With night drawing in in what is still a conservative town, I decided to return to a hotel I knew from 15 years ago. Its location was on the seedy side. On the other hand, it was also close to most of the amenities.“I’d like a room at the back,” I said, bearing in mind the noisy main road outside.
The bellboy ushered me up in the elevator and showed me a room at the front. It looked pleasant enough, but the temperature was way too high for me, and already I could hear the beep-beeping from the street. Back downstairs I reiterated my preference for a rear room. The staff went into an anxious huddle. Then someone owned up.
“The back of the hotel is closed,” he said. “There’s no heating.”
“Well, that might not be a problem,” I said since I much prefer to sleep in the cool. “Let’s take a look.”
Back upstairs we entered an old-fashioned room that had no window on the outside (good -- no noise) but a row of windows along the top of the inner wall (bad -- no way to keep out the light). The minibar had been removed from its cabinet, which no longer shut unless something was placed in front of it. The television had no channels, let alone any in English, tuned in. The bathroom was adorned with a semi-melted bar of soap and two half empty bottles of shampoo, but given the hour, I decided I’d have to put up with it.
In the morning, breakfast was served in a yawning empty space of an unheated breakfast room. Two Turkish families were sitting at the tables, huddled up in their coats but I, the bolshie yabancı (foreigner), was having none of it.
“It’s freezing in here,” I said to the waiter, who made haste to switch on an electric fire.
An hour later, I was checking into a modern business class hotel where the décor was delightful and the toiletries passable. It was still too hot for me, but there was a dial on the wall that implied that I could turn it down. Only when I tried to do so did I discover that its purpose was purely decorative. Reluctantly, I opened the window. In swept an icy blast and that same familiar beep-beeping.
In the elevator, a notice advertized dinners at a discount for hotel guests. At 8 p.m. I duly presented myself in the dining room only to find it completely full of football-watching men who turned as one to stare at me as I walked in, then turned tail and hurried straight back out again. Fortunately, there was BBC News on the plasma TV. Unfortunately, there was also a bright blue strip of light running along the bottom of the screen that caught my eye every time I turned over in bed. Some time around 2 a.m. I got up and draped my coat over it to block out the light. Next time, the Hilton.
Pat Yale lives in a restored cave-house in Göreme in Cappadocia.
