- Joined
- Apr 14, 2011
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I want to give everyone traveling to Asia a heads up. Do not let the airlines book any flight transfers through China! I just returned last night from Chiang Mai Thailand. The warning signs went off on the out bound trip. The flight was booked over the web with Expedia in the normal way. The Alaskan Airlines ticketing agent in Portland told me they could not check my luggage through to destination and that I should do it at my first stop in Vancouver B.C. When I arrived they said it was too late to check luggage for the next leg and I ended up spending a night in Vancouver. The next day they said they could only check my luggage as far as Shanghai and that I would need to recheck it there. There was also some argument among the ticket people if I needed a Chinese Visa. The normal one costs serious money and takes a while to get but I was only transferring in China. The answer is yes you need a temporary Visa just to be in a Chinese airport. When I arrived there they were not happy I didn't have it on arrival but I managed to get one there.
So I went to Lampang Thailand looking for kitchen knives and bought 4 handforged butcher knives along with a few Penguin kitchen knives in Chiang Ma. This included a 10-inch blade chef knife and a Chinese cleaver.
Return trip, same deal. You will need to recheck your luggage in Shanghai. This time they gave me a Visa form on the plane so I had that ready when I landed. I land at terminal one at 2:00 am in the morning. Everything closed and no one speaking English can tell me where to recheck my luggage. Eventually a security agent points me at terminal 2 and I spend the next hour wandering around lost trying to find it. So I arrive at a security point labeled departures, not ticketing with the usual signs saying no knives or guns beyond this point. What choice do I have? Suitcase goes in to X-ray and sets off alarms. They pull me aside, force me into a chair and start pulling all the knives out of my luggage. The butcher knives cause great alarm and I'm told I can't have them in China. They are confiscated. The chef knife, cleaver, a couple of pocket knives etc. they say are OK and they repack them and sent me on my way! A 10-inch butcher knife is a danger but a 10-inch chef isn't? None of this makes sense to me but I do know that if my luggage had been checked to designation like normal none of this would have happened. The Lampang knives were the main point of this trip so I have basically lost several thousand dollars and a weeks time. I will never transfer through a Chinese airport again and recommend the same to everyone else.
So I went to Lampang Thailand looking for kitchen knives and bought 4 handforged butcher knives along with a few Penguin kitchen knives in Chiang Ma. This included a 10-inch blade chef knife and a Chinese cleaver.
Return trip, same deal. You will need to recheck your luggage in Shanghai. This time they gave me a Visa form on the plane so I had that ready when I landed. I land at terminal one at 2:00 am in the morning. Everything closed and no one speaking English can tell me where to recheck my luggage. Eventually a security agent points me at terminal 2 and I spend the next hour wandering around lost trying to find it. So I arrive at a security point labeled departures, not ticketing with the usual signs saying no knives or guns beyond this point. What choice do I have? Suitcase goes in to X-ray and sets off alarms. They pull me aside, force me into a chair and start pulling all the knives out of my luggage. The butcher knives cause great alarm and I'm told I can't have them in China. They are confiscated. The chef knife, cleaver, a couple of pocket knives etc. they say are OK and they repack them and sent me on my way! A 10-inch butcher knife is a danger but a 10-inch chef isn't? None of this makes sense to me but I do know that if my luggage had been checked to designation like normal none of this would have happened. The Lampang knives were the main point of this trip so I have basically lost several thousand dollars and a weeks time. I will never transfer through a Chinese airport again and recommend the same to everyone else.
