Safety Tips in Beijing

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One thing that disappointed me in the Forbidden City was the emptiness of most of the visited rooms.

I don't know if it is consequence of the cultural revolution, or if the furniture is hidden in the closed areas, preserved from the crowds, but the only rooms where we could observe something (from the door, never entering them!) had always so many people discussing each centimeter of door, that we could only have a glimpse of it.

Be wary. No matter what time of year you visit Beijing, like any city capital with years of history, you'll find pushy vendors. Chinese vendors are really pushy around the famous tourist sites in the city. True, they gotta make a living. But they impose it on you like no one's business! I hadn't seen it this bad since my visits to the Caribbean. If you buy one item, be expected for them to try and sell you an additional item. If you wanna bargain endlessly go ahead. It's ALWAYS best to just ignore them and don't give them eye contact. If you even look at it, immediately it shows the vendor you have interest! Just pass and if you really like something, get it. If not, ignore them and move on. At the Forbidden City, this guy selling stuff even went out of his way to nudge me. Luckily I didn't loose my cool. Try not to loose yours.

Warning: foreign currency scams take place in legitimate banks. While we were waiting to see a teller, to make a foreign exchange transaction we encountered this currency scam. A woman approaches with calculator in hand and asks what currency transaction we want. She offers a rate by indicating what she has punched into the calculator. The rate appears very favourable. An english speaking customer warned us not to deal with her. We were told that she was probably switching fake notes (hers) for legal notes (ours)
The general rule in China is don't transact with anyone that approaches you.

I was unclear as to what adaptor to take from Australia, so I took two. The one with 2 round prongs and one with 2 flat prongs. All Hotels we stayed at took the one with 2 round prongs, but not the other one. Also, at our last Hotel in Shanghai, The Metropole, it also had a power point in the room that you could plug Australian plugs straight into, without an adaptor.

So, just do your research, cover all possibilities and you will be ok. Someone here on vt will tell you exactly which adaptor to take to any country in the world!

I was quite devastated the first time I got on a pc in China to learn that they have banned Facebook!!! I dont really know why, but a quick warning - that if you are hoping to keep in contact with friends and family via Facebook while holidaying in China - IT AINT HAPPENING!!!

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Chinese traffic is more chaotic than any other country Ive been to. But the main difference we noticed was the blatent disregard for laws, stop lights and walk signs!! Just because you have a walk sign, dont take that for granted!! There will still be cars going through red lights right in front of you. There seem to be no road rules either. Traffic just weaves its way through itself, definitely no giving way to the right or left - its survival of the fittest - and its usually the biggest object that wins!!! Basically, busses and trucks have right of way, followed by large vans or cars, then smaller cars, then motorbikes, then pushbikes and then, coming last along the line is YOU ... little old pedestrian YOU!!!

Beijing taxis are very cheap, probably the easiest way to get around. They are two-toned in colour and their number plate always starts with the letter B. We did not use the subway in Beijing.

DO NOT BE ALARMED if your taxi does not have seatbelts, if the taxi driver speaks on his mobile times 10 times during your short trip, if the taxi beeps his horn every 2 seconds (that simply means "Im coming through whether you like it or not!"), if the taxi is absolutely filthy dirty, or if the taxi appears to be heading towards oncoming traffic at a high speed!!! THIS IS ALL NORMAL!!! Oh, and also do not be alarmed if your taxi driver stops, gets out of the taxi, runs over to stir his pot of soup, grabs a bag of eggs then gets back into the taxi, babbling on in chinese about what he has just done!!! This exact scenario did indeed happen to us and we were like WTF!!! Tracy started bipping his horn when he was gone - it was very funny. Oh, and lastly, Taxi drivers do NOT speak any english, or at the least, very very little, so it is imperative that you get your destination written in chinese by your Hotel staff, and also have the name of your Hotel written in chinese for your return - OR YOU WILL NOT GET BACK!

Our worst taxi ride by far was on our way to Guilin airport bound for Shanghai. Tracy was sitting in the front seat, which is not such an intelligent thing to do when you see how crazily they drive! All of a sudden the taxi driver just stops by the side of the road. He gets out and walks over to a big pot of soup, gives it a few stirs then comes back to the car. He then mutters something in Chinese to us and off he goes again. This time he is gone for a good 5 minutes. I told Tracy to beep his horn and she did! Hey, they beep their horns enough, so I figured it was ok for us to beep it! He comes back with a bag of eggs, we presumed this was morning tea! And then, we are on the road again, bound hopefully for the airport.

You see, that is the big disadvantage we have in China when not speaking or reading their language. We get into a taxi, usually with our destination written in Chinese. The driver nods his head and we just presume that he is taking us to our intended destination, when really, he could be taking us absolutely anywhere! When we were in a taxi, bound for somewhere, and we finally saw a road sign in english saying our destination was ahead, we were always like "phew - at least he is going to the right place!"

Taxi drivers never wear seat belts, nor are there seat belts in the back seats. They will always answer their mobile phones at least 10 times during a short trip. They NEVER obey road rules, actually, come to think of it, Im not entirely sure there are any road rules in China! They usually dont speak a word of english and thee taxis are usually pretty filthy dirty. Oh, one taxi driver in Shanghai spoke some english, he just kept repeating "I am a communist - long live Chairman Mao!!!" I was not about to tell him Chairman Mao was dead and the body at his Mausoleum in Beijing is just a wax statue!!! No way, I was not gonna tell him that!

ALWAYS ask your Hotel staff to give you a Hotel card with your destination written in Chinese, and always ask them for a rough idea on the cost to get where you are going, and roughly how long it will take.

Im sure many people have done warnings about Chinese toilets before, so this will be not unlike the warnings! I will say that the toilets we encountered were not quite as bad as I was expecting, although I will also say that it is an added travel problem to have your periods whilst travelling in China!!!!! (sorry guys - had to be blunt here!)

The majority of toilets we came across were squat toilets, and I guess you kinda get used to them, although I did miss a few times, and its also sometimes difficult to keep the bottom of your pants or skirt from dragging on the floor which is covered in urine!!! We did only come across a few toilets that were so putrid we had to refuse to use them.

This pic is of a typical squat toilet, this one slightly cleaner than most!

IMPORTANT INFORMATION FOR WESTERNERS - in most public toilets you will usually find one western sit-down toilet, and it will usually be marked with "disabled/wheelchair access" on the door. It was always either the first or last toilet, so remember that when you enter a toilet block, look first for the disabled toilet. Rather funnily, if there was a line-up for the toilets (and there usually was!) the Chinese ladies will usually opt NOT to use the western toilet, but to wait in fact for a chinese squat toilet to become available!!! We found this quite amusing, as we were always waiting for the sit-down toilet to be free!

Even at Hotels, they were stingy in providing toilet paper, mostly only giving us half a roll per day! And most if not all toilets provided toilet paper, so you MUST bring your own, or even better are the small tissue packs, fitting easily into handbags or bumbags.

Also something we found difficult to source was Lipton Black Tea, it took us 4 days to finally track some down! None of the Hotels we stayed at provided it free in the room, so it took us days of searching in Beijing to finally find some to buy. We bought 3 packets and kept it in our room safe, along with our toilet paper, passports and cash!!!

The other thing we found impossible to find at the shops was the liquid hand wash you use, like Dettol or other brands. I did bring 2 small bottles from home, but ran out and couldnt find it anywhere, luckily I also brought some anti-bacterial wipes from home also. So, make sure you take a huge stash of handwash stuff.

Oh, and another thing we found hard to come by (and had to steal them from shops!) was sugar for our cups of tea. We usually went to Starbucks or King Coffee (the chinese equivalent of Starbucks but cheaper) and had a cup of tea or coffee and then stole about 10 sachets of sugar each! Also, something not given in our rooms was teaspoons to stir our cuppas, so had to steal these also, from Starbucks or KFC! So, if you like a cup of tea or coffee, it might be wise to bring your own sugar, teabags, coffee and teaspoons. The milk we just bought on the street, guessing it was low fat milk and getting it right every time!