Ninja stealth skills don't fail me now.
Last night, at 3am, I woke up with one of those searing soar throats. The kind where swolloing water feels like your working down broken glass. To make things worse, I also woke up with a severe case of diarrhea. I picked up my water bottle only to realize it was completely empty. There was a water cooler in the lobby of the hostel, so I threw on my shoes and headed down. This is probably where I should explain that the layout of this hostel is unlike any other I have seen. It has been grafted onto the side of an office building and an apartment complex. Anyways, when I got down to the lobby, I realized that the door was locked and that there was no was no way I would be able to reach drinkable water. This was extremely disconcerting because it meant that we were locked in at night, and if there was an emergency, it would be difficult to get help becasue the only exit for the hostel is in the lobby.
The tap water is, as I have been told repeatedly, undrinkable. So, I began to explore the office building. I immediatly ran into a security gaurd, before I had even reached the bathrooms the hostel uses. I immediatly approached him and said "wo yao shui" (I need water) and pointed to my empty water bottle. He looked at me very blankly and said he didn't understand. I repeated myself multiple times pointing at my empty water bottle. Everytime he just shook hid head and looked very confused. "wo yao" is a pretty hard phrase to mess up, so I decided somthing else must be going on and went back to my room.
After a couple minutes I realized, unless I could get some water so I could take some imotran ib, I was going to be absolutely miserable all night. So walked out to explore again and this time didn't run into any security gaurds. After a little wandering I found myself in a large fenced in parking lot for the apartment complex. At the entrance gate, which was closed, there was a gaurd sitting in a chair sleeping. I mulled over the thought of trying my luck with talking to him, but it seemed like it might be a problem even explaining how I ended up in a the parking lot at 3:30 in the morning, so I decided to instead just hop the fence.
Sneaking through the parking lot and hopping the fence was not positivily effected by the fact I was wearing a bright white shirt, but I made it over without being noticed. I walked a couple of blocks to a main road, and went inside a very fancy hotel lobby hoping for directions to a 24hour market. I repeated my earlier question and pointed to my empty water bottle. A young man immediatly took me to a water cooler and I was able to fill up my water bottle.
Medicated, hydrated, and ready to go back to sleep I headed back to the hostel. I jumped the fence, and was at the doors of the office building when I heard footsteps running behind me. I spun around to see the security gaurd, who had been sleeping when I left, running across the parking lot towards me. I decided this was going to get really messy if I had to try to explain myself, and the security gaurds aren't armed, so I very non-chalantly made a break for the hostel. I ducked into my room, threw on a black shirt and jumped in bed. For the next 20 minutes there was a lot of people talking loudly, and running around the building, but nobody went into the hostel. Eventually, the niose faded and then dissapeared. Everything ended up working out. I didn't end up in a Chinese jail, and I was able to get some sleep.
I've decided I'm not going to spend the night at that hostel again, so I think I'll try to take the night train to Dali today.
I hope everyone is doing well.
The tap water is, as I have been told repeatedly, undrinkable. So, I began to explore the office building. I immediatly ran into a security gaurd, before I had even reached the bathrooms the hostel uses. I immediatly approached him and said "wo yao shui" (I need water) and pointed to my empty water bottle. He looked at me very blankly and said he didn't understand. I repeated myself multiple times pointing at my empty water bottle. Everytime he just shook hid head and looked very confused. "wo yao" is a pretty hard phrase to mess up, so I decided somthing else must be going on and went back to my room.
After a couple minutes I realized, unless I could get some water so I could take some imotran ib, I was going to be absolutely miserable all night. So walked out to explore again and this time didn't run into any security gaurds. After a little wandering I found myself in a large fenced in parking lot for the apartment complex. At the entrance gate, which was closed, there was a gaurd sitting in a chair sleeping. I mulled over the thought of trying my luck with talking to him, but it seemed like it might be a problem even explaining how I ended up in a the parking lot at 3:30 in the morning, so I decided to instead just hop the fence.
Sneaking through the parking lot and hopping the fence was not positivily effected by the fact I was wearing a bright white shirt, but I made it over without being noticed. I walked a couple of blocks to a main road, and went inside a very fancy hotel lobby hoping for directions to a 24hour market. I repeated my earlier question and pointed to my empty water bottle. A young man immediatly took me to a water cooler and I was able to fill up my water bottle.
Medicated, hydrated, and ready to go back to sleep I headed back to the hostel. I jumped the fence, and was at the doors of the office building when I heard footsteps running behind me. I spun around to see the security gaurd, who had been sleeping when I left, running across the parking lot towards me. I decided this was going to get really messy if I had to try to explain myself, and the security gaurds aren't armed, so I very non-chalantly made a break for the hostel. I ducked into my room, threw on a black shirt and jumped in bed. For the next 20 minutes there was a lot of people talking loudly, and running around the building, but nobody went into the hostel. Eventually, the niose faded and then dissapeared. Everything ended up working out. I didn't end up in a Chinese jail, and I was able to get some sleep.
I've decided I'm not going to spend the night at that hostel again, so I think I'll try to take the night train to Dali today.
I hope everyone is doing well.
posted by Robert at 6/26/2005 06:22:00 PM
1 Comments:
your story reminded me of a story my friend T told me of her stay in brazil a month ago...
she was staying in a... well... something like a hostel i suppose. it was actually a commune for people getting spiritual surgeries performed by a medium named john of god, but that's beside the point.
T met a girl there who had had a very troubled past. they were introduced by their mothers, who were old friends. the girl posessed a striking resemblance to cameron diaz and also apparently was a lesbian because somehow she managed to drug T (probably not without T's consent, i'm guessing) and trick her into letting her spend the night in T's bed ("oh i'm just so tired i couldn't possibly go back to my room. could i spend the night? oh no i forgot my sleeping pills. i can't sleep without them. i'll be right back.")
anyhow, the girl was staying in a different part of the commune, and each of the buildings had a gated fence around it that was locked at night. the girl scaled the fence, got her pills, and came back. her fence scaling, however, caused a great commotion among the guards, who were on edge due to a break-in at the commune pharmacy the night before. the girl successfully snuck back into T's bed, and it was only later in the week that T realized how dumb she'd been to trust her...
at the time of the aforementioned "later in the week", that same girl held up the pharmacy at gunpoint and ran off with large quantities of barbiturates. apparently after her first successful robbery she'd gotten greedy and careless. didn't want to wait until the pharmacist went home this time.
of course you were only scaling the fence for water. very like you. :)
Post a Comment
<< Home