We again were given a brekkies is waiting call, which fortunately, we were already up and dressed! We feasted again on the Indian half of the buffet. I got idly, as always, as well as sambar, chutneys, and a savory pongal. Pongal is a wheat or rice dish where it is cooked to a porridge-like consistency, not soupy, but sticky, that can be made from wheat noodle bits, or from rice, or probably any other left over grain. It is really good, either sweet or savory. It is usually only a breakfast item.
The young lady who waited on us our entire time in the hotel was Mary. She has been working there for 4 years and seems relatively happy. I asked her if she was fed the same buffet stuff that we are getting and she said that they have staff meals, but I got the impression they were nothing like what was on the table.
I was wondering if the female staff lives on “campus” as it is because on Saturday night we watched a large number of male staff leave the compound at 9 pm. The women were still around. This made me wonder, are they traveling home alone after 10 or 11 pm? I was hoping that they were living in the hotel so that they would be safe. I felt I couldn’t ask Mary this straight out. She is from the Bengal area and deeply misses her home area food. She indicated that things are called the same name, but they taste different, and she misses her home food. I can see that.
This is Mary
We checked out and had to hang around until 2 pm when we were to pick up our bus home. We were not sure yet exactly when . Turns out, the pick up was just up the street at the R and R hotel (which is under renovation/improvements). Don’t know if any guests are there. It is right next to a gas station.
Our bus, Subbu, was waiting and we were directed to climb on and take the very back row seats. While these seats might have been good for children, you could not sit on them AND have you feet touch the ground.
The seats, if you sat a bit sideways, you could get your legs and knees to be perpendicular. Otherswise, you had to sit splay-legged with knees akimbo to face front. This left Bill in a tough situation. He had a seat directly in front of him, but the aisle was next to that. He had to press one leg up against the seat in front and hold on for dear life on the back of that seat’s headrest. I had a much easier time, and if we had switched seats, he would have been even more miserable as he would have been unable to seat comfortably facing front. His knees would have been jammed to his chest. The bus was full up. The only extra seat was one of the two that Bill took over to get his leg in the aisle. There were various Indian couples, middle age and younger, some family groups of parents and child, and an American group who are in India for a wedding. That groups consisted of a daughter, her male friend, and her mother. Mom was a Chatty Cathy, and if the only empty seat hadn’t been taken by a young man we would have slit our wrists.
The trip down the mountain was much quicker than the ride up. This was for several reasons, 1) gravity, 2) the driver was a much better driver than the guy who took us up. He had complete control of the vehicle around all the curves. I just relaxed and enjoyed the smoothness he drove with. Bill was not so comfortable with the ride. Part of that may have been not enough air flow to prevent him feeling queasy, part was he gets motion sick very easily and couldn’t watch the road.
We arrived in Madurai about 7:00 and the American’s all 6 of us got off the bus and headed to our various hotels. Turned out that the trio were staying in a hotel near ours in Madurai. Bill asked our other Americans if they wanted to meet us for a drink and meal at Chentoor and gave directions, and off we went to The Purpletree.
This was the most distasteful experience of the entire trip. Our previous stay there was strict 48 hours. Since we had checked in there at 5:30 am, we had to check out at 5:30 am. We assumed that if we check in at 7:30 pm, we would check out at 7:30 pm then get our overnight train to Chennai. Nope, the manager was not going to budge on the noon checkout. Bill kept explaining that previously we had been given the strict 24 hours timing and expected it again. The manager was not relenting, Bill tried to explain that we made his life easier by checking out at 5:30 am and he should use the same rules again. Finally, Bill was very frustrated and said, if we don’t get a 7:30 pm check out we will rate you a 0 on Trip advisor. That flipped a switch for the manager. He relented and we went upstairs to dump our bags.
The staff was really nice, and were unsure of how to handle our check out request, and it was the manager that was being so difficult. I bet from his point of view, we were the difficult ones. We wanted the late check out because of our overnight train. Neither of us wanted to schlep our packs around for 8 hours.
We headed to Chentoor for beer and dinner. We imagined that the other group of Americans might meet us. We ordered, drank, and ate, and toddled on home.
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