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Published: November 4th 2006
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I'm on a roll with the whining type entries so i will continue in that manner. In Agra, Max and I were less than impressed with our room. It was on the top floor of the hotel. Though not much different from any of the other rooms we've occupied during our tenure here, there were small things that kept coming to our attention and provided some easy fuel for a nice healty bitch session for us both.
Let's start with the bed. Though in my head i'd like to believe that sheets here get washed in between each use, the evidence on the mattress points to the contrary. It is best not to investigate closely, but sometimes curiosity gets the best of you ya know? In my latest perusal of this room the bed was a garden of pubic hair. There were stains ranging from very light urine colored to various shades of curry---table cloth, maybe.......bed? not so much.
The bathroom, though advertised as having hot water did not. In fact, it was more or less a metal pipe that has seen better days and is probably the lofty entrance to a cockroach nest. The toilet stopped working
after the first day. It's always unsettling when you drop a duece, go to flush, and watch with horror as the water level rises threateningly close to the top of the bowl. After a while it goes back down but takes no faecal matter with it, leaving a sort of coffee filter effect of poop and toilet paper. After a few days that starts to smell delicious.
The room has an air conditioner that we paid for, but that stopped working after the first night. To accommodate the air conditioner, they have boarded up the only window in the room. This is fine if you have lights, but the power conveniently cuts out during the day. So although it may be a bright sunny day outside, we fumbling in complete darkness for the headlamp and room key. We have a balcony, but it is a sad excuse for a balcony.
The sink looks like a functional normal sink, but the drain is just a hose that pours all sink contents directly onto the floor. This muck mixes with whatever poopy water may have overflowed from the toilet and it is in this mixture that we take our freezing
cold pipe shower. There are days when all of this is fine and dandy....and part of the experience right? But when you've been walking around in the hot sun all day and want nothing more than to take a nice shower and roll comfortably into bed, and instead you're greeted with whiffs of tuesday's poop, water so cold your nipples invert, and pubic hairs at eye level on your pillow, you get a little discouraged.
Max and i read about a super expensive hotel in Agra and decided to treat ourselves to a drink at their bar....you know.....just for fun. After all of the annoyances of our own room, i'm not sure if the classy hotel visit was the best idea. I'd imagine what i felt was probably similar to what an Indian would feel if brought to america, and then forced to go back to india. The world of luxury hotels is truly a different one. When we walked into the grounds there were lit torches burning......a pristine lawn, fountains, attendants in traditional indian garb--all of whom were overly pleasant and greeting us with namastes. As soon as we entered the lobby we both wondered if we were
going to set off the "grubby backpacker" alarm. But all of the personel who approached us treated us with great hospitality and pointed us where we needed to go. Mouths agape we took in all of the details of the hotel, from the vast expanse of the lobby, to the chandeliers, to the CLEANLINESS of the place, and to their staggering view of the Taj Mahal. I should clarify that our first visit was at night (yes we came twice) and our second in the day. We sat down and ordered 2 beers. For those 2 beers we paid what we're paying for our hotel. The beer came with free chips and salsa and cashews....clean glassware and limes. And it was COLD! We sat in the chairs and tried to look rich. I spied on the clientel and wondered what these people did in their real lives that they could afford such luxury. There was an awkward pause after we ordered our drinks. The lady asked for our room number. After a mental urge to blurt out 215, we politely said we'd pay cash. We sat amongst the rich and laughed at them and at us. I was sick with
envy...i admit it. I would love to lounge by a pool so calm in fields so green while the taj darts up from behind it all. I would love to eat steak and salads with french cheese and berries and sip champagne while contemplating whether to get a massage or play croquette for the afternoon. I would, especially now, REVEL in fluffy white sheets and pillows that aren't cotton fields of bacteria.
If i had the money, i'd be lying if i said i wouldn't travel like THAT.
But what's interesting is that these people are so sheltered from all that is around them (which admittedly is part of the lure). They're driven to the Taj in air conditioned vehicles and escorted to and fro without so much as having to look at a local or even smell the air. Even though these things aren't always pleasant, what is the experience without them? Why come to India to live how you live at home? Why not just go to Vegas?
On a somewhat unrelated note, Max pulled a little bit of a faux paux regarding wealth. While at the marble factory we were being solicited to buy this
and that knicknack. I was blatantly ignoring it all, but max was being his usual polite self. When asked if we wanted to buy anything, Max sighed deeply and said, "No, no, we're too poor." At the utterance of those words i kind of winced. I winced even more so when the proprietor corrected Max and said in not so many words "It would be wise not to say that here, because we all know that is not true. If you were poor you wouldn't be here."
Max later admitted that as the words left his mouth he immediately regretted saying them. You know, it's kinda like going to a famine ridden african village and saying, "i'm starving." Which is sort of interesting if you look at our place in all of this. In the fancy hotel, it was absolutely appropriate for us to carry on about how 'poor' we are, because to those people we are. For what they are spending on one night in that hotel--ONE NIGHT---we are spending in 3 weeks. It was a huge splurge to spend a night's sleeping accomodation on two beers. But then you take us in a situation with other indians
and say, "we're too poor" and we have blasphemied. It's easy in the presence of money to lose sight of what you have. When you see "better" tables and "better" beds, it's human nature to want those things, and in that process you forget to be thankful for the fact that you even have a bed.
I dunno. It was an interesting study in poverty and luxury and our place in between. But, just for comparison and a good laugh i took some pictures to demonstrate the discrepancy between the two abodes.
visit the blog for pics:
www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/lynz
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jim
non-member comment
great blog
I love the blog - the pics are the best! US AND THEM!!!!