Do Not Trust This Woman!

Everything had gone so well. We had managed to get a taxi to train station, board the train, find carriage, and even standing up for 3 hours wasn't too bad (just the same as a Blackpool match really as theres hardly anything to get excited about when you go to those anyway). We arrived at the Beijing station, got a taxi and found our hostel to be amazingly nice. It was only a matter of time before something went wrong, about 24 hours to be precise.

Our first night was spent going out down Bar Street, which was a decent experience but we didnt realised you could haggle in the bars so ended up paying a more than we would do at anyother point in the week- Dave and I were quite happy though with our guiness and carlsberg even if they were £2.

Anyhow, the next day we asked a lady we met what there was to do. She told us that as it was National Day- marking the day when China became a Peoples Republic some 57 Years Ago- Tian Neman (spelling) would be packed as people rush there to celebrate. She said the sight of some 2 million people there would be amazing. We agreed and walked off in the general direction.

Amongst the crowds a young Chinese woman approached me, grabbed my arm and started talking to me. Now anyone who knows me will know that I have a rather bad habit of speaking to randoms, so it will not surprise you all that I introduced this girl to the others and we got to know her a bit.

Her name was Efan, she was 27 and a teacher from Mongolia. She was down visiting her Sister, who was working and so was going to the Square alone. She would love to show us around as it would give her a chance to practice her English. Dave and I both knew it would be a con. We were sure that she'd show us a around, give us a mini tour and then hound us for cash, but we both thought that we'd just refuse to pay. We went on a whistle stop tour of the amazingly crowded square, saw some sights, learned the history, took a few photos but the money request never came. Dave and I had been proven wrong, first impressions can be so misleading we thought.

After the square we bought our new found friend an ice cream from McDonalds and accompanied her to Hutong-the old district of Beijing. She showed us around the shops and mentioned the possibilty of maybe going for some tea. We said later, so after some shops we arrived at an opticians. She said that she had heard this tea house was a very old traditional tea house and extrememly good. None of us were that fussed about it, but thought it was something we should try whilst in China, so agreed to go in.

We were given our room, the 4 of us and our hostess. We were treated to 6 different cups of tea, 3 small shot sized glasses of each. As the hostess was chinese Efan translated everything for us and looked genuinley interested in and shocked by everything she had to say. The tea was nice and we were given 5 plates of snacks, different types of seasame seeds and nibbles. We thought it had been a reasonably good experiance.

As Efan looked at the bill she gave a little shriek, she apologised prefusely and said she had not realised how expensive it would be. We checked it over and it all added up, 2500RMB for 6 cups of tea and some bird seed- thats about £40. We all agreed that it was expensive but maybe that was the price of these sort of things and we had enjoyed ourselves so fair enough, we paid. Dave did so on his card and Brock and I in cash (as our cards were rejected). To soften the blow we were given a small ornemental tea pot-I had to argue with Efan over the one I wanted, harsh I thought at the time.

On the way out we noticed a sign that we hadn't seen before.Telling us all the prices and saying that we should agree the service before the show starts. We thought it would have been nice to see this earlier, but it was positioned in a way that it was behind you as you came in and we were too busy walking up the stairs and laughing at Brock's Buddha impression to notice.






Efan now suggested we went to a Chemist-a very old historic chemist, extremely famous. We went in, it was exactly like any other chemist, nothing special but we perservered. As we were walking around we were approaced by two English lads (Mike & Gaz). They told us not to go to any tea houses as we would be ripped off; they were 2 days ago in fact. Gaz looked around and realised that Efan was the same girl that had conned them and fed them the same story. At the moment she'd disappeared out a side door. Gaz,Mike and I tried to follow her and suddenly an army van pulled up, put " guns" to our faces and told us to return inside the chemist-we thought it must be being raided. We went back in and the army disappeared. Wierd.

Anyhow so Mike and Gaz explained the Con to us and told us that they'd been milling around for a few days warning off gulliable English-if only we had met an hour earlier. We said goodbye to them and agreed to meet up later as they were staying at our Hostel. I then demaned we go back to the tea house and try and reclaim some of our lost funds.

The others weren't really up for it. Dave stood on the stairs and was look out in case any huge triads came bowling in and Brock stood outside for a little while. The teahouse lady denied the whole thing and said it was absurd, but gave a little smile when we showed her the photo of Efan (if that is her real name). She offered us 500 Yaun back, about one persons worth. I refused and said we wanted 1000. This carried on for a little bit. Brock then walked in, accompanied with some Police he'd bumped into outside. I explained everything,showed them the pictures blah blah. They didn't seem too impressed, but couldn't speak english, the only person who did was the tea house owner. So we were negotiating with the tea house lady, through the police and then having it translated for us by the tea house lady. Therefore she was just making it all up.

In the end we just settled on 800 Yuan, about half of what we paid and threw the ornamental tea pots back in their face. £20 was not too bad for a tour and some tea we thought anyway. On the way out we were very nervous that some boys had followed us and were casing us out for a mugging. We were ok and got back to the hostel fine, but not the best start to our week in Beijing, you should have heard some of Daves Language!