As an ardent traveller, I have found myself in hotels of all kinds, from the plush and uber luxurious, to the modest and, luckily just once, the kind that makes me check out minutes after walking into my room.
By and large most hotels, mushrooming in the Tier-II and -III cities, look the part, with well-maintained exteriors and clean lobby areas. The rooms too are usually up to the mark, with fresh sheets on the bed, bottled drinking water and decent bathroom amenities.
But a hotel is judged by the little details, and it’s the details that I found were sorely missing in many—I like to call them—‘pretenders.’
Like the hotel in Nagpur. Quite slick and in a prime location. Nice rooms. Then came the rub.
I had gone for a walk, and falling short of the number of steps I had allotted myself to digest a rather heavy meal, I decided to climb up to my second floor room. So up the stairs I went to find myself in a restaurant. When I searched for the stairs leading from the restaurant to the second floor, I was told there were none. To reach my floor I would have to go down again and take the lift.
Horrified by the thought that there was no real escape route should there be an emergency I accosted the people at the reception. The responses were evasive ‘there was a staircase somewhere at the back, or maybe not’. I never could find out. And instead was left fuming over the question thrown at me: when no one else has worried over having to take the lift, why was I asking for a staircase!
Yet again, in a hotel in another smaller city, in either MP or Punjab: The twin lifts were tiny, accommodating six people at a time. No worry there, except that it was wedding season during my visit, and the lifts had throngs of bedecked wedding guests and relatives waiting to go up and down, or holding up the lifts while they ferried suitcases from one floor to another. After two long waits where I stood squashed between a pearl encrusted dupatta and a basket of flowers, I looked for the stairs.
Breakfast time, I pushed the lever for the door to the staircase and trooped down, ready for a hearty repast. The staircase was obviously not much used, what with the dust and the little bits of rubbish lying around, but when I reached the ground floor, I realised there was no way out. The door had no handle; and could only be opened from outside. I ran up to the fourth floor from where I had entered. Ditto. Starting to panic imagining myself waiting in the stairwell interminably, I started knocking on the door of my floor. No response, a floor lower. No response. On the second floor... the door opened miraculously. It was alongside a spa, and the receptionist sat close enough to the stairs to hear me knocking.
When I asked the hotel reception what if there was a fire, they hemmed and hawwed and said there had never been a fire yet!
I am sure there are many more such places, where safety rules are winked away. Please do check before you check-in.
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