I have to admit that I am fed up of staying in cheap hotels. I didn’t used to mind so much, in fact I used to think the cheaper the better. What is the point of spending money on somewhere you are just going to sleep, right?
I remember walking around Alor Setar on the East coast of Malaysia some years ago. I was seeking out the cheapest hotel in town. Eventually I found a place that offered rooms for MR15. Not satisfied, I asked if they had anything cheaper. The clerk grinned and said they did have one room, but it wasn’t very nice and there was no bathroom - if I wanted a shower I would have to use the ‘mandi’ in the restaurant kitchens. That was MR10. I took it, saying that I was a student and I didn’t mind a basic room.
The room itself wasn’t bad at all. It was dingy, with green painted walls, peeling in places; it had shutters, rather than windows, and these opened out on to a road junction, so it was a little noisy at night; the sheets looked clean and it was cheap.
I put my stuff down and went for a shower, plodding through the restaurant kitchens in my sarong to find the small bathroom or mandi at the far end. The kitchen staff joked with me in Malay, asking how come a Mat Saleh couldn’t afford a better hotel room. I grinned, explained that I was a poor student and edged my way past the fierce flames leaping around the woks. As I walked into the little Malay style bathroom, I was wondering how on earth people can cook on powerful open stoves in such stifling heat and humidy.
The mandi was fairly grim, the concrete walls green with algae and the floor remarkably tacky, so that when I moved I had to carefully peel my flip-flops off the ground or they would trip me up. The water in the concrete reservoir was clean and cool though, so all wasn’t lost.
Refreshed, I was drying myself with the sarong when I heard a gurgling noise coming from the kitchen. A second or too later and at just the time I noticed the substantial outlet pipe half way up the mandi wall, a gush of brown water, thick with potato peels, left overs and oily suds came gushing out, striking my cleanly in the navel. I was coated, from the waist down in a layer of kitchen grease, lightly decorated with potato skins, carrot gratings and grains of fried rice.
I managed to laugh this incident off, and the next time I took a mandi I was careful to warn all the kitchen staff not to release any washing up water for the duration of my ablutions.
When I went to bed that night though, worse was to come. I had been dozing for half an hour or so when I realized the bed was damp. I tried to ignore it for a while, but eventually ran my hand over the sheets. The exact location, the epicenter of discomfort, was disturbing. Surely not? Perhaps the sheets just hadn’t dried properly before they made up the bed, it had rained all day, after all. A niggling thought kept me awake, and eventually I gave up worrying about it and sniffed the sheets. The previous resident had obviously had an incontinence problem. I wasn’t pleased.
The above notwithstanding, I wasn’t put off cheap hotels at the time. My current hotel, the Mingood is much more expensive but ... I now have five star tastes. Sadly as a teacher, five star tastes with an Alor Star special salary.
I remember walking around Alor Setar on the East coast of Malaysia some years ago. I was seeking out the cheapest hotel in town. Eventually I found a place that offered rooms for MR15. Not satisfied, I asked if they had anything cheaper. The clerk grinned and said they did have one room, but it wasn’t very nice and there was no bathroom - if I wanted a shower I would have to use the ‘mandi’ in the restaurant kitchens. That was MR10. I took it, saying that I was a student and I didn’t mind a basic room.
The room itself wasn’t bad at all. It was dingy, with green painted walls, peeling in places; it had shutters, rather than windows, and these opened out on to a road junction, so it was a little noisy at night; the sheets looked clean and it was cheap.
I put my stuff down and went for a shower, plodding through the restaurant kitchens in my sarong to find the small bathroom or mandi at the far end. The kitchen staff joked with me in Malay, asking how come a Mat Saleh couldn’t afford a better hotel room. I grinned, explained that I was a poor student and edged my way past the fierce flames leaping around the woks. As I walked into the little Malay style bathroom, I was wondering how on earth people can cook on powerful open stoves in such stifling heat and humidy.
The mandi was fairly grim, the concrete walls green with algae and the floor remarkably tacky, so that when I moved I had to carefully peel my flip-flops off the ground or they would trip me up. The water in the concrete reservoir was clean and cool though, so all wasn’t lost.
Refreshed, I was drying myself with the sarong when I heard a gurgling noise coming from the kitchen. A second or too later and at just the time I noticed the substantial outlet pipe half way up the mandi wall, a gush of brown water, thick with potato peels, left overs and oily suds came gushing out, striking my cleanly in the navel. I was coated, from the waist down in a layer of kitchen grease, lightly decorated with potato skins, carrot gratings and grains of fried rice.
I managed to laugh this incident off, and the next time I took a mandi I was careful to warn all the kitchen staff not to release any washing up water for the duration of my ablutions.
When I went to bed that night though, worse was to come. I had been dozing for half an hour or so when I realized the bed was damp. I tried to ignore it for a while, but eventually ran my hand over the sheets. The exact location, the epicenter of discomfort, was disturbing. Surely not? Perhaps the sheets just hadn’t dried properly before they made up the bed, it had rained all day, after all. A niggling thought kept me awake, and eventually I gave up worrying about it and sniffed the sheets. The previous resident had obviously had an incontinence problem. I wasn’t pleased.
The above notwithstanding, I wasn’t put off cheap hotels at the time. My current hotel, the Mingood is much more expensive but ... I now have five star tastes. Sadly as a teacher, five star tastes with an Alor Star special salary.
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