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From a travel blogging couple named Lisa and Greg whose siteis funemployedtravelers.com –
Hotel Maria, Sudder Street, Kolkata, India. Rs250 ($5.43USD ) total 2ppl double bed w/private toilet. This place is hard to rate only because it was recommended by a lady we had met at the airport and it was in our Lonely Planet guide. To us, our room was a almost condemnable (only if the authorities could confirm there was mold). It smelled musty and moldy and the paint was chipping off the walls. The sheets were dirty, even after we asked them to change them again and the beds were hard. We actually put the 2 twin size mattresses on top of each other hoping for some extra padding, but there was no use. The pillows were hard and if you touched the pillow case for too long you would get an oily feeling on your hand. Yes, the dirt and oil from years of use actually seeped through the pillow and case. The wool blankets they gave us for warmth were also old and smelly. I am convinced that they had never been washed. In fact, there was a stain on one of the blankets but we didn’t notice it until our last night there. Needless to say we slept motionless in our sleep sheets to keep us safe from God knows what. The bathroom had a Western toilet that had concrete built up around to make it a squat. That was tricky at first but you got use to the possibility of falling forward. Also, the toilet was broken so in order to flush you just poured water into the basin-just like a squat. Only cold water came out of the shower head but there was free hot water service out in the courtyard. All you had to do was grab your bucket and fill it up with hot water and then bring it back to your room. This, oddly, wasn’t bad and we got use to it quickly. The hotel staff wasn’t overly friendly or rude, they just didn’t do much. If you asked for something it was done but not in great haste. They offered internet access for Rs15 an hour, which was nice. There were also balconies on the roof and 2nd floor that were a good place to hang out and meet some other travelers.
Rating Hotel Maria is difficult because although we hated our room and it sounded like, from others we have met, that most of the rooms on Sudder Street were also completely gross. It’s the price we paid and the area we chose, but there really wasn’t a better place to be for your first time in Kolkata. Additionally, this was our first time in India, let alone Kolkata, so we had nothing to compare to this room. Besides the room’s grotesqueness, there was 24hour security, free hot water (some places make you pay), 2 balconies to hang out on, and cheap internet a few steps from your door.
Even if you don’t have issues with germs, you still probably would not choose to linger long, thinking about the revolving door occupancy of an average hotel room.
Let’s say that the room you’re in tonight mirrors the US hotel occupancy rate projected for 2014: 63.8%. That translate to 233 nights that someone sat on your toilet or used your shower or tub.
That’s a whole lot of body hair, blood, urine, fecal matter, skin sloughing and other matter that will end up swirling around the drain. Yech. And if 1/3 of those nights were double occupancy, that’s over 300 people who stood there and scrubbed and other-wise released “stuff” into that comfortable haven that you might right now, be running hot water in so you can soak off a tough day on the road. In a year.
And then there’s the stuff you really don’t want to think about like skin conditions and what might be lurking in the fluids. Since 1% of Americans have Hepatitis C…and if you’re staying at a hotel in Mississippi? (Staggering high gonorrhea rates)
So it goes without saying that with hair, skin, and every imaginable human-spread solid and liquid dried and encrusted on this tile at a hotel in Des Moines, your safest bet is just go to your Happy Place, and try not to think about the hands that have used the TV channel changer.
So, last Thursday night, due to driving delays with the fire, and a lack of hotel rooms in Ellensburg, Denise and I stopped for the night at the #BestWestern in Othello. We shouldn’t have.
The room was disgusting. Two out of the three chairs had massive stains of unknown origin that covered almost the entire seat, and one up the back and arms. The bed had no bedspread- just another sheet over the blanket and sheets on the bed. The only up side was the bathroom appeared fairly clean.
Upon waking up the next morning at 7:45 to the sound of someone hammering on the outside wall of our room, I went to take a look out the window to see what all the noise was about. I couldn’t see a thing, due to a large banner which was hung over the entire window, blocking any view and likely making for a rather unsafe emergency egress in case of fire. At some point, the “mad-hammerer” removed the banner, and I could see renovations going on. As if that wasn’t enough, adding insult to injury, the complimentary breakfast included chunks of mold floating in my cup from the apple juice dispenser.
Sound too nasty to be true? Good thing I took pics and video! Enjoy! And share, if you like…
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