Driver in Harbin + ice festival

In northeastern China, my wife, Meg, and I visited Harbin, Jan. 19-25, 2015, to attend the International Ice & Snow Sculpture Festival (Jan. 5-Feb. 25, 2015).

We wanted to be near the tourist attractions and close to local transportation (taxis), and on Hotels.com I found the Holiday Inn Harbin – City Centre (No. 90 Jing Wei St., Daoli District, Harbin, 150010, P.R. China; phone +86 45184226656 or, in the US, 888/465-4329, www.ihg.com/holidayinn/hotels/us/en/harbin/hrbch/hoteldetail).

For the nights Monday through Thursday the room rate was $177.76 per night, and on Friday and Saturday it was $240.83 per night. This included breakfasts.

Hotels.com showed that the hotel had a shuttle service from the airport, something we try to utilize whenever possible. That website advised contacting the hotel directly to arrange for the shuttle, so I emailed and was quoted a price of CNY550 (near $88) for the ride (20.8 miles). 

After settling in at the hotel, we attempted to use one of the city cabs in the hotel parking lot for transport to the festival. To my amazement, cabbies refused to drive us one way to the activities. Instead, they wanted us to rent them for the duration, driving us to the function, having them wait until we were done touring, hours later, and then returning us to the hotel.

Since we were in a tourist area, however, it was simple to locate other taxis for our rides.

This behavior by cab drivers in the hotel parking lot continued for the next four days, and when we asked hotel desk personnel to call for a cab, we were advised to use one of the cabs in the parking lot. In over 50 years of traveling, I had never experienced this problem.

By the way, with any taxi that you do hire in Harbin, be sure to agree on a price ahead of time or make sure that your driver starts the meter right away; otherwise, he may try to charge you a very high fare.

Two days before our departure, we were fortunate to find the English-speaking “Driver Joe” (phone +86 18646543552 or email 54355555@QQ.com). He had been born in Harbin and was able to take us on a half-day tour of the city to view sites only a local would be aware of. His prices were more than fair; he charged CNY200 (near $32) for the tour. (In fact, I wanted to buy him lunch, but he refused.)

And although we left the city at 5 a.m., Joe took us to the airport for a fare of only CNY130. 

Ads called the International Ice & Snow Sculpture Festival in Harbin (www.icefestivalharbin.com) one of the four best ice festivals in the world. It had several “theme parks.”

One, within walking distance of the hotel, was a lantern festival, with many ice sculptures lit up at night in an area of three to four square city blocks within a park. It cost maybe $25 to enter.

A snow festival in another park included many snow sculptures, too many to count. Some measured about 30 by 50 feet, with a variety of sculpted scenes within them. Others were in the 10-by-15-foot range. All were unbelievable. Most of the snow was artificially made.

The ice festival park held the ice sculpture competition, with sculptures depicting animals, fish, automobiles, small houses, etc. Some of the ice buildings may have been four to five stories high. All of the sculptures were lit up at night in changing colors. 

In addition, visitors could (for a cost) ride inner tubes down a hill of snow and ice. Much fun! (Very long lines to partake, plus the fact that Meg and I are both in our 70s, kept us off the inner tubes.)

Entrance fees to the latter two parks were pricey (about $50 each per person), but, without a doubt, they were worth it. We spent five to six hours at each festival site, and only the extreme cold weather had us leaving. At both the ice and snow festivals there were ample buildings set aside to purchase food and refreshments.

I took over 1,000 photos and am still amazed at the sculptors’ workmanship. (The night pictures I took don’t do the sculptures justice.) It was a wonderful trip.

THOMAS CIURLIK

Cudahy, WI