I have met some wonderful Cairenes, and had some great experiences. But, while Cairo has charisma in spades, if it were your boyfriend, you really wouldn’t take it home to meet your parents. Even if it could show them the pyramids.

Today went beautifully until about 5pm, when we left the art school in the country to return to downtown Cairo, where I had errands to run, among them buying train tickets.

Now, few things in Cairo are as simple as they might appear to be, so I’d checked out the train situation in Lonely Planet Egypt and on seat61.com. Two tickets to Aswan on the morning train. Easy!

We’re in gridlock at about 6.30, and the volume and consistency of hooting is such that you need to close the windows to hear anyone speak, when A, our cab driver, reverses at random under a bridge.

“Why are we stopped?” asks Z, though quite how he notices the difference between our previous pace and our current stasis, I do not know.

“We’re at the station,” I say.

“Oh great,” he says. “How long will this take?”

“I don’t know,” I say. “We’re in Cairo.”

“Where is the station, anyway?” he asks.

“It’s that big pharaonic building over there,” I say.

“That’s the second biggest station in the world,” says A, our cab driver. “After [mangled name] in London.”

“That can’t be right,” whispers Z to me. “Surely China has the biggest…”

“Leave it,” I say, and walk under a web of bridges, their concrete already flaking, through gridlock and cheap shoe sellers, in a storm of hooting as if all Cairo has just put its hand on the horn and held it there, to the brightly lit frontage of Ramses Station.

Men hiss at me. “Alex?” “Scandria?” I’m not going to Alexandria, and if I were I wouldn’t buy from the touts outside the station, so I ignore, ignore, ignore.

After Chinese trains, and their systematic, if crowded, train stations, Ramses Station strikes me as weird.

There is a spanking new marble-esque concourse, complete with modern art sculpturette and electronic departure board, the sort of place around which one would, in most parts of the world, find ticket offices, or at least an escalator leading to a concourse full of them.

Not here, however. No ticket offices in sight. It’s most confusing. As if someone paid the bribe to win the contract but bribed so high they couldn’t afford to pay for ticket offices.

I find a policeman and try some rubbish Arabic. “I wan tickie Aswan!” I say.

“Platform number 11,” he says, in excellent English.

“Platform 11?” I ask. “I want a ticket, not the train.”

“Platform 11,” he says. “Over there.”

I pass one of those weird security scanners they have in Egypt — weird in that it doesn’t work and everyone walks past it, but there are still four people staffing it — and descend, thanking the lord I have at least learnt my Arabic numbers, into a vaguely squalid underpass that brings me through to Platform 11.

There are two ticket-looking places there. One is rather fetid, like the Black Hole of Calcutta, with handwritten Arabic script on the door. The other has a shiny, new and exclusively English sign saying “Sleeper Train Tickets”. It’s like apartheid writ large.

I don’t want the sleeper train tickets. I often like sleeper trains (we loved the trains in China), but this one exists purely for tourists, is priced accordingly, and doesn’t appear to have the spec to justify a 300%+ price upgrade on the day trains, or, for that matter, the non-sleeper night trains.

Bugger.

One of the guys loitering outside hisses at me. “Aswan?”

“Yeah,” I say.

“Night train,” he says.

“I don’t want the night train,” I say. “I want the day train. The morning train.”

At the ticket window, I unleash my rubbish Arabic again. “Speaks Engly?” I ask.

“No,” he says, pointing to the chap next to him.

“I want two tickies Aswan,” I say. He points again to the chap next to him.

I wait my turn, the guys by the entrance watching me. “I’d like two tickets to Aswan on the morning train,” I say, in English.

“No trains till Thursday,” he says.

“WHAT?!” I say. We’ve extended our time in Cairo by another day to have some really rather excellent fun, but I am itching to leave by now.

“Night train, Thursday,” he says.

“I don’t want the night train,” I say. “I want the morning train.”

“Thursday,” he says. Which is weird. There is no conceivable way, with tourist numbers at this level, that all the trains can be booked until Thursday.

“I don’t want the sleeper,” I say.

“Giza,” he mutters to me. “Go to Giza.”

I don’t want to go to Giza. I want my train tickets. “But I want the morning train,” I say again.

“8am,” he mutters, conspiratorially. “Platform 8. 8am.”

“Yes!” I say. “That’s the one. Can I have two tickets please?”

“No tickets,” he says. Some warning begins to stir dully in the back of my brain about how these guys try to deter you from the day train by pretending it doesn’t exist. It’s all horribly reminiscent of the boat sketch in Vietnam. I decide I’ll go and get some Arabic-speaking assistance.

It is only once I am out of the station that I realise quite how many taxis are gridlocked under the bridges outside Rameses Station, that there are three bridges, and that I don’t know where our taxi is parked.

Now, for reasons you could describe as me being crap, but a psychologist might read as me being a bad liar and wanting a bona fide excuse not to have a number to give to the various random men who request it daily, I do not actually have an Egyptian SIM.

My British SIM, further, is out of credit.

I wander through the shoe stalls and corrugated iron to a wall of shared taxis, minibuses and white taxis. Was this where our cab is? I don’t know.

“Taxi?” says a guy.

“No,” I say. “I want MY taxi. I can’t find MY taxi.”

“Taxi!” he says, beckoning me.

Given his English runs about as far as my Arabic, I have a stab at some rubbish Arabic. “No! Taxi I! Taxi I! Boy I! Taxi I!” I make frantic shrugging, searching gestures. I pull out my phone. “English!” I say. “English! Taxi I! No have! I want taxi I!”

I must, I think, learn some conjunctions and prepositions. Prepositions make life so much easier, although, as Arabic has cases, they may not improve my comprehensibility.

“Can I help?” asks a gent in a suit, who appears to be the tourist-wrangler for Ramses Station cabbies.

I explain my pathetic situation, that I have lost my taxi, with my child in it, and would like to call my taxi driver, but have no credit on my phone. Chap one hands over his phone, and invites me into his taxi to shield me from the hooting.

I call A, and locate both him and Z. They are under the second bridge, to the left.

I thank the nice man, and offer him some money for the call. He refuses to take it!

I’m super chuffed.

A is pretty much ready to go, after some protracted negotiation with a boy of about Z’s age whose parking spot/market turf this appears to be. I’m wondering whether he has a date (unlikely in Egypt) or is just desperate for a joint.

“A,” I say. “We can’t go yet. This is really weird. But can I ask you to go and buy two tickets for us to Aswan for tomorrow morning?”

“No,” he says, looking worried. “I can’t do that. Foreigners are only allowed on some trains, so if I buy tickets for you, you could be in big trouble. They might not let you on the train.”

“OK,” I say. “The problem is that the man keeps saying there are no train tickets until Thursday on the foreigner trains, and no train in the morning, and I think there is. I can’t believe there are no train tickets until Thursday: there’s hardly any tourists here to take them. I think he just wants me to buy the expensive tickets.”

“Yes,” says A flatly. “He is lying to you.”

“OK,” I say, glad we are making progress. “Can you come with me and help me work out what is going on?”

“Yes,” A says. “But we all need to go.”

“I need to go?!” says Z, who is getting rather into his Asimov at the moment. “How long is this going to take?”

“I don’t know,” I say. “We’re in Cairo.”

The three of us traipse in a merry caravan through the station.

“Why did you say it’s pharaonic?” asks Z.

“Because it’s big and imposing,” I say.

“Yeah,” he says. “Well, the architecture is clearly neo-Islamic. Look at those windows and the latticing.”

“Mm,” I say. Normally, I love a smartarse. Right now, I am not in a zen frame of mind.

Inside, the policeman directs us again to platform 11, and the same ticket office.

“You see,” says A. “There is another problem. The travel agencies here in Cairo, they buy up all the tickets. So you can buy them from the travel agency, but you can’t buy them at the station.”

“Ah!” I say. “So the guys standing outside the ticket office work for the travel agencies? And they have the sleeper train tickets the place is out of?”

“Yes!” he says. I feel that I am beginning to understand the system. Egypt, for the record, makes Indonesia look like Germany.

We arrive at platform 11, and bypass the cubbyhole with the Arabic sign and the population density of the Black Hole of Calcutta, in favour of the foreigners’ bit with the English sign.

“Was this the guy you spoke to?” A asks.

“No,” I say. “The one next to him.”

We talk to him again. “He says there are no trains until Thursday,” A says. “But there is a 10pm train that tourists can take, not the sleeper. It will cost you 170.”

“How about Z?” I ask.

More Arabic. “He’s 170 too,” A says.

“But what about the morning train?” I ask. “I heard there was a morning train.”

“There will be Egyptians on the train,” says A. “Ordinary Egyptians. No police. Not like the tourist train. On the tourist trains, you have special carriages with police and no Egyptians.”

“That’s OK,” I say. “Ordinary Egyptians are OK. We’re in Egypt. But can you find out about the morning train?”

At which point a policeman hoves into view, which is odd, because I don’t think I have appeared particularly agitated, just bewildered.

“Can I help you?” he asks.

“Yes!” I say. “I am looking for tickets for the morning train to Aswan.”

“The morning train to Aswan,” the policeman says. “Goes from platform 8 at 8am, but you need to be here at 7.30 at the latest. You can buy tickets on the train. No tickets here.”

“But foreigners can go on it?” I ask, not really believing anything could be that simple.

“Yes,” he says. “Foreigners are allowed on the train, but we cannot sell you tickets for it.”

Some Arabic, and then A explains the situation. “That man, you see,” he says. “It’s his job to sell you the expensive tickets. He is not allowed to tell you about the morning train, or sell you tickets for it. You just get to the station early, buy tickets on the train, and it’s OK: you pay full price, Z pays half price. But he can only sell you tickets for the tourist train.”

“Right,” I say, struggling with the logic here, although I do at least understand that the man was muttering because he was potentially risking his job by letting me know that the other train existed. “So I just come to the station, get on the train and buy a ticket?”

“Yes,” he says. “Platform 8. 8am. Train 890.”

“You know, Mum,” says Z. “Ever since the Reunification Express, I’ve hated day trains.”

“Tough,” I say. “We need to get out of Cairo. It’s doing my head in.”

“Can’t we do the night bus?” Z says.

“I’ve just spent an hour and a half of my life on this,” I say. “Plus it’s one of the great train rides in the world.”

A drops us on Talaat Harb Square, close to Z’s official favourite restaurant in Cairo, but, because we’re coming from an unfamiliar angle, I have to look around for a few seconds to work out which street to turn down.

And in those few seconds, I am clocked as a tourist and the vultures zoom in.

The first is a guy in late middle age, wearing a fairisle sweater over a shirt. His eyes unnerve me. He’s making heavy-duty eye contact, not in the way the hustlers do here when they lech you, but as a close-up magician does when he’s working sleight of hand.

“Where are you going?” he says, innocuously, although he has body-checked me as I’m about to step off the pavement. “Can I help? Where exactly are you looking for?”

“Yeah,” I say. “Just looking for Cafe Riche, on Sharia Talaat Harb, it’s just down here, but I can’t…”

“It’s over there,” he says. “Sharia Talaat Harb is right there, and your restaurant is right there.”

My eyes follow his pointing hand, and then my hand goes down to my bag on reflex, or peripheral vision — I don’t know what.

Either way, it’s open. I look down, convinced I didn’t leave it open, and close it, which is when I feel the button of my back pocket pressing into my butt. That back pocket wasn’t open, either.

Mercifully, it’s the wrong pocket of the bag — and in any case, my purse is in an internal pocket with a second zip. I am torn between relief that nothing of significance has gone — I’m down the Egyptian pound coins I keep in my front pocket for bakhsheesh purposes, but that’s all — and admiration at the nifty teamwork that must have happened, when I realise I am standing still.

Standing still on Talaat Harb Square is a bad idea. Another man appears.

“Hello,” he says, blocking my way. He’s 60ish, jacket over shirt, looks respectable, but experience leads me to believe that there will be an antique shop, a government bazaar or an invitation for tea at a mystery destination that will prove to be one of those places at the end of our conversation.

I can SEE Cafe Riche. We are 50 metres from it. There is beer there. Nice staff. And no one will hassle me.

“Hello,” I say, English politeness kicking in.

“I learnt English at the British Council,” he begins, and spiels on about how he would like to practise it. What do I do in England? Where am I going? Where am I from? Isn’t my son charming?

“I’m a copywriter,” I say. “I write adverts. But, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go. We are meeting friends in Cafe Riche, just over there.”

I make it a couple of paces before a third guy falls into step. “Egyptians!” he says. “They always want to talk!”

“Yes,” I say. By now I can virtually taste the beer that awaits me, and sense the blissful peace of Cafe Riche.

“Do you remember me?” he says (this is a common opener from street hustlers and salesmen all over Egypt). “You asked me directions to Cafe Riche two nights ago! Where are you going?”

I am absolutely sure I did nothing of the sort. “Yes,” I say. “Lovely talking to you. But we’re late to meet our friends. Gotta go!”

We burst through the doors of Cafe Riche and I emit a huge and audible sigh, like a drowning woman reaching dry land.

“Bloody hell!” I say to Z. “How many was that? Three? And how far were we from the taxi? 50 metres? 100 metres?”

“50, probably,” says Z. “Yeah, about 50.”

“Three in 50 metres, and the first man got my bag open,” I say. “Sometimes, Cairo really does my head in.”

CODA 1: CAIRO
After publishing this post, late at night, I went to the ATM to draw some money. On returning to our hotel, a street gentleman, clearly operating on the “Western woman = prostitute” basis, became a little confused and forced cigarettes on me, an act, I can only assume, given I was smoking at the time, that was supposed to form part-payment for upcoming sexual favours.

Grinning and beckoning, he followed me to the lift, attempted to enter with me, then swore at me in Arabic when I closed the doors and held them closed.

CODA 2: CAIRO
We caught a taxi to the train station in the morning, our usual man having said, “No” in Egyptian (AKA: “Yes! I want to! I will try! But if I am not there by 6.30, go with someone else.”), despite my very British attempts to get him to say “No” English style.

A toothless, bearded gentleman in a skull cap picked us up. “Meter!” I said, pointing at the item.

“No meter!” he said.

“Meter!” I said. He switched it on.

After a two-Egyptian pound cab ride, we arrived at the station. I looked at the meter, which was registering the equivalent of a taxi ride to Giza in rush hour.

“HOW much is that?” I said.

“No meter!” he said, and giggled.

“You are a very bad man!” I said, and laughed. We settled on a decent tourist price.

CODA 3: THE TRAIN
The day train was easy. As I suspected, while Westerners are not allowed to buy seats on the train, and are not supposed to buy tickets, it is possible to get on the train with a ticket, provided an Egyptian bought it for you. This is handy, as it ensures your seats are reserved for the whole journey. Some hotels can do this for you.

Train geeks: first class is pleasant enough, with spacious if tatty seats, and food and drink service, although the contrast of green Nile banks with golden desert tends to the repetitious over 14 hours.

We passed our time entirely undisturbed but for intermittent, normal, social conversation: in fact, when we were kicked out of our seats, a gentleman very kindly gave me his. Strike one to the men of Egypt, and long may it continue!

The post And, This Is Why Cairo Does My Head In appeared first on EscapeArtistes.

For anything but commuter routes, buy train tickets a couple of days ahead of when you need to travel — you’re unlikely to find any tickets at all on the day. If you’re headed to Lhasa or using the Trans-Mongolian or Trans-Manchurian, tickets can get booked up weeks in advance.

Also be aware of China’s major holidays: tickets are almost impossible to get hold of around Spring Festival (Chinese New Year) and National Day (the first week in October).

2: Don’t Expect Ticket Officers To Speak English

You can buy train tickets at the station, from dedicated sales outlets in city centres for a small fee or from most guesthouses and hotels for a larger fee. If you’re buying tickets for yourself, get someone to write down your destination, dates etc. in Chinese script. Some station staff at major train stations do speak English, but it’s pretty much a hit and miss affair. You will need to provide your passport.

In most big cities, the city centre sales outlets are a better bet than the station — you’ll pay a few kuai extra. It’s good to know the specific number of the train you require, and vital if you’re trying to book tickets for connecting trains (search here to find connections).

3: Know What Berth You Want For A Sleeper

Sleeper trains are a great way to get around China. First class cabins have four beds only and a door, the beds are marginally softer than second class and there is independent lighting. Second class cabins have six berths to a compartment and no door — lights go off at a fixed time for everyone.

Bottom berths are more comfortable and priced slightly higher than upper berths, but tend to function as seats for everyone in the compartment until bedtime. Top berths in second class do not have enough head room to sit up. Seating on sleeper trains is brightly lit all night and not particularly comfortable.

4: Allow Plenty of Time To Make Your Train

Chinese railway stations feel overwhelming and huge but are actually very orderly. Allow at least half an hour before your train departs. You’ll need to get through an airline style security X-ray plus patdown, ticket checks and passport checks, then find the appropriate waiting room for your train number. Gates to the platforms open on a train-by-train basis and close five minutes before the train leaves.

5: Bring Your Own Tea And Coffee

The ultra-modern, 300kph or faster bullet trains that run routes like Beijing-Shanghai have Western-style dining cars complete with fresh-brewed coffee. Other trains have trolleys selling snacks, a basic, Chinese-style dining car and hot water in every compartment. Do like the Chinese do and bring your own tea (or coffee) to make hot drinks.

6: Keep An Eye On Your Stuff

Passport thieves have been known to target foreigners on trains in China. As a general rule, keep your valuables close (under your pillow if necessary).

If you’re planning China travel, you might also want to read about how to ride a bus in China, or explore hotels in China.

The post How to Take the Train in China appeared first on EscapeArtistes.

But, over the last couple of weeks, it’s really felt as though China’s not loving me back.

It’s about the scams, really. For which China is, it appears, particularly in Beijing, Shanghai and the tourist centres, considerably worse than Thailand and at LEAST as bad as Vietnam.

There folk will barefacedly deny that the boat in front of you exists, or claim that the hotel they have delivered you to, despite all evidence to the contrary, is the one that you wanted to go to.

But I’m feeling a little shamefaced about all this, really. After almost two years in Asia, surely I should be a little smarter.

But, frankly, when to get to door of the Apple Store in Beijing you have to fight your way through a wall of guys selling fake iPhones, and when the National Museum of China has an exhibition sponsored by BVLGARI next door to one created by the Propaganda Division of the People’s Liberation Army, you realise that state capitalism makes for a million sorts of crazy

Anywise: here are some common Chinese scams I DIDN’T fall for…

FAKE ART EXHIBITIONS

It’s hard to approach the Forbidden City without being assailed by young “students” whose college is allegedly hosting an art exhibition. Should you go, you will be treated to some combination of high-pressure selling of commercial artworks, a studio entrance fee, and dinner or tea at a place with no prices on the menu, where you will be stranded with a bill for hundreds of pounds.

How to Avoid The Art Exhibition Scam: Don’t go to art exhibitions with strangers. Check the English language media for news of what’s on.

THE FAKE TICKET SCAM

Scalping is a sort of bizarre mania in mainland China, and fake ticket vendors can demonstrate the persistence and creativity that made China the size it is today.

Entire travel agencies have been set up, in some instances, just to sell expensive tours and rail tickets, and then disappear.

The guys selling “tickets” outside the waterpark in the Olympic Water Cube followed us for hundreds of metres, virtually thrusting them into our hands. So, for that matter, did the guy selling completely unnecessary swim hats.

Probably the prize for randomness, however, goes to the chap in Shanghai who insisted that we buy fake passes for an exhibition of (no kidding) Japanese marine engineering equipment. Which, obviously, we TOTALLY looked like we wanted to buy.

How to Avoid the Fake Ticket Scam: Don’t buy attraction tickets on the street: look for the formal ticket office. If you want to buy plane tickets online, go for a reputable agency like ctrip.com. Buy train tickets from a dedicated train ticket reseller, the station or your hotel.

THE TAXI SCAM

At every railway station, bus station and airport in China, we’ve been greeted at the gate by folk, often wearing official-looking badges, offering to provide us with taxis. Funnily enough, these cost two to five times as much as the metered taxis in the orderly rank outside every station.

How to Avoid the Taxi Scam: Follow the signs to the taxi queue. They are well organised and move a lot faster than you’d think.

THE BAR FIGHT SCAM

I am not sure whether bar fights are started deliberately to extort money in China, but extortion tends to follow soon after. Should you become embroiled in a bar fight as a Westerner in China, you can expect to be sued in a civil court and/or deported. For obvious reasons, this normally targets the chaps, not the girls.

How to Avoid the Bar Fight Scam: Avoid hitting on Chinese girls or hitting anyone Chinese. End of.

And here – and I must confess I am embarrassed by this – are the scams that I did fall for.

Why? Well, firstly the vast majority of Chinese people have been incredibly sweet, friendly, helpful and interested in us – more particularly, my son – which means my guard has been down.

Secondly, I’m British so, I think, concerned about being polite. And thirdly, I guess, because the rest of South-East Asia has softened me.

THE TEA SCAM

The tea scam is the absolute classic Chinese scam, probably the best known of the bunch. And, you know what? We (both of us) knew about it too. And we STILL fell for it.

The classical format goes as follows. A couple of girls who want to practice their English befriend you and invite you for tea. There are no prices on the menu. At the end of the evening, you are presented with an enormous bill (I’ve heard of them running into the hundreds of pounds) and threatened if you don’t pay.

We got grifted in Wangfujing, Beijing’s answer to Oxford Street, sitting over dumplings in a cheap restaurant in a mall, fresh from dropping thousands of yuan on a PowerBook.

Two girls fell into conversation with us – complimenting Z on his use of chopsticks – and it emerged that one was a high school history teacher. We talked about Chinese history, where she explained, quite plausibly, for example, that Empress Wu Zetian’s role has been reevaluated…

We finished our meal. They finished theirs. The “high school teacher” suggested we join them for a coffee, because she liked speaking English with English people.

Feeling guilty about turning down a meal with Martin, our guide in Songpan, and wanting to find out a bit more about schools in China, I went with them. Though as we left the mall, for an anonymous alley, I felt progressively less comfortable with every step and hugged my bag like a demon.

In the teahouse, there was a menu, with prices that were steep – equivalent to a 5* hotel – but not completely ludicrous, particularly not when you’ve just spent thousands of yuan on a computer.

As we were upgraded from the entry level unlimited pot of tea at 200 yuan to unlimited “Dragon Well” tea at 300 yuan, my mind constantly ticked over whether this was, or wasn’t, the tea scam.

At the end, I paid the bill – despite knowing that in Chinese etiquette the person who invites you pays the bill! – and left pondering whether we’d been scammed.

“Well,” said Z, when I ran it by him. “They DO say two girls looking to practise their English . . .”

Back at base, I remarked to a Dutch guy that we’d just had an extremely expensive pot of tea. “Were you on Wangfujing?” he asked. “Yeah,” I said. “That happened to me there five years ago,” he said. “Cost me about 30 euros.”

How to Avoid the Tea Scam: Don’t go for drinks or food with Chinese people unless you know them well.

THE FAKE NOTE SCAM

Buying cheap goods in China, or taking change, one needs to be on the qui vive not just for short changing but for the multifarious fake notes. So, when a chick selling People’s Liberation Army hats outside the Summer Palace in Beijing passed me a 50 so different from the ones I’d seen that it HAD to be a forgery in my change, I objected.

She gave me 100 back. Unfortunately, THAT was also transparently different from the note I’d given her. We argued for a while, Z chiming in quite heatedly, with her opening her wallet to show only notes identical to the ones she had given me, and a young kid keeping an eye open for police.

Why didn’t I call for the police? Well, firstly I wasn’t entirely sure the note was fake, because it seemed so different from the traditional Chairman Maos that it would be odd to pass it as a fake (it was, in fact, a commemorative note). Secondly, we had limited time to see the Summer Palace.

And, thirdly, because my Chinese is still pretty rubbish. And if she had turned round to the police and said that I had passed HER the fake, things might have turned very ugly indeed.

How to Avoid the Fake Note Scam: Carry enough change to pay the right sum for whatever you buy. Be very cautious if someone drops their price too easily on haggling. They’re likely to make their money back on a fake note.

THE BROKEN GOODS SCAM

Many street vendors in China source their toys from the quality testing division of factories – the ones that have failed to pass muster and should have been destroyed. Most will have one version of the real toy that works, which they use for demonstrations.

The same, of course, goes for electronics: it’s not uncommon to sell hard drives or other kit that look and weigh exactly the same as the real thing (not to mention the functional demonstration model) but are full of scrap metal instead.

How to Avoid the Broken Goods Scam: Don’t buy electronics on the street. If buying toys, insist on testing the one you buy.

The post China Scam Count: Grifters 3, Us 4 appeared first on EscapeArtistes.

1: Know Which Compass Point You Are Headed To

In China, roads are handily signposted (in both Chinese and English), complete with their compass directions, but bus timetables are written in Chinese.

Chinese streets are LONG. The easiest way to establish whether a bus stop will lead the right way up your destination road is to know the five Chinese points of the compass: bei (north – say “bay”), nan (south), zhong (middle – say “djonnng”), dong (east) and xi (west – say “shee”). People will tell you bus numbers by holding up fingers.

2: Identify Which Part of the Stop Your Bus Will Stop At

Urban Chinese bus stops have space for five or so buses at a time. Given that buses are packed beyond capacity for roughly six hours out of every day, you’ll need to position yourself near to where the front of your bus will roll up to have a chance of getting on.

Keep an eye out for your bus as it sits in traffic or approaches from a distance. Work out where it will be positioned at the stop when it arrives and join the surge of humanity barging to that point. If you failed to get on the last bus or two, watch the people who were in front of you and follow them up and down the bus stop. You will get on eventually.

3: Carry the Right Change in Your Hand

Chinese bus drivers do not give change and it is normally difficult, if not impossible, to gain enough personal space to get your hand into your bag, extract your wallet and find money before the crowd pushes you past the metal box where you drop your fare. Ball up the right change for your fare in your hand before you attempt to board. Also be aware that pickpocketing can be a problem.

4: Be Prepared to Push

China’s cities are crowded and getting more so. When it comes to public transport, there is no such thing as a queue, more a multi-directional scrum. When the bus arrives, push vigorously towards it from your current location and carry on pushing until you are on the bus. This huddle is a good-humoured but vigorous process: do not lose your temper. If you object to bad breath, do as some Chinese do and wear a surgical mask. If you’re over 5’9″ be prepared to stoop on some buses.

5: When the Doors Are Closing, Shrink

The driver will close the doors when it is physically impossible for
any of the heaving, surging mass pushing from behind and both sides to compress the people inside the bus enough to step up onto the bus. If you are last on, to avoid being trapped by the closing doors, edge into the centre of the space in front of them and shrink your body and possessions inwards so the doors can squeeze past you. Travelling with kids? Carry little ones and push bigger ones ahead of you with your arms on either side. And hold on tight. Rides can be bumpy.

6: Be Prepared to Give Up Your Seat

Although no quarter is given to either the elderly or children when it comes to getting ON the bus, traditional Chinese respect for the old and the broad adoration of children produced by the one-child policy kicks in as soon as all are aboard. Should you manage to secure a seat, you should offer it to any elderly person or a woman with a child. Do not be surprised to see a mother put a tiny child on the seat and then continue to stand herself.

7: Start Barging BEFORE the Bus Reaches Your Stop

You get off Chinese buses at the back, not the front, a process that, like much else in Chinese public transportation, requires pushing lots and lots of people out of your way. Start barging towards the back doors before the bus stops and continue to barge vigorously until you are off. If travelling with children, push them in front of you and physically block the doors from closing until everyone’s off. Should the doors close, bang and yell until the driver opens them. Don’t bother with “excuse me” in any language. No one else does.

8: Or… Take A Taxi

Chinese taxis are metered and relatively affordable. Generally speaking, they are most easily hailed with a vigorous wave while standing in the outside lane of the road, or simply edging up to them in gridlock.

Unless you speak the language (we’re learning Chinese at the moment), bring your destination’s name and address with you, written in Chinese script as well as pinyin, and, ideally, the phone number too.

Good guidebooks have addresses in Chinese script, while tourist businesses give out bilingual cards. If you don’t have a smartphone, a guidebook or a card, use Skype to text the address to your phone.

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