Here are two hotel stories from a China trip we took in November 2007. If it matters, we’re pretty experienced travelers, especially in Asia and this was not our first trip to China so we didn’t go into the adventure totally naive.

I apologize for the length of this posting.

After visiting some larger better known cities, we traveled to Guizhou Province in the southwest corner of China. We spent 1-night in the regional capital city of Guiyang and then took a long van ride to the city of KaiLi to visit some ethnic minority villages in the area. After 1-night in KaiLi, we continued on to the lovely domestic tourist town of Zhenyuan for a couple nights followed by another night in KaiLi on the way back to Guiyang.

Any traveler to China can attest to the hardness of the beds; even in the best hotels. But the beds at the Golden Phoenix Guesthouse in Zhenyuan may set a new standard. A 1½-inch cotton batting pad on top of a hardwood board served as the mattress. In the video linked below, you’ll see just how hard the beds were as well as the en-suite porcelain facilities; an interesting variation on what Western travelers typically might expect. Here is a link to a tour of the room. http://crackle.com/c/Travel/Zhenyuan...259037%26fx%3d

This should not be interpreted as a complaint against the Golden Phoenix Guesthouse in Zhenyuan. We found it exactly as it was described to us when we booked our trip; a small clean suite in a good location with a great view overlooking the river. From what we could gather, there weren’t very many other options for (either domestic or international) tourist. We had a great time in Zhenyuan and if we ever return there, we would certainly consider staying again at the Golden Phoenix Guesthouse.

On our drive back towards Guiyang, we spent another night in KaiLi. On all of our travel documents, the Grand Dragon Hotel was listed as our hotel there. I guess we should have been a little suspicious on our first night there that there wasn’t any dragon theme to the hotel décor but we were there for such a short amount of time, we didn’t think about it and just decided to live with the less than spotless room, broken fixtures in the bathroom and non-working internet connection in what was described as a 4-Star hotel. We even laughed about the rats running across the bottom of the drained hotel swimming pool as we were checking out from our first stay.

But on the afternoon after we arrived back in KaiLi (for our 2nd stay at the same hotel), we took the hotel car to a big weekend market. This part of China is pretty remote and well off the usual foreign tourist track. We were so out of place that while we were walking in a park next to the market, there must have been a half dozen groups of people approach us and ask if they could have their picture taken with us. We had our own paparazzi following us.

When we were ready to return to the hotel, we gave a business card that we had picked up at the hotel front desk to a cab driver but he waved us off. We were surprised that 5 cab drivers refused to take us to the hotel.

After the refusals from the cab drivers I thought that perhaps there was something wrong with the card we had picked up from the hotel and I remembered that I had made my own hotel cards before trip and I had one for the Grand Dragon in my wallet. So I gave the next cab driver the card I had made and he took us to the hotel…only it wasn’t the hotel we were staying in. It was the real Grand Dragon Hotel.

We didn’t confront the guide about the issue right away because we still needed him and weren’t sure how he would react. He was the only person we had encountered since leaving Guiyang who spoke English (other than a college student in the park who asked to practice her language skills with us). But at dinner that night, just to be sure and to give him a chance to fess up, as inoffensively as possible I asked the guide what was the English name of the hotel we were staying in. His response was “something like the Big Dragon.”

We were in fact staying at the Zhong De Yuan Holiday Hotel in KaiLi (and Zhong De Yuan does not translate as “Dragon”). I’m still not exactly sure why the cab drivers refused to take us there. It is not a COMPLETELY terrible hotel (just mostly terrible) but unlike the Grand Dragon, it is not in a good location and not of the 4-Star standard that we had paid for.

To add insult to injury that night, there was a party in the parking lot beneath our window until at about 1am; when I went to the front desk to complain. But since no one there spoke English, they had to wake our guide to translate. Poor chap.

Another interesting aspect of this tour was the number of people that were traveling with us seemed to grow almost daily. This was booked as a private tour. On our first night in Guiyang, it was my wife and I. Then the next morning, when the guide picked us up, he not only brought along the expected driver but also a young girl that was described as a “trainee”. Then when we departed Zhenyuan, a 2nd girl began to travel with us. The guide said she was a friend of the first girl. The girls were pleasant enough and there was plenty of room in the van so it wasn’t a great burden but again, with other circumstances, it added to the unusual nature of our tour. We thought there was a good chance that both girls might be involved in the tourist industry but we questioned if the position they served was actually as a “guide.”

The next morning we made up an excuse to be taken to the airport right away and took an early flight to Shanghai (where we checked into the perfectly wonderful Jin Jiang Hotel) rather than spend another day with this guide touring Guiyang.

Before we left him we told the guide that we knew he had taken us to the wrong hotel and after a brief denial, he admitted that he had. He said there were circumstances beyond his control and that in his opinion, the best way out of that situation was to tell us the lie. He said that if we had not realized the difference, “everything would have been covered.” But as he said: “you caught me”.

As strange as it might sound, I think he might be telling the truth about that. It was an interesting example of a cultural difference between China and the West. Rather than “disappoint” us that we were not staying at the right hotel, he felt that we would be none the wiser if he didn’t share that detail with us.