The Export lifestyle.

[Fab Foodie]

That's the big tub of water. There's almost never any electricity to pump water up into the roof tank so people keep a large bucket full then take a shower using a small scoop to pour water over themselves. There are no guest soaps so you'll get a quarter piece of a bar of soap hacked off with a knife. When you open the bathroom door you'll hear the scuttling noise as dozens of large cockroaches head for cover. You need mozzie repellent, a can of insecticide, a torch, tablets for tummy trouble, and wet wipes for when all else fails.

Oh yes, the glamour of international travel....it really is irresistible!

 

[Dave7]

Well, that's me then. Lesson learnt. I'm never gonna complain about those invisible valets in my Hilton rooms who fold a neat sharp triangle into the end of the toilet paper each time I use some.

Are you saying there is a valet standing there while you have a dump? You tear a piece off, he folds the next piece and so on. I wouldn't like that

 

[Yellow Saddle]

Are you saying there is a valet standing there while you have a dump? You tear a piece off, he folds the next piece and so on. I wouldn't like that

Something like that, just that I've never seen him/her. I swear, in a blink, the thing is folded again. I think they have spy cameras and a team of toilet paper folders at the ready so that when you turn your back, the thing is folded again. It is pretty creepy. So creepy that from now on I only stay in Premier Inns. It doesn't happen there.

 

[pawl]

Lavatory paper! We used to dream of lavatory paper....

Daily worker cut upon squares in our out side bog

 

[BoldonLad]

Thought you'd be interested to see a couple of pics I've just found at the back of a cupboard. One of me enjoying a hot meeting with some Alhajis in northern Nigeria, wondering how long before I could get into an air-conditioned hotel room and get a cold beer. The beer probably didn't happen because it was a Sharia state and the bathroom in my five-star hotel is in the second pic.

View attachment 504272

View attachment 504275

Looks slightly cleaner than my bathroom in Hotel in Nickoliev, former USSR some years ago.

 

[Beebo]

My international travelling days are on hold whilst the kids grow up but I’ve been to some dives.
Drinking water from a bucket at the road side in Egypt come close but my worst ever experience was food poisoning in Armenia after eating trout and stuffed vine leaves that a client gave to me. I just wanted to curl up and die. I was travelling alone on business so had no one to take over the meetings.

 

[itboffin]

Can't really complain about my hotels facilities

 

[raleighnut]

Reminds me of some of the 'Hotels' I've stayed in around Earl's Court.

 

[Globalti]

Tell us more!

 

[robjh]

I used to go to Paris a lot with work, and took to booking my own hotel rooms - usually little 1 or 2 star places in different areas of the city that I could get to know, and far more interesting than the limited range of overpriced places with their 'international' (tr: anglo-american) ambience that the company would have booked. It saved them a lot of money too, I only needed a clean bed for the night, nothing wasted on shiny foyers or minibars that I'd never use.

 

[Yellow Saddle]

My international travelling days are on hold whilst the kids grow up but I’ve been to some dives.
Drinking water from a bucket at the road side in Egypt come close but my worst ever experience was food poisoning in Armenia after eating trout and stuffed vine leaves that a client gave to me. I just wanted to curl up and die. I was travelling alone on business so had no one to take over the meetings.

I know the feeling. Japan, late 1990s. Me alone, getting some sort of weapons grade diarrhea, to the point where I lost so much weight in a matter of days that my suit trousers were much too big. I asked my hosts to get me to a doctor, which they did. However, no-one spoke English. I tried to mime diarrhea to a female doctor who didn't understand English mime. She then produced a Casio translator gadget and handed it over to me. For the life of me I could not spell diarrhea and in those days, there was no predictive text. Somehow someone managed to discover that I'm seriously dehydrated and put me in hospital. To this day I don't know where it was, all I know is that I was casavac'd (can't spell that either) out on Cathay Pacific in business class. Business class is very useful with that condition, since the toilets are not as busy. Unfortunately I didn't enjoy the canapes and champagne and other frills.
I do not envy Mr Globalti and his world travels. I never had to put up with bad hotels but I hated every minute being away from home. Business travel is disruptive to life and there is zero glamour in it.

 

[vickster]

Bloody ‘ell, that pic’s a shocker....



























where on earth did you get that tie?

From about 1973

 

[Fab Foodie]

From about 1973

I dare not think about some of my former tie choices.....

 

[FrankCrank]

That bathroom reminds me of the place I stayed at in Goa many years ago. The menfolk did all the maid type duties, womenfolk were assigned to the gardening, toiling under the baking sun. Some were cutting the grass by hand, and I do mean hand, plucking it to length as they went along. Giving them shears would be spoiling them of course, gotta know your place.......

 

[Globalti]

I've had many moments of terror on Africa trips, mostly at the hands of crazy drivers or bad traffic meaning I was out late on the open road. My worst sickness was in Pakistan when I ate some re-frozen ice cream. I was up all night with violent D&V, I couldn't believe so much liquid could come out of both ends of the body. Felt better by morning and manged to drink a cup of sweet tea and then, amazingly, I went out to work for the day with my agent. Nowadays you'd be carted off to hospital and put on IV fluids. In recent years I've got my company GP to give me powerful antibiotics, which deal with tummy problems effectively, firstly Ciprofloxacin, more recently Rifaximin, which works extremely effectively. I came home once with shigella, which attracted minor interest from the Public Health authorities who phoned me to check I wasn't involved in catering.

But the bad times are more than compensated by the simple friendship and hospitality you receive from people, which I will miss when I retire in June. Got Sudan, Nigeria, Kenya, Uganda and SA to visit before then.