Accommodation in Lijiang

We stayed in a motel located within the Shuhe old town (束河古镇). This place is recommended by a friend, and I too, highly recommend. And I would ask you to stay much longer than what we did. We only spent two nights, which is certainly not enough!

Motel: 田园牧歌客栈
Address: 丽江, 束河古镇开文六社康普巷 (束河办事处旁)
Tel: 0888-5115922
Website: http://www.tymgkz.cn/

We highly recommend this for its hospitality and flexibility. The owners are very nice. It is run by very young people, who actually spend the whole day with the guests. You can chat with them till late night, to understand the local cultures better. They even brought us to the square and we danced together. They make friends with their guests, which is kind of uncommon in other places.

This is the room that we stayed in: 等月亮

Top left: when we open the door in the morning, this is what we see.
Top right: toilet/bath
Bottom left: our bed
Bottom right: outside view at night, it is a corner lot.


This is the corridor – very quiet in the morning…


Top left: outside view of the motel during the day.
Top right: a long table where people gather for meals and drinks, very cozy, like a lounge.
Bottom left: this is where we first had our dinner, a small square surrounded by the rooms.
Bottom right: our room is just behind the 2 loungers.


Look at this lock! They are so Chinese! I thought of buying one but forgot about it later! It looks like a combination lock with Chinese writings…

Nighmare dealing with accommodation rental

Since JohnChow has blogged about this, you'd have already read this. If not, let me share this ridiculous travel story with you.

Before reading on, let me ask you a question: When you stay in a hotel, are you charged by day or by night stay?

Pedro & Grace are frequent travlers, who has travelled to many places and stayed in many types of accommodations. They will start travelling around the world nonstop for 1 year starting from January 2008, with their second stop in NYC from 18 Jan to 18 Feb, i.e. 31 nights.

As they planned to truly experience NY Living, they wanted to rent an apartment instead of a hotel. They have booked themselves in Furnished Quarters (Jersey City).

Their nightmare has just begun after the availability is confirmed. First, they had to pay $1k for deposit which would only be returned 45-60 days after check-out. Next, they were asked to produced a lot of personal and financial documents including bank statements. And then, they were charged based on days stay, instead of nights stay - i.e. 32 days. The check-in and check-out time is like many hotels (or shorter): 4pm check-in, 12 noon check-out.

Just like many of their experiences, Pedro & Grace blogged about this in their travel blog.

The drama started here...

These guys from Furnished Quarters, apparently read the post, started to make disguised comments there, under various identity posting fake customer testimonials backing up the company. Their comments are not consistent, and their IP is from within the company!

One of the fake customer claimed himself to be a consultant, then later he said he is a real estate broker. LOL! I think he is none of these, but a joker. Hahahah!

You may want to hop over there to read more. Anyway, my comments here are:
1) I've also travel a lot (though not as much as the couple)
2) I've never been charged by days stayed.
3) I've also stayed in business apartment before. And they also charge by nights - instead of what they claimed to be 'standard policy' of daily charges. It is NOT standard.
4) I've never been asked to produce documents of such, really wonder what's the point, isn't credit card and deposit sufficient?

And my final words -- one question to ponder. I normally would check the quotations before making payment. I wonder what the process in their case when securing the booking. If they had checked the booking detail carefully, and refused to pay for the extra 'day', they'd probably not caught in this situation. They are uncomfortable of staying there now, but cancellin at this stage would cost some penalty. Maybe a good lesson learnt?

I hope this blog doesn't catch their attention to place a few fake customer testimonials. LOL!

Paris

Lately, a few of my blogging buddies wrote about Paris. One of them said that, most people think of Paris they think of Paris Hilton.

Guess what? You must be laughing out loud that I am so outdated that I've never heard of Paris Hilton. I searched in Paris Accomodation for Hilton Hotels. Didn't find it.

Then, searched in wiki, only found out that that Paris Hilton is a woman. Paris Hilton doesn't mean Hilton Hotel in Paria! :P

Seriously, Paris to me, only means: Romance, Tourist, Cafes, Eiffel Tower, Arc de Triomphe... and recently added Robert Langdon from Da Vinci Code (by Dan Brown)! :P

I haven't been to Paris before. It is a city that I do not want to go on business trip. I'd certainly want to go with hubby. Knowing our styles, we will definitely look for cheap Accomodation in Paris, as we would most likely go backpack. Been talking about this with a friend few years ago. Maybe give it a couple of years more, we will do that!

[Brought to you by CheaperthanHotels.co.uk]