Kidnapped in Chengde!

In Chengde, we quickly discovered, many of the taxi drivers were young women (one of them told us a full 50% were women). Upon our arrival, a really nice, helpful female taxi driver helped us find a good quality, reasonably priced hotel, the Yunshan hotel where we ended up staying for our three days there. She was so nice, we got a really good feeling about Chengde's female taxi drivers.

On our first full day in Chengde, we hired another woman taxi driver to take us to the Puningsi (Big Buddha) Temple. As she dropped us off, she told us she'd wait for us, and for $50 RMB ($6.25 US), would take us whereever we wanted for the whole day. It seemed like a good idea at the time, so we took her up on it. We went to visit the temple, and, sure enough, when we came out, she was waiting for us at the main gate. It was a little after noon, so we had her drive us to a local restaurant for lunch. She said she'd meet us there when we were done.

Upon finishing lunch, we left the restaurant, and, just like she said, she was waiting for us out front. We climbed into the taxi and told her we wanted to go to the Putuozongshengmiao Temple, whereupon she told us that we really didn't have enough time to really see it. It was now about 1:30, and she told us the temple closed at 4:00, and that it really took a good four hours to see the whole thing. Instead, she was going to take us to see some beautiful rocks up on a mountain top.

We really didn't want to see any rocks (we weren't actually sure what she was referring to, but we knew we didn't want to see any rocks!), but she just kept driving. As she got further and further out of town we started to get worried. Was it possible she had made arrangements to meet some of her friends out in the countryside somewhere, where they'd at least rob us and maybe worse? The more she drove, the more worried we got. Yet no matter how many times we asked her to take us back to the hotel, she just kept on driving, farther and farther out of town. As the street-side shops and houses gave way to farms and factories, Pei decided it was time for action. She told the driver she was feeling sick and really needed to get back to the hotel (which was now probably about a half hour away.) Unfortunately, the driver just didn't care. She kept on driving. We'd been kidnapped!

Finally, after over a half an hour of wondering just what she was up to, we saw the two tall stone columns which she was taking us to see on top of a mountain ahead of us. I think we were all pretty relieved upon seeing them, although we still had no interest in taking a closer look. We all had to go to the bathroom pretty badly, so when we pulled into the parking lot of the park where the 'twin towers' stood, we were elated to see there was a public bathroom just outside the entrance! Just as our driver parked, and as we were climbing out of the taxi, two men emerged from the restrooms and locked the doors. It was closing time (for the restrooms), and they wouldn't let us in, even as our taxi driver pleaded on our behalf.

So, having to go to the restrooms pretty badly, we ended up paying $20 RMB ($2.50 US) each to enter the park, just so we could use the bathroom! The main attraction of the park was the two stone columns at the top of the mountain. Once you climbed up to the columns, there was another fee to climb the winding staircase to the top of one column where you could then cross a bridge to the other one for a supposedly amazing view of Chengde and the surrounding area. We were all so upset (and tired) by now, we didn't care. We just wanted to use the restrooms and go back to the hotel to rest.

When we got inside, there wasn't another person in sight. The whole place was pretty much deserted and pretty dilapidated, as though very few people ever went there. We found a park worker who told us the closest restroom was half way up the hill along the path to the two stone columns. So we started up.

We climbed and climbed, but never did see a restroom. Along the climb, we found another worker sweeping the path and asked her where the restroom was. She told us there was one back at the base of the mountain, back at the starting point! So we started down, but, not being able to wait any longer, I made a detour into the bushes along the path, and took care of business ($2.50 for that! - that's also when I took this picture.) When we all got down to the bottom, we discovered that the only bathroom there was a filthy hole-in-the ground, but, seeing that everyone had to go so badly, it had to do. I guess I was the lucky one. The bushes were a lot cleaner.

When everyone was done, we found our taxi driver, who, we figured, must've gotten some commission from the park for bringing us poor suckers there, and got back in the taxi for our ride back into the city and to our hotel. On the way back, she tried to get us to visit another smaller temple (and, in fact, even drove us past it), but we just wanted to get out of her taxi and away from her. The whole time, she acted as if nothing was wrong.

Finally, back at the hotel, we grudgingly paid her her $50 RMB (we didn't feel like arguing with her and making a big deal out of it) and headed into the hotel, glad that at least our initial fears of being robbed or worse were unfounded. Once it was all over, as with so many other bad things that happen to us in our lives, we were able to laugh about it for the remainder of the trip....