Royal Garden Hotel Xi'an

Note: there is a proper expensive hotel in Xian called Royal Hotel. This is not it. This is a horrible little back-street place a few blocks west of the main station, a block south of the city wall.

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What a complete dive. We ended up stuck in this hotel because I was too ill to leave, and move anywhere else.

We got tricked into staying here a bit; we were met out of the station by a tout who took at to the hotel, and skilfully routed us via a back alleys so that we wouldn't see the more decent hotels.

The room didn't look so bad when we arrived, although we thought that RMB100 was a touch on the expensive side. The lobby of the hotel was immaculate, and had obviously been given a recent make over, but the carpet in the corridors was dirty, and there were regular spitoons, presumably for the use of the guests. The room was a bit grubby too. One wall consisted of a large curtain which gave the false impression that the room might have some windows, but it didn't. The lighting was dim so the room had a generally depressing feel.

The worst thing about the place, however, was that its main purpose seemed to be to serve as a place of work for all of the local "hairdressers"; the street on which the hotel was located was full of "hairdressers'" shops, all staffed by young girls in short skirts and high boots, wearing a lot of make up and sitting in front of their premises waiting for customers. At the Royal Hotel they could take advantage of the "o'clock rooms", which we later worked out meant rooms by the hour.

When I was finally well enough to get out of the room we moved a little closer to the station to the Shang-De hotel. This was much better, and it was a shame that we could only stay one night; after that we were leaving Xian to head to Chengdu. We even managed to pay less at the ShangDe than we had at the Royal.