UGH!!!

We left work late in the morning and arrived back at the hotel by 5:30 am. After much packing, unpacking and repacking of my luggage, I finally crawled into bed at 7:30 am. With a wake up call scheduled for 10:30 am, I wasn’t sure how well I’d be able to hold up once I reached Mumbai.

Anand met me at the door to assist with the luggage and graciously accepted being designated my ‘porter’. I passed off the granola bars and a few other assorted goodies. Earlier that morning, I had noticed that the granola bar supply was down by over ½. Since I wasn’t eating them, I guess they have also been raided by the hotel staff. I’ve added them to the list of foodstuffs that went missing in my room.. cookies, chips, pop (I know, I know…I didn’t follow my diet…and yet I still managed to lose over 10 lbs during my stay in India).

Since the beginning of my stay, I have had an ongoing battle with the housekeeping staff.

In the beginning, it was the constant calls asking when they could clean my room received at 10 am – after I had repeatedly told the management that I was working nights and would not be vacating the room prior to noon on any given day. Then, there was the sporadic turn down service. Each night, we were supposed to receive a snack at the bedside table. Anand often talked about the cookies, mousses, and chocolates he received. After the first week, I was lucky if a cookie appeared in my room more than once a week. Actually, I shouldn’t complain about the lack of sweets too much. When they did put a mousse in my room, it was left there for 4 days until it started to mold and I had to request that it be removed. All in all, I was likely much better off not receiving the turn down service. Later, it was small things (nothing of value or anything that I would miss) disappearing from the room. Calls to the housekeeping department always resulted in assurances that they would look into it and get back to me – but they never did.

The final straw was the daily battle to throw things out. I had brought a blue dress to India that I have owned for 4+ years. It’s one I wore frequently at work, and was well used. Finally, it decided it was time for retirement and the worn fabric had torn in the middle of the dress. As it wasn’t on the seam, I decided that it was time to let go and throw it out. To have cut it and hemmed it would have made the dress border on the obscene. After making my peace with the decision I threw the dress out, changed and headed to work. When I returned to my room that evening, the dress was folded and sitting on the bed. This continued for well over two weeks, until I finally stopped trying to throw it out. I began to panic. What if the hotel didn’t throw away my broken suitcase and the old pair of shoes I had worn through? What if they decided to ship it all back to me?

I’m beginning to wonder what I did to deserve the treatment I received. My room was never left in too much of a mess and I made a point to tip the concierge and housekeeping staff whenever I requested anything from them. Anand suggested that they were partying in my room, since on the few occasions I did turn on the TV, the volume was always cranked and it was never left on the channel I had most recently watched.

The Swiss president is staying at the Leela and the hotel was swarmed with hotel security, local police and the Swiss version of the secret service. One of these fine gentlemen took pity on Anand and I and offered to assist me with the luggage. It was a great offer and one I immediately accepted. Unfortunately, the bag he grabbed was the lightest of all – the small cabin bag I had purchased which containing next to nothing – leaving Anand and I to drag the monster suitcase and book bag down the hall and to the elevator.

On checkout, I once again found a number of items on my bill that were charged to my room that I had not signed for. 4 weeks ago, some meals for a guest in room 225 (I was in room 325) were applied to my bill. After discovering the error, I had the charges removed and paid the balance of the bill. 2 weeks ago when I again settling the bill, the meals were once again present on the bill. The original receipts were hauled out for review, the name and room number was noted, and I was told the amount would be removed from the bill. When I settled the 2nd bill, the meals were not on it. This morning, guess what appeared on a separate bill associated with the room? If you said the meals for room 225, you’ve guessed correctly. Needless to say, disputing the meals and private bar (mini-bar) charges took over 45 minutes. The charges were finally removed from the bill and were not on the copy of the receipt I signed. I will be keeping a close eye on the charges to our corporate card to ensure that charges I did not sign for aren’t billed to the card now that I’ve left the hotel.

I am now a thoroughly disgruntled former guest…I can understand the original mistake – sometimes handwriting is hard to decipher – but the continual back and forth over my hotel bills has made me wary of 5 star hotels. I’ll settle for a nice Hilton or Homewood Suites room any day…

As I was leaving the Duty desk, I made sure to let the Duty Manager know that I had left the suitcase (and its’ torn dress and stinky worn shoe contents) to be thrown out. Anand joked that I did not want it shipped to me in Canada. The staff laughed and seemed to think my request was reasonable, but with the luck I’ve had with the 3rd floor cleaning staff, you never know what might happen…

After a final lunch at the Cirtus restaurant, Anand and I headed for the airport where we were met by Sahana. Unlike my previous domestic flight from Mumbai to Bangalore a number of weeks ago, the security seemed considerably lax and I was quickly through the security check. Sahana assured me that her friend Arpit would be more than happy to take me about town.

Somewhere along the way, some wires were crossed. As Arpit awaited my arrival at the domestic terminal, I was spirited off to the international terminal. Thanks to a porter at the international terminal, a phone call was made to Arpit and I was ‘rescued’ from the Mumbai airport. Arpit is an actor by trade and is not filming at the moment. Apparently there was a very glitzy party in Mumbai last night and he had told Sahana it was a shame that I hadn’t arrived in Mumbai on Thursday in order to attend the party. All the stars of Bollywood were in attendance and it would have made for an amazing story to tell.

When I tell him where I am from, Arpit immediately recognizes the name of the city. He has an uncle in Toronto who often travels to Edmonton and is the first person I have met who is familiar with most of the larger cities in Canada.

The generosity of spirit and friendliness of Indians constantly surprises and amazes me. Arpit has given up the bulk of his evening to act as tour guide, shuttle me around and ensure that I am fed and cared for while I wait for my flight to Amsterdam. He holds Sahana, his long time friend, in the highest regard and states that ‘any friend of Sahana’s is a friend of his’.

Noting my preference to tea biscuits over sweets, Arpit has provided me with a packet to take on the plane. I don’t know how I can repay Sahana and Arpits’ kindness, generosity and friendship. Arpit insists that making myself at home will be repayment enough, however, I doubt that can express the gratitude I feel for his brief involvement in my trip to India.

Thanks to Arpit I have crossed another item off of my ‘to do’ list. I saw my first Hindi movie in India tonight. We watched Mr. and Mrs. Iyer (which was ¾ dubbed in English) and if you haven’t seen it yourself, I highly recommend it. The movie takes place during a routine journey between cities and explores the relationship between to acquaintances after a religious riot breaks out in a village they are passing through. It’s an engrossing drama, but doesn’t contain the usual Hindi dance routines and songs. However, if you’re looking for something more traditional, Mr. and Mrs. Iyer isn’t it.

WOW! Apparently I had a lot to say today 😉 I guess today’s journal entry make up for the tiny ones in last week and this weeks’ segments of the trip journal.

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