Horrible Hotel/Travel Accommodation Experiences
In my last post, I mentioned my experience at the Eko Beach Resort. On reflection, though it was not a nice hotel experience, I have actually had worse so this post is dedicated to my “Three Most Horrible Hotel/Travel Accommodation Experiences”.
In thirdplace is a one-night stay at the TBB Resort on Tioman Island in Malaysia.
Based on the fact that Tioman Island was once voted by the Times Magazine as the one of the most beautiful islands in the world, my travel companions and I had high expectations for our one day,one night trip to the Island. However, it all started on the wrong foot with us being stuck at the Mersing Jetty Terminal for two hours, then having to board a small ferry to transfer to a big ferry in the middle of the ocean and finally being stranded on the Tioman Jetty for about another hour.
Eventually we were rescued from the Jetty and taken to our hotel,the TBB resort, one of the several on Tioman Island. Due to the delay,we were fussed over and served dinner by the resort manager before been eventually shown to our chalets. To our dismay, the rooms could have passed as breeding sites for tropical insects as they were swarming with ants of all shapes and sizes. My friends were incensed, to put it mildly, but the only consolation the manager could offer was some insecticide and new sheets as all other rooms were fully booked.
Without any choice and after the gruelling journey of the day, my other half and I succumbed to nature’s call and fell asleep on a bed shared with a large colony of ants.
Competing strongly for 2nd place but not quite making it, is my night in some guest house (I can’t even remember the name) in Jos.
A few years ago, I attended a high scool reunion in Abuja and somehow got it in my head that it was a good opportunity to visit Jos. Not for any reason in particular, but just because I had heard that it was one of the most beautiful cities in Nigeria. Considering I was travelling alone and I had never been there previously, my plan sounded quite foolhardy to the friends and family I mentioned it to. However, being the Ajala that I was, I decided to go ahead with the trip.
I left my hotel in Maitama in the morning and after a brief stop over at the Yar’adua centre, headed of to the Abuja car park. I cannot quite remember now but I think I arrived there before noon but, based on the Naija concept of waiting for the car to filled with passengers before departing, we didn’t leave the carpark till late afternoon.
After the 3-4 hour journey, cramped in the back of the car, I arrived in Jos around sunset. I had thought I could easily get directions to any hotel but this proved not to be the case and as daylight slipped away, I began to panic. Thank God for MTN, a quick call to a friend in Lagos resulted in a friend of a friend coming to my rescue and meeting me with a car.
We went to the Federal Hotel initially but decided against cause it was sorta pricey and the TV in the room was ancient, (I mean ancient like it had no remote control) . After driving around for a bit, we ended up in some guest house not too far from where the lady lived and considering it was getting late, I decided to stay there. On being shown to the room, I nearly cried as the room looked like it had not being cleaned in ages, the sheets seemed dirty and there were cigarette butts all over the bathroom floor. A quick call to the reception had someone coming in to attempt to tidy the place but there was still more to come.
As I lay down in my day clothes on the apparently-fresh-but-still-dirty-looking sheets, a couple arrived next door. They spent the night taking advantage of the adult channels recently introduced on Mnet. I was out of the place at the first sign of daylight, but spent the rest of the day visiting sights around Jos which made the trip worthwhile.
And the winner is, (drumroll!!!!!!!), my night as a squatter in some dinghy apartment in Kayes, a bordertown in Mali.
In 2000, I was one of 26 student members of Aiesec who decided to brave the odds and travel by road from Lagos, Nigeria to Senegal, Dakar. The journey was spanned 5 countries and almost the entire length of West Africa. It was quite an experience with many interesting incidents but I will save those for another post and stick to just the accomodation story for now.
On our return leg from Dakar back to Lagos, we were supposed to catch a 12hr train from Kayes, the bordertown of Mali and Senegal to Bamako, the capital of Mali. On arriving in Kayes in the evening, we were informed that the train only ran once a day in either direction at 7a.m. in the morning and so we had to find some accomodation for the night and continue our journey in the morning. Our only other option was to travel in a truck used for moving cattle as the roads between Kayes and Bamako were not pliable by either cars or buses.
After numerous discussions, we decided to spend the night in Kayes but had no idea where in Kayes. While we were condering the accomodation options, one of the station staff said he had a friend who could offer us a room, I can’t quite remember how the negotiations went but we were shown to this dinghy flat. To the best of my recollection, the flat had only one light bulb which was in the living area and a couple of mattresses on the floor. After showers in the unlit bathroom, we all hudlled in groups on the mattresses and managed to fall asleep.
This qualifies at the worst of the lot not so much because of any inconvenience but more because at the time, I was an inexperienced traveller and I found the experience of being stranded in some dark flat in a strange county quite scary. Luckily these experiences have not deterred my love for travel and could soon become a distant memory when we acquire the means to jet around the world in style (most probably by winning the lottery).
posted by lolaojiks @ 11:44 AM
0 comments
