Travel-Ilse

Recently we (Thomas Cook colleagues) were invited for Lunch. The owner of the “Captain Morgan” boats invited us in a Chinese Restaurant.

I am not so fond on Oriental food, but it was a good alternative for the too-much-english-influenced-food I have in the Maltese hotels.

We were served different dishes all unknown for my. But I was surprised that as well my Belgian as my British colleague knew very well what they were eating, as they had tasted the same at home. How can this be?

China has the highest population in the world, maybe therefore also the highest number of emigrants in the world. And everywhere there are Chinese Restaurants.

How can it be that they (apparently) all serve the same food.

If you go to Italy or France, you have the kitchen according the region you are in. In Belgium it is the same, and our country is even smaller. Also Kenya, a “poor” country has different meals according the region you are in. So why do Chinese restaurants all over the world serve all the same meals? I cannot believe that the Chinese kitchen is universal and from North to South, from East to West China people are preparing their food in the same way.

So I had a “Made in China” feeling, when I was eating…

The first 24 hrs in Malta.

When I get out of the Airport of Malta, it is 23:00 hrs. I am happy that I can start working again, though it’s when I see only white people that I realise I am not back in my beloved Kenya: Malta is the place to be for the next couple of weeks or months. A slight feeling of sadness is coming over me.

Filip is waiting for me and he’s happy to see me: my arrival means that he can go on holiday within one week. He is a nice and gentle colleague. While we are driving to the hotel where I will stay for the first week, we chat about the work in Malta. It will be ok; no big problems here.

Some minutes before midnight I arrive in San Pawl hotel in St. Paul’s bay. Check in goes smoothly but my room is a kind of disappointment.

First of all it is cold; there is no heating in the room. And this with temperatures outside that hardly reach 10°C. I am too tired to get worried about this and get dressed to go to sleep. But when I take off the (dirty!) bedspread I discover that there is no blanket, only a thin sheet. In panic I open the wardrobe door and fortunately I find there a duvet. So before I go to sleep I need to make up my own bed… though this is a 3* hotel it remembers me of my youth hostel times.

Unfortunately the duvet is so thin and the room so cold that I hardly can sleep: I wake up several times with shivers of cold.

I am not really fit when I get up in the morning and hope that breakfast will bring some consolation. A group of rather noisy English people is waiting outside the restaurant: I go in, it is 7:30…

It is clear that this is a hotel for British guests: a full English breakfast is available with eggs and bacon and more but no Danish pastry, no yoghurt, poor marmalade (3 different colours but all of the same taste) and only two kinds of bread. And all kinds of nescafé powdered hot drinks and artificial juices; no grained coffee, no fresh tea, even no water…

Before I leave the hotel I inform the lady at the reception that I was really cold during the night. She seems to be surprised and asks: “Don’t you have heating in the room?”. I am even more surprised about her question: doesn’t she know the hotel rooms have no heating?
She promises me that she will inform the lady from housekeeping.

Today I go on a “Highlights of Malta”. A mini bus picks me up to bring me to the gathering point where the tour starts. On the way I see a bus full of school children, all dressed up for carnival: I expect they will wave to me, as I was used to see for the last two years. But they are not waving to me, they look at me indifferently, even the black boy among them. A voice in me: “Ilse, you are no longer in Kenya, kids will not wave to you, kids here are ‘cool’.”

Malta

is a nice place with lots of culture and art. I will like this place and will need time to see all of it.

Lunch is included in this trip and we get a 3-course meal. There are French fries on the main dish and instinctively I add some salt. The German tourist who sits in front of me remarks “You add salt without even tasting it!”.

Immediately it comes up in my mind to answer him: “Mind your own business, these French fries are mine, not yours” but I take a deep breath and answer him calmly that I had seen that there was no salt on the French fries. I think he understands…

After a nice and interesting day I am dropped in my hotel. I go up to my room to discover that no room steward has made up my bed. No second blanket or heating available.

I go down again and ask the young lady at the reception if room service is not daily and what she is going to do about the cold in the room. She answers she will check.

I leave the hotel for an exploration walk in the area and to sea if there is any possibility to go jogging in the morning. Although Malta is an island with 136 Km coastline, there are no beaches. No jogging.

When I reach the hotel 2 hours later, still no room service, still no heating. I ask the reception lady and she answers that someone will come immediately. In the mean time I make up my bed again.

I wait for more than one hour in the room and when I am almost frozen, I go down and I have to insist with the lady at the reception: “I want the heating in my room when I come back from dinner.”

But even after dinner no heating. I decide to speak with the manager on duty. A fat black dressed man comes to see me. I try to explain him all the problems I had till now (dirty bedspread, bed not ready, cold room, promise that a heating will come) but the only answer he can give me is that there are no heaters are available at this moment.

I hardly can believe my ears. For him I just have to wait, even when I am already completely frozen. At 22:00 hrs there will come one available, and he will bring it to my room. This is incredible and I am almost getting angry. Though somehow I see he is also embarrassed and in his eyes I read: “This guests is unhappy but completely right and I am not able to help her”.

I recognise a similar situation but at that time it was a problem with towels.

I can do nothing else than going back to my room and wait for two more hours. I continue reading my book (jumping around my room would warm me up but it would also disturb my neighbours!).

But at 22:15 I have to go down again: why is there still no heating? Because there is none available. My blood is boiling now, or better: completely frozen. I call Kurt, the TC admin manager and explain the problem. He cannot help me further: moving to another hotel is not possible as there are no other places available. He says he will call the hotel manager.

I go back to my room, hoping that something will happen.

22:30: the duty manager knocks on my door: “I have a heater for you madam”. Finally. I am relieved. I see he is also relieved an much more friendly than before.

It is 23:00 hrs: I am now 24 hrs in Malta. While writing all this a realise that a couple of years ago I would have been really angry. Now I have a smile on my face. Of course it is not pleasant. But I have learned a lot in Kenya. There are worse situations. And getting angry do not resolve the problem (though raising the voice sometimes might accelerate the situation).

But for sure: I will not turn off this heating during the night.