Day 1: Kuala Lumpur to Changsha, Hunan, China

10th April 2019 (Wednesday)

Flight D7 352 was scheduled to depart from klia2 to Changsha Huanghua International Airport at 5:20 p.m. The plane taxied out of the parking bay punctually but was only able to take off at 5:48 p.m.

The ETA at Changsha was 10:30 p.m. Our flight arrived early and touched down at 9:54 p.m. However, it was only able to park at 10:07 p.m.

No arrival card was given out during the flight. I could not remember having to complete the arrival card in my previous trips to China and did not ask for it from the flight attendants. I was caught by surprise when I realised that I had not filled up the card and had to hurriedly complete it at the Immigration.

As I walked out of the Customs exit, a taxi tout approached me. I ignored him but he kept following me. He even went to the extent of using his phone app translator to communicate with me but I still ignored him, continuing to use English on purpose and pretending not to understand Chinese. He did not give up. When he wanted to lead me to his "taxi" thinking I had taken the bait, I walked out of the building by following the airport direction sign to "Taxi". He quickly turned back and followed me. What a pest! I did not see any taxi and asked a security officer standing there. He acted dumb, and did not answer me. I couldn't blame him because I was speaking to him in English, not wanting the tout to know that I understand and speak some simple Chinese.

The tout even went on to say that the taxi did not go into the city. Who did he think I was? An ignorant foreigner! I had learnt my lessons dealing with taxi and tuk-tuk scammers in my previous visits to China. Real taxi drivers were all out on the road picking up passengers, and not stalking and harassing innocent passengers at the airport.

I was not able to focus on finding the taxi zone because of this pest. I tried to shake him off by walking to the outer lane and that was when I saw many blue taxis passing by. As I was not focused on finding the taxi zone, I just flagged down the taxis passing in front of me. One stopped. I showed him my destination on the Booking.com reservation print-out. He has no problem with it, but pointed to a distant spot to the front. The tout was demanding the taxi driver to tell him where I wanted to go, because I refused to tell him my destination in the first place. The taxi driver drove away slowly, and I followed behind. As I followed the taxi, the tout finally gave up but I lost the taxi, unable to discern it from other taxis.

I saw a queue, thinking that was where the passengers were picked up. I continued to flag down more taxis without queuing up. One of them wound down the window and I showed him my hostel address and like the earlier driver, he pointed to a spot ahead of him and told me to go there too. Finally, I queued up at the proper line for taxis further away, but not at this queue.

My taxi left the airport at about 10:43 p.m. and reached 7Days Inn Changsha Railway Station Metro Station at 11:28 p.m.

Initially, I was worried that the taxi driver might take me to the wrong 7Days Inn. He told me there were three branches of 7Days Inn and he asked me for the name of the hostel I was headed. I told him that name in Chinese. He repeated the "Metro Station" part of the name and I was assured by that gesture that he knew where he was going. Using his phone online map, he punched in the name of the hostel.

On arrival, the taxi meter showed ¥102. I gave him ¥105. He said something which I knew would be the toll which I saw him paid twice earlier. I said ¥20, and he concurred. I knew he would not give back the change of ¥3, so I did not bother to ask him for it.

Booking.com stated that 7Days Inn had English speaking desk. Both the male and the female receptionists didn't. When I asked the male receptionist whether Changzhutan Bus Station was close by and what was the direction, he could not answer me. Another young man, who happened to be checking in offered his help by speaking to me in English and translating my request to the male receptionist. He even went online to find the information for me after I showed him the picture and name of Changzhutan in Chinese. He told me it was 700 meters away only. A couple, with a busybody boyfriend, chimed in also but he could not speak English, though I understood him.

Finding myself getting nowhere, I got my keys and went to my room. It was late already. I got my chargers out for the batteries and mobile phones. After a warm shower, I went to bed.