Dali Five Elements Hostel in Dali

The hotel's attitude was terrible; I wouldn't recommend staying here. I booked a room online long ago, and the hotel confirmed it. When I arrived around 3 PM with my backpack, they said there were no rooms available and offered me either pay extra to change rooms or get a refund through an online platform. The owner's attitude was extremely poor, as if it didn't matter to me whether I stayed or not. It started raining outside, but the owner didn't even offer to let me sit and wait for the rain to stop. I stood under the eaves at the street corner, half-drenched, trying to get a refund from the platform's customer service. I had checked other platforms and they showed available rooms. The hotel said they were renovating and had no rooms, but why did my booking from about two weeks ago still show up? When I arrived, they spoke to me entirely in English, and when I said I was Chinese, they said they needed to check something. It's bizarre; do they only accept foreign guests? I wonder why they confirmed the room availability without contacting me. They said they didn't have my phone number but would send me an email to confirm. I've been traveling since last year, and this is the first time I've encountered such a bizarre and terrible hotel.

The room was okay, but there was no hot water… and the rest of the place was totally different from the pictures, the courtyard was so dirty and messy we thought we had entered the wrong place…
With just a few efforts though, the place could come back to being fine.

They gave me a full refund because the property was not as described.

It seems that at one point it was a nice place. But it’s very run down now.

My advice is don’t stay until they post new photos showing it’s good again.

We arrived at 2pm and the room wasn't ready. We didn't get it until 4pm, but then we were already visiting the city. We paid for a room that was available after 12pm. We never got to check in.