My friend who lives in Dali, China asked and they were willing to rent bikes to foreigners.

As my friend is not well versed with bikes, I asked for the contact number of the bike shop so that I could Whatsapp with them using Google translate. However Whatsapp is banned in China and they only use Wechat.
For some reason I can't get Wechat to work on on my phone and there is no way for me to communicate with the bike shop.

Looks like renting and riding in China is out unless I join a tour from Ride China. And Ride China is costly too.

Maybe try someone else's phone....? I'm not particularly good at this sort of thing, but I downloaded WeChat before going to China--it wasn't difficult and worked fine.

Seems to me I suggested WeChat to you on some other thread but you declined and said, basically, why bother. This is why bother--you can communicate in real time with automatic translation, transfer money, send and receive maps, photos and other files, etc. Privacy concerns aside, it does just about anything you can wish it would do.

You suggested Wechat on another thread when I was already back home after my tour to Osaka and my layover in Guangzhou.

Read my post on that thread.
The only time I used the words, why bother was on the Chinese SIM card and not about Wechat.

https://www.horizonsunlimited.com/hu...anghai-i-84220

Why are you lecturing me when I have not offended you?

:nono::nono:

You're right; I should not lecture (although that wasn't my intent). I apologize for my tone.

Let's pretend I limited myself to "Maybe try someone else's phone." And because these threads are consulted by others, not just those posting, I'll add that for travel in China, WeChat, Alipay, plus functional SIM and VPN are essential and should be arranged before entering the country.

All IMHO, of course.

Apology accepted.

Let's move on.

:palm: