[Warning: this post contains graphic images which may upset some readers]

Six people died when a sightseeing bus overturned in the mountains of Chongqing. A total of 36 people were injured in the incident, with five in serious condition.

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The accident at 6:35pm on July 5th in Fuling, on the outskirts of Chongqing. The bus was coming down from Xiannu Mountain and heading towards the city. The bus was traveling so fast that when it flipped, it slid on its roof for another 200 meters.

The bus involved in the incident belongs to the Chongqing New World Public Transportation Company, but it was rented to the Chongqing Beautiful Journey Trip Company. It was carrying 51 people when it overturned.

Photos: People’s Daily (2),

Let’s not mince words: as a Pearl River Delta resident, you can appreciate the very best thing about the PRD: lychee fruit—the proverbial cherry on top of the sundae with Chinese characteristics. However, the lifestyle you take for granted is what makes tourists to Shenzhen lose all semblance of civility.

Apparently, some people can’t go to the park except as a means to exploit its natural resources. On June 10, tourists to Shenzhen’s Lychee Park lost their shiznit over the fact that lychee are being grown on a tree and are free—FREE!—for the taking.

As People’s Daily reports, tourists employ a variety of creative (read: violent) methods to harvest the lychee fruit: throwing plastic bottles, throwing slippers, and shaking the tree. And then there’s climbing the lychee tree itself, thus rendering hobbies that require buying stuff like frisbees and kites redundant from their lack of harvested fruit.

At this rate, thongs are never coming to China.

Photos: People’s Daily

The couple were fulfilling a lifelong dream by travelling to the United states for a holiday. Although charges were not pressed against them, the experience of having to spend a night locked up with drug dealers and prostitutes turned their dream very much into a nightmare.

After the couple couldn’t agree over where to stand while posing for a photograph, the wife hit her husband over the head with her handbag. He retaliated with his bag and they got into a loud argument in a language the locals couldn’t understand. Around 10 policemen were called over to subdue them.

According to their tour guide, surnamed Du, the couple were kept in separate cells and wept after being released the next day.

This is the latest in a long line of incidents that has given tourists from the Chinese mainland a bad name. In May this year, former Guangdong Party Secretary Wang Yang said:

“They speak loudly in public, carve characters on tourist attractions, cross the road when the traffic lights are still red, spit anywhere and [carry out] some other uncivilised behaviour. It damages the image of the Chinese people and has a very bad impact.”

A proposal was issued by the China International Travel Service on behalf of the industry on Aug 1, calling for good manners for tourists and tour guides, according to China Daily.

Gongbei Border Control

You might be able to speed through Gongbei Port and into Macau soon, as Guangdong appears to be tightening visa requirements for Chinese tourists.

A report from the Chinese-language Macau Daily News cited unnamed sources saying local officials in neighbouring Guangdong could limit the number of Macau visas issued for locals, coupled with a limit on overseas spending on credit cards. Despite its reunification with China in 1999, Macau is still considered “overseas”.

Major Hong Kong-listed Casino operators Sands China, Galaxy, MGM China and Wynn Macau saw shares tank on the news on Tuesday, but analysts are split on the speculation.

From Bloomberg:

“Recent weakness in Macau gaming revenue and visitation growth could be partially explained by the visa restrictions and reduction in China UnionPay limits highlighted by the Macau Daily,” Cameron McKnight, an analyst at Wells Fargo & Co., said in a June 25 research note.

“The report on visa tightening is a bit speculative,” said Grant Govertsen, a Macau-based analyst at Union Gaming Group. “We haven’t seen anything so far to convince us this is happening.”

While Reuters reports:

“There has been no restriction of visas,” said Gabriel Chan, analyst at Credit Suisse in Hong Kong

Chan said new measures recently put in place should actually should encourage the flow of visitors by making it easier for residents to apply for a visa and lengthening the opening hours of the border gate that connects Macau to the mainland.

The numbers Macau are dealing with are huge, and could affect the gambling-heavy SAR.
From Bloomberg:

Macau casino gambling revenue rose 7.3 percent in May, the slowest pace since July 2009.

Reuters said:

About 25 million visitors from Greater China flocked to the specially administered region in 2011 – the only place in China where nationals can legally gamble at casinos – making up about 90 percent of total visitors.

Long queues at the Gongbei border between Zhuhai and Macau are an all too often occurrence as foreigners bemoan the sheer volume of people crowding into the border facility.  Unlike at Lo Wu/Luohu Port connecting Shenzhen with Hong Kong, Gongbei Port often doesn’t differentiate between foreigners and locals, resulting in long queues all around.

The last time local entry into Macau was tightened was back in 2008.