Guesthouse

Guesthouse is those houses which are just village house, supposed to build as residential for the villagers.  Many villagers would build such house and lease the room to others. Some of them would not have toilet inside the rooms and they need to share bathroom and toilet with other guests on the same floor.

Legally, these guesthouse is not allowed to take any customers, include the local ones, so obviously, it is not legal for them to take foreign guest. But anyway, many of them would just say it is OK for them to take foreign guest. Maybe they just do not know they cannot accept foreigners or they just do not bother. 

According to our understanding, basically, public security just does not bother to check who is staying where. But if under certain circumstance, they would adopt different policy, is hard to tell.

Different from other hotel, guesthouse, they should have a close circuit TV and linked to the public security bureau. These guesthouses just do not have any such facilities. And of course, there is no serious management of such hotel. So, maybe the floor is so slippery that you found yourself walking on a skating rink. Of course, the owner cannot speak any English and not to mention internet access.  Even though very likely, you can find an internet bar around the corner.   They would not offer free shuttle bus to Pazhou venue.

Since these kind of guesthouse is not really legal, so there is no permanent signage to show they are the guesthouse. Maybe they would have a mobile sign written accommodation in Chinese language, which they would take it out certain time of the day.  But it is not guarantee you can see it, since it is not legal for them to offer accommodation as a business, so they may hide the sign from time to time.

Of course, it would be much cheaper to stay in such guesthouse and it is much likely there is space available. Make sure you have enough psychological preparation to tolerate all these shortcomings before you book on such guesthouse.

Reservation