Speaking of food, I'm writing this from Cochin airport, where we're about to get on a 90-minute flight that will feature a free full meal service. The 60-minute flight from Udaipur to Mumbai offered the same. On the other hand, beverage service is unheard of.
Peripheral to the topic of food is wine and, as noted, they're increasingly proud of their production over here. A few restaurants offer imports, which are all described as Australian. The chenin blanc from NSW? Australian. The malbec from Chile? Australian. The rioja from Spain? Australian. They do love them some Aussie wine.
On a different topic, nearly every flat surface seems to be made of marble: temples floors, palace walls (and floors), sidewalks, staircases, showers, tables, reservation desks, etc. It makes Rome look a bit impoverished.
While the hotels may not want for marble, here's an interesting fact: more hotels have a TV than know how to make a bed. This has become increasingly hilarious, with the best example constructed thus: one flat sheet, not tucked in, on the bottom. On top, at the foot of the bed, a blanket folded in half, laid across both sides. Repeat with two more blankets, at the middle and top. Finally, fold another half sheet into eighths and lay across the top to give it that sheet-over-the-blanket look from the western hotel brochures. Looks great, but lasts about five minutes in practice.
The TV experience is daunting, and not just because it's in Hindi or Kanada or some other local language. There are a hundred channels to choose from, which more or less break down like this:
40 channels devoted to dancing, either traditional, religious, cinematic or competitive
25 soap operas filled with either enough bravado and Cameros to embarrass Tom Sellick or enough weeping damsels suffering at the hands of their evil step mothers to put to shame all of Mexico's tele-novellas
12 news channels, six of which are in English and include MSNBC, CNN and BBC
3 anime channels, two of which are still in Japanese
6 religious channels; these look more like cable access than the 700 Club, half of them depicting poorly acted stories from Hindu mythology
6 View-esque talk shows
3 science networks, usually History, Discovery and Nat Geo
4 sitcoms of the "who spilled dal on my sari before the village festival" variety
1 cooking channel, appropriately called Food Food, though I never saw anyone cooking
Finally, there is begging everywhere, and you just learn to ignore it. But the best example was when I refused a six year old money and she stomped her foot, crossed her arms, and declared, "You have a funny hat." Yes. Yes, I do.
2 comments:
Funny hat! She got you.
On the subject of mysterious bedding habits I am reminded of a hotel in Bangkok at which, on our first night, we were treated to a fitted sheet (actually just a flat sheet wrapped tightly around the mattress, as it turned out later), a flat sheet, and a typical coarse polyester blanket. The bed was changed, and on our second night it was just the fitted sheet and a blanket. Called the housekeeper to explain that we appeared to be missing a sheet. She came in, perplexed, and explained that the sheet was right there (wrapped around the mattress). Indeed, I said, but we wanted two sheets. Really? You want another sheet? Yes, we're not kidding. So she went out to her cart in the hallway, brought a second sheet, and started to wrap the mattress with it, clearly recognizing that farang were lunatics. She also refused to believe that there had been two sheets there the night before, despite my solemn insistence that Jessica would never have been willing to sleep directly beneath China's finest 200-thread-count acrylamide.
Wassup, funny hat? Michael, you pretty much got served.
I'm wondering how much money Karen gave the kid after she said that, though clearly she is a comic genius and with any luck will soon be gracing the screen on one of those hundred or so Indian TV channels...
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