Tag Archives: guest house

Catastrophic usage of kettles in the Blue City

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 WE ARE STAYING IN a charming guest house in the heart of the old part of  Jodhpur (the aptly named ‘Blue City’) in Rajasthan.  Our comfortable bedroom is supplied with an electric kettle, tea bags, and instant coffee sachets. However, unlike many places where we have stayed all over the world, there are no sachets of powdered milk.

 

One morning while enjoying breakfast on the roof, we chatted with Mr Munni, the owner of the guest house.  He told us that he was about to add other ‘goodies’ to the rooms, including toothbrushes, fruit, and snacks.

 When we asked him why there were no milk powder sachets, he told us the reason. Normally,  when making a hot beverage with milk powder, hot water is poured from the kettle into a cup  which already contains a teabag or coffee powder along with the milk powder.

 

But things can go wrong as Mr Munni has discovered. He has found that some of his Indian guests were putting water and the milk powder INTO the kettle, and then boiling this mixture.  This wrecks the kettle. He told us that since he opened the guest house a few years ago,  he has had to replace 50 kettles because of ignorance about the correct use of milk powder.

 

So, this is why Mr Munni no longer provides his guest rooms with powdered milk. On reflection, most Indians probably do not have electric kettles to make tea in their homes. When they make tea, they usually use a saucepan and boil the tea together with fresh milk and water.

PS we have stayed in many places in India, but this is the first time we have encountered this kind of kettle problem!

Eating into profit

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Ffestiniog BLOG

In 1994, my wife, who was pregnant, and I decided to spend a relaxing week in Wales. We filled the boot (luggage compartment) of our car with more than enough books for a week’s leisurely reading. 

We drove to Bala in north Wales. We had booked a room at what seemed like a lovely guest house in a converted mill. On arrival, we were given a comfortable, well-furnished room and then enjoyed a meal prepared by the establishment.

Next morning, we entered the dining room to discover a breakfast buffet with a wide selection of food items. We chose a table, were greeted by the owner of the place, and then moved towards the buffet. 

As I began emptying some cereal into a bowl, the owner, much taller than me, stood close behind me, and said in a minatory voice:

“Go easy on that. It’s very expensive, you know.”

I placed my bowl of ‘costly’ cornflakes on the table, and then headed off towards a tempting glass jug filled with orange juice. As I began pouring it, the owner appeared again, saying:

“That should be enough. Do you know the cost of orange juice?”

Just before we finished breakfast, the owner addressed us and the only other couple of guests staying in his acommodation:

“You’ll all be in for dinner this evening?”

We confirmed that we would be.

“Pork chops for dinner? Alright?”

It sounded good to us and the other couple.

We spent the day  exploring the surroundings of Bala rather than embarking on the reading material we had brought from London. When we returned, we entered the dining room for dinner and found that two more guests had arrived during the day. There were six of us to be fed.

The pork chops were served. However, the pieces of meat on the plates were strange shapes. We soon realised what the mean landlord had done. He had assumed that there would only be four of us for dinner, and bought only four pork chops. With the arrival of two more guests, instead of purchasing two more chops, he had divided the four so that they could be served to six people. Such meanness and penny-pinching annoyed us so much that we told the owner that we had to leave urgently the next morning. By saving on not buying two cheap pork chops, he managed to lose the income he would have gained had we stayed the full week as we originally intended.

 

Photo taken at the Blaenau Ffestiniog railway

What do you expect?

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We have been staying in a medium priced, by no means cheap or low-budget, guest house at a popular place in the southwest of India.

For several mornings, there was no hot water coming from the taps in our bathroom. Usually, the problem was resolved after mentioning the it to the man looking after our guest house. We were paying an amount per night at which it was reasonable to be able to have hot water without first having to ask for it.

One morning, we asked a fellow guest, an Indian, whether there was hot water in his bathroom. He said that there was none. When we said to him that in accommodation of this calibre hot water should be available as a matter of routine, he said: “There must be a problem. These things happen occasionally.” After a few moments, he added: “What do you expect? This is India.”

His bland acceptance of low standards and feeling that these were to be expected of his country do little to move India forward in a positive way.