Untamed Traveler

I flew from Changsha to Shanghai today, landing at the domestic Hongqiao  (Hongchow) airport.

Of all the places I’ve been, I’d have to say that I’ve had the most trouble with Shanghai cabbies. I thought “Well I am staying at the Hilton Hongqiao, so they probably know where it is, right?”

Wrong….  Not only was that wrong, but assuming that the Hilton Hongqiao hotel was near the Hongqiao airport was a false assumption as well.

So… I landed at the airport, fought off the hoard of unregistered private hire cars and as I queued in line for the real city taxis.  I noted that I was the only “round eye” in sight but I still had faith that the word “Hilton” would ring a bell.

When I got in the cab, I told the cabbie “Hill…ton Hongchow” Emphasizing “chow” like a real Shanghai veteran. He turned and gave me that “deer in the headlight stare” so, being ready, I immediately handed him my reservation and said “Hong Song Road.”

He scratched his head, mumbled something in Chinese and started slowly down the road. The cab was traveling extra slow, like 5 miles an hour slow, with other cabs whizzing around us honking their horns.

By now, I’m thinking… “this guy doesn’t have a clue…”

I turned on my iphone, clicked navigation and within a few seconds… I have a map of where we are and where the hotel is. I push the phone in his face and he stops the cab right in the middle of a busy road… looks at the map and mumbles that same phrase he did before in Chinese. He resumes his slow crawl and calls someone. I thought “great… he’s getting it!”

As he’s talking, his tone becomes agitated and now he’s yelling on the phone. I’m in the back trying to use Google translate to find the Chinese word for “left” because I see that he needs to make a left hand turn soon. Google doesn’t work… oh yeah… remember that Google / China thing? So I try to get his attention, he’s yelling on the phone… I’m yelling LEFT… LEFT!!!  And he passes the turn.

This goes on for 25 minutes as he is yelling on the phone, I’m yelling directions in English and traffic is passing us, honking and swearing at us in Chinese. The whole time I’m watching my iphone navigation showing us getting farther and farther from the hotel.

Then I get my bright idea…. Switch my phone to the Chinese Language so that the cab driver can read the map! Fucking brilliant, huh?

I do it, then I push the phone back in his face… he stops again in traffic… mumbles that same phrase and gives me the phone back. What? He still doesn’t get it????  What is he, a Chinese fuckin illiterate????

I am sweating my ass off in the car after sweating my ass off in the Chinese airplane in Changsha that sat on the runway for 2 hours, for what reason I don’t know because it was all in Chinese!!!  And he gives me the phone back!

I can’t understand my phone now because it’s in Chinese and I can’t find where to change it back to English… because it’s in Chinese!!!

 

Another 25 minutes goes by… sweating… yelling… pointing, fumbling with my Chinese iphone. I seriously would have like to have my blood pressure taken during this ride….

I finally see a Hilton sign up ahead and yell to the driver, I direct him… left… then right….then left again.  We get this directional harmony thing going and in 5 minutes we reached the hotel.  Whew!!!!

I paid the guy about 8 bucks and went into the hotel to check in. After I signed all the papers, I asked the young lady behind the counter to change my phone back to English. She takes one look at it and says “I don’t understand it… this not Chinese… it Japanese!!!!

Shit!!! I must have fat fingered it when I thought I was changing it to Chinese. No wonder the poor SOB driver didn’t understand it… and here I’m calling him a stu-nad!!!

Now I have to find a fuckin Japanese person to change my cell phone!!!

Just another day in China…..