I'm back! From an 8-day trip all over Taiwan. As this time my husband was treating his parents to the trip, we decided to go with a tour group instead of dragging the seniors around on public transport. After studying the ads by various agencies, we went for ASA, as we had not tried it before.
I should have seen the signs. Firstly when we tried to extend the trip for Taipei 'free n easy' when booking, the counter staff said not allowed. Company policy. But during the trip we realised 3 families extended their trip >:(
Secondly we were called up for 'over-the-counter briefing' instead of the usual group briefing. Very strange. We turned up on our own time and were allocated to a counter staff who simply passed us a piece of handout and told us to read it ourselves. He couldn't answer any of our queries on climate etc, giving replies that were generic and obviously 'smoking'. My husband was so pissed.
Luckily another briefing for the same package was scheduled later that day, and we snuck around and sat in for it. Why did this particular group have a briefing and not our group? Bad planning.
TourThe tour itinerary itself was ok, except for a few gross mis-advertising.
For example, "a chance to let off Heavenly Lantern" turned out to be one lantern per tour group of 30 pax, to be bought by the tour guide from hotel reception, and let off in the open-air carpark of our hotel. DUH. We didn't get to let it off anyway, as the hotel said it was too windy.
Our tour to the famously beautiful Sun Moon Lake also became 'seeing the lake on the way to lunch', from where the lake couldn't even be seen. BOO.
Worst of all, they switched my Ximending from the last day to the first. Hello? How to shop on the 1st day right after getting off the plane?!! Have to save money for rest of the trip wat. Angry!
Apparently, 2 people extended their trip to arrive earlier and the coach had to pick them up from Ximending. These people became public enemy No.1 because of their yaya-ness. Let's call them D.A.
Tour GuideThe Taiwanese tour guide was not bad, although suspiciously gay. He had worked in hotel reception as well as owned a hair salon before, so naturally was a very good speaker.
The only bad point was that he had this habit of speaking only to the people sitting in the front of the coach, and those walking in front of the group. So my PIL (parents-in-law) and us couldn't hear most of the explanations :(
Which brings me to...
Tour LeaderSigh...
SSS is a 60-year-old auntie from Hong Kong, who emigrated to S'pore just this year. A freelance tour leader, she was appended to this tour group because it's the peak period. Unlucky us.
CondescendingNot being ageist. Because of her age, she does not seem to have respect for any of us. Her eldest son is 40 years old. So most of us became 'little girl' 小妹 or 'little boy' 小弟 to her. A simple Mr or Mrs would suffice. But no. Also, any issues we brought up to her were dismissed in a condescending manner, as though we didn't know any better.
For example, on the first day, she directed us to the wrong coach. By the time our family moved to the correct coach, there were not many seats left. My PIL kena seats under the hanging TV where they risked hitting their heads whenever they stood up to exit. My husband and I had to sit in single seats 2 rows away from them as the coach had only 2-1 seats per row.
There was a big family of 8 'suadeng' people, who formed the majority because we only had 26 people in our group. Let's call them SD. They made a big ruckus when DA took their seats at Ximending. So the fathers, two men in their 50s, took my PIL's seats, pushing their bags aside.
For goodness sake! Having your seats taken doesn't mean you take someone else's seats! Why couldn't they have moved to the empty last row?
My FIL is 67, with a small frail body and a head of white hair. Snatching an old man's seat! I went over to reason with them but they were so aggressive and unreasonable I gave up and told them "you win" and took the bags, which contained valuables.
When PILs boarded the coach, they had no seats. We gave them our seats and sat at the empty last row where a sudden stop of the coach would send us flying through the front windshield.
The SDs still made so much noise, refusing to give back their seats and complaining that
they have no seats. In the end the tour guide had to give up his seat in the first row to DA, so the SDs get back their original seats.
SSS then suggested that seating for the rest of the trip be based on the original arrangement. I wonder where she got that sudden stroke of 'brilliance'.
The SDs applauded her suggestion and being the majority, the motion was passed. Of course! They had the best seats at the front of the coach, and they were sitting with their family!
My husband and I protested, saying that we were far from my PILs and we needed to take care of them. After all they are elderly already. SSS talked down to us and dismissed us, as though we were the problematic ones. The entire bus could hear us. We were exploding already, but we also knew it was an 'LL' case. She wasn't listening at all.
So for the entire 8 days, my PILs sat on their own, where we couldn't help explain the itinerary etc to them. My husband and I also had to sit apart in single seats.
All other families had their ideal seats, save for another young couple whose window was blocked with a huge sticker and had to peer out from other people's windows. Stupid; how can stickers be pasted over windows of TOUR coaches!
SSS actually offered to let my PILs switch seats with the young couple in order to be nearer to us. So smart, killing 2 complaints in one stone for her. But we were not to stupid as to take up her offer and not be able to see anything at all.
No EQSSS is from HK = she has a loud voice. Which is good for a tour leader to gather her members together. Not so good if you're trying to sleep on a 3-hr coach ride, or listening to the tour guide's explanation over the mic.
Sitting at the last row of the coach, she would talk to the people in front of her in loud Cantonese while the tour guide is speaking. His face turned black each time, but she didn't realise nor did he scold her.
My dirty looks throughout the trip were also unnoticed by her. So the tour guide soon learnt to continue speaking, trying to tune her out. Which meant those of us near the back could only hear her and not him.
Again, because she's sitting at the back, we never know when she's coming. She'll do her patrol up the aisle, prodding us repeatedly on the shoulder and asking loudly "可以吗？" and answering herself "可以hor". Which means she wasn't listening even when we tried to feedback issues to her.
Even when I was turned facing the window with my back to the aisle, sound asleep, listening to my ipod, or intently looking out, she never failed to prod me.
If someone didn't nod and answer her "可以", she would keep prodding and say "可以啦!" WAH LAU.
Horrible reader of body language. Or rather I think she was just going through the motions and not genuinely interested to hear feedback.
In fact, the more problematic we appeared, the more she did her routine on us. There was once I was so irritated I just waved her off and told her to "GO BACK". My exact words. But she continued!!! So we learnt to fake like nothing was wrong.
OH PLEASE SHUT UP.
Yes that is her.
Once when we were taking a romantic cable car trip up a mountain, she squeezed her way up the queue and jumped in at the last minute with the young couple, who obviously wanted to be alone. So poor thing. There were no other groups around so there was no reason why she coudn't have taken a car by herself or with the tour guide.
Rumour MongerI was saying that she would chat with the people in the last row while the tour guide was talking. Most of the time it was gossip. Like which celebrity slept with which rich person to rise up the ranks.
Such trivia is interesting once in a while, but not when inundated with it every day for 8 days. And to think she calls herself a Buddhist. Hello, gossip is frowned upon.
She would also try to dig info from tour members, then pass it around the others. For example, she found out from my kindly MIL (who couldn't be mean to her and tell her to mind her own business) that my husband and I were teachers.
From the front of the coach, she shouted to him 'Lao shi!!!" so everyone could hear. And continued with it for the rest of the trip.
It pissed him off. Of course! Just because we're in the same tour group doesn't mean we want to become best friends with everyone! We have our right to privacy.
She also stopped at my part of the aisle one day and started interrogating me on when I am going to have children, and giving an unwanted lecture on what is good for me. With the whole bus listening.
One poor teenager who got her first menses during the trip had her news spread all around the tour members. I witnessed this myself as we queued for the toilet at a rest stop. SSS put her arms around my MIL's neck as though they were best friends, and whispered the 'secret' to her, saying that she overheard the teenager asking her mum.
After a laugh, she proceeded up the queue to the next lady in front of my MIL and repeated the same thing. For goodness sake!
I now wonder why we did not scream at this super unprofessional tour leader. She was supposed to facilitate the tour guide, but hampered him instead. She was supposed to make the trip more comfortable for us, but we had to endure and 'entertain' her instead.
I think it was because she was of grandma level and we couldn't bring ourselves to be so rude and mean as to scream at her. In addition, if we made her depressed during the trip, we would have to bear with her probably-even-more-tortuous behaviour for the rest of the trip.
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On the last day my husband and I had decided to relax and forget all the torture. Everyone was in a good mood to go home. But she made the whole group angry at the airport.
We
stood in the hall with our luggage for 1.5 hours while she disappeared and apparently tried to get the flight counter to re-arrange our seats so families could sit together. Later we realised she re-wrote our seat numbers on the boarding passes. So maybe she had spent the 1.5 hours trying to re-arrange it on her own and not asking for help from the tour guide.
Everyone had no time to grab lunch or spend the remainder of their NT dollars. Worse, the re-arranging of seats meant that flight meals were mixed up and some of us had to approach the crew ourselves to get our non-beef meals back.
We could have just switched places amongst ourselves if needed.
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She made us fill feedback forms on the plane. But the forms could not be sealed, and she was looking through them on the plane. I wrote everything I wanted and only passed it to her on alighting (although she asked me for it 3 times during the flight). But she can always not submit my form because it casts her in a bad light. PUI!!!!!
I feel it's also partly the travel agencies onus to allocate the correct tour leader for each group. For instance, a group of aunties and uncles might have enjoyed SSS's pattern, but not our group with a younger demographic.
This is the worse tour I've ever been too. Being a freelancer, SSS doesn't have a fixed region. I'm afraid to join ASA tours again in case I kena her again :((( Instead of traipsing, we were trudging :((
Labels: Cynic In The House, Homebody
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