It's about focusing on what I want and being patient. it's really about using knowledge of a business's operations to manipulate them into doing what I want. I worked a summer in the posh Charles Hotel in Cambridge, Mass, during uni, and worked as a travel agent during the school year. I garnered a few insights about their consumers and the businesses which I still use.
What I wanted was a top floor ocean-view room with nice breezes. That is not what the computer yield management program assigned me, but i was willing to be slightly obxious to get what i wanted, because it is all about atmosphere on my solo-honeymoon.
At check in after getting a crappy room.
"Oh, so are you guys busy?"
"Very busy"
"How many guests are here now?"
"Sixty"
"What's the maximum you get in high season?"
"234"
In other words, 25% occupancy in a complex with two floor buildings, so no need to even use the ground floor at all.
Atter two weeks nonstop on the road in Africa, I am totally wiped out, from being up at 4am every day and being bounced around in a jeep for 12 hours, packing and repacking, packing and repacking, and trying to massage hotel Internet to get anything to go through, esp my huge pics. Then add in the strange nightmares from the malaria tabs.
Today i bounded through a walking tour of the old spice island port town Stonetown in the heat. arg. I got some nice pics, but it is not a well maintained city. So I was comatose on the drive through villages on the way here.
Finally, after two weeks away from my (own) cats, friends and family in Sydney, I will be in one place over five days, on the north shore of Zanzibar at a beach resort. The guest are tacky euro families and lovey couples, who couldn't care about me or anyone else, or I about them. We're here to pretend other tourists don't exists. Very different from safari which is more about teamwork and survival in the wild.
This could be a big QLD generic resort in more ways than one: mostly for fantastic facilities and terrible service, very aussie. Akuna matata they say here, or "she'll be right, mate", in Australian English. other than being located in total paradise, which never gets old to me, this resort is ho hum, but i can relax my body if i don't go out of my mind. there are five serpentine 100m pools, two with swim up bars with underwater seating. Not a single person is using any of the pools, so there is no one for whom to watch out when swimming laps without goggles. There are free drinks all day, so hope i dont get so bored i start drinking myself blind. I made a prioritized plan in writing, and have stuck to it so far, so i am hoping to stay busy.
as i wrote this i was sitting in the lobby, i had seen the room already. it was a dingy, musty, dark room on the ground floor next to steamy muddy grass so anyone could walk right into my room. i repacked my things for easy transit, and asked the check-in boma to move me to the top floor, please. tafudahali, sorry, sir, they are all full. so i threatened gently that i might move to the resort next door unless they put me on the top floor, which i said had better air flow and better security. security is always a decent excuse because front desk folk don't know how important I am, or am not. I asked them the names of the hotels next door then i really looked them up on expedia on their wifi, and there was space there for a bit more cost. Good to know.
the ugly dark musty ground floor they initially gave me must always be locked up solidly, and i hate that. I like to leave everything open at the beach, like at home. the euro or arab neighbors next door had the football playing at full volume, and i felt like i was stuck in an awful midewestern american interstate highway Motel 6 for a week, after being in the paragon of luxury for an unnecessarily short night. thank god i extended that Serena Stonetown stay as long as possible!
After 30 min, they tell me the maid is checking to see if a top room is clean.. hmmm. my plan is working. Of course it is.
i waited and checked my email on my ipad and blogged a bit in the clear wifi zone, and kept myself happy and patient. I chatted with the manager, smiling a lot, making light jokes and complimenting his hotel. when the move was announced suddenly, i gave out an accidental squeal of glee. i was confident but a bit apprehensive that i would end up somewhere darker and smellier. the bellman and i, both barefoot-- in fact the last time i wore shoes is when i walked in the hotel-- climbed the stairs before grabbing my bags and entered my new abode for nearly a week.
accommodation will be my main pleasure here, since there is obviously nothing to do exept "being". it's probably an appropriate start for the extra ordinary honeymooners to start their dull lives. i guess that can be very buddhist for me at the same time.. Just being. But if all things are equal I want to "just be" somewhere posh.
the new room was everything i had expected in a resort, so much nicer than the first room, with two balconies, air flow, less mustiness, and great views. yea? I bought cinnamon and cloves to burn for the residual smell.
but.. was it worth it? am i so obessed with material things that i forget to be nice and enjoy Zanzibar for what it is? In one word in Swahili, hapana. (no) i was nice to everyone in the process, though firm, and just put them in the right frame of mind to do what I want. as a buddhist, i made the right choice to insist on getting for what i paid, and then i can forget the lodging crap and just amuse myself on this island somehow. right? now i am ready for a swim.
front view
back view
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