, he's lived there a while so a lot of his mates are locals and tour guides, if you contact him he will put you in touch with one of the local guides as he likes to help them out.

They can give you a much better service than the big tour companies and for a lot cheaper. He put me in touch with his friend Lee who was an excellent guide and a great laugh. He also helped me save absolutely *** loads in the local Silk Market where you can get tons of top quality designer stuff by doing the bargaining for me. Believe me you can save a packet going with a local as the Chinese are hard bargainers (at the least he can tell you the price you shud pay and let you do the bargaining urself with an advantage).

Anyway Zak's a cool guy and happy to help his friends so mail him
zelmasri@yahoo.com

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!

Unique Suggestions: 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!

Fun Alternatives: 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"!

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You need to be aware of the format of all the tours that I went on throughout china. I took a trip to the Ming tombs and great wall as an independent traveller it was an excellent opportunity to mix with other travellers. I was shocked by the side excursion planned and the length of time allocated to these. We took a trip to a jade factory with a whistlestop tour of the processes and suprisingly we ended up in the shop for 45 minutes. This was replicated in chines pharmacy, with compulsory health check, and then a local art centre. The visits to both the tombs and the wall were excellent but be aware that you will spend half the trip with people trying to get money out of your wallet. We did stop for lunch which was an excellent opportunity to enjoy chinese food as it should be eaten, that is, communally.

Unique Suggestions: Be prepared. You are only going to get an hour or so at the wall and maybe a little more at the tombs. Consider negotiating a price with a local driver. You should be able to do this through your hotel. At least you are in charge of where you go and when. If this is impossible just remember to be clear about what you want to do. I found a firm no with a large smile was sufficient to give most sales people the message. Anything less definite and they will pester you for a sale and they are persistent. Remember they think that all tourists are millionaires willing to pay very large proces for things like jade and lithographs. I enjoyed my trips but was very definite in what I was willing to buy, infact, I spent a lot of time hanging about outside shops waiting for the bus driver.

Fun Alternatives: As above, if you have a small party consider hiring your own cab. Remember to negotiate the price and maybe get your hotel involved in making the arrangements. Don't get into the cab unless the price is fixed.

My husband and I were leaving the Forbidden City at closing time. We were walking along when this girl started walking beside us. She started talking to us in English. She said she was visiting from another part of China. This was her first trip to Beijing. She said she worked for a German Car Company in her home town. She asked us where we were going and we said Tianianmen Square, she said so was she. As we walked along she taught us to speak some chinese, she complimented us on our pronounciation. She then asked if we wanted to go to Walking Street,(good shopping) She said it was 10 minutes walk. My Husband agreed. It is called Qianmen Street. I think, buy looking at the map. As we approached the street , I said to my Husband," Do you feel safe?" He said "Yes". Soon as we got into the street, she raced into this tea house and straight up the stairs, saying she wanted to see a tea ceremony, so we followed. My Husband stayed down stairs and then came up after a few minutes, then joined in the tea ceremony. We didn't think to ask the price as it was only a cup of tea. Eventually the bill came. What a shock! I showed it to my husband. He nearly had a fit. He stood up, he said to the girl "Do you work here?" she acted all innocent. We returned the tea we were going to buy. My Husband being the nice guy he is, paid the complete bill including the girl's bill. We were going out that night and were pushed for time so we made a quick retreat to a taxi. The con girl helped us get a taxi . My husband wasn't convinced that the girl had been in on the scam until I searched the web.***** Photo included of the two girls.

Unique Suggestions: Make sure you ask the price of everything........Don't believe anything. When we questioned the price, the girl doing the ceremony bought out a price list that said the goverment made them charge this amount.

Fun Alternatives: Just do your own thing, don't talk to strangers. They only want something.

"Don't worry! There will be sufficient time for you to shop for merchandise at the conclusion of our brief stop here at the factory..."
Sound familiar? If you thought you were going straight to the Badaling Great Wall on an organized tour then you probably lost an hour of hiking when the bus suddenly stops at a cloisonne factory and holds you and your group hostage inside for much longer than the half hour your Chinese tour guide announced.

Unique Suggestions: At least appreciate the work that goes into the details of that cheap pen set that you feel pressured to purchase.

Fun Alternatives: Instead of going on a group tour of Beijing why not see the sights on your own? If you are still interested in cloisonne factories and have extra time then they'll always welcome you even if you're not in one of the tour groups. Most organized tours of Badaling include stops at handicraft shops, so it's better to see the Great Wall elsewhere by yourself or arrange your own private transportation.

We met a very polite young woman who said that she was studying English at college and could she speak to us to see if we understood her so that she could find out how good her English was on the street. We found this innocent enough and said yes. Anyway she was a really pleasant woman and her uncle (who didn't speak English) offered through her because of our kindness towards them, to guide us through the old city (where we were heading next anyway) and we agreed.

It was really interesting and he, through his niece, explained all the different remedies they used in everyday life and we spent a good hour talking with them and generally having a good time. After this experience, they had obviously got our confidence and when we were asked if we would like to see a traditional “Tea Ceremony” we jumped at the chance and were taken to a ceremonial tea house.

We entered the building, and we were shown upstairs into a private room with all the ceremonial tea equipment already laid out. We were then introduced to a young girl (who spoke no English) who once again through our young Chinese interpreter, went through the ritual of the tea ceremony.

To cut a long story short we had the tea ceremony and our young translator friend said that she would like to purchase some of the tea for her mother from Shanghai. So she ordered some tea and we asked for the bill through our interpreter. The young girl came back with a bill for 4,860YNB, with the exchange rate at 13.50RNB to the £1 the total cost for our simple tea ceremony was £360.00. We thought they had made a mistake and asked them to check, they replied that we were in an official government tea ceremony building with officials participating and that it was only open on special days of the week for the special ceremonies.

We told them quite plainly that we didn’t have that kind of money and couldn’t pay it, we made the best out of a terrible situation gave then 1,000RNB (£74.00) and left immediately.

Unique Suggestions: ADVICE TO TRAVELLER’S

Before entering into any ceremony please ask the cost 1st, this is the basic mistake we made, and we have heard of others falling for this as well. Once you have a price stick to it unless you feel that an extra gratuity should be paid because of the standard or time and effort put in etc. China is a fantastic place to visit, and this was the only stumbling block we came across, so don’t be put off, just be careful.

despite having discussed with the tour company that we didn't want any extra expenses on the trip, they sprung unto us suggestions on several new itenarys... such as visiting the temple of the bells, and the panda zoo.. in the end, it wasn't worth the extra dough... very highly overrated... only check it out if you're intrested in seeing panda's a half a mile away, and lying on its stomach..

Unique Suggestions: at least be prepared to be bored out of your life.

Fun Alternatives: hmmm.... do something illogical i guess? there really isn't an alternative unless you talk to your tour guide which can be a prob. if you dont speak the national language of china...

We booked onto two separate day tours and both trips made stops at ‘special places’ for us; a pearl factory, jade factory, Chinese medicine academy, friendship store and a tea house ceremony. In the Chinese medicine academy, one tourist was diagnosed with an overheating liver and the ‘doctor’ prescribed some herbal tablets. The tourist said he had a doctor friend who was interested in Chinese medicine back home and could they write the details down so he could take advice but the academy ‘doctor’ was having none if it - the medicine was so special it was only available that day and from their clinic!! Strangely enough, no one examined (and it was optional) was given a clean bill of health that day. These stops do get a bit tiresome, especially when you are keen to get to your destination but just politely make it clear you are not interested and the staff will leave you alone - just don’t show interest out of politeness or before you know it you will be purchasing something unwanted and overpriced.

Unique Suggestions: Organised tours are a good introduction to the sights, especially to non-Chinese speakers so dont be put off by these stops. Keep a sense of humour and just remember although they want to sell you something you dont have to buy.