Sleeping in a Rat Hole

Taian, China

I arrived here in Taian late last night. Groggily I walked out of the train station into the usual throng of relatives, hotel touts and taxi drivers. The Station Hotel had been described as reasonable, so I was looking for that one. A taxi driver helped me find it but it was full. And I hadn't booked. Crap, I thought, it's late at night, I'm in a strange place, I have no room and I'm planning a difficult climb tomorrow. I told the taxi driver I was looking for something cheap and the helpful man instead guided me to what I had taken for a newspaper stand. On one side there was an entrance and stairs leading down underground. Several shady types were hanging around the entrance. This was a hotel?! I was introduced to the boss. The rooms were really underground. There was a long, dirty corridor littered with rubbish. Some more shady types were loitering. I was feeling more uncomfortable by the minute. The first room he showed me was right at the back. For RMB 65 he said. I laughed at him, told him I was prepared to pay 30. Then he showed me another room around the middle of the corridor. It all looked like a brothel. Some rooms did have girls in them. This room had TV and a VCR, he announced. Apart from that there was a single light bulb, the bed and table were cheap, ancient and rickety. It did have a shower. I thought about it: the backpack was getting heavy, I was tired, it was late, I hadn't spotted any other hotels nearby and it would only be for a night. I haggled him down to 30 and registered. By the way, where was the toilet? I was led further into the bowels of this warren to a dark doorway. The room had no light (which may have been a mercy) but it stank as if people had pissed and shit on the floor and it hadn't been cleaned in a decade. The stuff that grew and lived in there was probably better left in the dark anyway! And my door could only be locked with a makeshift latch and a padlock. I was having second thoughts...
Before sleeping I found myself a net bar to check my email. It's an interesting phenomenon that once you've made a bad choice much better alternatives seem so obvious. Now I realised the damn station square was surrounded by hotels. Some rooms were also for RMB 30 and they were above ground. Gah! Since when did I listen to taxi drivers at the train station anyway?!
In the end I decided I was too tired tonight to carry my luggage to another place. Besides, I had already paid. And how bad could it get? How bad exactly I found out when I went to bed later - after using that scary toilet one last time. I now found out that the walls of my room were only a thin sheet of plywood. People were shouting in the corridor and it sounded as if there was no partition at all. It also sounded like some sort of argument. And the door to my room didn't close properly and could only be jammed shut by a little latch on the inside. Lying wide awake on my bed I considered the situation: the shady characters outside were fighting, it was all happening right outside my room, my walls were basically paper and the door was not secure. I was so not feeling safe when someone actually started banging on the door. Now I was frightened. What did they want now? I tried to ignore it but it went on. Eventually, I opened. It was the boss. They wanted the VCR. I waited while they disconnected it and carried it to their room. I jammed the door shut again and went back to "restive guard mode", listening, staring into the darkness. Finally, I started listening to some music instead and that lulled me to sleep.
This morning I practically fled the place. Even forgot to take a photo to document it. I only felt comfortable again when I was outside in the bright morning sun. The boss wanted to help me find a guy that would watch my luggage while climbed the mountain. It turned out to be a little tent next to my "hotel". There were some suitcases and the "guard"'s sleeping mat in the middle. It had "theft" written all over it. No way, I was trying my luck with the left luggage office at the station.
Later a businessman from Beijing treated me to a massive breakfast and we chatted slightly awkwardly about Beijing, China, economy and the Olympics. He ordered some expensive seafood dishes and made me eat some of it. He refused to let me pay for any of them. That revived my trust in the kindness of people a little. Still, I'm never ever again going to go for the first hotel I see. Especially if it's a cab driver recommending it.