EcoLog12 - Taxi Tours

Day 5 – Taxi Tours – The Good the Bad and the…? - 23 June 08 (15km walk)

Today was moving day from Xuzhou to Peixian. Konomi negotiated a good deal with our friendly taxi driver and a mate to drive us to Peixian in two cabs. The hotel staff in Xuzhou to recommend a hotel in Peixian…but unfortunately when we got to it it was an over priced Karaoke or KTV Hotel. They wanted to charge us 280Yuan for substandard rooms and the very real chance that we would be treated to the boom, boom, boom of many Karaoke revellers till the wee hours!!! We decided to go looking for another hotel….and oh what a find! With the help of a friendly staff member at the Karaoke Hotel we stumbled across the newest hotel in Peixian, which looked from the outside like a palace.

The HanYuan has only been open for two months. It is huge and sits on the edge of a lake looking across at a temple and park. The staff went out of their way to look after us and we quickly made friends with Andrew, the Assistant Manager, whose English was very good. Andrew gave us his card and said to phone him if we needed any help. Little did we (or he know) that he would be of great assistance to us later in the evening!!

We set off for a late walking start at about 4pm. Standing at the gate Paul say’s “let’s choose a friendly looking taxi driver” so, of the four or five drivers who pulled up we chose a chap with a big smile on his face and showed him the hand drawn “map” of where we wanted to go. After a bit of concern when he headed north instead of south, we got him on the right track and without too much hassle arrived at our end point of the day before. He seemed to be an honest type with a little bit of English and lots of laughter so we got his number saying we would call him to pick us up after our walk for the day. No 1 warning sign…this guy did not want us to pay the fare?? This felt very odd but we all just thought, hey what a lovely guy (and proceeded to pay him)!!

The start of the walk was along a re-formed part of embankment so instead of walking on fine gravel we were walking on hard packed mud. It was a very pleasant afternoon – actually early evening as we set off walking at 5pm. It was not too hot and we could see the surrounding countryside as there were no trees along this new part of the embankment. We made good progress and finally came to a side canal which we needed to cross but could see no bridge. After asking someone we found the transport across, which was a little lady who hauled us across on a small barge - very quaint and peaceful. On the other side the road was gravelled again and after a short break we set off at a good pace. The plan was to walk until about 8pm and phone the taxi driver to pick us up. Darkness was falling. We were walking in the middle of nowhere and all of a sudden we hear, and finally spot a well lit up clock tower striking 8pm with Westminster Chimes. It was very surreal!!!



There seemed to be no-one about so Merrin headed off down to the clock tower and found a floating restaurant - as you do, with people who could help tell our friendly taxi driver where we were. They proceeded to offer us tea and beer (warm) and a meal if we wanted it (which we didn’t as they specialised in local game, birds and fish from the local potentially polluted waters). They were lovely people who looked after us well until our taxi driver turned up about 30mins later – note the time - warning sign No 2! Off we set waving happily to our restaurant family for what we thought (and what the family had told us) was a ten to fifteen minute journey back to Peixian. We asked the taxi driver to take us to a restaurant when we got to Peixian but he informed us that all restaurants closed at 9pm. He then offered to phone the hotel to arrange a meal for us, but we declined saying we would sort it when we got there.

After about 20 minutes we started questioning the driver as to where we were as the kilometres and taxi metre were ticking by and there was no city in sight! At this stage we were driving on back country lanes through muddy potholes and past small villages. He rambled something in Chinese that Konomi (who has self taught herself written Chinese and a small amount of spoken Mandarin) thought he said another 4-5kms but then he changes his tack and said another 20kms!!! We happened to be passing a police outpost so we insisted he stop so that we could get some help. There were no police so we phoned up Andrew the Hotel Assistant Manager for help in translation.

Andrew is a very cool person. He acted as the go between negotiating between us and the taxi driver over the amount we should have paid (about 20Yuan max). The meter was now sitting on 50Yuan still with 20kms to go). Taxi driver was pleading innocence saying he couldn’t go the “quick” way because his car would bottom out (not sure what he thought it was doing as we were bouncing through the muddy pot holes to get where we currently were?). Then…low and behold a Police car turns up. Now began a very interesting series of dynamics between us - the tourists, taxi driver, Andrew as translator on the phone and the Police!!! The Police were extremely casual. They immediately ‘got’ that he was trying to rip us off by taking us on a circumnavigation (haven’t we heard that word before) of the whole area but they did not want to do anything about it except shake a finger at him when they thought we were not watching!!! Eventually they offered to escort us back to the hotel with one of us in the Police car. We immediately volunteered to go in the squad car which proved far more comfy than five up in a taxi (plus this added another dimension to our story of travel in China).

Now we witnessed a maniac for a taxi driver. Firstly driving up the bum of the police car and then once we hit the highway (a very long way south of the city!) passing at speed and proceeding to speed off into the distance. The police were laughing away at his antics (as were Merrin and Louise) but it was all very odd. They didn’t seem to give a hoot about his petty lawlessness and seemed to be content to casually observe the dynamics between us and the taxi driver.

We finally made it to the hotel with the metre reading 70Yuan (more than we had paid to get to where we started walking that day) and our watches reading 11pm!! Discussions continued. By now Andrew who had been at home when we called was at the hotel to help us conclude the situation. Police just stood around waiting for us all to come to an agreement then buggered off and left us to it. We eventually agreed to pay 60Yuan. Then the most amazing thing happened…the taxi driver shakes Paul’s hand and says give me a call tomorrow and I will take you out to the clock tower restaurant!!! We all just about fell over laughing and couldn’t believe the audacity of the guy.

You would think that this would be a logical place to end the story for the day…but oh no, no!!!

Remember the taxi driver ‘offering’ to organise dinner for us, which we all declined!!! Well, we were very surprised when Andrew asked us to follow him to have the dinner that the hotel had specially prepared for us. It turned out that the dirty rascal had ordered the most expensive banquet in the house to be served in a private dining room. More negotiations and Andrew offered to drop the price to 60Yuan and provide vegetarian food for Konomi and Paul instead of the very meaty menu that had been ordered. We did enjoy a most sumptuous meal, waited on hand and foot by the many staff. We also enjoyed Andrew’s company because he insisted on staying with us until we retired for the day, walking with us to our rooms (in spite of the fact that he was actually off duty after the previous shift being nightshift!!!)

Thus ends day 5 of our adventure in China, having met friends and foe…which we are beginning to understand is the essence of China!!!

Grow well
Dr Merrin