My husband’s work has taken him to New Delhi, and I was joining him for a week of hotel adventures while he worked entirely too hard. I had arrived at the hotel the day before, and we had zonked out by 10 pm.
Around seven, I woke with my husband and pulled the thick gold curtains open. I was feeling lazy. No doubt about that. I pushed away the second layer of curtains, gauzy and gold, and stared down ten stories to the ground below. The pool, which our window faced, was still being cleaned. To the right of the massive pool were four people on white and blue striped towels, practicing yoga. They didn’t look very good. The instructor patiently and repeatedly demonstrated the bow pose. I watched one woman give up and plop down on her towel, sitting with her legs askew beneath her body. The woman next to her attempted it, at least, and managed to get one hand on her foot. The only male attendee, who was dressed in all white clothing that fluttered in the wind, was the only one who managed to succeed and hold the pose.
I went back to bed, reading, as my husband got ready for work. That was mistake number one. If I had just jumped out of bed right away, and moved around, then I am sure I would have had a nice, active day. But when I laze around in bed, I’m always destined to be groggy for the whole day. So I continued to reread Philippa Gregory’s The Other Boleyn Girl. Now that I’m unemployed, I can fulfill all of my reading whims, and my current desire is to read/reread all of her books in chronological order. I started with her two newest, which take place pre-Tudor, and wasn’t too impressed. They just felt rushed. I guess, with The White Queen, it was supposed to be rushed, as she is part water goddess, the family name is Rivers, and, like a river, the story sort of flows by quickly, and you don’t have time to catch any details. The Red Queen was a bit better, but after that pair, it had me doubting whether or not The Other Boleyn Girl was as good as I had remembered it, especially since I had more recently watched the terrible movie version of the book. But fortunately, the book is just as fun as it was in the first reading. Thank goodness, and I was completely absorbed as I lounged in bed.
My husband and I ordered breakfast. I had overpriced Choco flakes; he had an egg white omelette. About a year ago I quit drinking coffee, but I was bored and like reading instructions, and so, for those simple, non-coffee related reasons, I wanted to play with the coffee maker. I dragged it out and read the instructions, which were printed on a thick piece of standing cardboard. Typical of an Indian hotel, the first electrical socket didn’t fit the plug. I don’t understand why my husband and I keep coming across sockets that don’t fit. It doesn’t even make sense to me. I eventually found one that works, nerdily kept re-reading the directions, and, after it spit water all over the end table, had about half a cup of coffee before it quit working. Before, I had been wondering why people would pay $5 for a cup of coffee or tea, when it was free in the room. Now I understand.
After breakfast, I made ‘destine for a lazy day’ mistake number two, and climbed back into bed to continue reading, rather than jumping up and starting my day. I could have at least done ‘work’ on the computer- I have plenty of wedding gifts to buy, and needed to get my ticket to Seoul asap. But I continued to lounge on the incredibly soft bed (a real luxury here) for a few hours.
Eventually I dragged myself out of the bed and took a quick tour of the hotel. For those of you familiar with New Delhi, the hotel was located in the neighborhood of ‘Nehru Palace’. I went down to the lobby and looked at the hotel shops. There were only a couple, two or three jewelry shops, two or three little textile shops. Despite being after 11 am, only one was open. The single open shop had a man standing alert at the door, very eager to sell his wares, which promptly encouraged me to leave before he started to annoy me and show off his supplies. I guess tomorrow I’ll go a bit earlier so I can window shop in peace.
I headed back to the lobby, and went out the door to the pool. I’m not sure if I’ll like the pool or not. Another large building, hotel or housing, is adjacent to it. A train line overlooks it. Everyone can see you. In the other hotels that I’ve been to (in Chandigarh, Agra, Jaipur, even in Mumbai), the pool has a bit of privacy, and you know it is only other guests who see you. But I don’t really want to walk around in my bikini with all of Delhi staring at me. So that was disappointing. I might still go, but it sort of lost its privacy appeal. But I am thinking of putting a towel down and sitting on that green grass.
I think that grass was the sweetest thing I have smelled since arriving in India. You just don’t see large lawns here. It was being mowed, and I just felt at home as the scent of that freshly cut grass engulfed me.
I walked down to the health club, which seemed to have nice equipment. I promised the bored and nice employee that I would be back, and headed up to the lobby to figure out where I could purchase sunblock. After a long series of directions, I was headed outside on my own.
I walked back down the hallway of shops, down an elevator, and entered the street. The hotel is part of a complex, so I was on a building walkway separated by the road from a fence. I walked along, stopping to stare at the bakery and kept my eyes out for potential dinner restaurants. Eventually I left the safety of the walkway and crossed the street. Fortunately many other people were crossing, so it was easy to mimic their behavior and weave my way through the traffic.
Once across, I went to the first big building and asked the security guard for the ‘market’, which is where the desk agent had sent me. He directed me behind the building (which appeared to be a movie theatre), and I walked into a massive square (which was really rectangular) filled with vendors set up directly on the ground. Most vendors were selling computer or cell phone equipment and accessories. Some were selling clothes. It was hot, and many of the ‘stores’ had blue tarps suspended above their items. On each side of the square were small shops, actually in buildings rather than on the ground, most selling the same electronic equipment. The hotel desk agent had said there were lots of electronics in the market, so I figured I was on hot on the trail of my sunblock. I slowly walked the length, staring at both sides of the street, both levels of stores, looking for a chemist/pharmacy/goods store. I walked the entire length, and never found one.
It ended at a cross street. Sighing, I turned, took my bearings to make sure I would know my way back, and continued along the next street. Here I was successful, and found a general shop that had two different bottles of Neutrogena sunblock. I bought the SPF 50, and headed back to the hotel.
Now that I wasn’t staring at the shops, I took more notice of the people. In fact, I quickly scanned the crowd, and realized I was the only female in sight. Urgh. I was so spoiled in Bandra. I was suddenly self-conscious in my tight t-shirt and black capri pants. I kept looking, hoping, first, to find women, and second, women in western wear. Finally, right by the end of the market, I found one girl in jeans similar to my pants. I don’t know exactly why it matters so much, but for some reason it really matters to me to find people wearing western clothing occasionally. It doesn’t have to be too many, but as long as it seems acceptable, then I can be acceptable, too. I had brought a darn salwar kameez to wear, if necessary, but it was the middle of the day, and I hadn’t thought about it when I had left the hotel. In the end, in my short ‘going to the market’ trip, I passed hundreds, maybe thousands of people. Very few women. Only one in western clothes. How I miss Bandra! Though, truth be told, the people didn’t stare at me as much as they do in Mumbai, nor did they harass me as much to buy their stuff. So maybe the clothing difference is balanced by the lack of annoyance. Regardless, I was happy to get out of the heat and testosterone and to head back to the hotel.
After the sunblock excursion, I plopped down into the stuffed hotel chair (also gold), feet up on the footstool, and continued reading. Shortly, housekeeping came. Another difference between India and America- all of the housekeeping employees are male, not female! He came in, expressed confusion that I had told him not the change the sheets, and taught me how to drain the bathtub. It turns out you have to simultaneously push the button and twist a knob. No wonder I couldn’t figure it out. Much to my horror, he quickly threw the three apples sitting in the fruit dish away, explaining that I deserve fresh ones every day. I sighed, but they were already in the trash, and I doubted he’d let me pick them out of it. He came back to the room with a precariously stacked pile of towels, bottled water, and an apple perched on the very top. He dumped them on the bed, sat the apple in the bowl, and then pulled two more apples from his pocket. I just stared, wanting to laugh.
And what the heck were the towels for? I’d very clearly strung the bathtub clothesline and put our towels up to dry. A universal signal that we don’t need new towels, right? What a waste. He topped off the wastefulness by exiting and leaving every single light on, when I had clearly had them all turned off.
Once he left, I got out of the chair, went and turned each light off, shined a pocket-apple, and ate it. Only two more to go. I don’t want them all thrown away. It was bruised and not very good tasting.
Eventually I grew bored of reading, and tried to turn on the TV. It didn’t work. Confused, as I know my husband had watched some last night, I tried every button. I physically got up from the bed, and pushed the button on the TV. It worked. So what was wrong with the remote? I figured the batteries were loose, but the battery slot required a screwdriver to open it. Do the hotel batteries get stolen frequently? What was the point of that? Finally, I figured that I should throw it as hard as I could, to jostle the batteries back into place. I picked it up. It worked.
Despite being a nice hotel, with a nice flat screen TV, the TV channels themselves were not hi-def, and very wavy, grainy pictures flipped across the screen as I changed channels. Eventually I stopped, entranced by some fighting zebras. They can really kick their hind legs! I soon dozed off to sleep.
I woke with a power outage, which had turned the background noise of the TV off. Figures that I’d wake up to silence, but sleep through the noise. It shortly came back on, and I was entranced by the people on the TV, who were building a home out of boxcars, just like the books, and fumed as it went out another three times before finally turning the TV off.
I figured I should text my friend, who was receiving cooking lessons from my cook, and see how the lessons went (the word is ‘great’), and then grew hungry. My husband told me he’d be home late, and I should just eat. I started with a granola bar, left in my backpack from who-knows-when. I then decided to eat the canned cashews from the mini-fridge. It was a tough decision- the Pringles, in a green can, had my name on them, but I figured the cashews would do a better job filling me up. See, the morning laziness continues- I could have at least left the room to eat! This was probably cheaper, though.
All too shortly the turndown service arrived. He asked me if I liked the chocolates from the night before, so of course I answered yes, and he then decided to shower me with six, rather than one, of the little bags. I did my best to hide the exuberance I felt inside, from having twelve chocolates in total, but I probably did a bad job. Before he finished, I asked him to clear the apple core that I had left on a plate. He did and returned- with TWO more apples. My goodness, they were increasing in number rather than decreasing. There was no way I would finish them at this rate!
After he left, I carefully sorted out the mint-flavored chocolates, which my husband enjoys. I put them in one bag and left them at the desk for him to savor when he got home. I took the rest, opened a bottle of mini-wine, sat on the bed with my book, and enjoyed my wine and chocolate. Who needs to get dressed and go down to dinner when they have that life?
After a few more hours of reading (and of course writing this lovely blog), my husband finally arrived home. We ordered room service, waited impatiently, ate quickly, and got ready for bed. We discovered our new, clean hand towels were definitely not clean when we found a big blob of foundation on one of them. Clearly it didn’t belong to either of us, and clearly, it was a fresh, unwashed blob, not a set stain. Gross. I just hope our bath towels were actually washed.
We feel asleep quickly, and I vowed to make tomorrow a more fruitful day.
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