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Shanghai to Hangzhou by Taxi I had one similar experience last week coming back from Hangzhou to Shanghai. We're at the East Bus Station trying to get back around 6 PM. Unfortunately the earliest bus available was 8 PM so we had to wait for 2 hours. Then we're approached by someone saying that he could find us a cab with SH license plate for 70RMB per person -- sounds like a good deal so we took the chance. Later when we're all set and ready to go, the taxi driver told us his sad story... The taxi driver took some passengers from SH to HZ earlier of the day and was trying to find someone back to SH instead of an empty car. So he went to the East Bus Station, where all passengers going to SH would be, and found some passengers by himself. Just when he was about to leave happily, some local people blocked his way and forced into his car to grab the passengers out. They're doing this because they're "in charge" of this area and all private deals like this MUST go through them. They forced the driver to park the car in their place and made him agree to pay "service fee" of 100RMB and 10RMB per passenger before he could leave. In return those local people would stand around potential passengers (like us) and trying to lurk them to accept private deals. So at the end, we paid 280RMB in total to the driver and get back to SH in two hours, the gangsters got 140RMB from the driver happily, and the poor driver got less than 50RMB after paying the "service fee" to the gangsters and highway usage fees to the government... An interesting value chain, isn't it? |