Bye bye India, hello Sri Lanka

17/06/2013

Well last night was pretty terrible!  Remember how I mentioned there was no window in our room?  Well, there was a window in the bathroom but it didn’t look outside, it looked onto an interior service corridor and with just a plain glass window with no distortion or frosting of any kind.   I didn’t put much thought into that until there was a power cut and a member of staff went running down said corridor to reboot the power.  This happened twice during the night which put me off wanting to shower the next day as there was no way to cover the window.  I can handle the uncomfortable staring in the street as you’ve usually passed them by in a few seconds but a long shower, completely naked, in full few of any unlucky member of staff that needed to retrieve a mop or just wanted to skive off for a few minutes is going a little too far.

“Tell me what happened?”

“I........I went to get the broom from the corridor......but as I turned around I saw.......I saw.....”
“It’s ok, you’re safe now.  You can tell me.”

“I saw horrible things!! It seemed to be showering.....don’t make me think about it again.  PLEASE!”

The other factor contributing to my decision to skip a shower was the fact that Will, after blocking the toilet with his first excretion had then decided to go again on top of it.  So we had 2 lots of poo from an upset stomach festering in the toilet and they’d been there all night.  He’d tried throwing buckets of water down to force it round the U Bend but that had done nothing save break up the poo leaving just a toilet full to the brim of stinking, brown, lumpy water.  A full toilet of stinking, brown, lumpy water that had been sat there all night long.  The whole bathroom had to be sealed off and Will was having to use the toilet on the 3^rd floor for any more stomach upsets (our room was on the ground floor).  Unfortunately I needed a wee late at night and was already in my pj’s and wasn’t prepared to climb 3 flights of stairs so I had to go on top of it all.  Will had led me in with my eyes closed so I didn’t have the see the desecration of the toilet bowl but eyes closed just accentuated the stench and created a weird desire for me to see the mess he’d made. 

 

I woke up in the morning to the smell that had seeped round the cracks in the door as we slept.  Or burnt its way through the timber, either was feasible.  Forget baked bread and freshly cut grass, I’d have taken waking up to the smell of sour milk and rotting flesh over that.

The other addition to our Worst Night in a Hotel (it’s an official thing now) was the fact that we were near the end of the corridor where the lift was located.  This lift didn’t have normal electric doors like most passenger lifts, it had the folded doors that are manually pushed open and make a clatter every time they are.  The lift, obviously feeling like it hadn’t reached a successful level of noise disruption with these old doors also had a warning to ‘please close the doors’ installed.  This warning started sounding the second the doors were open and continued until you closed them again.  From the expert opinion I have now gained as to the timekeeping for getting in and out of a lift I would say it takes the average person 6.5 seconds.  This is enough for 3 full rotations of “Please close the door” each time the lift is used, not taking into consideration delays caused by any disability that may slow down the passenger, physical ailments causing them to not be strong enough to close the doors quickly or even at all, the passenger being distracted and chatting or too drunk to hear the warning and walking off leaving it open. 

The staff must have been tasked with a job that night that required them to ride that elevator over and over, probably more useful a job than to just piss off the 2 English people in room 5, as I swear it was not silent for more than 4-5 minutes maximum for the duration of the night.  I actually felt myself beginning to join in with it in my sleep!  “Please close the door, please close the door, please close the door”. 

Due to the lift, the lack of windows, the lack of frosted glass to the service corridor and the broken TV with no channels and the wifi that didn’t work we didn’t feel too bad checking out and leaving Will’s chocolate bumshake behind for them to deal with.

We were quickly using the wifi in the lobby to confirm our route in Sri Lanka and I suddenly got hit with the urge to excrete.  Will said the toilets were on the 3^rd floor so I shot up the stairs presuming to find them signposted easily.  I went up to the top, hit the 4^th floor and found no toilets.  I noticed the stairs split around halfway so I went back down the other way incase I’d missed them but got back to the bottom and found no toilets.  All this running up and down stairs was adding to the gravitational pull and I was started to get a bit panicked.  I went to the opposite end of the corridor and went back down a different flight of stairs and then back all the way to the top and still no toilets!  I bumped into a guy who must have worked there and asked him and he had absolutely no clue.  Getting a bit exasperated (and annoyed with him for not knowing where the damn toilet was) I spun around and found them behind us (dipshit) off a large, empty room with no signs whatsoever to indicate they were there.
On returning to the lobby Will found it hilarious that I’d ran around looking for the toilets with a turtle head (well, hardly a turtle head in the state I was in, more a jellyfish head).  I’d have rather he’d had the common sense to say “they’re on the 3^rd floor in a big, empty white room”  then when I got back we could have had a mutual laugh at something that didn’t involve me almost soiling myself. 

Luckily Chennai airport was much bigger than Goa but had no options for hot food once you were through security.  We managed to find one place called ‘The Golden Chariot’, a more fitting name would have been ‘60’s Dilapidated Brown Bicycle’.  The menu was terribly limited but they said they accepted card and we’d deliberately spent all the Rupees as you’re not allowed to take them out of India.  We both had a lychee juice and a toasted cheese sandwich  which is terrible without cheddar.  The world will be a better place once every country accepts cheddar.  I dream of a world where cheddar is as readily available as Facebook. 

When it came to pay all of our cards were failing on the machine, the waiter was asking for cash but obviously we didn’t have any.  I had a few £1 coins and he was giving me an exchange rate of 0.70RS to £1 when it was actually 0.85RS to £1 which made a difference of £1 to our overall bill.  I’m arguing with him that his exchange rate is wrong, he’s telling me he’s not buying currency or something and I’m telling him it’s his damn fault his machine is broken, not mine!   In the end Will went to another shop with him where he had a tab and paid that off instead (their card machine worked fine) and when I checked the bill after the little turd had added a service charge!  I should have gone upside his face! 

When we go to queue for the plane with everyone else I count 7 women in the entire queue out of about 150 people.  How strange.

We get on the plane and the exit row seats I’d booked us on the website apparently meant nothing and we were in normal seats and some other smug jerk was sat where we should have been.  Not only that but we’re not even sat together!  The guy sat next to Will agreed to swap seats with me then someone else rocked up with the same seat number.  It turned out this dude had just sat in any old seat that took his fancy.  There was no relation in the row number or seat number whatsoever!  This seems quite common on Indian flights.  They just park themselves wherever they fancy.

On our entertainment system we had an episode of Modern Family which we watched all of before we actually set off.  The entire time we’re watching I can see the guy sat diagonally opposite us just staring at me.  I’d look over to him and catch his eye and he would just hold my stare!  Who does that?!?!?! Absolute weirdo!  I noticed that the middle section of exit row had spare seats, the extra legroom coupled with getting out of the stare of the Chennai Rapist was enough of a reason so I asked the airhostess if we could move.

As we’re coming in to land the air hostess’s are sat in their seats with their belts on as they do (facing backwards as it’s the safest way to face on a plane) and all of a sudden this man just gets up and wanders off to go to the toilet!  How has he missed the fact this plane is coming in to land?!  (Later on when I was talking to an American chap he said an Indian fellow had done the same thing on his flight and had ignored the air hostess and gone to the toilet during landing!  She’d just let him go in the end and said ‘let him bang his head if he’s not going to listen to me’).

When we landed the Chennai Rapist was typically one of these idiots that stands up the second the plane touches tarmac, ignoring the fact that the seatbelt sign is still on and gets his bag down from the overhead storage.  Countless other people do the same (their aviation etiquette is appalling) and all stand in a queue whilst the plane is still taxiing despite the fact it’ll be another 6 or 7 minutes at least until they open the doors.  As luck would have it the creepy sod is stood right next to me getting another good look so I just hid behind Will so he couldn’t see my face at least, creepy bastard. 

Getting into Sri Lanka is much easier than India in that you can get a Visa on arrival for $35 US (you can also do it online, were there readily available internet at the Worst Night at a Hotel hotel). 

We got through passport control and collected our bags and headed out to meet our driver who was waiting in the lobby.  As we’re walking through a man leans over the counter of Thomas Cook and screeched at us about money.  I wondered what the hell had happened to justify such an outburst.  A little over the top, buddy, I think we’re aware we can’t use our own currency on the other side of the world.  We’re just going to go to this ATM and withdraw it in the correct currency.  You take a seat, mate, maybe have a quiet drink and some reflection time. 

Sri Lanka is a much nicer temperature than India, it’s warm but comfortably warm.  It’s a lot more green and the people immediately seem far more respectful and not pervy.  The driver takes us up to Dumballa (Dambulla?  I can never remember which way round it is) where wer’re staying the night before we head to Sigiriya in the morning.  It was only 120km away but it took us 4.5hrs to get there.  The roads are in better condition than the Indian ones and there are a lot less cows (there are still stray cows around though) but it’s all single lane roads that pass through little towns so you never go over 40km/h.  They still beep when they overtake here but when they beep the car infront then pulls in the let them past so it’s far more useful and affective beeping.  I think the Indians just like the sound of their beeps.

On route I stopped to buy some water but the shop keeper had no idea what water was.  I looked around the shop and saw none for sale.  The driver took us to another shop and told me what water was in Sri Lanka (‘watura’, you hardly need to be a linguist to work out what I wanted) and they still didn’t understand!  I even did the universally recognised ‘drink’ action with a tilted hand to my mouth and they still had no clue, they’re showing my cans of peas and allsorts!  In the end I find it myself and pay them 70p for two 1.5ltr bottles (England is a disgusting rip-off for bottled water). 

The hotel we’re staying at is really nice; we have a large room with a patio out the front, a dressing area and a large bathroom.  We ordered some food and they set up a table on the patio outside the room and we eat there.  What a change from the night before with the pleasant chorus of ‘please close the door’ teamed with the warming aroma on the air.