Welcome to China, Let Me Rip You Off
One of the most difficult aspects of travelling is keeping your guard up enough so you don't get ripped off, but not so high that you miss out on opportunities of interacting with local people. In SE Asia this is particularly tough because every foreigner is accosted constantly, and sometimes I wonder if people only see me as a walking dollar bill. And, I have missed out on opportunities. For example, in Chau Doc in the Mekong Delta I was in a bookshop and the friendly older gentleman working there asked if I already booked a floating market trip. Fearing the onslaught of a sales pitch, I quickly announced that I had, a lie. He then said, "that's too bad because my family owns a boat and I could have showed you around at no charge." The trip I did book through my guesthouse was terrible. And that's how it goes. A lot of activities, particularly in Vietnam, require tours, like the floating markets, Ha Long Bay, or Hue tombs and while some are great, others are terrible and a bad value. Some you try to do independently, renting a motorbike getting completely lost and never reaching your destination, and other times independently is the best and cheapest way to go.
Truthfully, everything was going very smoothly for me, too smoothly it turned out, until northern Vietnam. I rushed a bit through Vietnam so I could get to China before May 1st, the national holiday and I was getting a bit burnt out. Then, I ended up getting the wrong Chinese visa in Hanoi with no time to change it. (I wanted one entry two months and I got two entries one month.) I caught the night train to Lao Cai and ended up with a Vietnamese family with screaming kids in my cabin, always a favorite. When I finally got to Sa Pa my tour group left early and without me and I ended up with an expensive and sub-par solo tour. The hotel I checked into, The Cat-Cat, was recommended by the Lonely Planet, but it turned out mine was a fake with the same name and it wasn't so nice. This is a common trick, and this time it got me. So I checked back out, without staying, and headed for China. First, I needed a bus to Lao Cai again. I hopped in the bus, the driver said it was going and then proceeded to drive around town for 50 minutes trying to find more people to go. Of course, people who are in the middle of eating dinner don't want to get on a bus, but the driver didn't seem to understand this. Finally, I got out, flagged down another bus and demanded to be taken to Lao Cai immediately. I made it to the border two minutes before the guidebook said it closed, which turned out not to be the case anyway.
Immediately, China was a whole new world. No English anywhere. As I walked towards the bus station yard a bald-headed, scrawny Chinese man named Mike bounded out, and in English offered to help me. Right off the bat he seemed suspicious, especially when he told me bus tickets were sold out for the evening and I could stay the night in "his" hotel next door. However, it turned out he was right about the bus tickets and he took me to the ATM, so when he invited me to dinner, I finally let me guard down. Dinner was flat out annoying. Amongst other things he constantly and viciously cleared his throat and then spit right on the restaurant floor! He was also hitting on me with compliments like, "you are beautiful because you are fat, you know, f-a-t fat?" I tried to explain that in in my culture "fat" is not a compliment. When the bill finally arrived the price for fish soup, a pork dish, one beer and one water was 150Y ($20 USD), highway robbery around here really, and this annoying Chinese man wanted me to pay the whole thing. I knew I was getting ripped off and I didn't know quite what to do. What I did was pay 1/2 and storm back to my room to find that a nice Beijing restaurant is less expensive. I was so pissed at myself for finally letting my guard down with that creep, but I was glad it only cost me $10 USD, it could have been much worse. As it turns out, every traveller I've met so far in China who crossed at that border has been ripped off by Mike in one way or another, even those who have been warned.
Truthfully, everything was going very smoothly for me, too smoothly it turned out, until northern Vietnam. I rushed a bit through Vietnam so I could get to China before May 1st, the national holiday and I was getting a bit burnt out. Then, I ended up getting the wrong Chinese visa in Hanoi with no time to change it. (I wanted one entry two months and I got two entries one month.) I caught the night train to Lao Cai and ended up with a Vietnamese family with screaming kids in my cabin, always a favorite. When I finally got to Sa Pa my tour group left early and without me and I ended up with an expensive and sub-par solo tour. The hotel I checked into, The Cat-Cat, was recommended by the Lonely Planet, but it turned out mine was a fake with the same name and it wasn't so nice. This is a common trick, and this time it got me. So I checked back out, without staying, and headed for China. First, I needed a bus to Lao Cai again. I hopped in the bus, the driver said it was going and then proceeded to drive around town for 50 minutes trying to find more people to go. Of course, people who are in the middle of eating dinner don't want to get on a bus, but the driver didn't seem to understand this. Finally, I got out, flagged down another bus and demanded to be taken to Lao Cai immediately. I made it to the border two minutes before the guidebook said it closed, which turned out not to be the case anyway.
Immediately, China was a whole new world. No English anywhere. As I walked towards the bus station yard a bald-headed, scrawny Chinese man named Mike bounded out, and in English offered to help me. Right off the bat he seemed suspicious, especially when he told me bus tickets were sold out for the evening and I could stay the night in "his" hotel next door. However, it turned out he was right about the bus tickets and he took me to the ATM, so when he invited me to dinner, I finally let me guard down. Dinner was flat out annoying. Amongst other things he constantly and viciously cleared his throat and then spit right on the restaurant floor! He was also hitting on me with compliments like, "you are beautiful because you are fat, you know, f-a-t fat?" I tried to explain that in in my culture "fat" is not a compliment. When the bill finally arrived the price for fish soup, a pork dish, one beer and one water was 150Y ($20 USD), highway robbery around here really, and this annoying Chinese man wanted me to pay the whole thing. I knew I was getting ripped off and I didn't know quite what to do. What I did was pay 1/2 and storm back to my room to find that a nice Beijing restaurant is less expensive. I was so pissed at myself for finally letting my guard down with that creep, but I was glad it only cost me $10 USD, it could have been much worse. As it turns out, every traveller I've met so far in China who crossed at that border has been ripped off by Mike in one way or another, even those who have been warned.
posted by Deb Shea | 10:15 PM
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