Make sure you read the previous post about our ride in a Chinese paddy wagon. Otherwise, you may have trouble following this post.

After we took a ride in the Chinese paddy wagon, the rest of the night’s events were tedious. The short cop with the uniform took us to the hotel that I had been to earlier that day, the one that was over-priced and underwhelming. The cop, the camera still hanging from his neck, helped us carry our bags into the grand, marble lobby of the only hotel in Subei where we were allowed to stay.

The girl behind the desk wore a traditional Mongolian dress, though she was not Mongolian. She was a young woman, probably not twenty years old. The cop ordered her to register us, but she protested, saying did not know how to register foreigners. Only the manager could do that, and the manager had returned home for the night. So we could not stay there.

Our cop pressed her. “You have to let them stay here. Your hotel is the only hotel in Subei allowed to accept foreigners.”

“I do not know how to do the procedure for them, and it is too late to call the manager,” the girl protested.

“Do it anyways.” The cop pushed.

“You are really pushing me around,” the young girl said. “I’ve only been here for a month. I don’t know how to do this, and the manager will get angry at me if I call her.”

“Do it anyways.”

Calling the manager did little. Afterwards, the young girl still insisted that she did not have any way to take us in that night.

Then, the cop called the man with the gun, the one who I mentioned in the previous posts. His message was simple. “Get it done.”

“Okay, look, you need to let these guys stay in your hotel, otherwise, tomorrow, you are going to get fined.”

“I don’t have anyway to let them in. Stop pushing me!”

“Okay, look, I’m not going to fine you, but someone is going to fine you. It is not me doing this. Look, just give your manager a call, and I will talk to her.”

She called the manager again and handed the cop the phone. “Look, I can come and pick you up,” he told the manager on the phone. “It is not a problem, but I need you to allow these foreigners to stay here. Just tell me your address and I will come by. It is not a big deal.”

Eventually, the manager agreed to come, but she said the price for our room would be four hundred r.m.b., almost $70 USD.

“Four hundred?” The cop was surprised at how expensive it was. “How much money do you have?” the cop turned to us.

“Three hundred.” I answered. “And we need money to get back to Dunhuang.”

The cop negotiated on the phone on our before turning back to us. “Three hundred is the lowest she says she can go.” We had little choice but to agree

With the camera hanging on his neck, the cop took a photo of each of us, both our passports and our faces, a sort of ad-hoc mugshot. The receptionist gave us a room key, and the wifi password, but, as a final indignity, we were not able to get internet. The expensive hotel that we were forced to stay at because it supposedly better met our needs, could not even get us internet.