A Few Unexpected Experiences in Beijing

Less than 24 hours ago, I was going through the security check
in Beijing on my way back to the US.

The first small surprise was that laptops were not asked to be
removed from the carry-on bag, when going through the X-ray
scanner.

But the much bigger suprise was that I had a can and a bottle
of coke in my bag, and I was asked to OPEN them, so that the
security agent could sniff the content. My wife had a can of
7-up and a bottle of TsingTao beer, and was asked to do the
same! When we didn't have a beer opener, the agent first tried
the Mexican trick of beer-cap opening without success, and then
took it somewhere to have it opened when we had already told
him he could keep the bottle!

From that I gathered they must have a fear for Molokov cocktails
than other weapons the US TSA agents in other countries were
mostly concerned about. I did not stay around to see what they
do with the unopened liquor bottles that could have been bought
from anyone of 7 countries which our cruise ship went through!

Our cruise ended in the port of Xingang a 7 am. Beijing is a
three-hour ride (by bus or taxi) from Xingang, to spend a night
at a hotel, after some sightseeing of either the Great Wall or the
Forbidden City in the afternoon, before staying at the hotel for
the night to start early the next day for the flight home.

My wife and I took the obligatory Great Wall Tour from 1:30 -
6:30 pm, with about half the time on the roundtrip to and from the
hotel to the Tourist Spot.

Never mind the Great Wall! It's not worth seeing! I bought some
post cards and a picture book that had better pictures than I could
ever take myself!

Here was where I encountered my biggest surprise -- that a tourist
site that is supposed to draw in excess of 10,000 tourist everyday
would have the most primitive toilet facilities (they call it the W.C.)

that are just HOLES in the ground and no toilet paper! I could have
made up a story that wouldn't be too far fetched to say that I had
to go and the only paper I had were the 100 Yuen bills (the other
bills are too small to serve as toilet paper), and since each 100 Yuen
is worth about $12.50 USD, some other tourists would probably
pick them up and rinse them out for spending money. :-)

Let's just say I had a few anxious moments when I encountered
that situation, and there was absolutely no warning from the guides
who took buses full of tourists there! I learned afterwards that the
kind of hole in the ground toilets are quite common even in the
major cities like Shanghai, Nanjing, and Beijing -- except in the
modern restaurants, hotels, and airports.

I should save my talking about FOOD in Beijing in a separate
installment. :-)

-- Reef Fish Bob.

At LAX airport waiting for the red-eye flight to get home by tomorrow.

Reef Fish wrote:

Here was where I encountered my biggest surprise -- that a tourist
site that is supposed to draw in excess of 10,000 tourist everyday
would have the most primitive toilet facilities (they call it the W.C.)

You mean the self-proclaimed greatest world traveller ever has never
run into a WC????

that are just HOLES in the ground and no toilet paper!

55555555 You've got to be kidding. That surprised you? Squat toilets
are standard in Asia and you're expected to wash yourself instead of
wiping. I thought you were the big traveller.

Let's just say I had a few anxious moments when I encountered
that situation, and there was absolutely no warning from the guides
who took buses full of tourists there! I learned afterwards that the
kind of hole in the ground toilets are quite common even in the
major cities like Shanghai, Nanjing, and Beijing -- except in the
modern restaurants, hotels, and airports.

Gee, you finally learned that. Imagine what you'll learn next if you
ever start to travel as much as you claim to.

Tchiowa wrote:
Reef Fish wrote:

Here was where I encountered my biggest surprise -- that a tourist
site that is supposed to draw in excess of 10,000 tourist everyday
would have the most primitive toilet facilities (they call it the W.C.)

You mean the self-proclaimed greatest world traveller ever has never
run into a WC????

I knew what a W.C. was before you were born! It was merely a
declarative statement that's what they call it THERE, not the other
100 names for the toilet.

that are just HOLES in the ground and no toilet paper!

55555555 You've got to be kidding. That surprised you? Squat toilets
are standard in Asia and you're expected to wash yourself instead of
wiping. I thought you were the big traveller.

You need to learn how to read IN CONTEXT. Yes, it surprised me
that such a tourist attraction have squad toilets. It didn't surprise
me
at all that the airport has toilets that were spotless clean, with an
attendant constantly mopping the marble floor. And that was Beijing's
OLD airport. They are building a new one for the 2008 Olympics to
be held there.

Let's just say I had a few anxious moments when I encountered
that situation, and there was absolutely no warning from the guides
who took buses full of tourists there! I learned afterwards that the
kind of hole in the ground toilets are quite common even in the
major cities like Shanghai, Nanjing, and Beijing -- except in the
modern restaurants, hotels, and airports.

Gee, you finally learned that. Imagine what you'll learn next if you
ever start to travel as much as you claim to.

I learned how ill-educated and ignorant people like Tchiowa are in
Bangkok! We rode their motor-tricycle taxi for an HOUR around
downtown Bangkok for 20 Bhat, which is about 50 CENTS in US
currency.

-- Bob.

travel to paradise wrote:
"Reef Fish" wrote:

Less than 24 hours ago, I was going through the security check
in Beijing on my way back to the US.

The first small surprise was that laptops were not asked to be
removed from the carry-on bag, when going through the X-ray
scanner.

But the much bigger suprise was that I had a can and a bottle
of coke in my bag, and I was asked to OPEN them, so that the
security agent could sniff the content. My wife had a can of
7-up and a bottle of TsingTao beer, and was asked to do the
same! When we didn't have a beer opener, the agent first tried
the Mexican trick of beer-cap opening without success, and then
took it somewhere to have it opened when we had already told
him he could keep the bottle!

From that I gathered they must have a fear for Molokov cocktails
than other weapons the US TSA agents in other countries were
mostly concerned about. I did not stay around to see what they
do with the unopened liquor bottles that could have been bought
from anyone of 7 countries which our cruise ship went through!

Our cruise ended in the port of Xingang a 7 am. Beijing is a
three-hour ride (by bus or taxi) from Xingang, to spend a night
at a hotel, after some sightseeing of either the Great Wall or the
Forbidden City in the afternoon, before staying at the hotel for
the night to start early the next day for the flight home.

My wife and I took the obligatory Great Wall Tour from 1:30 -
6:30 pm, with about half the time on the roundtrip to and from the
hotel to the Tourist Spot.

Never mind the Great Wall! It's not worth seeing! I bought some
post cards and a picture book that had better pictures than I could
ever take myself!

Here was where I encountered my biggest surprise -- that a tourist
site that is supposed to draw in excess of 10,000 tourist everyday
would have the most primitive toilet facilities (they call it the W.C.)

that are just HOLES in the ground and no toilet paper! I could have
made up a story that wouldn't be too far fetched to say that I had
to go and the only paper I had were the 100 Yuen bills (the other
bills are too small to serve as toilet paper), and since each 100 Yuen
is worth about $12.50 USD, some other tourists would probably
pick them up and rinse them out for spending money. :-)

Let's just say I had a few anxious moments when I encountered
that situation, and there was absolutely no warning from the guides
who took buses full of tourists there! I learned afterwards that the
kind of hole in the ground toilets are quite common even in the
major cities like Shanghai, Nanjing, and Beijing -- except in the
modern restaurants, hotels, and airports.

I should save my talking about FOOD in Beijing in a separate
installment. :-)

-- Reef Fish Bob.

At LAX airport waiting for the red-eye flight to get home by tomorrow.

They have those hole-in-the-ground toilets all over Europe too.

I don't doubt that one bit, but NOT in those cities and places heavily
visited by TOURISTS! That's the key surprise to me -- not that it's
"all over China", but in such a world-tourist attraction, next to the
heavily visited part of the Great Wall! For the entry fees they
collect
in one day, they probably could have built a toilet facility like those
in
most places that TOURISTS visist in Beijing.


You're supposed to use them in pairs. One of you goes out to collect
leaves and grass to use as toilet paper while the other one takes a
dump. Then the one who collected the leaves and grass uses them to
wipe the dumper's butt. Then you switch roles.

Or if you have water nearby, just splash some on the other person's
butt like the natives do:

I think that's one of the reason why the Norwalk virus is so common on
cruise ships -- including cases that were on the Princess cruiseship
during
its 16 days through 7 countries in Asia.

The pre-caution was so severe that I had never seen it anywhere close
in the 16 cruises I took the past 3 years. ALL food in the buffet were

served by attendants (instead of by the passengers themselves with
serving untencils; even pads of butter that were wrapped in foils; and

later even the handle of the coffee and hot water pots were manned by
attendants so that they were not touched by the hands of passengers
-- until near the end of the cruise, when the apparent "crisis" was
over.

When I posted from the ship a week ago, in rec.travel.cruises, after
someone blamed it on the 'Merkins who don't wash their hands, and
wipe snot off their fact when they go through the buffet, I counter-
conjectured that it was more likely caused by one of those in OTHER
countries (over 100 of them on the ship) some of whom might be those
who eat with one hand and wipe their butts with the other when they
do to their toilet -- and that it only takes ONE of those who forgot
which hand was which at the buffet to contaminate the entire ship. :-)


http://groups.google.com/group/rec.t...3ebf8e598a29c5
We travelled to India on Air India and the toilets on the plane were a
disaster. There was water spilled everywhere and there was a horrible
smell of **** that was very overpowering. This was both going and coming.
We were perplexed. We asked several friends who have also been to India
about this and they said it's because Indians don't wipe their butts with
paper like we do but instead they use water. They just splash water with
their hands up their butt crack over and over until they feel it's clean
enough. Of course the result is disastrous. The water AND the feces gets
everywhere! So if you're planning to go to India avoid Air India like the
plague (and you could end up catching one, what with all the bacteria and
diseases you can catch from fecal matter). Go on a western airline
instead.

That's perhaps one of the reasons I've never been to India, nor feel
the
desire to be -- where the COW is holy and people speak 300 different
languages and can only communicate with themselves in Indian-English,
which is as foreign to English as Bulgarians and Ugoslovakians working
on cruise ships -- except their English is almost understandable
compared
to those of Indians in India who put the wrong sylLAble on every word.
:-)

-- Bob.

Reef Fish wrote:

Never mind the Great Wall! It's not worth seeing!

It's not all about "seeing". It is about "being" there.
It sound like you would visit Gettysburg and think of it as just another
piece of ground, because there isn't worth "seeing".


Here was where I encountered my biggest surprise -- that a tourist
site that is supposed to draw in excess of 10,000 tourist everyday
would have the most primitive toilet facilities (they call it the W.C.)

that are just HOLES in the ground and no toilet paper! I could have
made up a story that wouldn't be too far fetched to say that I had
to go and the only paper I had were the 100 Yuen bills (the other
bills are too small to serve as toilet paper), and since each 100 Yuen
is worth about $12.50 USD, some other tourists would probably
pick them up and rinse them out for spending money. :-)


Seasoned travelers carry paper, especially to less advanced parts of the
world. It's not just China. I believe I encountered a squat toilet next
to a highway in France in 1993. Of course, it did have paper. It was
December and I was scouting hotels for the 50th Anniversary of Normandy
invasion. I remember wishing I had gone while on the hovercraft. Now,
that is something I wish still existed, Hoverspeed across the Channel.

The Singing Nun wrote:


2 observations :-
hole in the ground toilets are more hygenic,
India is the best country on this planet for travel


And Elvis Lives.........

mrtravel wrote:
The Singing Nun wrote:


2 observations :-
hole in the ground toilets are more hygenic,
India is the best country on this planet for travel


And Elvis Lives.........

in India

The Singing Nun wrote:

mrtravel wrote:

The Singing Nun wrote:


2 observations :-
hole in the ground toilets are more hygenic,
India is the best country on this planet for travel


And Elvis Lives.........


in India


Wasn't he in Bride and Prejudice, the Indian musical based on Jean
Austen's book?

"Reef Fish" wrote in message
oups.com...

Tchiowa wrote:
Reef Fish wrote:

Here was where I encountered my biggest surprise -- that a tourist
site that is supposed to draw in excess of 10,000 tourist everyday
would have the most primitive toilet facilities (they call it the W.C.)

You mean the self-proclaimed greatest world traveller ever has never
run into a WC????

I knew what a W.C. was before you were born! It was merely a
declarative statement that's what they call it THERE, not the other
100 names for the toilet.

that are just HOLES in the ground and no toilet paper!

55555555 You've got to be kidding. That surprised you? Squat toilets
are standard in Asia and you're expected to wash yourself instead of
wiping. I thought you were the big traveller.

You need to learn how to read IN CONTEXT. Yes, it surprised me
that such a tourist attraction have squad toilets. It didn't surprise
me
at all that the airport has toilets that were spotless clean, with an
attendant constantly mopping the marble floor. And that was Beijing's
OLD airport. They are building a new one for the 2008 Olympics to
be held there.

A new airport or a new terminal building

They would seem to be wasting their money with the new
express rail line running alongside the airport expressway
if the airport's moving somewhere else.

tim

"Reef Fish" wrote in message
oups.com...
Less than 24 hours ago, I was going through the security check
in Beijing on my way back to the US.

The first small surprise was that laptops were not asked to be
removed from the carry-on bag, when going through the X-ray
scanner.

But the much bigger suprise was that I had a can and a bottle
of coke in my bag, and I was asked to OPEN them, so that the
security agent could sniff the content.

Yes this happened to me too.

Now that you've reminded me I'll have to add it to my blog.

tim