New Reply

Post a Reply

Thread: Tell Others Your Travel Traps here!

Title: (100 characters at most)

Content: ( 3,000 characters at most, please )

You can add emoticons below to your post by clicking them.

[quote=MIRANDAZHAO,244922]"When a few tour members began to buy things from vendors, Ying gave a stern lecture on the street vendors and how they cheat you. He warned us against buying from them. I could understand his concern. The vendor prices were unbelievably cheap, as cheap as everyone had hoped and dreamed they would be. One tour member bought 30 silk ties for $5. I don't mean $5 each, that was the total for all 30."

To suggest that any guides keep tourists from buying from vendors is absurd. At every location the group visits, vendors line the streets and sell to tourists. Inexpensive souvenirs may be purchased everywhere as gifts to take to friends or as a memento. Every tourist comes home with the sound of "One dollah! Five dollah!! Two for one dollah! Ten for five dollah!!" ringing in his/her ears. It is part of the charm? and yes, annoyance? of traveling in China as well as many other countries.

For inauthentic items that a vendor claims to be jade, pearls, or silk, however, the vendor charges 50 times the value of the product and the tourist gains an item that is worthless. Five dollars will purchase thirty 100% polyester ties imported from Korea and labeled as silk. One could easily find eighty 100% polyester ties in Beijing for five dollars. Even a child in China knows the value of a 100% silk tie, for which most less expensive stores charge $5 to $10 each, and for which brand name stores charge from $25 to $55.

Factories or other shops are never "added to the schedule." The schedule is created before the group arrives and adhered to closely with the exception of the group's vote to add or delete something on occasion. It is true that Regent guides warn their groups that the items they purchase from vendors are not authentic other than as inexpensive souvenirs, with the exception of books and postcards (which also come in varying qualities from vendors).[/quote]

characters left

Name:

Get a new code