As I alluded to in the last post, last week was an official holiday week in China. It was called "Golde Week", as the mid-Autumn festival fell on the dar before the National Holiday week - so everyone in the country had 7 days off.
In general, this week and Chinese New Year are the only times where regular working Chinese people can actually travel and see the sights of China. It is a very busy time, and most local businesses are closed....that's why the advice to ex-pats for these holiday periods is to just leave the country.
The government wanted people to enjoy their time off, so in order to generate interest for traveling, they declared that all toll roads would be free. The tolls are quite expensive; for example, a toll road from downtime to the airport is about 20 km and costs roughly 20 RMB - about $3. that's a lot for normal people.
So - we have a national holiday, with 1.3 billion people celebrating, and the toll roads are free - what could go wrong?
Plenty.
Record crowds were seen at all the national attractions. How about these for the Great Wall?
And the traffic? 12, 14 hour delays were reported as routine. Some pictures are below.
What's that saying? "Be careful what you wish for......"
In general, this week and Chinese New Year are the only times where regular working Chinese people can actually travel and see the sights of China. It is a very busy time, and most local businesses are closed....that's why the advice to ex-pats for these holiday periods is to just leave the country.
The government wanted people to enjoy their time off, so in order to generate interest for traveling, they declared that all toll roads would be free. The tolls are quite expensive; for example, a toll road from downtime to the airport is about 20 km and costs roughly 20 RMB - about $3. that's a lot for normal people.
So - we have a national holiday, with 1.3 billion people celebrating, and the toll roads are free - what could go wrong?
Plenty.
Record crowds were seen at all the national attractions. How about these for the Great Wall?
And the traffic? 12, 14 hour delays were reported as routine. Some pictures are below.
What's that saying? "Be careful what you wish for......"
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