Note: Some details such as Hotel names have been left out.
The Background
My fiancé is Chinese. She has travelled all over Asia to Taiwan, Cambodia, Thailand, South Korea, Japan, etc. but has never been to the “Western World” (Canada, U.S., Australia, or Europe). She is very Western minded, has amazing English, and watches exclusively US television. Her dream has always been to see the Western World! So during Chinese New Year we both had some extended time off. Now, I just came from the US and I was looking to chill at a beach in Southern Thailand, drink some beers, maybe hike up a small mountain; somehow we ended up deciding to spend triple the amount of money and go to concrete jungles and wear 3 layers of clothing. Don’t get married.
Travelling on such a short notice of about 2 weeks forced us to join a Chinese tour group because it wasn't enough time to secure her a private visa. We tried every avenue we could think, some not totally on the up and up, because I did NOT want to go as part of a travel group. Being guided from site to site, listening to a guide speak in Chinese for hours, surrounded by selfie sticks…. Don’t get married people.
The trip was a good deal honestly: 9,000 RMB per person (since I was a US Citizen mine was a little cheaper) for round trip tickets from Beijing, paid bus travel (this quickly became my tomb) to 8 cities across Italy, Switzerland and France and 3+ star hotels every night PLUS at least 1 paid meal every day. It removed the planning while robbing us of our freedom. Sounds like China to me.
The Expectations
I had been hearing since I got to China about the bad reputation the tourists had. Smoking where they shouldn’t, disgracing monuments, public defecation, and general rude behavior to the point the Chinese government had begun issuing “Manner Manuals” and paying for television ads begging the citizens to behave themselves. On Youtube there are several Taiwan and HK sponsored channels that love to expose Chinese tourists throwing food scraps on the ground or demanding things of waiters and servers. My girlfriend was very quick to beg me not to jump to conclusions because of one or two videos made by “state enemies” (My words, not hers). I was prepared for the worst but was still excited for the experience.
And So It Begins
We arrived at the Beijing Airport around 830 that morning but our plane didn’t leave until 12. Normally I don’t even show up until about 80 minutes before my plane leaves. Going through international customs never takes me more than about 30 minutes and I’m ready to board well before fight time. This was the first sign of things to come.
Finding the 30 people (we made 32) lumped in a big group at the front of the airport was easy. They were all in groups of 2 or 3, all looked fairly wealthy, lots of luggage and a few children. We came up with names for everyone fast. Lion Hair, Ugly Daughter, Fatso, Rude Daughter, Horse Hair, Smiley Guy and Bitch Wife were my favorites but nothing compared to the tour guide, Bruce Lee. She was Taiwanese, looked to be in her mid fifties and had the body of a hungry skeleton. She lived in France for several years as a student and acted very pompous and exclusive, never eating with us, and speaking French as much as she could though it didn’t seem like anyone could understand her.
The reason we were so early was two-fold: she wanted to make sure we were ridiculously early for EVERYTHING and she had to handle a hundred feet of paperwork. All the Chinese citizens were given these weird travel visas and then they were immediately collected by Bruce Lee. They wanted mine but I refused. I technically could have booked my own tour and just followed my girlfriend. Every time we came to a customs desk we needed her to vouch for everyone in the group. It really made me feel privileged that I could just walk past all these security desks waving my US passport while they needed 3 layers of verifications for everything.
The plane ride was fine. I was waiting for a stewardess to be assaulted or a kid to crap on the floor but it was generally quiet save for Fatso snowing the entire ride. He had the enviable super power of falling asleep whenever he wanted and snoring so loud he could shake glass. Fatso ran his own business in Beijing and we would find out that he thought he basically owned the continent of Europe. We transferred through Finland with much confusion and Duty Free shopping before arriving in Rome.
When in Rome… Act Chinese
We got to Rome at the Leonardo Da Vinci Airport late at night around 1030 PM, everyone was exhausted and jet lagged, but were still about 90 minutes from a bed. We walked about a mile through the airport to the tour bus and I felt awesome.
I like China. I have a good job, I mostly enjoy the food and I’ve made lots of friends and met the girl of my dreams. China is also dirty as hell. There’s dust around you at all times, no water source is without mountains of plastics and the strangers on the street will elbow their own mother to get through a door first. Being back in the land of quietly asking if you want to go first was refreshing. I was looking forward to the food and the culture we were about to be engulfed in for the next 9 days.
We got to the hotel and it was on the low, low region of 3 Stars. The outside was dirty, it was in the middle of nowhere (this would become a theme) and the staff was anything but polite. The first Chinese Moment was when we found out about the Wifi. In China Wifi is pretty much everywhere and even if locked you can get the passwords easily. This hotel wanted 4 Euros for a night of Wifi. Complaining was soft on the first night but people were pretty annoyed. The hotel staff was all plain dressed and spoke little English. The rooms were borderline dirty, tiny CRT televisions with a bad satellite signal, and when we asked for a second blanket because it was cold it took a good 45 minutes to get it.
We had a wakeup call at 6 AM, breakfast at 630, and leave by 7. I’m generally not used to being ordered around like this on a vacation so I was in an annoyed mood early but I let it slide. The breakfast consisted of nothing but various forms of bread (another theme). I finishd early and went for a short walk, we were surrounded by some ghetto apartments, a bus stop and a factory of some sort, if not for the Italian writing on the bus stop and the blue sky I’d assume I was still in China. Since we were far away from everything every day started and ended with at least an hour bus ride. The bus was fine but I grew to hate this vehicle of misery.
First stop was the Vatican. I’m not Catholic but I enjoy history so whatever. We got about 10 minutes to take pictures in the square before being forced into a long ass line to go inside. I’d say the line was about 45 minutes long. If I was on my own no way would I of waited.
I immediately noticed that we weren’t the only Chinese tour. There were Chinese groups EVERYWHERE! Every location we went to had at least 3 more. There were a few South Korean and Japanese groups as well but all in much smaller numbers. We go inside the Vatican, take some photos, and have to meet Bruce Lee in 45 minutes. That was all you could really do inside the Vatican (I got in trouble for snapping a Mass) so no big deal. When we got out we were told we didn’t have anything planned so had another 45 minutes to walk around.
This happened over and over. We would be told a solid time to meet back, and then be the first ones there and just wait and wait, killing precious time we paid for. It mostly had to do with Chinese being late for everything but also poor planning on the part of the Tour Guide.
We next went to the Coliseum, which I was mildly excited for, and was told we had 45 minutes to chill. You see, the tour had optional activities we could take part in, for a price. We only took about 600 Euros with us since neither of us wanted to buy any goofy trinkets and only planned on one or two big meals so we skipped all but one of the activities. So while the rest of the tour went on a picture taking loop we got to walk around on our own, sweet deal in my opinion. We wanted to tour the Coliseum but since it took 15 minutes to walk there and back we only got to circle it once. We get back and Bruce Lee tells us the bus is late, take another 30. 30 minutes to do what? Walk there and back again? We walked along the streets checking out the restaurants and stores that we didn’t have time for, showed up 10 minutes late and the bus still wasn’t there. LUNCH TIME!
CONT. In Comments
EDIT: Changed to reflect shit I was unaware of.