Four Star Luxury

Four Star Luxury

Kaifeng was my next stop and because of the holiday, I had a tough time finding accommodations. In normal circumstances I would be willing to wader around until I found a reasonable place to stay, but in this case my train was to arrive at eleven. After a four hour journey, I knew I wouldn't feel up to the hassel. After calling ten or so places, I finally found a suitable room, not too far from the old city. Unfortunately, I would be paying about ten times my previous location, but at $40 a night, I felt I could swing it no problem.

I was very impressed by the four star hotel rating, but quickly became concerned when I discovered the staff had zero English, like a small step above my Chinese. How to describe my room? Well, it kept me laughing for three nights and I would say the big bucks were worth it. Not because of the high quality, but because it provided me with the ability to experience dated, Communist luxury first-hand.

Since I was on the tenth floor I had an excellent view of the adjacent power-plant and government housing projects. This view was available through my sizable room length window and aided by the fact that the shades were in taters. The room was huge and the bathroom was just ridiculously large- bigger than the main room in my first Chicago apartment. The bathroom had a giant two person bath, bu the water came out in a trickle and the bathtub leaded. The remainder of the bathroom was a vast expanse of cheap white tile specially chosen to match the moldy ceiling tiles. The bedroom was just as elegant, complete with a mah jong table, TV and queen size bed. The room had peeling paint, electric sockets that didn't work, a badly stained carpet and torn bedspread. The bed itself was a rock- not that much of a surprise considering all the beds I've slept in here seem to be a one centimeter mattress atop plywood. The hotel was once luxury or at least designed with that in mind. Either the developer siphoned the funds to some private account or the manager just gave up trying to maintain it a long long time ago. The funniest part of the hotel was how it continue to promote itself as top-class luxury. The sticker prices on rooms were no less than $70 per person with most well over $100.

The highlight of Kaifeng was the great night market. I ate there several times and sampled a wide variety of foods from fresh squeezed sugar cane juice to odd-smelling (but interesting tasting) fermented tofu. My favorite was the grilled mutton (who can be sure what the meat was?) seasoned with copious amounts of cumin and chili powder, served by a disco-dancing (his booth rocked some solid beats) red-faced man.

Kaifeng was very crowded and I wasn't able to actually see any of the Jewish relics. I still found it interesting as it's an ancient capital with several sites of worth. The most impressive was a thousand year old pagoda. The pagoda is the oldest, best preserved in China. It's towering at around thirteen stories- try to imagine that 1,000 years ago, and constructed with a pressed clay that gives off a brownish hue, and it's name, Iron Pagoda. Plus for ten quay you can ascend to the top. That is if you can brave the dark passageways filled with steep, narrow steps and little kids. Also of note is a thousand armed Buddha. It's four-faced and took about sixty years to carve. It's attractive enough to block out the never ending supply of tourists and make up for the hypocritical trinket, selling, monks of the monastery.