More from China...

OMG I have to tell you about our first night travelling in China.

You see it was around 5:30pm-6:00pm... The sun had already set since it's autumn in China... We had landed 6:30am, and had not eaten anything since we got off the plane. I found a Turkish restaurant online. Ottoman Restaurant. Don't ask... the food just wasn't so good and my hubby was first served something that smelled a little off.. we got them to change it, but they weren't too happy...

Anyhow back to the topic...

So we thought let's find this restaurant and get some calories down our guts...

We got out of the hotel and started to wait for a taxi. There is a taxi rank at the hotel door which was full of taxis during the day... but we had already waited for 15-20 mins and not even a single one came. So we asked for assistance from the bellboy. He told us that there are no taxis working in the peak evening hour.

We were dumbfounded... I guess his English just wasn't enough as we discovered on our last day!.. He told us to go down and try to get a taxi outside the hotel.

So we walked down towards the main road... Jumped at the first taxi we saw but he would not accept us. We got the same response from a few more taxis. Then we had about 5-6-7-8-9-10... (the numbers kept on increasing) three-wheeled motorcycles circle around us. It reminded me of scenes from Bollywood movies. No jokes! :))

They had this tiny seat in the back and wanted to take us to our destination. We rejected all of them until we hung out there for another half hour waiting for a taxi to accept us. When we saw it just wasn't going to happen, the hubster started to bargain, but I said NO! My ass and yo ass ain't gonna fit on that seat at the same time! That thing is made for mini Chinese butts! :) So we started to look for one that may fit both our butts without our legs hanging out the side. They are damn scary! The 'bikies' have grease all over their faces... I mean seriously it was funny and freaky at the same time. :))

We finally found one with a seat big enough to fit us both... even though it looked so old and fragile lol... we agreed on 30 RMB to our destination. Mind you, that is 3 times what we would usually pay if we went by taxi. They charge so much only because they know we can't get a taxi!

So we hopped on.. the one we went with had two seats facing each other, so hubby popped himself on the other seat... so I could see what the 'driver' was seeing, and he could only see what was behind us... boy was that a smart action!!!

You see this guy started to go wild... when he did light turns, the tyres would kinda roll and swing until the bike gained it's balance again... I was holding very very tightly on the side handle bars. I thought we were going to roll under a huge bus or something. It was like a roller coaster ride... I was laughing and screaming for the entire 30 minutes that we were on it...

Then what does this guy do? He starts going in the opposite direction just so he wont have to do turns etc! He took the short cut to hell! All I could see were two gigantic buses driving towards us... Everything looked gigantic cos I felt so small and helpless in that thing. OMG! I was just staring... What is going to happen?

Then he swivelled to the kerb... and we fit!!!! My Allah! My Allah! In the meantime I'm telling my husband what's happening and he kept on telling me to close my eyes... But yeah I couldn't...

I have to tell you, it was the best ride of my life hahahahah BUT never again! I have heard some very horrible stories regarding those motorcycles. Since they don't adhere to any road rules, and since the traffic in China is hectic (if you know Istanbul traffic.. imagine 4-5 times worse), some motorcycles to tumble over and cars/buses etc unwillingly drive over whoever is on the ground. I was told about a man who recently lost his leg in this way... including other stories... they are just dangerous. So if you go... stay away from them in the city... just for your safety...

Here is what our one looked like: