Our travel to Kunming, Dali, Lijiang and Shangri-La
I and my friend, we bought a 8-day travel tour from the travel agency CTS which is located in Zhengzhou. The first impression when we met the tourist agent from CTS was not bad. Her name was Peng Chanli, and she was very friendly when we needed to sign the contract. We also asked her about the transportation (aircondition or not), about the hotel we would live, which kind of place we would visit. Ms. Peng Chanli promised us that all would be fine, with all confort and that we would visit very nice places especially in Lijiang where we could see snow mountain and beautiful lake. My friend wanna be really sure about the trip, so he asked again and more detailed. She promised again that all would be sure, serious and nice. OK, we decided to sign the contract and hoped that all would be fine.
1. Wednesday 2004, July 28
We departed by plane from Zhengzhou to Kunming. We arrived in Kunming by plane at about 11 am. The agency picked us up at the airport and brought us to expo garden where we stayed alone for more than 7 hour. They told us that they decided to change the first day with the last day and they would meet us at 6pm but we should have lunch and dinner alone, they would pay us the lunch and dinner money back(we didn't get the money from them till the trip finished). They didn't notice us that they've changed the tour, they just did it.This was just our first problem. We called the agency in Zhengzhou, and Ms. Peng Chanli told us that she would contact the local agency in Kunming, she also didn't know why. This was her first lie, because she already knew about the day change (this told us by the local agent in Kunming). Nothing happened, Ms. Peng Chanli never called the local agency in Kunming and also not us. We also asked Ms. Peng Chanli for the first class train tickets for the way back from Dald to Kunming, and we would pay the difference between the first class and the second class tickets. She said, no problem , she would buy thefirst class train tickets for us. At 6pm we met the local agent again, where she said we should go to railway station by taxi, because they had no time. What please? I didn't heard ... we should go by taxi to railway station. We began to complain and to argue, then they brought us to a hotel where we waited till 9pm. Finally they picked us up and they brought us near the Kunming railway station where we had to walk for 1km.
2. Thursday 2004, July 29
At 6.45am we arrive in Dali where the local agent picked us up at Dali railway station.
3. Friday 2004, July 30
We departed from Dali to Lijiang with an very old bus (no confort, no air condition) which Ms. Peng Chanli promised us when we signed the contract. On the way we stopped many times to some jade stores, what made us very tired. We began to realize about the real travel, about the real nice tour we should get.
4. Saturday, 2004, July 31
We departed at 8.30am from Lijiang to Shangri-La. We departed with an very old bus, a similar one from the day before. On the way we got notice that the road was broken and that we should wait till the road get repaired (because of lots of rainstorm,etc). After about 11 hours finally we arrived in Shangri-La, where we got our dinner. This kind of problem could happen, who knows what the weather will do in the future, so this problem was ok for us.
5.Sunday, 2004 Aug 1
We stayed one day in Shangri-La where we visited some nice place. A pity that the weather was not the best , sometimes it rained. In the evening we left again for Lijiang where we arrived at about 9pm, and then we checked in in the hotel.
6. Monday, 2004 Augu 2
From the hotel we departed to visite the beautiful snow mountains and lake that Ms. Peng Chanli promised us, but when we arrived on the top of the mountain there was woods only, nothing else! In the evening before we left for Dali we had dinner in a restaurant. We still didn't have our train tickets. Everytime we needed to ask for the ticket, so also this time we asked for it. They wanna bring us second class tickets. We got very angry, we said we already told Ms. Ms. Peng Chanli to buy a first class tickets. After 30 minute we got our first class, but they asked us to pay the full price. Why we needed to pay the full price ? we should only pay the difference bewteen second and first class. The Tourist agency told us on phone that this was a special price and it was not easy to get first class tickets because all beds on the train were full, no more place free. After we got on our train where we took some pictures, about more than a half of the bedrooms were empty ...simply free!! See the pictures on home page
7. Tuesday, 2004 Aug 3
At 5.30 we arrived at kunming railway station. The local agent picked us up and brought us to a hotel where we arrived at 6am. we had to wait till 7am for the breakfast. We asked if we could wash our face, just did the morning toilet. there was no toilet or washroom to use, they were closed, and the only room which was open was near the kitchen and also very dirty and really bad smelly. We told this to the local agent, but he didn't care at all. At 8.15am we departed with a bus, but till 1pm we visited only some jade stores. Then we had lunch and later we visited the stone forest and a temple. In the afternoon we asked for the plane tickets to go back to Zhengzhou, but they could not tell us when we could get our plane tickets.
8. Wednesday,2004 Aug 2
Once in the airport we had to rush, because the local agent made a lot of mistakes. In the hurry , finally we got our plane tickets, but once more, one of this two tickets was with the wrong name on it.
Thursday, 2004, Aug 5
We were back in Zhengzhou, and at 8.30pm we called Ms. Ms. Peng Chanli. We asked to meet her to tell her one time more all what happened. The answer from her we got ... i don't care, it's up to you...We called Ms. Ms. Peng Chanli 3 times, and she also said she would be absent for the next day. We realized that Ms. Peng Chanli didn't wanna meet us at all.
Friday, 2004, Aug 6
We went to the tourism office,and there we explained all what happen with the travel agency and also about what Ms. Peng Chanli promised us. The tourism office told us to write all what happened on paper and also our requirement. Our requirement was: 1000rmb compensation for each one, 88rmb for the 2 lunch and dinner and of course the second class train tickets back from Dali to Kunming. During this time the tourism office contacted the travel agency. Finally, but late, the travel agency woke up , the travel agency manger Ms. Zhang Yingchun called us many times, firstly to apologize, then to try to find some excuse and lie again. We told the travel agent that we tried many times to contact Ms. Peng Chanli, but she never cared about, she always said ...up to you, do what you want. The Travel agent tried also to reduce our requirement. We were very tired of all what happened in the past 8 days, there was really no way to talk in a normal way with this travel agent. Both agents was very unfriendly, rather arrogant.
Thurday 2004, aug 12
We went again to the tourism office where we would meet the manger Ms. Zhang Yingchun of the travel agency. We waited for 1 hour before she arrived. The manager firstly apologized again for all what happened, she also said it was all their fault, the agent Ms. Peng Chanli did a lot of mistakes. After when we asked for our requirement, she began again to lie and to complain. There was really no way, and after about 2 hours
we left the tourist office, and she said nothing to us even no goodbye.
Friday 2004, aug 13
The tourism office called to tell us that the travel agency decided to pay our compensation. Well, I was happy to hear this but not because of the money. I just wanna get my right back, and also what more important is: I don't wanna this kind of problem happen again to other travellers, no matter foreigners or chinese. This is really not a honest way to make money. I hope that this travel agency will be punished and i will make this story and public to all the people in the world. I will also write the name of the agency, their adresse and their phone number.
