On our way back from New Zealand we had an 11 hour stopover in Guangzhou, China. We knew we could have a half-day rate room in the posh airport resort for $50. We'd done it on the way there, even took the subway to the city centre for a bit of sightseeing. But we're nothing if not adventurous (well one of us is anyway) and decided this time to try the freebie hotel on offer from the airline. After hanging about briefly waiting for another flight to arrive we were put on a bus to a huge and chaotic hotel about half way into the city and arrived in time to catch the tail end of breakfast. Chinese breakfast and not a lot of choice left but we managed to get something to eat. The hotel seemed unfinished but we had a nice enough large room and after a shower and nap decided to head into town for lunch and a look around. We were directed to a bus stop round the corner and dredged up enough Chinese to let the driver know we wanted to get off at the train station. That worked okay, we made it to the centre, and after a few false starts we found an excellent "food hall" on the top floor of a shopping complex. Wandered around taking in impressive boulevards, squares and architecture. Visited a museum which had an exhibition of New Zealand jade which we found rather amusing as we'd just come from New Zealand.

After an enjoyable afternoon we headed back to the hotel in good time for the return trip to catch our next flight to Hanoi. Or so we thought. We remembered which subway station but the bus back to the hotel suddenly ran into a huge traffic jam. After crawling along for a kilometre or two the driver pulled into the kerb, made a phone call then tipped us off the bus saying he wasn't going any further. We were then stranded half way back to the hotel not knowing how to get back there. We started walking in what we thought was the right general direction, then eventually found someone who knew the hotel and walked with us until we recognised we were back in familiar territory. By this time people were gathered in the foyer waiting to catch the bus to the airport. We just had time to dash to our room and retrieve our bags.