Hotel Delhi: Monday

My husband’s work has taken him to New Delhi.  I had spent the past two weeks in Mumbai, slightly bored, and occasionally ornery at his absence.   Weeks of communication that consisted of only ten-minute phone calls, once a day, had tired us both.   So we decided that this week, I would travel to New Delhi and stay at his hotel.  At least that way we could enjoy a dinner together, however late he may arrive home.

After he pulled yet another work-related all-nighter on Sunday and flew to Delhi at an absurdly early time Monday morning, I slept in a few extra hours and caught a later flight.  The benefit of being unemployed, I guess.  Despite our mutual happiness of being in the same city, I still am a grouch when it comes to flying, and wasn’t in the best of moods when I arrived at the airport.   I think I have too many hermit-like tendencies, and airports are just too full of opportunities to encounter human beings.  Having rushed from the gym to the shower to the airport, I was incredibly hungry and thirsty and itching to get past security for a simple drink of water.   But, true to my lack-of-airport-luck, every single vendor in the foodcourt was out of bottled water.  I eventually caved and purchased an orange Fanta with my Domino’s cheese pizza, but then combed the bookstores and bars at the gates in search of water.

Despite being a mega city many time larger than Chicago, the Mumbai airport is quite small, and thus very unlike the massive O’Hare airport, where it might take hours to travel to each and every vendor asking for bottled water (well, heck, there I’d use the drinking fountains and not have had this issue).  Once I was in my terminal, I went to the half dozen vendors and asked.   Finally, the very last coffee shop still had water.  If I were a saint, I would have blessed them on the spot, so happy I was to have water after my 5 km run. 

My flight and cars to and from the airport were paid for, and arranged by, my husband’s company.   Now, they don’t always do that, but when he stays for the weekend, rather than flying home to see me, it is like I am just flying in his place. They would have had to do it, anyway.  But this hotel is so cheap that they are charging us an extra $30 a night for me to occupy the same room.  Silly.  Ever notice it is only the fancy hotels with dumb charges like that?   The internet in this room costs $75/week.  Thank goodness I have the Indian equivalent of a sprint card and we don’t have to pay for that!   But internet is always free at the cheaper hotels.  

Anyhow, the point was, the company arranged a car for me.   I was waiting for my bag, impatiently, because usually baggage claim is quite quick in India, when the guy next to me started talking.  Honestly, I had at first thought he had a mental illness, because he kept mumbling to himself, “not my bag, nope,” etc.  Who does that?  But as the wait got longer, eventually he started talking to me, and I guess he is a normal person (and/or a pathological liar).  He told me, with great seriousness, that he had just come from Mumbai because he was doing modeling there.  I politely asked which magazine.  “Oh, youth magazines” he said.  Who knows?  I rather doubt it.  Regardless, he soon had me stuck in conversation about the various cities on this fine planet, and was begging for information about NYC (like I know anything about it, being a Midwesterner).  Our bags came out, one after the other, and we walked out of the airport doors together. 

He really creeped me out, so when he asked where I was staying, I lied and told him, “I don’t know, the driver will just take me there.”  He got the point and left. But that act of being ditzy backfired, because my next move was truly stupid!   

All of the drivers stand in their white attire at the door with white name signs. I saw my sign and noticed that my name was messed up (I was called ‘Elizabeth’).  I didn’t think much about it- my name had been wrong before.   I pointed to the driver, and we started to walk away, when suddenly something clicked.   That sign had my maiden name on it!   Now, I’ve been married for 9 months, but I’d had my maiden name for 28 years, so I’m still rather attached to it.  I thought for a moment, and realized that there was no reason for any car driver in India to have my maiden name.   In America, sure, it would be an easy mistake.  But I came here with my new name, and I’m fairly certain no one knows my maiden name.  

Completely embarrassed, I shake my head at the driver and go back and look at the other signs.  There was my name.  It was only a couple names down from the sign with my maiden name.   How sad is that?  My eyes don’t go to my correct name (which was correct in both first and last), but they will instantly read an incorrect first name and old surname and claim it as my own.  I tried to explain to the two drivers my mistake, but who knows if they understood or not.  

My driver was quite nice, and enthusiastically tried to teach me Hindi words and told me about all of the countries he has visited, about his wife and kids.  Very quickly we reached the hotel, I bid adieu, and tried to check-in.

The hotel had a beautiful lobby, no doubt about that.  But lately I have been spending a lot of time in a lot of fancy hotels, and I’m starting to shift my focus to room quality and food taste rather than lobby appearance.  It is like that old saying, “don’t judge a book by its cover.”  Certainly don’t judge a hotel in India by the lobby, because the rooms are always a surprise.  So I mostly took in the beautiful yellow and red lilies, ignored the nice chandeliers and floor, and made my way to the desk agent after reluctantly surrendering my one piece of baggage to an overly helpful bellhop.

Check-in was a pain because they required a credit card and I had only a debit card, which they wouldn’t accept.  Eventually, frustrated, I asked them to look up my husband’s information. He’d been here before, last week, and the week before.  She finally gave me a room key, after I assured her that my husband would show his credit card when he arrived after his work, and I headed up to our room.

Urgh.  I about cried.  No way was I going to waste away my life for a week in this room.   First, it smelled awful, initially like a musty old hotel, and then with an after-scent of a cheap lavender spray from a bottle. I looked out the window.  I saw a man urinating in public, plenty of people surrounding him.  Sigh.  After a half hour, I had a roaring headache and was back to being an ornery grouch.  Second, the room was appropriate for maybe a Motel 6, but no way should we be paying fancy hotel rates for a room that has carpeting on the walls.  Yes, you read that correctly.  One wall was carpeted.  It extended from the floor, and up onto the wall.  It was a pretty carpet, twenty years ago.  But now it was a nasty, stained, grayish carpet with flowers on it.  I think it was the carpet that smelled so bad.  The furniture was chipped, the walls were cracked, and the ceiling multiple colors from the various paint patchwork done at previous times. 

The bathroom was nice, at least.  My suitcase and the turndown service came nearly immediately, and I got some nice chocolates to eat as I brooded over the room.   I pulled out my laptop, got distracted by an e-mail war with Mom as to whether or not I was safe (Pakistan was firing on India again, at the border, but that is entirely normal, and I likened it to being near Mexico), and my husband sweetly responded to my despair and called and told me to request a new room.  

I had already gone and smelled some other rooms (I just found open doors and stuck my head in) and had decided that the entire hotel just stinks.  But maybe there was something better on a different floor.  It certainly couldn’t be worse.  So I re-packed my bag (well, it wasn’t hard), stowed the remaining chocolates in my backpack, and headed back to the lobby. 

I know it is India, and you are supposed to be tougher, and ruder than in America, but I’m still not very good at it.  I went down to the desk, and in a very rushed voice told them the room smelled awful, the furniture was chipped, the walls cracked, and I really thought I should have a better room.  All smiles, they switched rooms for me.   My husband had said in his call that he’d be home soon, so I sat on a lobby couch to wait.  I think I confused the employees, as I refused to give my bag to the bellhop, but really, it was completely unnecessary.  

Shortly, my husband came into the hotel and went to the desk to provide that missing credit card.  An employee came up and told him they were changing our room again. See!  I knew what I was doing when I didn’t surrender my suitcase!  We were being upgraded, since apparently he’d complained last week (when I wasn’t there) about poor room quality, too.   His room must have been a real stinker for him to complain!  He didn’t even bother to put sheets on his bed back in college.  

So we went up to the tenth floor, to our deluxe upgrade. In we walked.  It was a nice room.  But it was just what any room in the hotel should look like.  It shouldn’t be ‘the upgrade’.  It should be the regular room.  Plus, the bathroom was exactly the same.  But it didn’t have the disgusting carpet, thank goodness.  It had a cheap looking wooden floor instead.  The ceiling was all one color, no color patches.   The walls looked like they would remain standing.   I could live here.  Too bad it still smelled.  

We unpacked for a bit, and headed down to the hotel lobby to try the non-Indian restaurant.  We eat Indian food at home, so I, at most times, have no desire to eat Indian food out.  They had a buffet, but it was $40/person, so I passed the tempting dessert table and we ordered ala cart. 

The bread was fantastic, and I enjoyed my salad, but my poor husband’s food was terrible.  The chicken was way too spicy, and the marinara sauce on his pasta had a terrible ketchup aftertaste.  Personally, I think almost any tomato item in India has an awful sugary ketchup aftertaste, so I’ve just stopped ordering it.  But my husband has very few food items he enjoys, so he keeps suffering through them (like my eternal apple pie sufferings).  He even tried (much to my shock) a tomato soup the other day, which he claimed was good.  It just made me ashamed that I had never forced him to try tomato soup in the US before, because it was disgusting, full of salt and ketchup, and I had to send mine back after a few spoonfuls. 

However, despite our disappointment in his food, the service was quite nice and polite.  They even gave us free gulab jamuns, and they were by far the best that I’ve had in my life.  So now I’m betting they must do really good Indian food at this hotel.   Maybe I’ll try it tomorrow.  

We came back to the hotel and my husband finally crashed from the all-nighter and went to sleep by 10 pm. Thank goodness he got a full night’s sleep for once.