Northeast China -Harbin.

We're now in the northeastern of the big peoples republic, in Harbin the Capital of the Helianjong province.
After some misunderstandings at the airport where we were sent from one terminal to another and back again, we finally got on the plane we were supposed to be on, just with some delay.
We arrived in Harbin one and a half hour later, but we were there.
A taxi driver would take us the 46 kilometers to the city, a journey that normally would -according to the lonely planet- cost about 100 yuan.
We followed this guy to his taxi and Catriona said to me that we should take care of scam taxi's, that would charge us double or more for the trip. He took us to a taxi and we got in and asked him to put on the meter, which he did, and of we went.
After some time I had a look at the meter and it was already about 70 something and we couldn't even see the city yet, so now we were both sure; this guy would try to rip us of.
As I mentioned to Catriona that I thought the bill at the end would be 300 yuan, the driver pulled out his phone, tipped in the number 300 and handed it to me, we knew that we've just done the wrong thing. I was mad and didn't want to be ripped of, so I wrote 200 on the phone and handed it back.
"No -no" he shook his head, tipped in another number; 280.
I started my bargain strategy I've often used in Hong Kong and went down; 180 -his turn.
Again he shook his head tipped in 260.
No way, we knew we were going to pay more, but not that much, so I pulled out my camera and said to him that I was going to take his photo, and that was a good move, because he straight on agreed on 200, and offered us a cigarette, which we refused and he lit himself one and the rest of the trip he was quiet and brought us to the hotel. Here he wanted to park away from the entrance on the car park without light. We refused that and got him to reverse back to the entrance. Catriona had pen and paper ready to write his number plate, but he was very fast to get out, open the trunk and hide the number. We got our stuff and he was still fumbling around in the trunk with the boot wide open to cover the plate. We stood there for a while looking at this theater, finally he got in the car and left still with the boot wide open.
Well, one experience richer and we've learned a lesson, but thank god it wasn't that much we got to pay at the end, but anyway the double amount.
No, they are not all like this. In fact it is a pleasant and very friendly place to travel, and many many people are really helpful and, even they do not speak any English, they do their best to help and get us on the right path, when we seems to be lost.
Harbin is a city of Russian influence as it is so close to the border with Russia. In the city this can be seen on the architecture and in restaurants and shops, and the most Caucasian people coming here is from Russia, so when we start speaking in English, we seems to be an oddity, and often we get stuck because of our lack of mandarin. In the hotel there is a guy who speaks very good English, and he has been incredible helpful trying to get us train tickets and what ever we've needed. Thank you Mr. Ding Yu. And if you want to Know the Hotel name, then it is the Friendship Palace Hotel in Harbin.
Now we are heading for the border town of Yanji, just on the border to North Korea by train. We will stay for two nights, before another train will take us to Dalian, and perhaps back in a region where more people can understand us. It is hard when nobody understands you, but it is our fault, we come here and we should have done something to improve our language skills in mandarin.
That is all for now and we'll catch up later for more stories from China.