JPDM

There are a few rules about taxis:
1- Never take one waiting for clients at a tourist attraction, fly one down the street.
2- The driver should never ask you where you are going before you sit in the taxi. Get in the taxi first then talk
3- If the driver speaks to you in english in the context of rules #1 and #2 above, then for sure get another one.

tauphi

I thought the toll is only charged when you're heading to the airport, and not the other way around.

JPDM

No, only when leaving from the airport and not all terminals.

trueblu

It is only T3, but charged both ways.

tb

trueblu

Agreed -- but sometimes easier said than done. Once when taking family to wangfujing, it took ~ 15 minutes to flag down an 'honest' cabbie willing to use the meter on the way back. On countless occasions, especially when we couldn't speak any Chinese, it was easier for cabs to ignore the 'foreigner' and get an easy fare from a Chinese customer.

I've been victim to the 'meter on' scam once -- my second visit to BJ -- it all got rather heated, and I couldn't speak any Chinese at the time, but was resolved fine.

My main gripe is that many cabbies have a terrible sense of direction and don't know how to get to less obvious locations. This is less of an issue for tourists going to the big sites, but also more of a problem for them to solve if they run into said situation -- having a data plan and a smartphone means I can, and often do, direct the driver to where I want to go.

tb

returnoftheyeti

http://www.beijingcarservice.com

Anyone ever used this company? Any other options to get from the airport to a downtown hotel besides a taxi? Or is the taxi just the way to go? First time in China, no Mandarin.

moondog

I couldn't fathom using that company:

1) $130 for a Passat!
2) based in Shenzhen (that's 1200 miles from Beijing)

Even the hotel car option is better. What's your aversion to taxis?

returnoftheyeti

I live in San Francisco

moondog

Ah, that makes sense. Taxis are pretty good (and very cheap) in Beijing when you can find them, and the city layout is extremely straight forward (ring roads, E/W central artery, almost all streets are either N/S or E/W with even spacing). Just don't get fixated on street names (they change every km or so) or addresses (a single address can represent 5 city blocks), and you'll be fine.

The subway system can also be useful during busy times if you don't mind being in close proximity to strangers. Transferring lines is something I try to avoid though (long walks in large throngs of people).

747FC

Thank you in advance for your insights:

Need transport from PEK to my Conrad hotel. From reading past 5 or so pages of this thread, I gather that it is pretty easy to find a cab on arrival and the cost will be be pretty minimal.

Will PEK airport experience be pretty typical: Get bags, immigration, roll them out to street level and stand in a taxi rank?

Will cab driver be able to understand me when I say "Conrad Beijing?"

Many thanks, local experts.

moondog

The taxi queues at T2/T1 are at street level, while T3 is one level down. Ample signage applies in both cases.

"Conrad" probably won't work because the hotel is fairly new, but it happens to be insanely easy to reach from the airport (airport expressway to 3rd Ring, then ~5 km south on the inner loop; no need to u-turn or use side streets), and is an extremely distinctive building (i.e. even people who don't know the name certainly recognize the structure).

Here's the address and phone number. You might want to send it to your phone so you can show the driver as a fallback.

北京康莱德酒店
东三环北路29号
Phone: 6584 6000

747FC

Your the man, Moondog! Thanks!

sbjnyc

I arrived in Beijing yesterday afternoon (my first time). Immigration was quick and painless and got some cash from an ATM (only dispensed 100s). First cab I got into the driver didn't understand "Grand Hyatt". I said Wangfujing? and he did't understand. Showed him on the map and he didn't understand. Driver motioned for chinese letters but unfortunately I lost that slip of paper. I got out of car and went to next cab. Driver was apparently joking about clueless americans to next customer. Anyway, the next driver said "Hello sir" and I liked him already. Fare came to 103. I only had 100s and driver couldn't or didn't want to make change so took 100, smiled and drove off. Only downside was his occasional singing along with his radio. Music was OK but his singing was not.

trueblu

You got lucky with the second driver...95%+ of cab drivers don't speak English beyond "hello" and I would say that 20% don't even know that one word. Best to always have the Chinese address, on paper and on your mobile, as well as the phone number of destination (ideally) so driver can call if lost.

tb

PS welcome to BJ!

JPDM

Telling a taxi driver your hotel name won't work 98% of the time. Reasons are, there a over 5,000 hotels in Beijing and no taxi driver can be expected to know even 5% of those. second, hotels have a Chinese name and it is usually not even close to the english name. And using Google translate won't work as the Chinese name is not a translation of the English name.
So, short of you speaking mandarin, you'd better have the name and address of the hotel in writing. You can usually get it from their website. Better to also have the phone number as the driver will often need to call the to figure out where they are.
If the taxi drivers spoke English, they wouldn't be driving taxis.