If you find yourself with a layover at Guangzhou Baiyun Railway Station then you can do much worse than staying at Zhengsheng Hotel.
Said hotel is not only almost walking distance from the station, but offers cheap rooms, as well as some fine street food and restaurant dining.
What the Guangzhou Baiyun Railway Station?
I will not go into huge details on this station as you can read my main article here. It is though the newest of the Guangzhou stations and as expected resembles a rocket ship rather than a train joint.
The main MO of this station is to increase high speed routes, with it also offering some slower jaunts, such as to 22 hours to Beijing, which is what brought me here.
What the Zhengsheng Hotel
Located 10 minutes drive from Guangzhou Baiyun Railways Station this is pretty much the nearest hotel for trains and as such has plenty of people staying here. Roughly 50 rooms per floor, it has 5 floors so therefore decent capacity.
Said rooms are around $25 a night, which is cheap for current day China. The rooms are huge, but also offer some of the worst use of space that I have ever seen. My room had two beds and a HUGE area that was unused. I like big rooms with stuff rather than big for the sake of big.
Interestingly this also seems to be somewhat of an African area. Now obviously there is nothing wrong with that, but quite why so many have chosen this as hangout with none of them getting the train was interesting. Then again this is Guangzhou, the place to buy and sell.
Street Food Guangzhou Baiyun
When staying at the Zhengsheng Hotel there are literally a ton of restaurants on the side of the hotel. This includes some outdoor dining, a beef restaurant and even local version of a pizza joint. And of course there is the kind of karaoke gentleman like, as well as a spa.
It is though opposite the street where the vestiges of what might one day be a great street food area are. Here there are maybe 15 street carts serving a variety of food and drinks. This is mostly juices, bbq, fried rice and noodles, but also includes more local stuff like cooked oysters.
And you know what not only was it decent enough, but there are definitely an area for growth as needs change with the train station. Now though I’d give it a mere 5/10, not yet touching the heady heights of Guangzhou Airport, or that near Kunming South Railway Station.
So, overall if you end up at Zhengsheng Hotel you get a cheap hotel near Guangzhou Baiyun Railway Station, as well enough food to keep you going. Sadly the shops here did not sell soju, although this was probably for the best with all things considered.