Quote:
Originally Posted by motion
Any ideas on what a taxi for a day costs, just to drive around the city? Are there double-decker hop on/hop off busses?
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We paid a taxi driver the equivalent of about $50 in Xi'an to be our chauffeur for the day. I'm sure it's more in Beijing. I think we paid about $70 to have one take us to Mutianyu and back and we only had him for that trip. But he did find a killer lunch place in the middle of nowhere and it was a glorious meal.
I seriously suggest finding a hot, local, English-speaking female student to be your guide. She will be a ruthless price negotiator for you, she will be your advocate and, whatever she costs, you will save many times that amount in what you pay for stuff AND the headaches you avoid by having her by you.
That girl in the massage photo I posted kept me from getting totally robbed by a taxi driver on my first trip to Chengdu. He was driving me all over the city and she was blowing up my cell phone from the restaurant, asking where I was. I handed the phone to the taxi driver and then she told me he was trying to rob me and not to pay him. When we arrived, she took about 1/10 of what was on the meter, crumpled it up and threw it at his face and yelled at him as he drove off. Very cool spectacle. Chinese women are absolutely ruthless. I had to buy a pair of nice shoes for a business meeting on my last trip. Mrs. Lee, her mom and grandmother accompanied me to the local marketplace where the vendors were all trying to get me to talk to them. God, I felt sorry for the guy I got the shoes from. They beat him down to a fraction of asking price. I can count and negotiate in Mandarin ok, but geeze, these women are merciless advocates for their men.