Wednesday, September 9, 2009

Crappy China Tour Company

After 4 hours of the stunning Li River cruise, our boat arrived at Yangshuo. From the pier, we bought tickets to sit the tourist taxi ride to a bus station to meet up with our tour guide.

However, before we board the taxi, Jam came up with a brilliant idea. I think I have not mentioned about this before, and I am not too sure if I should mention it now, but what the heck!

You see, we have not paid our tour agent for the Li River Cruise yet. The tour package actually covers the Li River Cruise, tour guide to five popular tourist attractions in Yangshuo and the famous Impression Liu San Jie show.

Jam devilishly suggested that we abscond with the money and not pay them. I was excited with the idea. Why not? It would be fun! Haha!

For one thing, we did not tell them where we would be staying in Yangshuo. How would they find us? Secondly, they did not have our contact numbers how would they even begin to track us down?

If there is anyone to blame for this, they should blame themselves for their gross inefficiency. I could not help smiling (in an evil manner) thinking how we Malaysians managed to outsmart the cunning Chinese people! Muahaha!

And then it hit me. And it really hit me hard! Outsmart them? Who am I kidding?

We had brought all our luggage from Guilin to check in at a backpackers' hostel in Yangshuo. And guess where were our luggage? They were nicely placed in the tour bus that brought us to Mo Pang Pier for our Li River Cruise. Our luggage were in the hands of the tour company!

So much for running away! Looked like we were not even in the same league as the Chinese as far as playing cunning was concerned. Haha!

But wait, let me assure you that this story does not end here. They are not the winner and we are not the losers ... yet. More interesting developments will be revealed in future posts, so stick around to find out how the story goes, yes?

So with our "absconding" plan down the drain, we took the taxi ride to the bus station where our tour bus (and our luggage!) would be waiting for us.

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The above is the view I took as I was riding on the taxi. Yes, it's no ordinary taxi as we were facing the back, not the front. And that's a similar taxi you see on the photo.

This is the interior of the taxi. Everyone was sitting facing the front except us in the last row which faced the back.

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Oh, by the way, the taxi trip costs us 10 yuan per person.

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Once we reached the bus station, we searched for our tour bus. Finding it, we went up the bus only to be told by the tour guide that the plan had changed and we were not visiting the five popular tourist attractions as agreed earlier.

I think we were really pissed off! How could they do that? Changing the itinerary to suit themselves? That's it! We would just take our luggage and leave! As for paying for the tour package, they could just forget it!

We were about to get our luggage when they made an abrupt U turn. We would now be going to the five tourists attractions as planned. Well, they should have stuck to the earlier plan but I was glad it was resolved.

Our first tourist spot was the Jian Shan Temple.

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See anything funny with the above photo I captured at the Jian Shan Temple?

There is a person in blue pants on the stairs - he looks like he's wearing a huge black hat! Haha!

Seeing that this post is already too long, I shall reserve blogging about the Jian Shan Temple for my next post, so stay tuned!

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