There are some great reasons to join a tour, chief among them knowledgeable guides, someone to do all the work for you. One of the downsides is that you inevitably get dragged to some kind of tourist trap where you are enticed to spend money (from which the tour leaders usually draw a commission). Fair's fair, and it's usually not too terrible, but in Kunming we went to one place where I was definitely not spending any money:
The coffee store. This was actually the tour-group entrance to the flower market, and featured, in addition to glass windows where you could see coffee being ground and coffee-flavored cookies being made, all sorts of coffee products: coffee pancakes, coffee candy, banana/mango/durian coffee candy, and of course, all kinds of regular, chocolate, coconut, etc coffee. All of these are presented along a snaking, aisle-like path for which there are no alternate routes. You are the mouse, there is only one direction to go, one exit (the cash registers) through which to flee, and coffee is your cheese.
I hate coffee. I don't like the bitterness, I don't like the fuss over it, I'm sure I wouldn't be able to take the caffeine; I don't even like the smell. I was without a doubt the fastest rat through the maze that day.
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