Upgrade Your Life -- Starting Now

K-ster,

 

I wake up in a warm pool of my own sweat.  I look at the sheets, there aren't any blood trails; I go into the bathroom and inspect my copious body, no bites.  The score now stands: 1 for b1, 0 for insects.  The little swine.

 

I go outside and walk down to the shore.  At this latitude, it's harder to tell the time from the sun, but I'd say it's about 10:00.  I probably got something like six hours of broken sleep.

 

I pack my bags, talk to the hotel mistress.

 

"Hey, what holiday is it?"

 

"What do you mean?"

 

Oh you know, those spudnuts that were pounding the bejesus out of drums for forever and a day last night.  "The music."

 

"Acha*.  It's Holi."

 

X.  Holi.  This is the festival of color and essentially an excuse to just abuse the hell out of tourists.  I was in Hampi during Holi a decade ago -- I knew the potential for tourist abuse was so high that I actually went out and bought special clothing for the day and then threw them away afterward.

 

But wait.  I shouldn't have been able to dodge the color yesterday.  In fact, I should be the primest of the soft targets.

 

I don't get it.  "Did they throw color?"

 

"No, Holi is five days.  They throw color on the last day."

 

"When is that?"

 

I can see her judging the lunar cycle in her mind.  She's looking for a full moon.

 

"Sunday, I think."

 

I do the math in my head and then do it again.  Lessee, today's the first and I'm at the swank hotel through the fifth.  I'm going to have sanctuary during Holi!  And that, my geeky little friend, is spectacular.

 

I make my way down to the trishaw stand.

 

"How much to the Intercontinental Hotel?"

 

"What?" 

 

I'm not getting through.  Time to switch on the super-communicator.  I spread my arms wide, "Super hotel."

 

He's got it now.  "RS100."

 

"I'll give you 50."

 

He motions me to get in.  The ride is smooth and cooling.  As we approach the hotel it's clear that it is the "compound" in the middle of everything else -- there are restaurants immediately outside the guarded gates, and long lines of taxis, all hoping for the RS1900 fare to the airport.

 

I get dropped at the gate and the guard lets me in on site.  Skin color is your secret access pass here.

 

The grounds are gigantic.  For about 10 minutes, I walk past fountains and then through a golf course before I make the entry-way.

 

I ask the doorman, who is dressed up in a farouk outfit for some ungodly reason, what time it is.  11:00.

 

I go into the entry and it is gigantic. The ceiling raises a full three stories.  The floors are a buffed marble.  In fact, they polish the floor *so* much that when the light hits it at the right angle you can see the brown stone is softer than the black and everywhere there's black tile it's raised slightly.

 

There's a little bit of chaos at the counter so I stand back and wait, as the occasional In. cuts in front of me in line.  After about 10 minutes they welcome me (In. is a full-on old skool Brit place -- you get called "sir" here about 200 times a day), take my passport and ask me to be seated.  I remind them that Bluff Magazine is picking up my room tab and then plunk myself down in an over-stuffed chair.  I pull out my (signed) copy of Paris Trout and start reading.

 

Lots of time passes.  Lots and lots.  Like maybe an hour.

 

I go to the front desk. 

 

"May I help you, sir?"

 

"Why, yes you can.  I registered with you over an hour ago and I still haven't heard anything."

 

This brings on a sudden burst of activity from all employees at the desk, not unlike whacking an ant mound with a stick.  A big cheese comes out from the back. 

 

"I was looking for you, but couldn't find you."

 

I point to the chair I was in where my (bedbug free) travel pack is still sitting.  "Maybe that's because I was over there ... where your people told me to wait."

 

They give me a card key and make their biggest mistake of the day.  They didn't take a credit card.  Hotels like this are the same everywhere in the world -- they nickle and dime you for the stupidest of things and get away with it because they cater to people who just don't care about the price of things: the stupidly rich and those on expense accounts.

 

I shake off six different bellmen who ask to carry my bag and walk about a full city block to my room.

 

I open the door and am blown away.  My room has an anteroom with rattan chairs, a bathroom with a shower large enough to clean your elephant and a main room that has a two-floor ceiling.  There's a king bed, which in itself is unusual in this country, a rattan chair with rattan footstool in the corner.  A desk with English leather writing top, a couch, a tea table and a large plasma television.  The air conditioning, as is always the case in In., is turned to about 10 degrees below zero.  There's also a safe and two walk-in closets.

 

But what is really really interesting here is there are no smudge marks on the walls.  Everything in In. that's operational (door handles, light switches, toilet flushers) always have just general grime surrounding them.  I'm not sure where/how this comes from, but I always notice it.

 

And it's not here at all.

 

The general architecture and lay-out of the room reminds me of something, but I'm not sure what.  I look around and then it hits me: it's vaguely reminiscent of a maharajah's palace I'd been in in Udupi a decade ago.  They've taken that concept and modernized it.  And they've done a damn good job.  It looks really nice.  The whole place is covered, like the lobby, with over-buffed marble.

 

I take my first warm water shower in three days and stroll around the hotel a bit getting a feel of the place.  The tournament organizers aren't, so I go back to my room and read Harrington.

 

At 15:45 I make my way to the lobby, sign up (somewhat surreptitiously in a side room), and then take my seat.  I brought Paris with me so I wouldn't have to strike up casual conversations with people I could not care less about.

 

A spaced-out guy old guy with an American accent comes up and slaps me on the back.  "You've got the right idea!  You've got the right idea!  Sit here and read while everyone else gets worked up."  Well, I was.

 

Think of a Colonel Lipton who has done way too much acid and you've got this guy pegged.

 

I bust out about half-way through the tournament (the hands for it will be in a separate missive), just before the dinner break.  They've got an amazing and huge lay-out for the players: probably 50 dishes done buffet style, ranging from western dishes to In. classics.  Meat, chicken, fish, vegetarian -- it's all here.

 

I grab a plate and saddle up, and only then realize that I haven't eaten in two days.  I eat two large meals and retire to my room.  I force myself to stay up watching TV until 22:00 and then crash.

 

It's so nice to be rich,

b1