Newark Nottinghamshire Vacation of Dreams

Author: Brian Whitebr
Source: articledashboard.combr
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If youre a tourist or even just look like one, you may find your stroll through the market a little less comfortable than youd hoped. It may be that youll take on an unrequested new friend who just wants to show you around — even if you already know your way around — even if you tell him to get the heck away from you. It may be nothing, but be on guard, this guide may be less friendly than you think.

Theres never a shortage of young and old men hanging out in popular tourist spots just itching for the chance to be your unsanctioned and uninvited tour guide for the day. Heck, theyll even work for free if you let them, but pause right there a minute. Nothing is free in this world, right? Right, nothing is free; so whats the catch?

Ive heard about this and Ive experienced it myself so I feel I can safely speak with authority. These kindly tour guides who will work for you for absolutely no charge whatsoever, make all their money — and quite a bit of it Id like to add — from the merchants who are about to make their own killing off of you.

My first such guide was Ben-Ben, a retired engineer I met near the famous Mid-Lake Pavilion Teahouse. He worked for me a whole day and asked nothing in return, though I paid him out of predictable guilt. I did not pay him, however, until after I had bought him lunch, purchased pearls in an out-of-the-way gem shop, bought tea I later learned cost far too much, paid triple for my bootleg DVDs and ten times what I should have for a knock-off watch? Yes, I realized after the fact that he made very good money that day by simply telling his merchant friends to kick him some of the difference.

If you have a decent guide book, save yourself the trouble, headache and outlandish premium pricing and wish your would-be tour guide well on his way. Tell him you live in town and work for General Motors and that you are actually a local. Hell believe you and hell leave you alone.

Im sure hes a nice enough guy, but you just dont need that sort of parasite hanging off of you. If youre out on your own its because you wanted to be on your own, not to invite a rip off artist like him to make a kings ransom off the one thing you dont yet know about trusting strangers./pbr
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Author: John M Lund
Source: ezinearticles.com

The guest house at the base of the Simatai section of the Great Wall of China was typically rural in its naked and unadorned atmosphere. I had been sicker than a dog for a week and I was really hoping for a nice hot shower. It was March and here in Simitai was freezing cold and windy. I checked into my room and turned on the shower. I let the water run a long time, but do not seem to be getting a warmer. I checked the receipt and the clerk sent a man to my room to see the hot water. He told them not to worry that there would be plenty of hot water in the morning. Swell. The hot shower had to wait. The next morning (at 4:00 am that came too soon), I turned on the water and surprise, no water. Not even the cold water! Oh well. I bundled up, grabbed my camera equipment and headed to the lobby to meet my traveling companion, Ginna Fleming, and our guide. We need our start early so we could be well on the wall and instead of shooting the sunrise. I have learned from years of travel, action photography assignment and there is no such thing as "too soon", but "too late" comes in a hurry: a short walk to the wall. It is too early for anyone to be around, only two of us and our local Chinese guide. She was a villager from nearby. He explained that the village was located here, but when the wells dried up people had to travel about 4 miles away where they could find more water. She told us that village life was very difficult and guide the tourists was much easier. We began to climb the wall, who climbed the mountainside on a steep slope. The top of the wall was, in effect, a stone staircase and walked to the lookout perch one step at a time. We climbed the "ladder" for nearly two hours before the sun began his own ascent to heaven. We went beyond the portion of wall and tourists to stop and warning signs prohibiting go further, but it was early and in the winter and there was no one to stop us. Here, the wall had been rebuilt and was in bad shape irregular. Our guide pointed out the graffiti that men and women who built the wall many years ago had left behind. The stones were loose and crumbling and had to be careful as we walked through the structure. When the light began to spread across the landscape we set up our tripods and a framed section of the wall distance stretching out below us like a giant serpent undulating up and down the edges brown and barren hills. For me it was one of the peaks of experience, one of the main reasons I travel. The sense of history was almost palpable, the only sound of birds singing. No tourists, no Hawking guides. Just this ancient wall, a magnificent view of the Chinese landscape and the cold wind pressure on us as the sun struggled through the morning mist. When its rays, finally reached the valley below us and recorded the details of the wall in its warm light that he knew the photos would also be the effort. While I was there to create the adventure and stock photography, travel, I was there for the experience and spent several hours in all quiet reverence. It was not until we were well on our way until we got through anther person passing quietly by us on his own trip to the Great Wall. Begun around 220 BC Qin Shi Huang, the first 3,000 miles of the wall required the effort of 70% of the population of China … more than a million peasants, prisoners and soldiers. There are more than 10,000 watchtowers and beacon towers on the Great Wall. There really is no "single" wall, but rather a series of walls, some brick and some land and built in a span of 2000 years. The stone and bricks from the Ming Dynasty wall would be enough to circle the earth five feet high! Our guide told us that the wall had never stopped any incursions. The intruders, just round the wall or bribed the guards to let them pass.

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