Guilin Warnings Or Dangers

We were offered a ride to ANY tourist spots within Guilin (half day trip) for only RMB20.

Hidden Agenda:
After the visit to the Reed Flute Cave, the sales pitch started. We were taken to gem/crystal store. Nothing fancy so we treated it as just another shopping stop.

Next a very clever scam: Temple donations.
We were driven to a temple with lots of beautiful carvings on the walls. Don't know the name, but we were greated by a lady who lead us inside. One minute into the temple, we were lead to an altar with a donation box (it was dark - only a few candles lighting up the place). We were told to bow and pray. I sensed something when I saw the donation box. I quickly told her that we have a different religion, and she apologized and then lead us out to the main door. We didn't managed to see all of the temple - I don't know how many more donation boxes are located inside.

A few questions which I will never know:
1. Why did she lead us out the moment we say we are from a different religion? I'm sure other foreigners (westerners) have been in there before.
2. What if we kept quite and didn't donate? Will we be led further or be shown the exit?

BTW, cameras are not allowed :)

Checkout the photo... You may well need to resize it!

Guilin is a dangerous place if you are a pretty young woman who likes to spend time in bars. The authorities don't tolerate this at all, and even have special places to dispose of these types of women!

Oh alright then, it's just another infamous Chinese typo, only this one makes for more amusing reading than most as it entirely changes the meaning from 'garbage can'...

Well it tickled me anyway.

I arrived early at the airport to fly to Xian, when I arrived, I tried comparing the Chinese letters on my ticket with those on the check-in board. They didn't match.

To cut a long story short, I eventually found out my flight had been cancelled, and I hadn't been told (I was travelling independently, not as part of a tour).

After about a days wait and still no flights to Xian, I had to abort and buy a new ticket to Beijing (you can't change tickets bought in the UK) - I then managed to get some flights in Beijing to Xian.

Anyway the moral is, conform your flights!!!!

When I first arrived in China, I had read that Westerners were not allowed to rent cars. I thought this may be to stop them freely going wherever they liked. However I soon realised why!

You have to drive incredibly defensively in China, the drivers are crazy. For instance, if you are driving along a main road and a dirt track joins it, if a car is coming along the dirt track, it will assume the road is clear and just pull on to it. The driver on the main road seems to be under an obligation to hoot his horn until he is sure the other driver has seen him! There are many other storied such as this, including the metal bars in taxi cabs to separate the driver from the passengers. In an accident, never mind a pasenger air bag, your head will probably be shredded by the bars!

Taxis in China are relatively cheap by Western standards, so when I arrived at the Airport, I queued for a taxi. A man came and allocated me a female taxi driver. She immediately demanded that the fare woud cost me 100 Yuan. I immediately disagreed and stated that we would use the Taxi meter.

She then got in a massive strop and demanded it was 100 yuan. I went back to the man who had words with her and said OK, meter.

The whole journey she was rude and offensive, and I was determined to pay exactly what the meter showed and no more. (I must say here I found most Chinese taxi drivers to be very good).

Anyhow, when we arrived at the hotel, I saw the meter said 91 yuan, So I handed her a 100 note as I did not havee enough change. She tried to keep it. I said no, I want change. She refused. I elant out of the cab window and called over a doorman and explained the situation to him.

He insisted that she drove off and got some change. She was furious. After a few minutes she came back (the doorman had taken her license plate number) and literally threw the change at me.I simply passed it on the the doorman, and she went nuts. Still with that level of service I am not going to tip!

If something like this happens to you, make sure you use the doormen to help you.

The Chinese tour guide warned us when we first entered Guilin about vendors who would try to extort money from you or just outright take it by luring you into a 'shop', and I believe it was true because I've seen a similar thing on someone else's China page. But anyway, from my experience, we were approached by a couple men standing outside their store, asking if we'd be interested in looking at some artwork. Told them we weren't interested, but they persisted... no, no... just have a look, please? No, really, that's ok, thank you. Actually, before that he claimed he wanted to speak some English with us, so we entertained him with that. Anyway, it ended up that as we walked off they started speaking in Chinese, most likely about us because I heard the derogratory phrase 'da bizi,' which means 'big nose,' or what they call white foreigners. Oh well, I still had my money! :)