posted
Anyone traveling on the ferry to Tangier would, IMHO, ideally arrive during daylight, around ten minutes before the next train out of the city. Due to technical difficulties, the ferry crossing took three times as long as scheduled and we arrived in total darkness about ten minutes after the last train left.
There's an area of 'no mans land' between the ferry terminal (if that's the way to describe it) and the gates to the city itself: a large rectangle of silent, concrete darkness. Emboldened by our numbers, the passengers marched into the black towards the unknown. As the safety of the ferry terminal receded behind us, a hundred pairs of eyes gradually adjusted to the darkness and focused on the iron gates. The gates appeared to be moving.
A few more paces and faces began to appear in the writhing gates ahead, thousands of electric smiles and headlamp eyes cutting through the darkness, steering us home like a lighthouse of grinning golems. Figures soon took shape as the gates morphed into a ghoulish prison scene, with thousands of cutthroats, rapists and worse rammed against the bars, desperate to escape their overcrowded captivity.
Only they weren't trying to get out, they were trying to get us. The marching centipede of passengers slowly adopted a new gait, two hundred legs attempting to strut the confident swagger of the street smart and confident. "Been around fellas. We can handle ourselves. Better back off and wait for someone a bit greener. Never been mugged. You know?"
It didn't work.
The gates opened and we were lambs to the slaughter. A late night game of One Man and His Dog followed as the cnuting sheep dogs fell upon their herd and scattered us in different directions. It wasn't haphazard, it was an organized sting. A group of Italians, determined to escape by rail, was steered towards the train station, which was, of course, closed and empty; a Swedish couple were led away to a non existent taxi rank; some were herded into the medina, others tailed into anonymous darkness.
It didn't take long before there were only five of us left. We fought to stay together as the urchins tried to force their way between us.
"You come with me. Rolling Stones Café. Good hotel. Cheap price. Look here."
The pack was a pain but the leaders were the truly terrifying characters. Hideous, broken nosed statues overseeing the entire operation with crossed arms and blank faces. Occasionally one would come to life and gesture with a wave or a whistle, his dogs leaping into action, weaving between us or snapping at a rival pack.
We were fucking lost and eventually we had to trust someone to lead us to a hotel.
The room was filthier than the collective mind of TMO. Whilst weighing up the sleeping arrangements – it was a choice of sharing a bed with the fleas or the floor with the rats – there was a scream outside our room, a female voice in full Hammer horror audition mode. I can only assume it was the hotelier's idea of theatre because I can't believe a woman was murdered in that corridor, even if the walls of our room were rusty with what appeared to be dried blood. Either way, we barricaded the door as best we could and chose the floor to sleep and to rat spot.
i was incredibly lucky on my travels; i didnt stay in a single hotel that was memorably awful. boy racer and i had some amusing experiences trying to find a bed the day before xmas eve, but although these places were shabby they werent grotesquely unfit for human habitation. although one was near the market and smelt horribly of dried pigs blood and masa harina. but then most of mexico smells of dried pigs blood and masa harina so, you know.
but! me and my family once had an amusing hotel experience in italy where we drove around and around and around looking for somewhere to stay on the night before good friday (are you noticing a theme here?). we got to livorno (i think) and, having asked at maybe 17 hotels, the only place in the whole town that had any vacancies whatsoever was the five star hotel with the plush red carpets and the valets in flat caps and the big wooden doors with shiny brass panels on. my step-dad was all no no way we cannot afford it we will have to go home early if we spend one night here and my mother was all what do you want us to do drive around fucking italy all night until you fall asleep at the wheel and we are carknapped by mad-eyed tagliatelle crazed teenagers in matching butter yellow lacoste slacks with sweaters slung over their shoulders. and me and my sister were all like mummy she stole my nik kershaw tape and the seatbelt is cutting into my neck im tired its late i want an icecream. it was all becoming very wearing.
so anyway my stepdad walks up the 18 velvet carpeted marble steps to the reception desk of this hotel to ask about rooms. and he is there forever and ever. and ever. im getting very excited, ive never stayed in a five star hotel before, especially not one in italy. i can call room service and order all the bread sticks i can eat! and watch slightly rude gameshows on the masive television! and i can add to my collection of hotel soaps and jars of jam, only these ones will be very special and posh and five star.
my stepfather comes out. they have a suite left. it will cost the rest of our holiday budget for one night. we are looking for another hotel.
we are directed to a suburb, where it possible their may be somewhere with a bed. this suburb is ill-lit, devoid of the happy laughing crowds who were wandering past our car as we sat outside il pensione plushissimo. there are lots of lorries parked everywhere. my mother heads for the vacancies sign we can see hanging from a rather rundown detached house-looking place over the road. she comes out three minutes later. we have beds. we are happy.
we are shown into a room with one double bed and two singles. the walls of this room are like nothing i have ever seen in my entire life- they are like the inside of some department store recreation of aladdins cave, painted purple and the wallpaper is textured like anaglypta. only its...not sparkly. you couldnt call it sparkly. it is more slimy looking purple anaglypta. the beds are comfortable, if slightly lumpy, and it is only in retrospect that i wondered why my step-father subtly moved a chest of drawers in front of the door. then again, it is only now that i realise what the very distinctive smell in that room was. it was not until i was 17 that i was able to confirm with my mother that we spent the night before good friday in a livorno truckers' knocking shop.
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The worse place I can think of off the top of my head was a field in Cornwall where me and the ex-lady friend arrived after an 10 hour drive and had to pitch tent in a dark dark field somewhere near Lands End at 4.30am, where there were a smal number of other tents with their sleeping occupants, and it was absolutely throwing it down with rain.
The field was sloped and after 2 and a half hours of broken sleep we decided to get the hell out of there and find somewhere else quickly. Whilst taking the tent down ready to make our getaway, a huge tractor pulls in with a grinning Chas'n'Dave look-a-like aboard it (not sure if it was Chas or Dave).
"Mornin'!" he grinned. "Morning." said I.
He then proceeded to just stand and watch me take the tent down, grinning all the while. After about 5minutes of uncomfortable silence he says "I'm sure you weren't 'ere larrrst noight were you?".
"Excellent," I thought "i've met up with a psycho farmer."
I explained we'd only arrived at 4.30 and managed to get to sleep at 5am and were getting on our way, but he demanded with a smile that we owed him £15 and we could use the shower facilities, and that we didn't need to go anywhere else, this was the best place right here.
I begrudgingly paid the £15 and after packing the tent we decided to take a shower. The shower blocks basically stank of horse shit, and were in a propped up shed and the shower was probably last night's rain trickling through a crack in the roof.
We got out of there and found a fantastic campsite specifically designed for tents and caravans, and even had heated swimming pool, bar, restaraunt all on site for £11 a night.
I realise this is not a patch on some of the stories on this thread, which is why I feel damn lucky!
posted
aww, ive just remembered though, i have a photo i took accidentally of the bedspread in my hotel in hamsterjam last year. the hotel was clean, but the room was tiny and the bedspread was this crazy cheap illuminous grey/ orange/ yellow bri-nylon blanket thing. i opened the door and thought im paying €23 a night for that? it was mega funny. i will see if i can scan it in for you.
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posted
I've got a picture of a dead rat the size of a beagle outside our hotel. I may also have a picture of a dead rat skeleton the size of a beagle skeleton outside our hotel a few weeks later when we passed through on our way out of Morocco.
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posted
The worst hotel/accomodation that springs to mind is one fateful night staying at a guesthouse/bungalow in Ko Tao in Thailand. WE (being myself, ms yanda and a friend) had a pretty rough tim eof it getting there due to an afternoon boat trip and just wanted to find a nice place for the night. The problem being that ko Tao being a major dive destination if you weren't going to sign up for a dive trip (whic we weren't), rooms which only a few minutes before were available strangly dissappeared..
We finally found a selection of bungalows and after a quick talk to the owner discovered they even had a double and single bungalow, which was a relief after spending the last 2 weeks with all three of us in one room. Stupidly I plonked down the money for the first night without looking at the rooms, and walked over to the bungalows..
A 2 inch gap at the botton of the "door", no mosquito nets on either the windows or over the bed and gaping holes in the bathroom (which consisted of a sink and a hole) didn't exactly put me at ease, but I thought it's only for one night so what the hell. As darkness fell the gentle sound of the sea was taken over by the sound of around a million insects which seemed to come from everywhere and anywhere and were intent on making as much noise as possible to shit us up.
I decided to try and have a quick wash before the power was stopped (no electricity after six, just you and 5 million crickets,roaches,spiders etc), but as i put my hands on the sink, the whole think came away in my hands. Now this being 'basic' accomodation, the sink consisted of the sink top joining onto a small piece of tubing which fell onto the floor as demonstrated by my supreme ascii art:
code:
_ [] [-------] [--- -] | | | | | | | | | | / /
At the same time as the sink coming away from the wall, the space left was shown to have been used for a little nest of ungodly thinks including around a dozen cockroachs, some wierd woodlice type creatures and other tropical bugs which proceeded to either fall on the floor around my bare feet or just start running around the detatched sink over my hands. Cue me sliding around a wet bathroom floor trying to balance a sink whilst avoiding roaches running up my arms/legs screaming for help. As one roach was getting too close for comfort I decided to try and throw the sink away from me and close the bathroom door, only my throwing being mostly girly, half threw it, with the top of the sink catching my toes and what felt like shattering my feet.
After hobbling out of the bathroom which not looked like the psycho shower scene with blood soaked feet i ended up back into the bedroom shouting at ms yanda as to why she had just sat there not helping to grab the sink. After about ten mins of shouting, the time for lights out came and I spent the night cowering on a now blood soaked mattress scared shitless of the sounds coming from everywhere. The whole night came to costing me around £30 after paying for new bedsheets and a sink, and i had to hobble around for the next week.
turbo
Gold..... What is it good for? You can't eat it, you can't smoke it, yet everybody wants it.
posted
These stories are hilarious. Having backpacked around most of Asia I have had some pretty horrendous ho(s)tel experiences myself, mostly involving cockroaches or/and mosquitoes. I think the funniest moment was when we were staying in a little straw hut on one of the Perhentian islands in Malaysia. We only had water from 18.00 to 19.00 every day, so we had just sprinted back to have a shower at 18.30. Turbo Man was washing off the day's grime and he was covered in shower gel when the water stopped prematurely. I went to fetch the little bloke that 'managed' the jumbled collection of huts + the generator & water pumps. He said we should still have water, so he came back to our hut with me and walked into the bathroom where a soapy naked Turbo Man was standing under the impotent shower. He joined him under the shower, much to our amusement (the difference in height was about 2 foot! ) and started fiddling about with the water pipes. Suddenly the shower sprang back to life so they were both soaked. He merrily stayed under the shower together with Turbo Man for a moment before sauntering off to do whatever he did when he wasn't taking showers with guests.
That evening we spotted a couple of girls trying to reserve a hut and Turbo Man told them the bloke was an excellent shower partner! The bloke just laughed and said "Yes, I take shower with sir today!" The poor bewildered girls looked at us very strangely and probably didn't dare take a shower for the duration of their stay!
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Experience 1, of many. Went on holiday with my parents to a 'gite' in the middle of France. Despite the cautions from the owner that it 'wasn't quite finished' we weren't prepared for a partially converted cow shed in the middle of a sea of mud. We spent a few days there freezing in the bathroom, as the walls didn't meet the roof in many parts, shivering in the bedroom, as rats used to scurry across the floor, and shivering on deck chairs as they sank slowly into the mud, before realising we were being far too british and stoic and going and staying somewhere else.
Experience 2 On holiday with a friend in Turkey, travelling around. Getting fairly tired of constantly being groped and chatted up, so were most relieved when we found a nice hotel by the sea. A man who we'd been talking to earlier that day came and found us sitting in the hotel bar. Hotel proprietor practically threw him out by the scruff of the neck, saying he was a bad man only after one thing, nasty, bad. On our way to bed that night we went to say thank you to nice hotel man, and to ask for a blanket. He promptly brandished a porn mag in front of my face saying 'you like? fucky fucky?', making the universally understood finger in hole sign. 'Er, no! No! Er, night!', we said, and ran off to our room. He proceeded to bang on the door until 3am, threatening to unlock it and come in anyway. Eeeewww. And the next day none of the hotel guests would talk to us. I don't know what he'd said.
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posted
Mostly the backpackers, guesthouses and hotels I've stayed in have been fine.
The worst was in Phnom Penh - paper thin walls, tiny rooms, water smelled of sulphur and poo. But it was a $1 a night and I really liked it. Also, fire trap cubicle in semi derelict tower block in Hong Kong - but very very cheap and decent location.
Best was friend of a friend's loft apartment in Singapore (he was away and loaned it to me). Huge space, cupboard and fridge full of alcohol that I was told I absolutely must consume, plasma tv screen, the smoothest air con ever, roof terrace with barbeque, great location, complete with a cleaner and ready made local social scene (neighbours would drop by for tea, invite me to dinner). I left Singapore with a very positive view of fascist city states.
Oh, and Noah's Ark in Greymouth, New Zealand. Did you ever go there, VP? It was a big house converted into a backpackers. Each room had a different animal theme. There was a big garden, nice kitchen, lounge, very cosy. Not much to do in the area, but ended up staying a few days cuz it was so lovely. Met lots of wicked people that ended up travelling with and am still friends with.
Damn, really really need to get away. The weather sucks today!
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quote:Originally posted by vikram: Oh, and Noah's Ark in Greymouth, New Zealand. Did you ever go there, VP?
Yes, I had the pig room all to myself. The owner picked me up from the station, and when I realised I didn't have enough cash to cover two nights, was just told, "no worries, you can pay a bit later." If only more people were like Kiwis.
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posted
One guesthouse I stayed in - in Varkala, a beach town in Kerala, India - was perfectly fine except for a couple of cockroaches. I managed to kill one straight off (didn't know about how they automatically lay their eggs if you kill them and then you have lots of baby roaches - or is that not true?), but the other was really smart and repeatedly evaded execution. It became a bit of a ritual, coming home and spending ten or fifteen minutes failing to kill that damn cockroach. It gave meaning to my life and I quite enjoyed our little game, truth me told.
Anyway, whilst having a shower one morning, I spotted it skulking in the corner of the room. I approached with a flip flop in one hand and bottle of shampoo in the other - I knew that one weapon wouldn't be enough, not for this guy. Held the bottle behind my back so it wouldn't see - it was one clever cockroach. Watching my flip flop, it calculated its next move. But I was one step ahead and knew which direction it would scuttle off. It could either come towards me, away, or up. I figured it would run away.
I stooped down and raised the flip flop. Motioned it quickly down towards the enemy. It sensed this and ran. Smart, but not smart enough. What it didn't see was a shampoo bottle falling towards the spot it was just about to reach.
The cockroach was crushed. And so was I, in a way. I felt sadness. Really I did. Guilt. Pity. A valiant foe had been defeated. It was like the fall of a gladiator. It was with sorrow that I scooped up its remains and flushed it out to a sea burial. I still think about that little guy sometimes.
quote:Originally posted by Vogon Poetess: Yes, I had the pig room all to myself. The owner picked me up from the station, and when I realised I didn't have enough cash to cover two nights, was just told, "no worries, you can pay a bit later." If only more people were like Kiwis.
Yeah! Was totally skint too and he was like don't worry about it, pay me later. Kiwis are lovely.
quote:Originally posted by vikram: The cockroach was crushed. And I felt sadness. Really I did. Guilt. Pity. Emptiness. A valiant foe had been defeated. It was like the fall of a gladiator. It was with sorrow that I scooped up its remains and flushed it out to a sea burial.
Did you give it the "We're very much alike, you and I..." speech that all good arch nememis' do to one another?
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quote:Originally posted by Black Mask: Huh. I just downloaded a video of an unconscious guy getting gang-raped in a room decorated with monkeys. What a coincidence.
posted
Reading this vivid, enlightening and richly-textured thread, I have to say it makes me glad I have never done the kind of "travelling" that involves backward places like Asia, and have instead chosen to tick off major cities of Europe and the US, staying in average-to-grand but always salubrious hotels.
I know I should feel I've missed out, but I'm really not that masochistic.
Lucid
It's six o'clock somewhere, I'm having crisps !
posted
Gorakhpur. Without a doubt. It's where the plains meet the mountains. We arrived shortly before dusk, after a long bus ride from Delhi. All the lights, bar one, had red shades. How quaint, quelle ambience. Then, as the sun set, a plague of biblical proportions, insects in all shapes and sizes. How bad? Large crickets in your hair, huge moths clinging to your T shirts, the air was thick. The hotel sign, lit by the only fluorscent tube, was totally obscured. The place was teeming. We came prepared. After brushing wildlife off the bed, laying down an impermeable membrane and a large mosquito net, erecting it by tying it to small hooks, nails, light fittings etc, we settled down to what might have passed for telly in the developed world - watching huge grasshoppers bounce off the mosquito net, drawing lots as to who would get up and turn the light off.
Other notable places: the 'Tourist {concentration} camp in Delhi, like a northern outhouse but with less ambience, no windows, a broom handle by the door was used to beat a path to the toilet - scaring off the rats (see those mothers scatter) which seeped through from the municipal dump on the other side of the wall.
Also - a 15ft high mountain of excrement behind a guest house in Namche Bazaar, located off the edge of a small cliff - a collage of coloured toilet paper - raked level when it started poking its shitty head above ground zero...there are worse jobs.
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posted
Probably the worst accomodation I've had was the extremely mediocre room at a Finnish ski resort, but even that was simply functional rather than actually unpleasant. There was a hotel in St Petersburg, where after you'd run the bath the water was so murky you couldn't see the bottom of the tub, but other than that it was a very decent hotel. The Monte Carlo Grand is probably the most gauche hotel I've ever stayed in, eschewing the classiness of something like the Hyatt in Berlin for utterly OTT decor they brought to mind the "I'm considerably richer than you" character that Harry Enfield used to do. In fact the whole place reeked of gut wrenching greed, culturelessness and avarice making it probably the most distasteful place I've ever visited. You know how if you go for a walk around London for a day, your skin and clothes feel grimy and smelly? Monte Carlo's the same except it does that to your soul.
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posted
You're being really nice recently. Not just to me either. It is like you have been bodysnatched? Then again perhaps you were always nice before and I've just forgotten, or [most likely] you were just being jokily nasty before.
posted
really? oh bugger, i don't think i've changed. have i?
i never thought i was nasty.
i know i had tourettes last time i was around. and also: i'm in a job i like. and i'm happy. i think.
piss flaps : answers on a post card to: is damo any more vanilla than he used to be? or is it just rose tinted goggles that makes people think i was a mean old man? with pissy knickers and swearing?
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posted
You haven't changed damo, Kovacs' just fell into the (glaringly obvious I'd have thought?) trap of taking your comedy swearings seriously.
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quote:Originally posted by Lucid: Gorakhpur. Without a doubt. It's where the plains meet the mountains. We arrived shortly before dusk, after a long bus ride from Delhi. All the lights, bar one, had red shades. How quaint, quelle ambience. Then, as the sun set, a plague of biblical proportions, insects in all shapes and sizes. How bad? Large crickets in your hair, huge moths clinging to your T shirts, the air was thick. The hotel sign, lit by the only fluorscent tube, was totally obscured. The place was teeming. We came prepared. After brushing wildlife off the bed, laying down an impermeable membrane and a large mosquito net, erecting it by tying it to small hooks, nails, light fittings etc, we settled down to what might have passed for telly in the developed world - watching huge grasshoppers bounce off the mosquito net, drawing lots as to who would get up and turn the light off.
Other notable places: the 'Tourist {concentration} camp in Delhi, like a northern outhouse but with less ambience, no windows, a broom handle by the door was used to beat a path to the toilet - scaring off the rats (see those mothers scatter) which seeped through from the municipal dump on the other side of the wall.
Also - a 15ft high mountain of excrement behind a guest house in Namche Bazaar, located off the edge of a small cliff - a collage of coloured toilet paper - raked level when it started poking its shitty head above ground zero...there are worse jobs.
Why the fuck would ANYONE want to visit a place like this ? Unless of course you work for Channel Four and are narrating an amusing documentary type thing called "Extreme Shitholes" or some such.
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Lucid
It's six o'clock somewhere, I'm having crisps !
posted
Morocco. We'd rented this villa in the middle of well, nowhere. It seemed like a good idea at the time. It looked great on the website. No electricity or running water, all candle light, fires and scabby goat skin rugs on pebble floors. It looked like a troglodytes grotto, cave dwellings around a central courtyard. A picture's worth a thousand of my words: piccies It was New Year, the place slept 8 but due to various f**k ups we were only 4..
First night - great, quaint - the usual jibes about you must be a 'big' man etc cos the other three captives were women, but all quite jolly. Novelty of fires, teelichts and stone baths hadn't warn off yet...
Drip drip. The penny was dropping. They *hated* us. Contempt and venom dripped from every surly glance. They feigned non comprehension when women asked them for help, and then... they moved in. An entire burbar family ensconced themselves in the rooms we weren't using, kids, shouting, cooking...And then, the family became more extended. More family, more kids, more village life. No 'would you mind', no acknowledgement that we were actually doing them a favour perhaps, by allowing them use our spare rooms. That set the tone for one of the most uncomfortable holidays I've ever been on - I just didn't get it. They seemed to go out of their way to be mean.. E.g. we stayed in Marakesh, where because of the french influence they do good baguettes, no roti or pitta bread here.. they've got YEAST! So.. we had them in the hotel for breakfast.. but.. get this.. they'd hollowed out the delicious, freshly baked baguettes like dug out canoes, leaving us only the crusts. wtf? Why? New Years eve...we were invited by a french women to come to party at her villa, much more salubrious, round the corner. "Excellent" we think, some proper cultcha, musicians, dancing, wine women and song kind of stuff. We turned up and were promptly stiffed for £20 each. A good start. Then the food came, passable but too much. Then the musicians. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm as much a fan of tuvan throat singers, tria bulgaria and other such 'world music' as the next chap, but these people were terrible. No sense of rhythm, home made pots and pans type instruments, a right bloody din. Then, we looked closer. Some of the faces looked familiar. Our neighbours. Hmm. Free board, lodging and a captive fee paying audience. They stopped, and passed round a hat. We made our excuses. What were theirs?
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