SWMBO and I were on a two-night coach trip to YangShuo and Guilin organized by a GuangZhou travel company. This was the second hotel we stayed in. ||||A coach trip in China usually revolves around just two entities, eating and shopping. If there’s plenty of both then it’s judged a successful trip. I judged watching the scenery roll by was only of interest to me. We both like seeing sights, but SWMBO particularly likes ‘old’ villages but they’ve got to be authentic. Shopping isn’t of much interest to either of us. The amount of tourist tat on ‘unbeatable prices’ is amazing. ||||Back to the Wednesday, we’d done one ‘new’ village in the morning and a genuinely old and extremely interesting one after lunch. Both offering numerous retail opportunities for the other coach travelers!||||Anyway at 6 o’clock, SWMBO and I arrived at the Hampton by Hilton worn out after a frenetic day of sight-seeing. Booking-in was simple as SWBO has a Chinese ID card which was swiped through a card reader. Only one room occupant’s ID is required. If you’ve both got passports, then it’s copying and entering data manually for both. Key-card entry for the lifts and rooms.||||We were allocated a room on the fifth floor at the front of the hotel. Once the windows were shut and the curtains were drawn the noise of traffic from the road below and the massive construction site across the road was just about audible. ||||The room was a touch on the small side but there were two beds, soft and comfortable for me, but SWMBO prefers something akin to a plank of wood. There’s plenty of clothes hanging space and amazing hangers, and shelves. Plenty of lights and electrical sockets including a 5Volt USB. A rather nice wall mounted TV with a remote which saw little use. There’s Wi-Fi available. There was also a nice office chair and a pull-out desk for the business traveler. No other chairs, though. There was a kettle and in the only draw in the room two mugs and some tea, but no spoon for stirring my instant coffee. In the bathroom, SWMBO bemoaned the lack of a hair dryer but a carful search of the revealed one in a bag on a shelf under the sink. A very nice shower unit in the bathroom with nearly instant hot water. A nice carpet on the floor. All-in-all very good but not surprising for a hotel that opened last year.||||For dinner SWMBO wanted to stroll and find a restaurant but from the coach I’d noticed a dearth of local eateries, so we opted for Hampton’s own restaurant on the first floor. Not a bad choice! ||||There was a special 88 Yuan hot-pot which was proving to be very popular but not for us. SWMBO opted for Udon noodles with vegetables and I took a chance with spaghetti Bolognese. Both nice, the spaghetti Bolognese micro-waved to perfection! I also had a side order of salted ribs and a bottle of local beer. A shade over 100 Yuan for both of us. ||||Then we took one of the three lifts to the fifth floor, padded along the well-carpeted corridor to our room and slept the sleep of the tired and sated traveler.||||In the morning it was down to the restaurant for breakfast at 7 o’clock, only a cup of coffee for me despite a nice selection of dishes, and noodles with various trimmings for SWMBO who was disappointed at the lack of zhou (rice porridge). ||||I’ve no idea of the price the travel company paid as it was part of the package, but the guide assured it was a good deal however we had to visit a Thai ‘latex mattress and pillow’ emporium after breakfast where the ‘owners’ could recoup...
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