Now I don’t mind roughing it a bit and have spent more than a few nights under the stars, with nothing between me, the ground and sky but the clothes I fell over in. I mean laid down in. I have made shelters out of branches, leaves, grass and moss, and slept quite comfortably in them.
One thing that really gets me, is a dirty hotel room. I don’t know if it is the fact that you are paying for it or just the fact that someone has slept there before you and part of them is still there. If it’s not clean it’s not nice.
I recently found the Guest house from hell. I was in the position of being in a small town in the far extremities of Zambia, with very little fuel, as the fuel stations in town had just run out that day, so I did not know how long my stay was to be. I only had a limited amount of money and knew that, when the fuel did arrive, I had to be sure there was enough money left to buy the fuel for the return journey. So I was on a budget, a tight budget. In Mansa there are basically two places to stay, one up market Hotel and one down market guest house. Up market was mega bucks and would have swallowed all my money in just one night, down market I could afforded to stay for 5 nights.
I opted for down market, big mistake. I should have seen the writing on the wall (but I couldn’t because they were textured and filthy) when there was a pair of worn out flip flops on the floor of the bedroom, that the cleaners (I use the term loosely) seemed to have inadvertently overlooked. These were evicted into the yard where they stayed until the next morning when I left. Then there was the bathroom. Now I have seen some pretty ropy tiling in my life but I have never seen it done in brail with mud for grout. The taps were interesting too, I can only assume that they were decorations, because they were certainly no use for the function that I was hoping they might perform. There was a towel on the back of the door which resembled the type of attire a sumo wrestler might wear and it looked a little like he may have been wearing it for a fortnight during some very strenuous bouts.
The mirror was set in a plastic surround, the type you may have found in a tip in the UK in the 1970’s. It had also been used by a good number of the previous occupants of the room as an ashtray, so it was part melted with brown burns and stains on all the flat surfaces. The plastic cup had grooves where cigarettes had melted the rim and retained within it were three spent matches, I suppose I should be grateful that there were no cigarette buts in there to keep the matches company.
The bedding however (I only checked the sheets and threw the rest off) seemed clean, though it is difficult to tell when they have a fern pattern and they are shades of mid to dark brown.
When I checked in I took the liberty of ordering dinner. T’ Bone steak and chips, I thought it would be hard to get that wrong. I asked to have it at 18.30 when the service started. 18.30 duly arrived and I made my way to the dining room and they bought out my meal. They delivered it fully clingwrapped, over cooked and cold. Dumped on the table unceremoniously, leaving me to unwrap the condensation covered offering. I have never had a meal served in such a fashion so I had to see what it tasted like in case it was a local delicacy. You could say I was brave, or stupid (the latter in retrospect). The meal did not disappoint, it tasted just like it looked, diabolical. I took it back to the kitchen and inserted it where I thought it would feel most at home, then suggested to the kitchen staff that they did not charge me for it.
Totally dejected and hungry I went to my room and drank one of the warm beers from my warm fridge that I had been bought earlier.
At this point I must explain that I was not alone in this fine establishment, there was a group of church stewards staying there for a seminar, though it sounded more like a canned laughter convention in overdrive. Every five to ten minutes there was an explosion of forced raucous laughter, which went on till about midnight. These guys also had a really weird habit of walking up and down outside the rooms ringing a hand bell every half hour. The first time I heard it I thought that it was a fire alarm and dashed out into the car park in my underpants. I stood there on my own for a couple of minutes feeling rather foolish, then went back to my room.
I decided then to go to bed and read.
The mosquitoes from the entire north east of the country decided to come and join me for a goodnight story, so I dropped the Mozi net and tried to tuck myself in. The holes in the net were as numerous as they were large, and the net hung with the remains of splatted bugs that a previous occupant had seen fit to eradicate.
The areal barrage continued but was only to be out done by one that came up through the mattress. I am not sure whether it was fleas, bed bugs or some legendary African beast, but about an hour in I finally gave up on sleep. I went to the bathroom to find I had come up in red welts up my legs over my body and up my arms to my fingers. 97 to be as exact as I can be, without having got someone else to count the ones out of sight.
I decided to have a bath and try to feel clean. This meant trying to cajole the ornamental lumps of metal on the end of the bath into relinquishing some of their brown sludge. It took an hour and 23 minutes to run enough water for me to at least dampen myself.
I decided to drip dry rather than using the thing hanging on the door.
I sat on what appeared to be the cleanest thing in the room, a chair and finally nodded off to sleep about 03.30 with the whining of the mosies to serenade me.
At 04.30 there was that bloody bloke with the bell again outside my room.
Breakfast at 06.30, should I? Or should I not? Well I suppose I have paid for it, I might just as well have a look at it. It was described as a full English breakfast. A frankfurter, a piece of boiled pig, I think he called that bacon. An egg that had been laid by a budgie, then left in the sun to solidify. The orange juice came from one of those nice machines with the glass tops and a paddle inside that you help yourself from. That was strong, warm, orange squash. I chased my breakfast around the plate for five minutes and ate half the frankfurter.
I went to reception to pay, explained politely that it was not the best night I had spent in a Guest house, packed my bags and left I did not care if I had to sleep in the truck I was not going back.
I am not generally a moaning bastard, but this place took the biscuit.
If asked would I go there again, the answer would have to be yes, on the condition that I could take Gordon Ramsey with me, just to see if he could manage a whole night. And not swear!!!!!!!!
Denzil Bark.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment