With a little help from my friends

This is the legendary MO. A chance meeting - if slightly creepy on my part!

Kolkata

Sometimes in travel you get breaks; a stranger kindly offers you a room when you’re stranded; you catch a ride with someone, or somebody helps you out when you’re lost, or sick. Other times you don’t get breaks, and you’ll be stuck at an airport for 6 hours until the fog lifts, you’ll wind up in a hotel with no air conditioning and no cable T.V., (oh, the agony!) or you’ll catch a bug from something you’ve eaten the previous night. These things you can handle. They’re an annoyance, but they’re part of the deal, the trade. There’s no joy or pleasure with some work to get there.

But there are other times when things happen that you’re not equipped to deal with on your own Such times lead to the inevitable tests of character, the throw-your-hands-in-the-air moment, or the despair of a spirit or feeling lost. In other words, you hit breaking point; you lose your shit.

***

Thankfully I haven’t really had any of those travel moments. Our little episode in Kolkata fell into the annoyance category, but did put a dampener on an otherwise very enjoyable night.

MO flew with us to Kolkata. The coolest thing about Kolkata (before you discover it, so-to-speak) is the amount of yellow Ambassador cars cruising the road, and their spacious back seats. You might as well be in a 1970’s porn film with their interior design, though I assure you I wasn’t thinking such things as we drove through the Kolkata night in one of these cars.

MO checked in at the Chrome Hotel, while we stayed at the nearby Rockstar Hotel (a real shithole) down the road, as the Chrome didn’t have any rooms available. The four of us enjoyed a huge, delicious meal in a downtown restaurant, before heading to the rooftop of the Chrome bar for a drink.

This is where the fun begins.

We ordered four gin and tonics, with the bartending showing us INR1,600 on the calculator. Okay, that’s dear by Indian standards (that’s NZD$8 each) but we can live with it. Mo signed for it (a later point of contention). We enjoyed the drink and the conversation on the rooftop, and sent Swags in to order four more. After about ten minutes, he hadn’t returned, and it was getting cold. By the time we got in, an argument was ensuing. Turns out, the drinks were INR1,600 each, meaning the total bill for eight drinks, four of which we’d drunk and four of which were on the counter, was INR12,000, or NZD$240! That’s NZD$30 for a measly gin and tonic. That, by anyone’s standards, is ludicrous.

The disagreement came over the fact that the bartender quoted us the price for one drink, not all four, as we thought.

We went down to the foyer, and spent about half an hour arguing with management. Our differences were stark. They said we had to pay for all eight drinks, at INR1,600 each, because otherwise they were on the hook for it. Ours was that we were misled in the price, and that we were being ripped off big time.

Deals and cross deals ensued. They said all kinds of garbage, such as Bombay Saphire gin being premium, and that if we went to another place and drunk other types of gin, we would be taking huge risk with our kidneys. Adding to the dilemma was the fact that, according to the manager, the bartender and his manager would be on the hook for the bill, which would be a safety issue for MO, as in-a-sense, they would 'fuck-him-up' if he left the hotel.

At one point the manager said “I cannot guarantee your safety outside the hotel,” and for some reason, reasoned with MO that he was from Switzerland, a country that specialised in making knives. He was a sleazy sort of chap, the type that steals small amounts of liquor from spirit bottles to sell on the side, and proclaims to be a god-fearing Catholic. What a dirtbag.

We eventually cut a deal, finished off the remaining four drinks, then arranged to meet up in a few days in Darjeeling, all the while feeling slightly worried about our friend MO.

To make matters worse, the next day, after sleeping in the Rockstar Hotel, and waking early to catch a flight, I felt itchy bites all over my ankles and lower back. Bed bugs – yuck.

We didn’t get a break in Kolkata, really, and it really soured the experience, but in time we made peace with it (more about this later). All I know is that, it would have been much worse without a little help from my friends.

(full credit to RS, and MO for his coolness under fire, not to mention generosity)