On my last night in Shanghai, I returned to the PuJian Hotel to find that my bed had been sold because I hadn't paid before noon. "But I tried to pay at twenty to eight this morning," I protested. The man behind the counter looked at me blankly: "The rules say check-in before noon to keep bed." I pointed to the desk where someone had been sitting that morning when I told him my room number and offered to pay. "He was sitting there eating his noodles and didn't seem at all interested," I said. "You don't pay there, pay here." "But there was no-one here," I said. It's rules and lack of initiative that plague the traveller trying to secure simple but essential things like accommodation and travel in China. I was found another bed. "You check-out tomorrow?" This time things were clarified.
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