Please forgive the heretical title; if I had any idea where this hotel is in relation to the other parts of the city, I'd be able to tell you if I was movin' on up to the East Side or not; as it is, suffice to say I've definitely moved up.
A driver for the five-star place came to pick me up this morning, and none too soon. Seriously, while I am, of course, totally fine staying wherever, if I'd had to listen to "Unchained Melody" in the elevator one more time, I might have had a severe mental breakdown. I checked out of the Comfort Inn, wrote "Very comfortable, thank you!" in the guestbook they offered me, and headed out the door. A tasteful array of magazines and newspapers were available in the backseat of the car, but I had my face pressed against the window instead, watching people drive by. At one point there was an entire family on one motorcycle; mom, dad, and two tiny girls in front between the dad's arms. No camels today, I'm afraid.
I'm in a different part of the city now, very nearby the main train station. As such, it's usually even more crowded in the streets than in the Deccan Gymkhana area I was in before. Traffic was fairly light today; the driver told me that pretty much everything is closed on Sundays, so he could drive around with a minimum of swerving, honking, and almost running people over. I'll have to see what it's like in the morning when they pick me up to go to work.
Unsurprisingly, as hotels go, this one is a world apart from the Comfort Inn. Everything is carved and marble and luxurious and expansive; basically a Plaza-esque kind of place that I'd never be able to afford in New York. On check in, I was greeted by half a dozen people, rushing my paperwork through as fast as possible, and a porter with a glass of fresh juice (I'm thinking white grape, but it may well have been something indigenous that I don't recognize) on a silver tray. One of the clerks walked me down the marble colonnade to the elevators, up to my room, and explained all of the amenities, like where the Do Not Disturb and Clean My Room buttons may be found. Another porter showed up with my luggage, and I tipped him 100 rupees, which is around $2. According to what I've found on line, tipping isn't strictly necessary here; that is, a tip is usually considered payment for services rendered. What they have instead is a system called baksheesh, or payment in advance for services to be rendered in the future. Basically if you give a good tip to start with, you'll get good service from then on. I don't know how true that is, but it feels really weird to me to have a meal or let someone carry my bags (I can certainly tote my own luggage around!) without a tip. So a tip, baksheesh, whatever, it still seems like a good idea and I still feel like the luxurious American throwing his money around.
I cleaned up and had a shower of the high-water-pressure and very-high-temperature that it's just impossible to achieve with a home shower, and found a note attached to the bathrobe on the back of the door that I think is indicative of the kind of hotel I'm in:
"This bathrobe has enjoyed considerable success among our guests, to the extent that particularly enthusiastic customers have become "collectors of Le Meridien bathrobes." While we recognize that this initiative helps spread the reputation of our establishment, we nevertheless urge our most fervent supporters to make an effort to separate themselves from this admittedly endearing garment when they leave. (Althernately, a bathrobe may be obtained in exchange for a few rupees.)"
The most remarkable area I found was the rooftop swimming pool. I'm going to do some work up there later this afternoon when it isn't *quite* so hot, and hopefully do a bit of swimming too. There's also a restaurant up there, in case I get, I guess, peckish or something from my exertions.
When I went downstairs for lunch, I made two very important discoveries: One, today is Easter, a fact that completely escaped my notice what with everything else going on. Two, and please please don't hate me for this, the hotel has an absolutely marvelous Easter champagne brunch for 750 rupees, or about sixteen bucks. Not to go into great detail about everything I ate (hello, nine desserts) but boeuf tenderloin en croute and Waldorf salad isn't a bad way to start one's week. Western dishes aside, I had a spoonful of just about everything they had, from beetroot and papaya salad to a curried lamb to things with yogurt sauces and things with mint leaves and rice with cardamom and pistachios. Plus they just kept refilling my glass with champagne, so I'm a tiny bit tipsy and totally full.
Other observations--
One: Coffee here is even worse than coffee in England, and coffee in England is dreadful and weak and watered down and all tastes like Nescafe. I know this is true, but I can't stop ordering coffee anyway.
Two: Public bathrooms in general are pretty funny: most public restrooms I've been in have been a row of urinals against the wall. The main difference is that instead of flushing each one down a separate pipe, the urinals just have a hole that drain everything down the wall to a trough cut into the floor. There's really no reason to have the urinal at all, except it provides a thin veneer of civility; it's a thing made specially for peeing into, so we're not just peeing on the wall like savages.
Three: The handles to flush regular toilets are near the floor, so you flush by stepping on the handle. This seems like a remarkably sanitary way to go about things, instead of having to touch some old handle with your fingers.
Four: I think I just saw a hawk fly by outside my window. I may go up to the roof now to investigate.