Weekend Hotel

During our stay, the hotel that we checked into had told us that during the New Years weekend, they had a tour coming through and that we would need to change hotels for several days. Keep in mind that the hotels here are very small. Only a hand full have more than 20 rooms. The one we are staying at has about 18. Its not like Las Vegas where 3000 is considered the average! We didn’t mind this as the location for this hotel is very central to everything we do, and for several days it wouldn’t be to hard.
Of course that last statement all depends on what you consider hard. The hotel we started in, The Hawha, is a very nice hotel, and for Kovalam one of the better ones. It has marble floors, air conditioning, hot water in the shower (this is not as common as you might think), a TV (we never used) and we also had a small fridge. In certain parts of India this would be considered a 5 star hotel. They even had a security guard up front to keep the peddlers and non guests from coming into the hotel. Without thinking, you get used to some of these, what would you call them; luxuries....?
We Are In India people...! The hotel that we found to spend the four nights over the New Year’s weekend now has a special place in our hearts. A dark place, but a place none the less.
From the outside it looks very nice. Bright colors of paint, the main one being Orange! How can a place painted orange be that bad? I will say, on their behalf, that for the most part it was a clean room. We were told that just over this last rainy season they had up graded the hotel and fixed it up really nice. If this had been last year, we would not have even considered it a place to stay. Fresh paint does not make a place nice!!!
They were asking for more than twice what the other hotel was asking, and they claimed that it was because they have upgraded, and now consider themselves one of the better hotels in Kovalam. They also wanted for us to pay the entire stay up front which we told them no, we would pay half and go from there. The only thing we wanted more than any other was to have internet in the room. We would have preferred Wifi, but just having a cable in the room would be enough. That was part of the deal when we checked in; Internet in the room.
So we check in and got settled for the evening. We had spent most of the day just looking at other hotels to make sure there wasn’t a better one, but because of the holiday we were kind of stuck. The hotel sat behind some larger buildings that faced the beach, and was kind of tucked away, hidden behind most everything else, including a breeze! Its late in the evening and we are getting ready for bed. At this point in time we don’t have internet in the room yet, but the manager said we would later in the evening (how much later, its 9 p.m.). Laying on the bed I realized that I’m not going to be able to sleep because of the heat and humidity.
Most of the hotels here in Kovalam do something that is very clever. All the A/C units are remote controlled, you cannot control the units without the remote. Because electricity in Kerela (the state Kovalam is in), is very expensive they charge you more for A/C. In other words if you want to use the A/C you go to the front desk, pay more money and they hand you the remote. So not only are we paying twice as much as we were (for the internet that we don’t have), but we needed to fork over 250 Rs ($5) for the A/C remote. Okay, so I can sleep tonight.
Something else that I thought was interesting. This is also something that is not unusual here in India. The locks on these doors were basically the same kind of locking mechanism you would find on a bathroom stall. There was one on the outside for when you left the room, and one on the inside for when you were in the room. The one on the outside was designed so you would put a pad or key lock on it, so the room was secure when you left. My thought however is that; if someone wanted to, all they would need to do is slide that bolt over into the latch from the outside while you were inside, and there was no way of getting out! Most of the windows here have monkey/people bars on them. Years ago, they placed the bars on the windows to keep monkeys from coming into your room, but over time the monkeys are no longer in these parts, but they continue to place the bars on the windows for your protection and for the protection of your belongings. So, bolt moved over, no way out! Fire in the building.... oh well. Indians don’t think things through the way we do in the west.
Morning comes and we go to practice and then breakfast as usual. Once back at the hotel, Daren goes to take a shower. No hot water! Actually we did have hot water; from the tap. The hot water was not plumbed to the shower head. So, in the room was a large and small bucket. You fill the large bucket from the tap with hot water and using the small bucket, you pour the hot water over you. I guess we didn’t think to ask if the hot water came from the shower or not. Our mistake... still no internet.
That afternoon I was sitting on the patio which was the entrance to our room. They had two chairs and a small table so you could sit and read, or whatever. I soon noticed there was a large number of ants in the area. This was not to alarming, but as I followed the trail of ants I looked over near the edge of the patio, as we were on the second floor, and I noticed part of a spine of a very large fish sitting there, covered with these ants. Now, this part of the patio was a dead end, and the hotel didn’t serve food of any kind, so I’m not sure not only how, but why, this piece of spine made it up to this area of the hotel. Not a huge deal, I just brushed it off the patio and within minutes the ants were gone. Problem solved....still no internet.
Night comes and its time to go go bed. The next day is Saturday and there is no practice on Saturdays, so we get to sleep in and have breakfast at our leisure. At about 1 in the morning it began to rain. The sound of the rain coming down woke both Daren and I up. It was coming down quite hard, so I went out on to the patio which was covered, and watched the rain for a little while. That rain storm would have shut Las Vegas down for days. The amount of water that fell from the sky in that short time was amazing. Of course, this is what it is like everyday during the rainy season so this was nothing to the locals. (Note: Last night, which is about a week after our stay, we had a real Tropical Thunder Storm which was completely amazing! The thunder lasted about 2 hours then it rained non-stop for 8. We had about a 4 hour break, and it is now raining again quite hard. I believe the term would be “cats and dogs!” It didn’t rain once last time I was here so this is very enjoyable to me, plus it keeps the temp nice and cool.)
Back into bed I go. Listening to the rain fall, drop...drop...drop. At this point in time, in bed, it seems like I can now feel the rain. The ceiling is leaking! I grumble a little, tell Daren and begin to laugh. We are in India! So we move the bed away from the leak and return to bed, by this time ready to sleep the rest of the night.
Drip...drip...drip. Again! Different place. Water falling on me. So this time we get up and Daren goes to get the manager. So he arrives and tells us this has never happened before. That was his first answer to the problem...it hasn’t happened before. I didn’t think that was a very good answer to this problem, but he sure did. This I also knew wasn’t exactly true, it just may be the first time they knew about it, as after closer inspection of the ceiling there were older water marks.
Shortly after, the managers helper has come up to check out the amazing ceiling that seems to be creating water, like the rain has nothing to do with it. Maybe they thought of turning this room into a temple and worshiping it, since water is falling from the ceiling? (That was mean, but it is the middle of the night and you are offering no solutions - and we have no internet!) After talking for some time in their local language, their solution is to move the bed. Now, we had already moved the bed into the middle of the room, so now the bed is moved into the other corner of the room. Because of the head board and two walls, we can only get into bed from one side! But hey, at least water is not dripping onto the bed.
Daren then asked if they had another room open in case another part of the ceiling decided to open up and cry for us. This also started a very long conversation between the two of them in the local language. I started to laugh at this because this was a simple yes or no question. This wasn’t something that needed to be debated. Was there or was there not a open room in the hotel? They were talking like we had just asked them to bring some carpenters in and fix the ceiling right now in the middle of the night during the rain storm and while they are at it, fix the plumbing so we could have hot water in the shower, and install internet.
So, after breakfast the next morning Daren was out looking for a new place to stay. It didn’t take long and we were packing our bags. He had a very heated discussion with not only the manager, but was lucky enough to have his uncle, the owner, there as well. Daren had been very smart on the first day and had written into the hotel contract that the price we paid included the internet.
We had paid in advance for three nights, and since we were only staying two was asking for the money back, and since they couldn’t deliver on the internet wanted some of the money back for the two nights that we were there without that service. In the end, we did get some of the money back, which I didn’t think would happen, and the owner called the manager, which was his nephew, “a donkey!” I’m not sure what calling someone a donkey means. Did he mean Jackass? I don’t think I want to know. In front of Daren the uncle asked him why he said we could have internet when he know that wasn’t possible. His response was to fill up the rooms!
Needless to say, the hotel we are currently in is a five star hotel for Kovalam and we are very happy. We have showered in hot water, no leaks, or even water marks on the ceiling, its a new hotel, and they have internet in the restaurant right down stairs!
After about a week in the other hotel, we are back to the original one, and while we were gone they had installed Wifi!!! Now, its not perfect, and does go in and out, but... we have internet!