Jinghong Hotels

• John195123
• Reviews: 1363

Helpfulness

Don't Know: Wild Elephant Valley- Park Entrance

There's a hotel just inside the park entrance as well. I don't know anything about it other than that, and that it costs 200 RMB for a double room.

• Opinion of Price: more expensive than average
• Written May 29, 2008

Is this the hotel?

---

Was this review helpful?

• John195123
• Reviews: 1363

User Rating

Helpfulness

Sanchahe Tree Hotel thing...: Swiss Family Robinson??? Heck no!

What the Lonely Planet calls a "Swiss Family Robinson"-esque hotel in the trees is a sad, horrid and utterly misleading travesty to the reality of what this place is.

Yes, you will get rooms elevated off the ground. But don't starting getting images of exotic, unique and exciting wooden structures, fluidly built into the trees.

Along the elevated walkway you will find a set of pale, mint green, plastic cubes set atop concrete poles (which look like tree trunks- one pole per cube) that wobble disconcertingly when you walk in them. Father Robinson would be ashamed to be connected to such a place.

You have what you need- a bed, replete with a line of ants providing a great opportunity for you and your kids to watch each ant touch the others to relay information as they scurry from the bed, up the headboard, up the wall and out the window. If they don't crawl on and in you, you'll be doing well. Mostly they mind their business and only a few intrepid explorer ants brave the great white sheets.

There's a bathroom too, though you might not have a toilet seat on the western toilets and you might have to reach into the toilet to flush it... there's clean water in the holding tank. Or you might have a toilet seat, but no toilet. No sink, but there's a plastic basin and a basic shower that drains down, no doubt, into the elephant's drinking water.

If you keep walking once you reach the first rooms, and turn right, you will come to an area where the people who run the place work. You should make reservations in advance, but if you don't find them, they'll probably find you.

One of the only things to do here is to hike up the stairs to the cableway (go past the restaurant and you'll find some bathrooms that are housed in a giant fake stump and there's a path leading to stairs). At the cableway they sell drinks, beer and a few other things.

THERE IS NO FOOD AVAILABLE HERE. So any food you might want to eat should be brought in. Once you've hiked the stairs for your beer, it seems common for tourists to hang around the main building (where there is outdoor, covered seating). We met some other teachers on vacation who seemed to think that the tree-house hotel was exciting... guess I'm just too used to sleeping in the real forests or something... too jaded by experience... anyway, I digress.

Bring your food, but see the Wild Elephant Valley BAD IDEA tip... don't feed the animals.

Very simply, the rooms are really basic and somewhat grubby for the 200 RMB they cost per night. I don't mind grubby at all, but we're used to paying 30 yuan a night for that sort of grub.

If the mediocre gets you going, then you might enjoy it. It's not a bad experience at all. It's sort of nice, being in the trees and away from the usual hotel- to walk outside the flimsy plastic door (lock it when you're not in the room/at night so the monkeys don't open it) and be greeted by jungle all around you. There's a chance you might see elephants from here, early in the morning. We got up a few times at night to sounds that could have been elephants, but saw nothing.

Disregard the rats (or monkeys) trying to scratch their way in...

Unique Quality: I guess you could say it's a unique experience. Certainly for China, it is unique. But, as with many things in China, it is uniquely Chinese- run down, dirty and overly touristed.

Four images.

• Opinion of Price: more expensive than average
• Related to: Family Travel, Jungle and Rain Forest, Eco-Tourism
• Written May 29, 2008

The cubes

3 more images

---

Was this review helpful?