You get what you pay for (Courtney)

And sometimes, you get even less than what you paid for. So goes the old say - if it seems too good to be true, it probably is.

My mood since the last post, where I was all happy-everybody-is-geniunely-good-and-I'm-in-love-with-the-universe...has completely and utterly dissolved, to the point where Marcus and I have actually considered just getting on a plane at the end of our holiday and going home - screw this godforsaken shithole of a country.

Well, that is if we actually manage to get on this holiday.

In true Chinese style, I have today spent the ENTIRE day trying to organise 2, yup count them the whole whopping great big 2, seats on a plane. That's all. Something I have done numerous times, yet in China, seemingly you have to jump through hoops and have a brain the size of pea to understand the logic of anything that happens in this place. It is now three o'clock in the afternoon, and I am still uncertain if we are booked on 1, 2 or no flights...and i am awaiting a return call from the airline company's finance department, because seemingly when they screw up, it's still the customer that has to pay for every single stoopid mistake whatever monkey has made on your behalf.

If you haven't noticed by now, I am seriously pissed at today's events.

This morning I logged onto www.elong.net - for future reference, never, categorically ever, use this company. We have been recommended to use this site for relatively cheap domestic flights. I have been monitoring the progress of two flights, from Kunming to Wuxi, so we can get home at the end of our trip. They have been gradually getting cheaper, but seeing as though we leave in a couple of days I figure we should book our seats....you know, just incase there are any problems. Oh the optimism.

Of course, I fill in all our details, yet the site will not progress to the payment page (and might I add thank god for that, as by now I would probably be broke and booked on 7 different flights). We try a couple of different times with no joy so I decide to call them. Get a nice but dumb as bat shit girl on the phone, who takes all our info. The original call took 35 minutes....and all she wanted was the flight number, date, our names and passport numbers. Nothing else. Can you imagine that conversation necessitating 35 minutes?? Well it did, because of language difficulties. I don't have a problem with language difficulties, we chose to live in a non English speaking country, but jesus, when she initiates all checking by saying c for china, o for orange, u for united etc etc...you would think I would only need to confirm the letter "e for english" once. Maybe twice. But no, we somehow got stuck on the letter e in my name, and she just could not get her head around the fact that it was not an "a". I can't tell you how many times I had to confirm my name.

So we eventually get there. She tells me I will get a confirmation letter via email, which Iwill need to print, sign and fax back to her with copies of our passports and credit card. No probs. I print off the letter and what do you know!!! My surname has been spelt as WORK. Even though we confirmed my name no less than 17 time, each time with the "T" being read as t for teacher. So I ring back, and she tells me that she will amend the booking and send me a new letter. I get the next email, and it has a different booking number and a different amount. So I call back again, yes there is a new booking number because the tickets had to be rebooked, and the price has actually just dropped. Wow, a win for the little people. Right about now warning bells should have gone off. But the confirmation letter was purely for the credit card, it had no actual flight details, date etc information to confirm, just the credit card.

So off we go to Mr Pan's office and fax off the documents. We get home and I get a confirmation text message......SHE HAS REBOOKED US ON FLIGHTS FOR TOMORROW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This is when I really start to lose it. Because now, we have paid for the flights on my credit card, and now we are under 24 hours to when we are supposed to be on their damned flight! So I ring back again, she tells me that they will have to rebook us onto the August flight, and then we will have to SEEK A REFUND for the tickets tomorrow! I lose it. I am furious. End up getting put through to the refund area once she books us into the correct flight, and the girl tells me it will take a good 6 weeks for the funds to come back. Simply not good enough. Now, with my bank knowledge I know that there is no way to rectify this, other than wait for the refund. But I figure I am going to be a bitch anyways and demand a solution...which I know I wont get. So she puts me through to some supervisor who has no idea what I'm on about (because there is no warm hand over between any department, so you have to explain everything again) and she says she will speak to the finance dept and call me back.

Have now just gotten off the phone to her again, and I have to say our conversation made literally no sense. None. I have no idea what she is on about, but know that it will take numerous more calls to actually get the money back. So my credit card is now maxed through the roof as we pay over a month's salary for a 4 hour freaking flight! And it will be of absolutely no surprise when we get to Kunming airport and they tell us they have no record of us being on any flight. It will not surprise me at all. And hopefully it wont be of a surprise to the check in lady when I chose to headbutt her.

Absolute freaking nimrods. Every person in this country has ONE specific task. One, eg - this is the girl that puts a stamp in the box, this is the girl that will get you a shopping bag, this is the girl who will take your cash but you have to go over here and then here to get your products and then your receipt. And the problem with this system of trying to employ every single one of the 1.3 billion people that live here, is that no one knows anything outside of their immediate role. So you ask a question and it's literally panic stations because no one has a clue about anything.

Today I want to go home. This country can bite me.