I had imagined that the oriental might be another raffles , all palm courts , verandas and tales about tigers under billiard tables , but most of the hotel is unashamedly modern .
Stroll along others and you will spot wooden houses that look like set pieces from a tolstoy novel : charming double-storeys painted in pastels , their ornate verandas hung with grapevines .
At least when I see the whitewashed , two-storied farmhouses with verandas and black-tiled roofs , of rural villages in somewhere like jiangxi , I am reminded that I am in china and that china is unique .