BAU Part II: Guesthouse

The BAU VIP guesthouse is in an older building in well-tended grounds. I am very comfortable here: I have a spacious room with three pale mauve walls and one fuchsia contrast wall with orange lights.  There is turquoise lighting up near the cornice on another wall, and phosphorescent strips glow dimly at night along the bed head and along the AC unit.  My room doesn’t have a window but there is a sizeable gap under the door, so I know when it’s daylight.  I am very thankful that I have been given a small but effective heater: it’s less necessary now but was very welcome when I first arrived.

I have an en suite bathroom with two types of lavatory, a shower with electric water heater, and very good plumbing: It is luxurious!  I am still figuring out the idiosyncrasies of the water heater: it definitely needs time to warm up, but I think yesterday’s plan of turning it on and leaving it while I went for a walk and had breakfast backfired – maybe there is a timer in the unit?  I only got a small trickle of lukewarm water.  Today I waited about 20m and was back to glorious hot.  My next challenge is to figure out how to get hot and cold water together for more than 90 seconds J  I am notoriously inept at shower water heaters, and have consequently had a lot of unnecessarily cold showers, which is much easier to take in 30^O+ heat than when it’s 10^O.

There is a marble floor in my bathroom, but that’s not to say it’s in any way fancy: there’s marble and then there’s marble.  I think this was used as a easy-clean, non-slip surface which rots less readily when wet than concrete does.  It is extremely bracing underfoot in the mornings: I am really glad of my bathroom thongs!

VIP guesthouse (red) and second guesthouse behind

The VIP guesthouse is flanked by another guesthouse, several accommodation buildings for staff, and a small canteen, where I have my meals.  After walking to the canteen and back thrice a day for four days I realised that the bushes flanking a gate on the path have been sculpted into possibly the world’s least effective topiary: I only noticed it because I thought how odd it was for a round bush to have a square-ish section coming off it.  Turns out that square-ish section is actually an elephant’s ear!

Elephant(ish): trunk is on the left

There are an army of staff who tend the grounds – the flowerbeds are completely free of anything but weeds; it’s very impressive but the bare earth looks unusual if you’re used to garden beds covered by mulch or grass to reduce evaporation and erosion. 

 The staff are also do maintenance jobs and bring me chai: at any time I request it or, they have decided, daily at 6.30am.  This is a three stage process: someone thumps on my door and rattles the lock till I open the door, he confirms I want chai; ten minutes later there is another series of thumps and door rattles till I get up to admit the chai; and finally there is a third series of thumps 20m after that when the cup is reclaimed.  It’s a very effective alarm clock! This (particularly today, which is a Saturday) is one of the times I most feel my lack of Hindi.  The chai is excellent, though, and I am always glad to have a cup.

I'm not sure what the protocol is re tipping for chai: it doesn't seem expected, but is welcomed when it happens so I'm trying to tip randomly (because the minimum I can give is a Rs 10 note, which is a lot) but evenly.  I need to work on my morning tipping: I'm not very quick-thinking (nor a natural tipper) pre-chai!  I think because of the tipping the staff are very happy to help me in other ways: sadly my lack of Hindi means it's hard for them to actually know how to help.  One kind man now brings me water; unfortunately it's not new, sealed bottles of water, it's refilled bottles, which is what all my Indian colleagues drink.  I can't explain the sort of water I want to drink so I've been draining the unreliable water down the sink and putting the additional empty bottles in the rubbish bin with the others I have drunk from.  This man is also one of the ones who takes away my rubbish: it must look to him like I have imminent diabetes (and a highly effective urinary tract)!