The Ibis Budget turns out to be just that. Budget. On arrival, the reception is signposted to be on the first floor, and a sign indicates that the lift is broken. I am happy about this until I reach halfway up the stairs, and the weight of my suitcase leaves ridges in my fingers, which remain for most of the evening.
Once I check in, where I am asked ‘just you?’ as if that was not plainly obvious, I learn that one of the lifts in the building is working. It deposits me back on the ground floor before finally taking me to my intended destination of room 347 on the 3rd floor.
The room is overwhelmed by a thick slab of white bed. It smells of air-conditioning, and I am excited to leave, making straight for the restaurant. I sit alone. I do consider making conversation with some of the other hotel guests, but most are sat two together. There is one other lone diner, an American girl who arrived shortly after I did, who orders a cheeseburger. I have the spinach and butternut curry, served with naan bread sized for mice, and a toothpaste squeeze of mango chutney so sweet it could have been caramel sauce. The curry itself tastes like boiled water, so I add salt until it tastes like salty boiled water. I don’t have a drink. I frequently get an alcohol induced red face, and sometimes the jitters. I have a J20 orange instead, served warm from the fridge with no ice.
I decide to treat myself to dessert, imagining that it might make this more of an ‘eat, pray, love’ experience. I have the apple crumble with custard, and a cappuccino with two white sugars. The crumble takes me back to primary school, but it is warm, and sweet, and soon gone.
The most interesting conversation I overhear is between two men a couple of tables away. They are discussing the taller man’s order. The shorter of the two unfortunately went for the same curry as me, and was surprised at his companion’s order of a salad and fries. I am not. I can sense a diet-cult-based eating disorder a mile away, and sure enough, before long salad-and-fries is listing off the number of points in his meal, the points in the fish and chips, the points in his beer. I wonder what the point of any of it is. I cannot fathom staying in a Budget Ibis, seemingly for a work trip, and not treating yourself to a meal that will satisfy. I can guarantee the rest of the stay will not.
I finish my cappuccino and head back to the working lift, one again taking a trip to the ground floor before I can ascend. Fed and watered, I am ready to climb into the iceberg bed and resume the Archers omnibus. First though, I call and rearrange my morning taxi to one hour earlier. The flight is in 14 hours, and I am already certain I am running late. I check my passport again.
I wake up several times in the night. The fear of oversleeping overwhelms my ability to sleep at all. I dream I am selling a barber shop setup and bath to Blake Lively. At 5.30 am I investigate the shower and brush my teeth. The shower has a few spots of mould on the ceiling above it, but it turns on and is cold, which is what I want. Over the course of the night, I have sustained some sort of bug bite on my cheek, though it could have come from the train as much as the hotel room. The room, after all, is hermetically sealed with a non-opening window. For my safety. The hotel towels feel like the sort that you hold on to for sentimental reasons only, and between the shower temperature and the AC, I am so cold I climb back into bed for a quarter of an hour or so whilst I dry and contemplate the bug bite found on the mummified cheek of Tutankhamun.
Someone tried to get into my room overnight. I heard the door handle rattling in between dozes. Though I think it is more likely to be a drunken mistake than an attempted robbery or murder. They gave up very quickly if the latter was truly the case. The desk in the corner of the room has a bottle opener screwed into the plywood, which I find strange as there is no mini-fridge, or indeed phone, safe, or wardrobe in the Budget Ibis.
Breakfast I share with about 30 Girl Scouts of America in matching pink t-shirts, many of whom have incredible elaborately braided or twisted hairstyles, and all of which are avoiding the baked beans at the buffet. The scrambled egg looks like it was made up with instant snow powder, so I skip it, and instead have two hash browns, a large scoop of the under appreciated beans, and a slice of brown toast. The hot plate warning sign turns out to be a vicious lie, and it is all warm at best. My first attempt at getting a drink from the machine, a hot chocolate, instead results in cloudy grey water, which I abandon, and instead go and claim a table. I have to violently mash the butter into the bread it is so chilled. The beans are sweet, and the hash browns taste more like mash, but I eat more than I expected for 6.30 am and even go back for another slice of toast. The first piece was too untoasted even for me, a certified warm bread fan, so I send slice number 2 through the hot conveyor belt twice. This time I try the drinks machine for a cappuccino. It gives me half a cup of black coffee which I can’t drink.
There is a constant stream of planes overhead, which is helping hugely with my flying nerves. I can see them queuing up in the sky to climb to the correct cruising altitude. I have two glasses of water and the stronger of my two varieties of hay fever tablets, which goes down like a stick of chalk. I check my passport has not left me in the night, and check-out early.
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