Beijing Tourist Trap Tips by sugarpuff

I had some friends coming to visit me so I thought I'd take them to the Great Wall. The No. 2 Travelling Bus also included the Ming Tombs, which my friend wanted to visit, so that was ok. So we arrived at the bus stop (near the main Beijing Railway Station) and chose the 'luxurious' bus to travel on for 50yuan round trip. At 9.30am we all chugged away on our sixteen seater minibus! All of a sudden, the tour guide switched on his microphone and shouted all of Beijing's history down it! This carried on for an hour!

We arrived at our first destination...a desolate area of land with no-one in sight. He may as well have shouted down the microphone 'WELCOME TO THE FIRST SCAM OF THIS TOUR'! Everyone paid their 45yuan entrance fee and marched in. We refused to pay as we had no idea what it was as it was behind tall locked gates! After 10mins and out of pure insanity (or because the guide told us we could not wait in the bus if we didnt enter!), we paid the 'shark' and went in. We were presented with an english speaking guide, who deserted us after a couple of mins because she didnt, as it turns out, speak ANY English at all! We were told to peer into shop fronts which werent in fact real shops anyway, just models and then hurried along to the main event!

We did eventually make it to the Wall, but only after stopping at a dried fruit wholesale store, an uninteresting part of the Ming Tombs, a highly overpriced canteen, and a jade factory four hours later!

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At Least Do This: At the first stop we went to, I really think you should stick to your guns. There is NOTHING of any value behind those tall gates, it is a complete rip-off and 'the show' was the only interesting part out of it all! Well not interesting, but different...

A show, put on by the local bandits, outcasts, and just plain weirdos from that area consisted of knife swallowing, cigarette burning on the tongue, lifting bricks up just using his ear, and producing a mini silver ball once swallowed, from any hole of the man's body..lucky for us, he chose his eyeball!REALLY disgusting! And on top of that, we were made as foreigners(not the Chinese)to make a contribution afterwards!

Take your own snack food! The canteen food looked awful and really was just leftovers from every restaurant in that neighbourhood I think! We refused to pay 20yuan to eat there, thinking we would wait for the Great Wall and buy a snack there. Remember...they want commission, so dont let them push you into anything you dont want to do. Of course, they took us to a part of the Wall that very few tourists visit, so there was only one shop selling crisps, so that was our lunch!
Alternative: Well, like my friends and I, we just had to laugh about it. Not necessarily at the time, because it was one of Beijing's coldest days, and we were in pain, but afterwards over a nice hot meal, yes!

You'll have fun when you get to the Wall, and it really will make the rest of the day fade into insignificance. There are plenty of lovely photos to take at the Wall and you'll have fun running or walking around this great area of land steeped in history!

Afterall as quoted by Mao Zedong.."you are not a man unless youve climbed The Great Wall"!

In the guide books it tells you to go to Deshengmen bus station to get the 919 bus to Badaling Great Wall. As a matter of fact, its not the bus station you go to, but 'Gulou' which is a big watch tower. The buses are directly behind it. The bus station DOES have 919 buses but they are city buses and wont take you anywhere near the wall. The ones you want are comfortable looking green and white buses.

Apart from that, there are private taxi owners hanging around that area just waiting to pounce on tourists not really knowing where they are going! Two weeks ago I was faced with the dilemma of either getting the bus for 24yuan return or a private taxi for 300yuan return! Not much of a dilemma you say...but...when the taxi driver tells you that its very easy to get the bus there but very difficult to get it back and you could be left there stranded, you do begin to wonder if the cheap deal is in fact the best deal! But I went over to the bus lady and she told me getting seats on the bus back was very easy! So we decided on the bus!

One thing that does annoy me greatly is that there are no signs whatsoever in English at this bus stop. Maybe the majority of people go to the Wall with a tour group set up by their hotel, but for those who are travelling on their own, there really should be a sign saying Badaling in english. It's' ok for those who can read Chinese, like myself, but what about the rest of you who can't?

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At Least Do This: The way the taxi drivers hang around and try to confuse you and tell you things which sound feasible, but which are in fact not true at all is ANNOYING! Today I returned to the same place to put some more of my friends on the bus. We got there at 1030am to find there were no buses but a very long queue of people waiting! Again a taxi driver came over and told us that the buses had finished at 10am! Well why shouldnt I believe him..there certainly werent any buses to be seen. And again he told me about going in his car for just 300yuan return! I told him I would go over to this long queue of people and see what was happening but he kept saying, 'theres no point, there arent any buses now!" After managing to shake him off we went to the front of the queue and asked a lady there and she said, "yes, this bus goes to the Great Wall, we're just waiting for it to come that's all!" And it was as simple as that! The traffic must have been bad hence no buses being there when we arrived, and the long queue of people waiting! Again another guy came over telling us that the queue would take hours to wait in and it would be very difficult to get the bus back. I told him "been there, done that...so thank you very much!" And then we were finally left on our own!

SO JUST REMEMBER THESE IMPORTANT THINGS:

1. Do NOT whatsoever be duped into believing that there are no buses running.
2. Don't get the private cars because they take you to a very small piece of the wall where you're charged lots of money to get in.
3. The taxi people tell you its 100yuan per person, but it is in fact 300yuan for the car,so you could have one or four people and it will still be that price!
4. The buses leave every five to ten minutes. They are air conditioned and cost 12 yuan there and 12 yuan back.
5. Stick to your guns and don't let them confuse you!