so today me and ronda went to the disneyworld of china, chengde. chengde is about four hours north east of beijing. it's a city that qing long bombarded with temples.
basically, during his reign, qing long tried to appease all the leaders of assorted minority religions by building temples in chengde that were modeled after famous temples from their homelands. there are a lot of them. we didn't even make any pretense to try and see them all. instead we went to a handful of them.
the guide books indicate that you can easily spend an entire day vising all the temples. then, additionally, there is a gondola outside of town to go up to an impressive rock outside of town which supposedly looks like the instrument that chinese women use to beat laundry, but to a trained eye, looks much more like a giant phallus. finally, the last bit of attraction in town is the giant summer palace. (for when qing long got bored of his summer palace in beijing and _really_ wanted to escape the heat.)
so we decided to do this all in one day. we actually rented a car and got up at 5:30 am to leave town. or driver picked us up just after 6am and we headed out. we arrived around 9:30 and started cruising the temples.
once again, it was a day of a death by a thousand cuts, with way too many tickets to buy. according to our guide books, some of the temples are destroyed, so we skipped those.
the reason that i equate this place to disneyland, is not only are there a bunch of famous looking temples there, but many of them are noticeably fake. instead of actually being a Buddhist temple. it's actually a huge building with fake windows and filled in rooms. you can't enter the towers because they are filled in. and then in the inside of each is a classic chinese temple. so they only look like the temples they are modeling from a distance.
regardless, we saw about five or six of them. we were very burnt out on temples by the time we were done. the highlight was a 40m tall Buddha statue made from different types of wood with at least 40 arms. there was also a temple with all sorts of Buddhas in wonderful sexual poses. unfortunately we were unable to take pictures.
then we took a gondola ride to the giant phallus, but we discovered that you had to pay extra if you actually wanted to walk up to it and touch it. we were sick of ticket fees at this point so we decided to head back to the park.
of course once we got to the part we discovered that it was closing in less than an hour and the entry fee was twice what it said in our guide book. they wanted 90 yuen (about 11 USD.) at this point were were exhausted (since it was really extremely hot) and decided to head home.
one of the more interesting sights that we saw while walking through some poorer areas outside town between some temples was a large number of dogs in cages. i don't think that these dogs were being kept for pets. (i have had some tasty dogs in china, but i didn't have any in chengde.)
Documenting (occasionally) the ramblings and ravings of Edward Pilatowicz since May 2004
June 26, 2004
June 25, 2004
joining the masses
so today i joined another billion chinese people. i bought a bike. now instead of spending 15 minutes walking to work and 15 minutes walking to lunch, and 15 walking back, i can hop on my bike and be there in 5 minutes.
i bought a pretty cheap bike. it's a one speed. the seat was a little loose and i had to tighten it when i got to work. the brake was also a little loose and needed some adjustment. in the end, i got the bike, an extra chain lock, and three wrenches (you can never be too prepared) for 160 yeun (about 20 USD).
course the fact that it's a cheap bike shows. but it's good enough for a billion chinese people so it'll be good enough for me. (for the truly minimal amount of riding that i need it for.)
my only disappointment is that there's no chance of riding it without using your hands. when i lived in san diego, i used to bike to school and back, and after i graduated i biked to work and back. when doing this i would usually sit up strait on my bike with my hands hanging at my sides and just ride. it's a great way to ride since you're not hunched over. (not efficient though, since you've got more surface area and if i remember correctly, drag increases exponentially based of surface area at power of three... but i digress.) unfortunately the front tire on this bike isn't really strait. if you watch it you can see it moving from side to side. this kind of throws off the balance and makes hands free riding impossible.
i bought a pretty cheap bike. it's a one speed. the seat was a little loose and i had to tighten it when i got to work. the brake was also a little loose and needed some adjustment. in the end, i got the bike, an extra chain lock, and three wrenches (you can never be too prepared) for 160 yeun (about 20 USD).
course the fact that it's a cheap bike shows. but it's good enough for a billion chinese people so it'll be good enough for me. (for the truly minimal amount of riding that i need it for.)
my only disappointment is that there's no chance of riding it without using your hands. when i lived in san diego, i used to bike to school and back, and after i graduated i biked to work and back. when doing this i would usually sit up strait on my bike with my hands hanging at my sides and just ride. it's a great way to ride since you're not hunched over. (not efficient though, since you've got more surface area and if i remember correctly, drag increases exponentially based of surface area at power of three... but i digress.) unfortunately the front tire on this bike isn't really strait. if you watch it you can see it moving from side to side. this kind of throws off the balance and makes hands free riding impossible.
June 24, 2004
lost in the rain forest
at least that's what the hike we went on today felt like.
i took the day off work and me and ronda decided to get out of beijing and try a hike. ronda read about the hike in a book that anup had left in his appt (my current appt) entitled, strangely enough, "hiking around beijing."
the hike started in Jiu Feng Park. from there we were supposed to have an uphill climb for a long ways, at which point we would reach the a ridge. we were supposed to walk along the ridge for a while and then drop down on the other side and talk to a town called jian gou cun.
we arranged for a driver and left early in the morning. the starting point of the hike was a little over an hour outside of beijing and our driver supposedly knew where it was. of course he had to stop and get out to ask for directions about four or five times before we got close. once we got there we had some trouble identifying the actually beginning of the hike. finally we found a place that matched the description in our book and the ticket prices also matched, so we decided to go for it. we told our driver to meet us four hours later in Jiu Feng Park.
so we started on our hike right about the same time that the rain really started. we followed a rocky and slippery path up the mountain. we encountered a few different people on the trail (who were all walking down) and we seemed to be on the right path. at least until we got to the first temple. after that we were totally lost. and there was no one else on the trail. we walked for about three hours up the mountain. after about two and a half we were resigned to the fact that we were on the wrong trail because we couldn't see any of the landmarks that the book described and we hadn't hit any ridges.
the book was pretty poor and provided hand drawn maps with distance estimates that said "it should take you one and a half hours." we never saw the mythical fire tower and the two power towers. we also saw really lush foliage that was dripping with rain and team coming up from the rocks we were walking on, which gave the impression that we were in a rain forest.
after about three hours we reached the ridge of the small mountain we were climbing up. (based of the estimates in our book i'm guessing that we had climbed about 1000m.) we were very tired.
amazingly enough, when we reached the top we heard human voices. the first we had heard in the past two and a half hours. i have to say, coming from beijing, finding silence for that long is quite an unusual situation. we approached two gentlemen sitting on the ridge, eating and drinking tea. they didn't speak any engligh (of course) but seemed to indicate that the town we were trying to find was down the other side of the ridge.
we started waking down from the ridge and wandered into the sunlight. all the clouds were backed up on the other side of the ridge and this side was sunny and hot. after walking down a considerable ways we didn't have any sight of the town we were trying to go to and were feeling *very* lost.
we turned around and headed back up to the ridge in hopes of being able to see our destination from there. shortly before reaching the ridge we encountered an old man and his son. once again we started saying the name of the town we were trying to get to and pointing. the man realized we were talking english and turned to his son and (i imagine) told him to talk to us. of course his son (who was probably about seven) looked confused and tried using the dozen words of english that he knew to help us.
eventually we concluded that we were on the right path and had to keep going for about another hour.
so we turned around again and headed back down the ridge. after a while we started getting into areas that showed signs of habitation. gardens filled with assorted flowers and other plants in bloom. even a stray donkey standing by the road.
eventually we made it to jian gou cun and i was extremely happy to see our driver. on the ride back i fell right asleep while ronda sat terrified as our driver veered into oncoming traffic at high speeds to pass other cars and trucks.
but before falling asleep, when we were leaving the mountains, we did notice lots of areas that look like there were land slides. after a while we also noticed lots of trucks and quarries at the base of these areas. it seems like they were blowing up some of these hills to mine them for rocks. we passed what seemed to be a few quarries, brick factories, and a cement factory. i guess this is where the raw materials come from to support the insane rate of construction that i see daily in beijing.
i took the day off work and me and ronda decided to get out of beijing and try a hike. ronda read about the hike in a book that anup had left in his appt (my current appt) entitled, strangely enough, "hiking around beijing."
the hike started in Jiu Feng Park. from there we were supposed to have an uphill climb for a long ways, at which point we would reach the a ridge. we were supposed to walk along the ridge for a while and then drop down on the other side and talk to a town called jian gou cun.
we arranged for a driver and left early in the morning. the starting point of the hike was a little over an hour outside of beijing and our driver supposedly knew where it was. of course he had to stop and get out to ask for directions about four or five times before we got close. once we got there we had some trouble identifying the actually beginning of the hike. finally we found a place that matched the description in our book and the ticket prices also matched, so we decided to go for it. we told our driver to meet us four hours later in Jiu Feng Park.
so we started on our hike right about the same time that the rain really started. we followed a rocky and slippery path up the mountain. we encountered a few different people on the trail (who were all walking down) and we seemed to be on the right path. at least until we got to the first temple. after that we were totally lost. and there was no one else on the trail. we walked for about three hours up the mountain. after about two and a half we were resigned to the fact that we were on the wrong trail because we couldn't see any of the landmarks that the book described and we hadn't hit any ridges.
the book was pretty poor and provided hand drawn maps with distance estimates that said "it should take you one and a half hours." we never saw the mythical fire tower and the two power towers. we also saw really lush foliage that was dripping with rain and team coming up from the rocks we were walking on, which gave the impression that we were in a rain forest.
after about three hours we reached the ridge of the small mountain we were climbing up. (based of the estimates in our book i'm guessing that we had climbed about 1000m.) we were very tired.
amazingly enough, when we reached the top we heard human voices. the first we had heard in the past two and a half hours. i have to say, coming from beijing, finding silence for that long is quite an unusual situation. we approached two gentlemen sitting on the ridge, eating and drinking tea. they didn't speak any engligh (of course) but seemed to indicate that the town we were trying to find was down the other side of the ridge.
we started waking down from the ridge and wandered into the sunlight. all the clouds were backed up on the other side of the ridge and this side was sunny and hot. after walking down a considerable ways we didn't have any sight of the town we were trying to go to and were feeling *very* lost.
we turned around and headed back up to the ridge in hopes of being able to see our destination from there. shortly before reaching the ridge we encountered an old man and his son. once again we started saying the name of the town we were trying to get to and pointing. the man realized we were talking english and turned to his son and (i imagine) told him to talk to us. of course his son (who was probably about seven) looked confused and tried using the dozen words of english that he knew to help us.
eventually we concluded that we were on the right path and had to keep going for about another hour.
so we turned around again and headed back down the ridge. after a while we started getting into areas that showed signs of habitation. gardens filled with assorted flowers and other plants in bloom. even a stray donkey standing by the road.
eventually we made it to jian gou cun and i was extremely happy to see our driver. on the ride back i fell right asleep while ronda sat terrified as our driver veered into oncoming traffic at high speeds to pass other cars and trucks.
but before falling asleep, when we were leaving the mountains, we did notice lots of areas that look like there were land slides. after a while we also noticed lots of trucks and quarries at the base of these areas. it seems like they were blowing up some of these hills to mine them for rocks. we passed what seemed to be a few quarries, brick factories, and a cement factory. i guess this is where the raw materials come from to support the insane rate of construction that i see daily in beijing.
i'm a wanker
so today i learned that i'm a wanker.
i got an email from one of my co-workers, michael today. he let me know that i'm a wanker. apparently, his mother had discovered my web log and read some material that she shouldn't have.
i re-read through the material and i couldn't find anything objectionable, but regardless, michael didn't want his full name on my blog. (so at his request i removed his last name.)
that said, this brings up more interesting issues.
up to this point i've been including people's full names in my blog. why? my blog is for other people to read (so i don't have to tell the same stories over and over), but it's also a permanent record for myself. i'm archiving the pages and perhaps, some day when i'm senile, i'll go back to read it, and perhaps i'll even enjoy it. (since i'll be senile and i won't be able to tell the difference between good writing and bad writing because i won't remember examples of either.) i hadn't really thought much about including peoples full names, but i guess they could object. of course i don't think i'm writing anything objectionable, but apparently opinions differ.
that said, i'm not sure if i should change my current blogging habits. i find it interesting to throw this information out there and see what comes back around. anyone else got an opinion on this?
well, michael's complaint also got me interested, so i googled for his name, and low and behold, on the third page of results, there it was. highlighted on a page called "Home of the Innane." (course the title of the page was not what michael objected to. :)
i also realized that up until i set up this blog, my web pages wouldn't be indexed by google because i had set up my web server on a non-standard port to avoid unwanted inquiries. but web setting up this blog i decided it would be a good idea to start running a more standard web server.
well, i'll just have to see how this develops. i still have no idea how long this blog will live or what content will reach it in the future. it's all just a time wasting experiment.
i got an email from one of my co-workers, michael today. he let me know that i'm a wanker. apparently, his mother had discovered my web log and read some material that she shouldn't have.
i re-read through the material and i couldn't find anything objectionable, but regardless, michael didn't want his full name on my blog. (so at his request i removed his last name.)
that said, this brings up more interesting issues.
up to this point i've been including people's full names in my blog. why? my blog is for other people to read (so i don't have to tell the same stories over and over), but it's also a permanent record for myself. i'm archiving the pages and perhaps, some day when i'm senile, i'll go back to read it, and perhaps i'll even enjoy it. (since i'll be senile and i won't be able to tell the difference between good writing and bad writing because i won't remember examples of either.) i hadn't really thought much about including peoples full names, but i guess they could object. of course i don't think i'm writing anything objectionable, but apparently opinions differ.
that said, i'm not sure if i should change my current blogging habits. i find it interesting to throw this information out there and see what comes back around. anyone else got an opinion on this?
well, michael's complaint also got me interested, so i googled for his name, and low and behold, on the third page of results, there it was. highlighted on a page called "Home of the Innane." (course the title of the page was not what michael objected to. :)
i also realized that up until i set up this blog, my web pages wouldn't be indexed by google because i had set up my web server on a non-standard port to avoid unwanted inquiries. but web setting up this blog i decided it would be a good idea to start running a more standard web server.
well, i'll just have to see how this develops. i still have no idea how long this blog will live or what content will reach it in the future. it's all just a time wasting experiment.
June 22, 2004
play it again sam
so in an effort to make sure that ronda will have a good time her second time around in china, i've decided that she should repeat the past and visit the places she's already seen and not liked.
actually, this wasn't really my plan but it's what happened. since i hadn't yet seen the forbidden city (after living here for a couple months, just like any good local) ronda decided that we should see it and that she wanted to go back.
i finally, and a little reluctantly, agreed. i would probably have to see it before leaving anyway.
so we struck off to tianaman square to see mao first. this was my second attempt to see mao and it failed. first off, we didn't have any type of id on us and there were signs indicating that you had to carry id. then we also had backpacks on, and there are no bags allowed. we saw someone else try to go in and the guards indicated that they should leave their back pack on the ground near the entrance, where i'm sure it would be waiting for them when they got out. they intelligently declined the offer.
as it turns out, weeks later, i learned from someone over some drinks that there is a large bag check across the street, and these days no one really check for id.
regardless, we felt thwarted and decided to stumble on past mao to see the forbidden city.
the forbidden city was pretty impressive. you don't actually get a feeling for the size of it till you leave it and climb the hill in Jiangshan Park just north of it and look back at it from there. (which we did after we left.)
the entrance area consisted of extremely large plazas where an emperor could inspect his armies. moving back it got more interesting as we entered the living quarters, which housed different museums, exhibits, and a starbucks. the starbucks was the latest addition to the summer palace since ronda was there last so she was pretty anxious to see it... and she wasn't disappointed. to add the the western aspect of the palace, many of the signs describing things has a tag line at the bottom: "Made possible by American Express." i had no idea that american express was around back in the days this was built.
we wandered around the palace, sitting down in different areas, and reading different storied from our respective tour guides. (lonly planet and the rough guide.) in the end we didn't spend nearly enough time there to do the place justice and we missed many a museum inside. but to do so you'd really have to dedicate much more time than we were willing to.
one of my favorite areas was a small are surrounding a temple in the center back. it was filling with interesting shaped rocks, old contortionist trees, and a tiny temple at the top of a bunch of rocks which made me immediately thing of "the old thunder mountain railroad" at disney land.
this small area was at the norther most end of the forbidden city and after we walked around it, we left and went to Jiangshan Park park. after wandering around there we went west to beihai park to wander around and see the white pagoda.
visiting the white pagoda was the standard chinese park/temple/exhibit experience of "death by a thousand cuts". what i mean by this is that a lot of paper changes hands before you reach the pagoda. first you need to buy a ticket to get in to the park. then you need to but a ticket to get into the temple around the pagoda, then you need to by a ticket to walk up the stairs to take you to the base of the pagoda. oh wait, you want to go into the bell tower now? that'll be another ticket.
i have found this type of experience to be the pretty standard fare for visiting anywhere in china. if they can quarantine off any area and have a reason to believe that people might pay for admission they will. even if you thought you already did pay for admission. perhaps they are trying to discourage people from actually getting all the way to their desired site so they will buy the postcards?
once we reached the pagoda, we were considering vising the north side of the park but there was thunder rolling in the distance and rain was threatening so we decided to call it at day. we grabbed a taxi to head home, and we stopped by South Beauty (another favorite restaurant of mine) to make a reservation for dinner for ourselves and a few people from work.
we got home and it dumped rain for about an hour. this was great because afterwords it was no longer overwhelmingly hot and stuffy outside. we actually had a pleasant walk across the rain soaked streets back to the restaurant for dinner.
actually, this wasn't really my plan but it's what happened. since i hadn't yet seen the forbidden city (after living here for a couple months, just like any good local) ronda decided that we should see it and that she wanted to go back.
i finally, and a little reluctantly, agreed. i would probably have to see it before leaving anyway.
so we struck off to tianaman square to see mao first. this was my second attempt to see mao and it failed. first off, we didn't have any type of id on us and there were signs indicating that you had to carry id. then we also had backpacks on, and there are no bags allowed. we saw someone else try to go in and the guards indicated that they should leave their back pack on the ground near the entrance, where i'm sure it would be waiting for them when they got out. they intelligently declined the offer.
as it turns out, weeks later, i learned from someone over some drinks that there is a large bag check across the street, and these days no one really check for id.
regardless, we felt thwarted and decided to stumble on past mao to see the forbidden city.
the forbidden city was pretty impressive. you don't actually get a feeling for the size of it till you leave it and climb the hill in Jiangshan Park just north of it and look back at it from there. (which we did after we left.)
the entrance area consisted of extremely large plazas where an emperor could inspect his armies. moving back it got more interesting as we entered the living quarters, which housed different museums, exhibits, and a starbucks. the starbucks was the latest addition to the summer palace since ronda was there last so she was pretty anxious to see it... and she wasn't disappointed. to add the the western aspect of the palace, many of the signs describing things has a tag line at the bottom: "Made possible by American Express." i had no idea that american express was around back in the days this was built.
we wandered around the palace, sitting down in different areas, and reading different storied from our respective tour guides. (lonly planet and the rough guide.) in the end we didn't spend nearly enough time there to do the place justice and we missed many a museum inside. but to do so you'd really have to dedicate much more time than we were willing to.
one of my favorite areas was a small are surrounding a temple in the center back. it was filling with interesting shaped rocks, old contortionist trees, and a tiny temple at the top of a bunch of rocks which made me immediately thing of "the old thunder mountain railroad" at disney land.
this small area was at the norther most end of the forbidden city and after we walked around it, we left and went to Jiangshan Park park. after wandering around there we went west to beihai park to wander around and see the white pagoda.
visiting the white pagoda was the standard chinese park/temple/exhibit experience of "death by a thousand cuts". what i mean by this is that a lot of paper changes hands before you reach the pagoda. first you need to buy a ticket to get in to the park. then you need to but a ticket to get into the temple around the pagoda, then you need to by a ticket to walk up the stairs to take you to the base of the pagoda. oh wait, you want to go into the bell tower now? that'll be another ticket.
i have found this type of experience to be the pretty standard fare for visiting anywhere in china. if they can quarantine off any area and have a reason to believe that people might pay for admission they will. even if you thought you already did pay for admission. perhaps they are trying to discourage people from actually getting all the way to their desired site so they will buy the postcards?
once we reached the pagoda, we were considering vising the north side of the park but there was thunder rolling in the distance and rain was threatening so we decided to call it at day. we grabbed a taxi to head home, and we stopped by South Beauty (another favorite restaurant of mine) to make a reservation for dinner for ourselves and a few people from work.
we got home and it dumped rain for about an hour. this was great because afterwords it was no longer overwhelmingly hot and stuffy outside. we actually had a pleasant walk across the rain soaked streets back to the restaurant for dinner.
June 19, 2004
the messiah arrives
finally, after what can only be described as an unendurable and excruciating sentence of solitude in purgatory, the messiah has arrived in beijing. i rented a driver (car included) and picked up ronda from the air port.
she was doing surprisingly well for having left SF at 1am and traveling for over 24 hours. i was overjoyed to see here. i took her back to my apartment to get settled.
we had almost a full day to ourselves, but we didn't really go anywhere. we only went to my favorite dumpling shop down the street for guo-tie (pot stickers) and then to sichahai/houhai for dinner at one of my favorite restaurants.
unfortunately, ronda had pulled her back at yoga shortly before coming over here she was in quite a bit of pain. since advil wasn't really helping the situation we decided to made a go at the local pharmacy where the staff looked a little upset that they would have to be dealing with people that didn't speak chinese. in the end we walked out with some red pills and white ointment that later experiments demonstrated to be effective.
so this is ronda's second time to china, and she didn't like it much the first time around. it's one of my goals to make sure that she enjoys this trip much more than her first.
she was doing surprisingly well for having left SF at 1am and traveling for over 24 hours. i was overjoyed to see here. i took her back to my apartment to get settled.
we had almost a full day to ourselves, but we didn't really go anywhere. we only went to my favorite dumpling shop down the street for guo-tie (pot stickers) and then to sichahai/houhai for dinner at one of my favorite restaurants.
unfortunately, ronda had pulled her back at yoga shortly before coming over here she was in quite a bit of pain. since advil wasn't really helping the situation we decided to made a go at the local pharmacy where the staff looked a little upset that they would have to be dealing with people that didn't speak chinese. in the end we walked out with some red pills and white ointment that later experiments demonstrated to be effective.
so this is ronda's second time to china, and she didn't like it much the first time around. it's one of my goals to make sure that she enjoys this trip much more than her first.
June 13, 2004
more tourister 3000
this would have been entitled tourister 2000 (which i personally think sounds better), but times have changed, centuries have passed, and upgrades have been released. so i'm making an active effort to keep with the times.
even though i was really tired today from hiking yesterday i met up with fintan and sean to see the biggest tourist attraction in beijing (at least according to my lp tour guide.) No it's not the forbidden city but the summer palace.
it was a blazingly hot and humid day (again) and apparently this was the place royalty went to when they wanted to escape the heat. unfortunately, in my not so humble opinion it offered a absolutely no respite from stifling atmosphere.
since all of us were pretty worn, we weren't really driven to make the full rounds of the park and see everything. we spent a considerable amount of time just wandering through through the forested areas. the abundant stairs to the assorted temples were greeted with sighs and groans. after wandering around the north side and finally seeing cixi's famed marble boat, we took a short ride across one of the lakes in the palace. during this ride the humidity finally hit 100% and it started to rain. this managed to clean up the air and cool things down a little bit.
we wandered around a bit and marveling at the prolific writings of quing long (which could be found on every temple, sculpture, and paining imaginable) we finally decided to leave and head to Sichahai/Houhai.
now comes the part where i got pissed. i got scammed for about five bucks. i really shouldn't get upset, but i did. we got a taxi from outside the summer palace. it had a 1.20 yuen sticker on it when we got in.
for some background, taxis in beijing come in different denominations:
- 1.20 yuen/km - basic cheap cabs
- 1.60 yuen/km - sometimes the drivers are more cluefull, sometimes they are assholes, yymv.
- 2.00 yuen/km - your living it up.
- unmarked - negotiate your rate ahead of time.
i normally take 1.20 or 1.60, whatever is available when i'm looking for a cab. this time there was a ton of cabs waiting and i took a 1.20 because it looked like the best 1.20 cab i had ever seen.
normally 1.20 and 1.60 cabs have a steel cage around the driver with bars and possibly plexiglass covering the bars. they are also really small. sometimes they have a disinfected sticker on them, but i was never able to determine if this meant that they were disinfected once at the factory after they rolled off the assembly line or at some later date.
this cab had no cage, comfy seats, and was actually a nice car. we got into the cab and the driver seemed really nice. i pointed on a map where i wanted to go and said the name in my broken chinese. he pointed to the map and showed me the best route to get there which i agreed with. it seemed like a perfectly negotiated ride.
on a side note, during any cab ride in beijing, i always use my decent sense of direction to try and make sure the cab driver isn't ripping me off and driving in circles. a couple months in a city also help with getting to know your way around town.
my frustration started about 3/4 of the way through the ride fintan pointed out that the meter was reading a really expensive price... about twice what i was expecting. then i realized that this guy had no official laminated taxi license sitting on his dash like all the other taxis normally do. a close look at the meter indicated that we were being charged 1.88 yuen/km. i looked back and the 1.20 sign was gone.
at that point i realized that when cabbies walked up to you holding the 1.20 sign trying to indicate that they had a cheap ride, what they were really telling you was that they had a removable sign that would disappear once you got in the car. (probably courtesy of his friends.)
i was really pissed. fintan and sean were trying to convince me that it wasn't worth getting upset over a few bucks, and they were right, but i was pissed regardless. i do believe that this is the first time i was aware of being ripped off in china. it's probably happened before, but at least at that time i was unaware of it.
in the end i didn't really do anything about it. i yelled at the driver a little in english and paid the stupid fee. i didn't want to start an argument in a language where i couldn't fully express my rage. of course doing this just means that the driver will keep doing this and piss of other people, which leaves me mad at myself.
to get over my anger at the driver and myself i engaged in the normal american distraction of consumption. we went to have dinner at one of my favorite restaurants that has an unbelievably good mutton dish. then we went to a bar with outdoor tables to sit for a few hours, sip beers, and shoot the shit. a nice way to end the evening since we were all pretty exhausted.
even though i was really tired today from hiking yesterday i met up with fintan and sean to see the biggest tourist attraction in beijing (at least according to my lp tour guide.) No it's not the forbidden city but the summer palace.
it was a blazingly hot and humid day (again) and apparently this was the place royalty went to when they wanted to escape the heat. unfortunately, in my not so humble opinion it offered a absolutely no respite from stifling atmosphere.
since all of us were pretty worn, we weren't really driven to make the full rounds of the park and see everything. we spent a considerable amount of time just wandering through through the forested areas. the abundant stairs to the assorted temples were greeted with sighs and groans. after wandering around the north side and finally seeing cixi's famed marble boat, we took a short ride across one of the lakes in the palace. during this ride the humidity finally hit 100% and it started to rain. this managed to clean up the air and cool things down a little bit.
we wandered around a bit and marveling at the prolific writings of quing long (which could be found on every temple, sculpture, and paining imaginable) we finally decided to leave and head to Sichahai/Houhai.
now comes the part where i got pissed. i got scammed for about five bucks. i really shouldn't get upset, but i did. we got a taxi from outside the summer palace. it had a 1.20 yuen sticker on it when we got in.
for some background, taxis in beijing come in different denominations:
- 1.20 yuen/km - basic cheap cabs
- 1.60 yuen/km - sometimes the drivers are more cluefull, sometimes they are assholes, yymv.
- 2.00 yuen/km - your living it up.
- unmarked - negotiate your rate ahead of time.
i normally take 1.20 or 1.60, whatever is available when i'm looking for a cab. this time there was a ton of cabs waiting and i took a 1.20 because it looked like the best 1.20 cab i had ever seen.
normally 1.20 and 1.60 cabs have a steel cage around the driver with bars and possibly plexiglass covering the bars. they are also really small. sometimes they have a disinfected sticker on them, but i was never able to determine if this meant that they were disinfected once at the factory after they rolled off the assembly line or at some later date.
this cab had no cage, comfy seats, and was actually a nice car. we got into the cab and the driver seemed really nice. i pointed on a map where i wanted to go and said the name in my broken chinese. he pointed to the map and showed me the best route to get there which i agreed with. it seemed like a perfectly negotiated ride.
on a side note, during any cab ride in beijing, i always use my decent sense of direction to try and make sure the cab driver isn't ripping me off and driving in circles. a couple months in a city also help with getting to know your way around town.
my frustration started about 3/4 of the way through the ride fintan pointed out that the meter was reading a really expensive price... about twice what i was expecting. then i realized that this guy had no official laminated taxi license sitting on his dash like all the other taxis normally do. a close look at the meter indicated that we were being charged 1.88 yuen/km. i looked back and the 1.20 sign was gone.
at that point i realized that when cabbies walked up to you holding the 1.20 sign trying to indicate that they had a cheap ride, what they were really telling you was that they had a removable sign that would disappear once you got in the car. (probably courtesy of his friends.)
i was really pissed. fintan and sean were trying to convince me that it wasn't worth getting upset over a few bucks, and they were right, but i was pissed regardless. i do believe that this is the first time i was aware of being ripped off in china. it's probably happened before, but at least at that time i was unaware of it.
in the end i didn't really do anything about it. i yelled at the driver a little in english and paid the stupid fee. i didn't want to start an argument in a language where i couldn't fully express my rage. of course doing this just means that the driver will keep doing this and piss of other people, which leaves me mad at myself.
to get over my anger at the driver and myself i engaged in the normal american distraction of consumption. we went to have dinner at one of my favorite restaurants that has an unbelievably good mutton dish. then we went to a bar with outdoor tables to sit for a few hours, sip beers, and shoot the shit. a nice way to end the evening since we were all pretty exhausted.
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